Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, this is my last speech.

The first time that I walked in here, I looked all around the Chamber the way that new Members do, and it really struck me that there are only two paintings in here. They are right behind me now. One is of George Washington and the other is of General Lafayette.

I think what struck me is that neither man ever served in this House, but on that first day, I felt that they were looking right at me and saying, we have a message for you: Don't take this place for granted. Other people had to fight for us to be able to do what we do in here.

On that first day, I had no idea that within less than 3 years, the D.C. police and the Capitol Police would have to fight for us again right here, that hundreds of them would be injured, that some of them would give their lives just so that we can walk back in that night and do our job.

I saw a recent poll that showed that just 21 percent of Americans approve of the job that we do in here; 75 percent of Americans disapprove. And most of us know why that is. We have been in our Congressional districts during a government shutdown and after we fail to pass yet another bill that most Americans support, and also because the bad news about this place travels much farther and much faster than the good news ever does.

But I just keep thinking about how those officers fought for this place. They fought for us. And I think they would do it all over again if you asked them to.

We can take confidence in that fact. We can take confidence in the fact that this institution did its job on January 7, hours after being attacked on January 6. We can take confidence in the fact that since then our fellow Americans have continued to reject so many candidates around the country who are not committed to this democracy.

If I could only make one observation on my way out the door here, is that I think we all have to be confident about this institution and we should be more confident in ourselves.

Our failures are noticed more. We all know that. But our successes are real. And we have to value those successes because they are a credit to people like Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick or to Representative John Lewis or to a young Air Force staff sergeant from my district named Dylan Elchin, people who sacrificed and shed blood for this democracy and for what it means.

The things that we have done in here and that you will continue to do next term reflect the greatness of these people. I keep thinking about these brown cardboard boxes of food that the Department of Agriculture put together during the pandemic. They rushed them to food banks, and I loaded a lot of these boxes into people's cars when I was back in my district.

These were honest and good people. In their trunks, these were people that had work boots and tools; they never thought they were going to need something from a food bank. But it was our votes that fed those people and gave them help in their hour of need.

I could go on and on about the things that we have done in this room that are so special. My staff knows I talk endlessly about the fact that our district was home to the first-ever civilian nuclear power plant, and its successor power plant was at risk when we came into office. It is now secure because of the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Inflation Control Act; thousands and thousands of jobs, clean power that our region needs in investment and science.

I would talk about the teamsters and the miners and how we saved their pension if I had time.

How we rebuilt a bridge in Pittsburgh in less than 1 year because of Federal funds.

How the microchips and hydrogen that we have set aside money for are themselves an expression of so much confidence in our future in this country.

My time is up, so I will just say that I don't want to deny that we have our problems in this country, we definitely do, but I have only been here for 4 years, and it is obvious to me that we have everything we need to be successful. For an Irish guy, that is a very emotional thought, but I have seen it.

When I was a kid, I had this plaque that my grandmother gave me that said the words of St. Paul, which were that we have a responsibility to stir into flame all the gifts that God has given us.

God has given this country so many incredible gifts. I just think we have to be worthy of that. We have to honor our inheritance; and on our best days, for the last 4\1/2\ years, we have done that. It has been the honor of my life to do that.

Mr. Speaker, to all my colleagues, I just say that I am confident in you. I know what you all are capable of and what this institution is capable of.

To my constituents, I say thank you. It has been a tremendous privilege to be here in your name.

Mr. Speaker, if you were in western Pennsylvania for the 2020 campaign season, you would have seen a lot of commercials about what Republicans were going to do on the issue of energy and for energy workers and what Democrats were going to do. The contention was that Republicans were going to make us energy dominant, that they were going to help all these workers and give them more job opportunities, and that the Democrats were going to take all that away.

So here today, we have a bill that is all about energy dominance and energy jobs. If you build pipelines, this bill is for you because of the increased money for carbon capture and hydrogen.

