Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House of Representatives to join me in congratulating and recognizing the 25th anniversary of Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Center's AIDS Care Program.

Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Center is located in the Fifth Congressional District. For 25 years, the rehabilitation center has provided mid-Michigan residents with free and confidential HIV/AIDS services, and I ask the 113th Congress to join me in recognizing them for their hard work and dedication.

In September 1988, Sacred Heart's AIDS Care Program had humble beginnings with only one volunteer and one client. 25 years later, they have 11 professional staff that provides care at no cost to the community.

Thanks to the Ryan White Federal Care Act, the annual AIDS Walk Great Lakes Bay Region, and United Way of Bay County, Sacred Heart is able to provide free and confidential care case management, housing assistance, monthly client support groups, patient navigation, client emergency funds, substance abuse and mental health treatment. Lastly, Sacred Heart provides HIV prevention education and HIV testing at several locations in our district.

Since its beginning in 2005, the donors, sponsors, volunteers and staff of Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Center--through AIDS Walk Great Lakes Bay Region--have raised nearly $400,000 to support the AIDS Care Program, making it the largest AIDS Walk among the AIDS Walk Michigan cities. Additionally, Sacred Heart is deeply honored to host Olympic Gold Champion Greg Louganis who has so courageously lived with HIV for 25 years. He is a true inspiration to so many people and is the keynote speaker for the 25th Anniversary celebration and will be participating in the Great Lakes Bay Region's AIDS Walk.

The services provided by Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Center greatly benefits Michigan and the Fifth Congressional District. I offer this Congressional Record to honor the 25th Anniversary of Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Center's HIV/AIDS Care Program.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Mr. Mike ``Flagman'' Bowen from my district. I ask the House of Representatives join me in congratulating him on completing a truly inspiring mission to commemorate those who served and died in Vietnam. I could not be more sincere in my appreciation of his pledge to run a mile for each of our fallen heroes--58,292 miles total--commemorated on the Vietnam Memorial. You have inspired not only me, but our entire nation.

We must remember the sacrifice of those who have given their lives to preserve our freedom. Your dedication and mission are resounding reminders of this responsibility. It is a true honor, Mr. Speaker, that Mr. Bowen represents Michigan and I thank you for your service to our country.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House of Representatives join me in congratulating Mr. Bowen's efforts and determination and I am looking forward to greeting him in Washington, D.C. after he completes his 58,292nd and final mile.

Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to strongly oppose the deep and extreme cuts to nutrition programs that, once again, are being brought to the floor by the Republican majority. H.R. 3102, what we call the ``More Hunger, Less Opportunity Act,'' takes a bad idea and makes it worse, cutting billions--literally billions--of dollars in aid for the working poor, people who struggle every single day, literally, to put food on the table.

This bill is heartless. It has gone from bad to worse. We've seen this movie before. In June, when the Republicans brought $20 billion in cuts to the floor as a part of the farm bill, it derailed the farm bill, broke what had been a bipartisan effort for as long as anybody around here can remember. And now, $40 billion in cuts.

Three-quarters of the households receiving SNAP include a child, a senior, somebody who is disabled. This legislation literally punishes those folks. Republicans desire, for whatever reason--incomprehensible to many of us--to deprive even the neediest Americans with a basic necessity: food. It has, as I said, derailed the farm bill process and now has the chance to risk hurting more Americans. This bill would shamefully and literally take food out of the mouths of nearly 4 million children, seniors, and disabled.

I urge my colleagues--Republicans and Democrats--to join me in opposing this legislation.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for yielding some time to me.

I rise in support today of H.R. 1410. The Saginaw Chippewa Tribe in Michigan, whom I have the privilege of representing here, and for reasons that I concur with, have asked that I support this legislation, along with several other Michigan tribes that are opposed to off- reservation gaming. And so I ask my colleagues to join me in support of this legislation and in opposition to off-reservation gaming.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House of Representatives to join me in congratulating and recognizing a locally-owned small business in my district, Health Delivery Inc., for 44 years of dedicated service.

Health Delivery Inc. is a community health center located in the Fifth Congressional District. For 44 years this community health center has helped many residents of the Fifth Congressional District and I ask the 113th Congress to join me in recognizing them for their hard work and dedication.

Health centers are located in underserved areas and locally- controlled by patient-majority boards, making each health center responsive to the needs of the individual community it serves. The health center model has been proven to be an effective means of overcoming barriers to access for the medically underserved and in doing so, improving health care outcomes and reducing health care costs.

As locally owned and operated small businesses, health centers also serve as critical economic engines helping to power local economies. In these difficult economic times, health centers are economic drivers in their communities. This year, over 400 communities nationwide submitted applications seeking a health center, for an anticipated 25 awards. This vividly demonstrates an overwhelming demand for access to comprehensive primary care across the nation.