If you make the steel tube that goes into those pipelines, if you work at a nuclear power plant, or if you build things for the nuclear power plant, this bill is for all of you. It strengthens and widens our energy portfolio and gives us more options at a better price.

Yet, today's bill is not a Republican bill. It is a Democratic bill. I wish it wasn't only a Democratic bill, but it will be because when it comes to the needs of these workers and the true need for our country to be energy secure, we are the ones doing the job.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill not only for the important semiconductor provisions but for some of the provisions that are less noticed, including the text of the SUPER Act authored by Representative Gonzalez of Ohio and me which focuses on how to get the carbon emissions out of steelmaking.

It is often the people from steelmaking parts of the country who stand up in support of provisions like this, but this is important for every American. Every American uses 600 pounds of steel every single year. If you think about the roads you drive on, the bridges and buildings you enter, your own car, and your own house, Mr. Speaker, it starts to add up.

There is nowhere in the world that they make this steel without emitting more CO2 into the atmosphere. Somewhere someone in the world is going to figure out how to do that. If we do it here in the United States--we are already emitting less than everybody else-- but if we can get it to zero, then we will have a product that everyone in the world is looking for and is crucial to our future. This bill will help us do that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, before I came to Congress, I was a Federal prosecutor in my hometown of Pittsburgh, and the biggest law enforcement challenges that we had then, and really still have today, are opioids and gun violence. Marijuana just didn't register in terms of the risks that it posed to people on a day-to-day basis compared to those two things.

Yet, because of the way the Federal criminal laws are written and the way that cannabis is placed in schedule I, it is very easy for a marijuana offense to actually get someone a worse sentence than an opioid offense like overprescribing Oxycontin, selling fentanyl, or a firearms offense like possession of a firearm or shooting at someone. Our Federal laws are out of place.

It is in the spirit of wanting to make sure that our law enforcement priorities are focused on the most serious crimes and the most violent crimes that I can support the removal of cannabis from schedule I.

This bill came up once before in the previous Congress under a closed rule in which there were not opportunities for amendment, so I want to thank the leadership and the chairman this time around for allowing Members under an open rule to make some amendments.

While I do support the removal of cannabis from schedule I, I think, as we have heard in the debate today, there are many questions about what happens the day after that and are we being careful enough to ensure that the public gets the best possible balance of the benefits of taxing and regulating cannabis while still protecting children and making sure that we have safe and efficient workplaces.

The amendment that I am offering here today aims to answer a couple of questions. Essential workers--firefighters, people who operate heavy equipment on infrastructure projects, people who work in public safety and national security--what are we willing to tolerate as far as those workers on the job site potentially with cannabis in their system?

We need to know how to test for it. We need to know what the rules are to keep people safe on that job site and, most importantly, keep the public safe so these people can continue working.

The same question for schools: What are the best practices for schools in a world where cannabis is no longer in schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act; in a world where cannabis could be in corner stores that children walk past on their way home; in a world where school bus drivers or teachers may be legally authorized to use cannabis in their off time?

All we are trying to do is answer these questions.

There are some who see problems with a change in the law. They see challenges, and they shrink from them. They say: Let's keep the status quo the same. Let's not tackle problems.

What we are trying to do here is do the public one better than that.

There is an ironclad case for removing cannabis from schedule I and focusing our law enforcement priorities where they should be, but we have to take steps to make sure that we do this in a careful, cautious, and correct manner.

That is what my amendment offers, Mr. Speaker, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time for closing.

Mr. Speaker, I want to address one point from my colleague from Oregon's side of the debate.

Today, after the passage of this bill--hopefully, with my amendment-- we will be sending a letter to both departments addressed by this amendment to ask them to begin these studies right away. I agree that it is important that the public needs this information and knowledge. Employers, workplaces, and schools need it as quickly as possible.

What I am not sure our colleagues on the other side really realize at this moment is that people are already using cannabis. It is very common in all segments of society and all people with all different types of jobs. The place that the public has been left in is an overly harsh criminal penalty, with very little specific guidance to workplaces, employers, and schools of what they are supposed to do in this new world.

What many of them do is react as harshly as possible, matching the criminal sanction of our Federal Government. They do drug tests and have strict bans, basically, on this substance that many Americans feel is actually safe and part of the lifestyle that they want to live.

Our study will allow a better answer than that. In a world where people are going to be using this drug, this substance, and where it is, in fact, much less harsh than prescription drugs that are regulated lower on the scale than that, we need to get the answer out there to these workplaces and schools as quickly as possible. That is all that we are aiming to do here.

We are making policy for the real world with this amendment, and I encourage all of my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Michigan.

This is the mask of the Allegheny-Fayette Labor Council, which represents the coal miners that President Trumka loved so well.

Madam Speaker, before he was the president of the AFL-CIO and an internationally known figure, he was a western Pennsylvanian. Rich Trumka was a football player, a deer hunter, a member of a great family. What I respected about him so much is that the western Pennsylvania part of Rich Trumka never went away. It always shone through.

I heard him speak one time where he said one of the problems with our opponents in politics is that they want you to think the economy is just like the weather. It is just something that happens to people, and we might be able to predict it and prepare for it, but there is nothing we can do to change it.

He knew that in parts of the country, like ours in western Pennsylvania, people had heard versions of that for so long at such high volume with so much corporate money and messaging behind it that it threatened the basic fabric of our community.

The unions built the middle class not just in America but particularly in western Pennsylvania, and that has eroded over time. The benefits and the value of the labor movement have receded in a lot of people's minds. To me, the most western Pennsylvania thing about President Trumka was that he never gave up on it because he knew that our people never really accepted

the result of the recession of the labor movement, the inequality and injustice that has grown, the way so many of our towns have been hollowed out, and the way people looked to the future now sometimes with cynicism instead of optimism and hope.

Madam Speaker, to me, what he represented was that he really lived out the kind of abstract idea we have that the interests and the struggle of a coal miner can be the same as the interest and struggle as someone who works in home healthcare or someone who survived a nursing home during the pandemic working for less than $15 an hour.

We have a lot of those in western Pennsylvania now. Healthcare is one of our biggest economic drivers, and those people are not paid well for the risks that they take and the hard, backbreaking work that they do.

Coal miners know something about that. I think that the best way we can honor President Trumka is to set aside some of the many differences that we have, even within the Democratic family and the labor family, and refocus ourselves on the core economic issues that tie together all the working- and middle-class people in this country that, themselves, represent such a powerful force that they really can't be stopped when people unite with each other.

Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Levin for pulling this together, and may God protect Richard Trumka.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 508, I rise to offer amendments en bloc No. 1.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this en bloc amendment, which provides for the consideration of 42 amendments. The amendments contained in this en bloc touch upon various policy areas in the base bill.

The surface transportation amendments include: increasing funding for the National Scenic Byways Program; creating a climate-safe infrastructure working group to prepare transportation infrastructure for the effects of climate change; requiring a GAO report to Congress on access to nonemergency medical transportation for disadvantaged populations; requiring the Secretary of Transportation to submit a report to Congress on the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program; and ensuring underserved communities are considered in the expansion of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

These are just some of the highlights of the amendments included. I thank my colleagues for offering such thoughtful amendments to improve the surface transportation portions of the INVEST in America Act, and I urge adoption of the amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jones).

Mr. Speaker, I would just note for my colleague's edification the strong role that the Federal Government and national lab system played in the very energy innovation that he was mentioning in his remarks. It was not done by the private sector alone.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Torres).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Auchincloss).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Ocasio-Cortez).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McNerney).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Mrs. Fletcher).

Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close whenever the gentleman from Louisiana is prepared to close. I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, just kind of wrapping up everyone's comments today, I think that this bill is a significant down payment on the future that we are all working toward.