The services provided by Health Delivery Inc. greatly benefit Michigan and the Fifth Congressional District by delivering comprehensive, high quality and accessible health care. Health Delivery Inc., is committed to expanding to meet the needs of the communities they serve and to grow their reach to serve every individual who currently lacks regular access to a health care home.

It is fitting, Mr. Speaker, that Health Delivery's anniversary falls close to National Health Center Week. National Health Center Week offers the opportunity to recognize America's health centers, their staff, board members, and all those responsible for the continued success and growth of the program since its creation almost 50 years ago.

During National Health Center Week, we recognize the multitude of ways in which America's Health Centers are transforming care in local communities. I encourage every Member of Congress to visit their local health centers and celebrate the important role they play in serving our communities.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church in my district. I ask the House of Representative to join me in congratulating the parish on celebrating 140 years of worship and outreach in the Saginaw Bay Region of Michigan. On Saturday, August 3, 2013, the parishioners and community will recognize this milestone during an anniversary program.

St. Mary of the Assumption Parish, under the leadership of Father Henri Nouvel, held their first religious mass in the Saginaw Valley on Christmas Eve in 1675 on the banks of the river near Saginaw. The existing parish, located in Bay County, was built by Father Martin Godfriend Canters and dedicated in 1874.

It is a true honor, Mr. Speaker, that St. Mary of the Assumption has called the Fifth Congressional District home for 140 years. Our community has been very fortunate to have had such an established institution located in the heart of our region.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House of Representatives join me in applauding the clergy, staff and congregation of St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church and wish them continued success for many years to come.

Madam Chair, I thank my friend, Mr. Connolly, for his leadership and for working on this amendment with me.

I represent nearly 100 miles of Great Lakes shoreline. When I ran for Congress, I made a commitment to my constituents in the Fifth District that I would fight every day to create jobs, to strengthen the economy, and to protect our precious water resources. Our amendment would do just that.

In Michigan, we know well the value of clean water since we're surrounded by the largest bodies of surface freshwater on Earth, the Great Lakes. As a kid, I spent many summer weekends with my family at a city campground in East Tawas, a lakefront city that I now have the privilege of representing in Congress.

Our amendment would protect our precious waters from pollution. Without our amendment, today's legislation would put the safety of the Great Lakes, of our lakes and waterways in jeopardy. History has repeatedly taught us what polluters will do if left unregulated. We have seen disastrous oil spills--including the Enbridge oil spill in Michigan--that threatened our State and our Nation's natural resources.

I will not sit idly by and allow the very rules that protect towns like East Tawas, Oscoda, Bay City, Au Gres, and other towns in my district be tossed aside for political expediency.

This bill, as written, would give the Department of Energy unprecedented power to veto EPA rules that protect public health, save lives, and protect the Great Lakes. Our amendment would prevent the DOE from being able to veto rules that regulate air or water quality.

I have heard a lot of discussion about jobs. Michigan's Great Lakes are an economic asset for my State, supporting 1.5 million jobs and pumping over $62 billion into our economy. These jobs and Michigan's recreational economy depend on clean water for fishing for swimming and for drinking. We must protect them from pollution and harm.

Today's legislation is clearly misguided and fails to provide the necessary tools to protect our Nation's critical natural resources. Republicans in committee have already voted to decrease funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative by almost 80 percent, something that I strongly oppose; and now they want to make it easier for polluters to poison our waters. I will fight these bad proposals every day I am in Congress.

I urge my colleagues to support our commonsense amendment to protect the Great Lakes and protect our natural waterways.

Mr. Speaker, last week, the city of Detroit, Michigan, became the largest municipality in our Nation's history to file for bankruptcy. Without a doubt, the situation in Detroit is extreme. Their problems in part have been driven by local mismanagement. But it would be an oversimplification, and I think a dangerous oversimplification, for folks to continue to lay the entire responsibility for Detroit's situation on the failure of management.

Since last week, Detroit has been on the front page of America's newspapers and has become the recent, I guess, poster child of municipal decline and insolvency. But for the few cities like Detroit that have actually filed bankruptcy, there are many other legacy cities in this country that continue to struggle day in and day out to provide basic services for their residents.

Many municipalities are facing not just fiscal insolvency but service level challenges, perhaps not on the same scale as Detroit, but that does not mean that they are immune to the problems that Detroit is facing. My own hometown of Flint, Michigan, is on that same path and is struggling every day to provide basic services in an increasing period of fiscal stress.

Detroit's bankruptcy should be a call to action to have a much bigger conversation in this country about how we support and fund our cities and our great metropolitan areas. Cities are where our creativity takes place and where much of our wealth has been generated in the past, and that can and should be the future for America's cities. Let me be clear: bankruptcy for Detroit will not be a solution to its problems or for any other city.