The reality of American history is that the government often works together with businesses to stimulate investments and speed up new markets.

That is what we are trying to do in this bill. That has been true in natural gas; it has been true in public transportation; and it is true in electric vehicles. And that is what this bill is about.

We are very proud to offer all of these amendments, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I will try to do it in 30 seconds.

The bulk of our emissions reduction has come from the transition from coal to natural gas. Most of the critical science that is behind the shale revolution was developed within the national lab system, particularly at the National Energy Technology Laboratory, proudly located in western Pennsylvania.

Of course, private-sector innovation played a huge role, but there were many key scientific advances that would not have been possible without Federal investment paid for by this very Congress.

That is how we are responsible for many of the emissions reductions that have taken place and that will continue to take place in the future.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 508, I rise to offer amendments en bloc No. 2.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of these amendments en bloc, which provide for the consideration of 21 amendments sponsored by Members on both sides of the aisle.

The amendments contained in this en bloc amend various divisions of the bill. These amendments include granting the Secretary of Transportation the authority to reset interest rates on certain existing TIFIA loans for borrowers impacted by COVID-19.

Banning the interstate and international transportation of horses bound to be slaughtered for human consumption.

Allowing States to use their National Highway Traffic Safety Administration grants to educate the public on the safe and proper use of passenger vehicle trailers.

Establishing a new grant program for culvert restoration programs that improve or restore passage for anadromous fish.

Ensuring that Federal funds administered through the TIFIA program are

protected by adequate payment and performance security requirements.

Increasing the Tribal Transportation Program safety set-aside.

Codifying the Rural Opportunities to Use Transportation for Economic Success initiative, a DOT program to help rural communities and Indian Tribes.

Authorizing a competitive grant program for States and localities to educate the public on the dangers of drugged driving.

Directing the Comptroller General to study threats facing the U.S. transportation system from ransomware and other cybersecurity threats.

Reauthorizing certain national heritage areas set to expire at the end of fiscal year 2021.

Establishing the Western Riverside County National Wildlife Refuge.

Establishing clear Clean Water Act permit limits for the discharge from PFAS chemicals.

And prohibiting industrial dischargers from secretly using our network of sewers as dumping grounds for these harmful and persistent chemicals.

I look forward to hearing further discussion of these amendments from the various sponsors. I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for offering these amendments to improve the INVEST in America Act, and I urge adoption of the amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Kilmer).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Schrier).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Carter).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Oregon.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield).

Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I simply rise again to encourage my colleagues to support amendments en bloc No. 2, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this bill.

I would like to point out to my colleagues and anyone watching at home that I actually think that, today, the difference is not really between business and labor; it is not between regulation and nonregulation; it is really not even between Democrats and Republicans. I think what separates supporters of today's bill from its detractors are those who are thinking in the long term versus those who are thinking in the short term.

In the long term, climate change truly is a threat to American national security. The Marine Corps, in which I served, has already had to consider whether it should move some of its historic bases, including Parris Island, perhaps the soul of the Marine Corps, simply due to sea level rise.

The number of $1 billion catastrophic events in our country last year was 22. The average is seven over the last 40-year period.

This is getting more expensive and more dangerous every year. In the long term, businesses that have to compete for capital and compete for market share in markets all around the world understand this, that this is our world now, that decarbonization is an absolute requirement to compete successfully both as the United States and as an individual business in the world that we are going into.

The businesses that are thinking long term have already taken steps to do this, and the businesses that are thinking short term are pointing to the costs, the drawbacks, and the requirements, all of which are real.

None of us stand here today to causally make anything more difficult on an American company that is trying to preserve jobs and succeed in this economy, but there are some things we just have to do.

To use the words of an executive at Southwestern Energy Company:

What some in the industry do not get is that we are

transitioning to a low-carbon economy. We need to show the

climate benefit of our product.

Or, you could take the word of the chairwoman and president of BP America: ``We have to reduce methane emissions for natural gas to realize its full potential.''

And in my own hometown of Pittsburgh, we are happy to have headquartered the largest producer of natural gas in the United States, EQT. And even though under the Trump administration the EPA came to Pittsburgh to announce this absurd rollback of a rule that's good for business and good for the environment, EQT's president and CEO just 2 days ago said that tackling methane represents an opportunity for the United States because our natural gas, American natural gas, can become the decarbonizing commodity of choice.

So I have heard some of my friends on the other side point out, that, yes, the United States has done quite a lot already to reduce emissions and is doing more, and not all our competitors, like Russia and China, are doing the same.

That is okay. Our market opportunity will come from attracting businesses among our allies, South Korea, Japan, the European Union. And if you just picture now a politics of the near future where the European Union is placing carbon tariffs on every product that comes in and out, lower carbon, American L&G will simply out-compete Russian products, or Iranian products, or any other product. That is the world that we live in now and that is what it will mean for us to compete.

Today's bill is about one thing and one thing only: the national interest of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Speaker, on June 11, 2021, western Pennsylvania lost Officer Jerrod Withrow of the Mount Lebanon police, who passed away after a heroic battle with cancer.

Officer Withrow had a long and distinguished career in law enforcement, but one moment stood out. In October 2018, he responded to the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh where a mass murderer attacked a peaceful religious gathering with an assault rifle and killed 11 members of our community.

It is hard for most of us to understand the bravery and the raw physical courage that it takes to run toward gunfire rather than away from it, but that was the kind of person that Officer Withrow was. It was who he trained himself to be, and we thank him and honor him for his courage.

On behalf of the people of western Pennsylvania and on behalf of our national government, I wish to extend our condolences to Officer Withrow's wife, Lisa; his sons: James, Brayden, and Ben; and all of his family.

I am proud to remember Jerrod Withrow today in our Nation's Capitol and hopeful that our service here will be worthy of all those Americans like him who every day put their community and their country first.

Mr. Speaker, I think the key term that Ranking Member Bost used was ``common sense.'' That can sometimes be in short supply around here.

When we found out that the VA has roughly the same number of EEOC counselors today--38--that it had in 1997, you ask yourself the simple question: Well, what else has happened at the VA since that time?

Their workforce has nearly doubled. Since 1997, the VA has become one of the largest Federal agencies, with a workforce of over 400,000 people, which means those same 38 EEOC counselors are handling roughly double the amount of complaints of unfair and illegal discrimination today that they were in 1997.

See, the law placed an artificial cap on the number of counselors, but it did not place a cap on the amount of unjust discrimination in our society. That has continued. If anything, the last year has shown us how deep and intransigent racial discrimination, sex discrimination, and other illegal forms of discrimination remain in our society and how we have to take active steps to dismantle them wherever we find them.

Unfair and illegal discrimination exists at the VA. It doesn't make me proud to say it as a veteran, as a lawmaker, as a public servant, but it exists there just like it exists everywhere else. These folks know how to deal with it. They know how to listen. They know how to make the employees feel like they have a safe place to go and tell their side of the story. They know how to stick up for these employees who are giving their careers to helping our veterans.

All we need to do is lift the cap, and the VA will hire EEOC counselors who can do their job effectively and take care of those who are taking care of our veterans every day.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of my amendment, to make perfectly clear that transfers of firearms between family members do not require a background check, are not subject to the strictures of this bill. We should make that clear in order to confirm what we have all said here today, that this is a bill that targets those who break the law, not those who abide by it.

My amendment shows respect for the important tradition within many families in western Pennsylvania and elsewhere of passing down a shotgun or a hunting rifle from a father to a son. That is allowed under our bill.

And a further and more important sign of respect will come when we vote for final passage tomorrow to strengthen the right of those who obey the law by keeping those who break it away from your right to own a firearm.

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition.

Madam Speaker, I came here tonight prepared to talk about the place I represent and how well the Democratic and Republican county officials ran our election. I wanted to point out that in my home county of Allegheny County, in the place they were counting the votes, there were 31 video cameras--31--in the same place, just showing people counting votes, every single one of them on paper, with representatives from both campaigns watching.

Madam Speaker, I wanted to point out to all these great lovers and supporters of the Pennsylvania legislature that it was the Republican Pennsylvania legislature that passed a Republican bill that they all voted for and supported that set up the system under which we just ran the election, and that the reason the President lost was because he was not as popular as other Republicans in our State. He got fewer votes than all of them.

Madam Speaker, I wanted to lay out all this evidence because I thought it was a sign of respect for my colleagues and for all the Americans out there who don't know who to trust. I was raised on that. I was raised on that respect, which makes this a hard speech for me to give. Because to do this with any kind of honesty means admitting and declaring in this House that these objections don't deserve an ounce of respect--not an ounce.

A woman died out there tonight, and you are making these objections.

Let's be clear about what happened in this Chamber today. Invaders came in for the first time since the War of 1812. They desecrated these Halls and this Chamber and practically every inch of ground where we work. For the most part, they walked in here free. A lot of them walked out free. There wasn't a person watching at home who didn't know why that was--because of the way that they look.

My point, Madam Speaker, is this: Enough has been done here already to try to strip this Congress of its dignity, and these objectors don't need to do anymore.

We know that that attack today didn't materialize out of nowhere. It was inspired by lies, the same lies that you are hearing in this room tonight. And the Members who are repeating those lies should be ashamed of themselves. Their constituents should be ashamed of them.

We know what is going to happen as soon as I walk away, what has happened all night tonight, what will continue to happen. They will take these same symbols, these same concepts, smuggle them into their arguments, and make the same arguments. I want people at home, anyone who is still watching, to know that these arguments are not for them; they are for you.

None of the evidence we wanted to discuss here tonight will change their opinions or what they are about to say. But you need to know that is not the end. It is not as if there is nothing we can do because of that. And if there was, I don't think this Nation would have made it to almost 250 years.

The fact is, Madam Speaker, that at the end of the day, people--

Point of Order

Madam Speaker, the fact is, at the end of the day, it hurts. It hurts them; it hurts this country. It hurts all of us. But the fact is that the people have made this country work by not giving in.

Go ahead. Shout it out.

One last thing to say, Madam Speaker. And I thank you for your patience. All people need to know tonight, Madam Speaker--

Madam Speaker, the truth hurts. But the fact is this: We want this government to work more than they want it to fail.

After everything that has happened today, we want that more than ever. Know that. Know that, the people watching at home. We want this government to work. We will make it work. They will not make it fail.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Madam Chair, I also rise to support these en bloc amendments, particularly my amendment to increase and emphasize the support for research in the Office of Nuclear Energy Light Water Sustainability Program.

In my district in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, we gave birth to the civilian nuclear fleet. President Eisenhower launched that plant in 1958, and many other plants have come up around the Nation providing carbon-free, safe, reliable energy, and many of them have served long past their useful life.

Tens of thousands of American workers keep these plants running today. They keep us safe. We have to protect these plants, protect these jobs, and, most importantly, protect our energy grid. We can do that with better research into how to make these plants run more efficiently, more cheaply, and more competitively.

Madam Speaker, it is with great pride that I recognize a former constituent of mine, Joyce Knestrick, PhD, C-FNP, APRN, of Washington, Pennsylvania for her service over the last two years as President of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP).

Dr. Knestrick has an exemplary career of service with over 30 years as a registered nurse, of which she has spent 25 of those years as a nationally board-certified family nurse practitioner working in clinics that serve low income and underserved populations both in urban and rural Appalachian areas. As an organizational leader, Dr. Knestrick has served as an adjunct professor in organizational leadership master's programs.

She has served multiple clinical roles as a family nurse practitioner, a nurse manager and a registered nurse in critical care, medical surgical, pediatric and long-term care settings. She serves on several committees for the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties and was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners in 2007.

The American Association of Nurse Practitioners is a national professional membership organization representing over 270,00 nurse practitioners nationally. Under Dr. Knestrick's tenure, AANP membership has grown to more than 97,000 members, making AANP the largest nurse practitioner organization in the world. Dr. Knestrick has helped lead nurse practitioners in transforming patient-centered health care and has made tremendous strides in ensuring that policy makers and the public understand the care that nurse practitioners provide to millions of Americans each year.

I urge my colleagues to join me in congratulating Dr. Knestrick on a successful term as President of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners and in thanking her for the excellent care she has and continues to provide to her patients and the nurse practitioner profession.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the Whole Veteran Act. I thank the chairman of the Veterans Affairs' Committee, Mr. Takano, and the ranking member, Dr. Roe, for their support for this act, along with all members of our committee.

This is a bipartisan bill with a bipartisan goal, which simply is to reform and continue to improve VA healthcare. Our bill will do that in two very important ways.

First, we aim to make the VA a leader in the future of healthcare. Many doctors have looked at how America's healthcare system is too expensive and too reliant on prescription drugs. It turns out that not all doctors think that the best way to deal with chronic pain, PTSD, or depression is to simply hand out more pills.

In fact, we believe that the future of healthcare is going to involve a mix of old and new methods of treatment.

In the future, patients who are suffering will get access to yoga, acupuncture, or meditation before they are ever exposed to these addictive drugs. This is safer and it is also cheaper, and we believe that, in the long-run, it is going to be better.

The NIH, which is the government's gold standard when it comes to research, has looked at these treatments and found that yoga is effective for back pain, that acupuncture is highly effective for chronic conditions like osteoarthritis, and study after study has documented the benefits of meditation and healthy eating when it comes to anxiety, when it comes to stress, when it comes to chronic pain and all of the drivers of the suicide crisis that we are seeing today. In the right combination, these treatments will allow us all to spend less on healthcare and to feel better in the future.

But perhaps, Madam Speaker, the most important part of our bill is that it gives veterans more real choices and greater power to manage their own healthcare.

I visited a Whole Health Clinic here in Washington, D.C., and the veterans who were partaking in that clinic, they like it because they get to pick which treatments work well for them based on how it makes them feel. They pick the teachers they like and they go to the classes, where they meet other veterans who they get to know and spend time with, and it keeps them coming back.

One of the greatest challenges is how we keep people coming back to the VA for treatment once they have got it.

To stop veteran suicide once and for all, one of the most important things we have to do is go out and get all the veterans who are living in isolation and not using the VA for care.

Thirteen of the 20 veterans who are committing suicide every day are outside of the VA's reach. We have got to find them, and we have got to give them a reason to come back. This is what the whole health program does. It gives our veterans a reason to come back and stay in the VA that they didn't have before.

We don't know right now which parts of the whole health program work the best and which ones still need more work. Our bill will start to answer that question. But we do know one thing, which is that there is no time to lose.

Veterans serve this country because they want to prevent the suffering of others, and now too many of them are suffering themselves. We owe it to them to try anything that will work.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Larson for yielding to me.

Mr. Speaker, I am honored to be here tonight.

Last year, during a long campaign season, two campaigns and two elections, there was no issue in western Pennsylvania that came to me from my constituents more often than Social Security, and it was usually with a heavy heart.

I will never forget one man who came up to me at an event. He was about 77 years old. He told me how he started paying into Social Security when he was 12. They don't really make them like that anymore, but in western Pennsylvania, people started working at earlier and earlier ages to make ends meet.

The gentleman had worked in a factory. He had been laid off. He told me: We were in the streets, not sure where to go during the day, but we didn't want our kids to know that we were out of work.

He had five kids.

He became a janitor, got hurt on the job, needed his union to stick up for him, but that cut into his prime years of earning.

So the gentleman becomes 65, he retires, eventually collects Social Security, but he still works to this day as a janitor.

So he is telling me all about his life, and he pulls out one of those big key rings that every janitor seems to have, and he shoves it into my hand. He had pulled off of it the dog tag that he carried when he served in the U.S. Army in Korea in the 1950s.

He pressed it into my palm and he just looked up at me and said: Don't you break your promise to us. If you get a chance to go down to Washington, D.C., you fight for Social Security, you fight for Medicare. You promised these programs to us and you have got to keep your promise.

I will tell you, I don't think a man his age and his experience wanted to have to stand there and ask a 33-year-old young congressional candidate to stick up for him in that way.

That was a promise that we made, and it is not an entitlement. It is something he paid into for over 45, 50 years of a working life.

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if Mr. Larson has met constituents like that back in Connecticut as well.

It is the most important thing we can work on in this Congress for many of the people who are affected.

The problem is, as you said, it hasn't been adjusted since the 1980s, and a couple of really important things have happened since then. When Tip and President Reagan struck the last deal on Social Security, there wasn't the heroin epidemic that we see today.

One of the problems that we have in western Pennsylvania is that we are losing a lot of young parents in their 30s and 40s to heroin, fentanyl, and prescription drug overdoses. Because they come from good families, their aunts, their uncles, and their parents are stepping up and taking care of the kids who are left behind.

I have run into dozens and dozens of senior citizens in western PA who are raising kids on their Social Security benefits. They are working part time, too. They can barely make ends meet. Social Security wasn't designed for that.

Mr. Speaker, it is why we need to make sure that those who do choose to continue to work, and many will, see the benefits of that work.

Here we are calling for a tax cut and promising to account for every penny of it with a proper adjustment to the other taxes and the payroll tax. You would almost think we were Republicans standing up here tonight. But the Republicans, instead, have chosen a path through their tax bill to cut taxes for a very different group of people, the people who make more than $500,000 a year, and the people on the boards of the largest and most powerful corporations in our country.

I think that is what frustrates so many people today, that the average Social Security benefit now, at this point, is--what?--about $16,000. The people who benefited from the tax cut in 2017 make $500,000, $1 million, or even more than that per year. There are far more people earning closer to $16,000 in this country than there are at the very top.

If we are going to have special breaks in the Tax Code for anyone, or if we are going to do anything with our tax laws to benefit anyone, it should be those folks who are just trying to get by. They are not going on vacation with this money. They are not going to Disney World. And they are not going on a cruise. They are paying for prescription drugs, and they are paying for groceries.

Mr. Clyburn just talked about hunger and how Fritz Hollings was fighting hunger 40 and 50 years ago. Well, senior citizens in the United States are going hungry today. They have a very simple choice. They have a certain amount of money, and they can go to the grocery store or to the drugstore, but they can't do both. Usually, they go to the drugstore to stay alive, and they skimp on the rest.

Mr. Speaker, how many programs do we really have that are truly universal, that are truly for every American, in which we all share the sacrifice and we all share the benefit? We are all in this together at the end of the day.

A very wise man said to me once that one of the problems we have in America today is people think the economy is like the weather. You might be able to predict it, and you might be able to prepare for what is coming, but you just can't do anything about it.

Well, that is not true. The economy is a set of rules written down on pieces of paper and it is the set of people who are there to enforce them.

This is a better rule than anything the other side has. This is a rule that allows us to keep our promise. This is a rule that says, if you paid into this for all your working lives and now all you are asking for is about $16,000 a

year to be able to live with some dignity in your old age, after you finished the project of a lifetime of building the country that we all enjoy, we are going to make sure that is there for you, and we are going to make sure we keep our promise.

We think it is a pretty good bet to side with the folks who are getting $16,000 a year over the folks who are making $16 million a year. We think that is a pretty good bet, and we are all going to share the burden together going forward.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Larson for allowing me to be part of this great bill.