While it is arguable that this bankruptcy may be necessary, it will not be sufficient to solve the problem. It may bring order to an otherwise chaotic situation, but it will not solve the problem itself, and it will have real consequences for people in Detroit and southeastern Michigan and the entire State.

You can simply dissolve a corporation through bankruptcy, but you can't dissolve a city, which is a place where hundreds of thousands of people, in this case, live and raise their families.

Lots of factors have contributed to the decline of a whole subset of America's cities--population laws, trade policy that moves jobs out of those communities overseas or out of those cities into the metropolitan areas through land use practices, a municipal finance system that fails to recognize the realities of the 21st century. This is a big issue, and it is one that calls for a much larger national conversation about how we support our cities.

First, Mr. Speaker, we have to make sure to do no harm to these places that are struggling. The Republican budget that will come to this floor within the next few weeks proposes deep cuts to programs like the Community Development Block Grant program and the HOME program--a 40 percent cut for programs that are intended to help communities reposition themselves in this challenged economy. Yet, at a time when cities are facing distress, like the city of Detroit, my hometown of Flint, and many others, when the Federal Government could provide some help that would be in our national interest, we see cuts proposed to these really important programs.

So whether at the State or Federal level, we all have a role to play. It is time that all levels of government start thinking about the long- term sustainability of our cities not because it is good for those places, but because it is in our national interest. Detroit's bankruptcy should be a day of reckoning for all of us, not just for the residents of the Motor City, but for everybody.

Rethinking the way we support our cities and our metropolitan areas is not an easy conversation for us to have. It will be tough. It will cause us to challenge conventional thinking and

challenge our own views of the importance of cities.

These may be tough conversations, but they are absolutely necessary that we have to take on as a Nation. We cannot sit idly by and pretend that Detroit won't matter and that it won't affect us and wait for the next Detroit to happen. It is important for our Nation, it is important for our people, it is important for our competitiveness, it is important for our economy, it is important that we be a competitive place. And the only way we do that is with vital and rich growing communities, and we have to get places like Detroit and Flint and Saginaw and Pontiac and other places that are important to this economy back on that trajectory.

Mr. Speaker, we know that before-school, after-school, and summer learning programs are successful activities that provide safe places that millions of students and parents can rely upon.

I'm very concerned about keeping the students in my district safe and out of trouble. In mid-Michigan and around the Nation, time spent out of school is often prime time for bad choices that can lead to juvenile crime; yet countless studies have shown that kids involved in after- school and summer programs are less likely to be perpetrators or victims of crime, less likely to drink or use drugs, less likely to join gangs.

Unfortunately, legislation that is set to be considered this week in the House could lead to over a million students losing access to these opportunities. Students in Michigan benefit from these after-school programs through mentors, tutoring, through cultural and fine arts activities.

We should be expanding support for these programs and for funding for these programs, not cutting them or putting them in block grants as a means of reducing support.

I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing this legislation that's set to come before the House this week.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the ranking member for his leadership on this issue.

Mr. Chair, this legislation is an attack on teachers and takes away the tools they need to succeed in the classroom. I am exhausted by the continual scapegoating of America's schoolteachers.

Teachers, like my three sisters, spend countless hours both in and out of the classroom, preparing curricula, and mentoring our youth in afterschool programs. We should help every educator grow and develop professionally and not standardize and reduce their performance to a one-size-fits-all approach.

I am weary of elected officials who give lip service to the importance of good teachers. Mr. Chairman, actions speak louder than words.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill. The House majority continues to attack teachers' rights to bargain with their local community on conditions that are best for their local community, and I stand in strong opposition to this bad bill.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I am speaking on the previous amendment, the Young amendment. I ran out of time earlier.

As currently written, this bill does not provide a clear funding source for Indian education programs, which violates an important trust responsibility between the Federal Government and our sovereign Indian nations. We have a moral obligation as a society to provide quality education for all children, including Native American youth.

I believe it is a huge mistake to eliminate title VII, and if this amendment, the previous amendment, is not adopted in rollcall, I believe it will have a negative impact on Native American communities.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks in strong opposition to the farm bill rule and the underlying bill because it hurts America's children.

Mr. Speaker, I'm new here, but if there's one thing I've learned, this is not what we were sent here to do.

A Member from the other side, during the rules debate, asked me if our side understood that nutrition programs were not in this bill. Well, absolutely we understand it.

The great value of the bipartisan farm bill has been the balance of support for our Nation's family farms and the products that their labor produces in providing nutrition for those of us of greatest need.

I've heard this is the only way forward. Time and time again I've heard that. Says who?

I thought we were the Congress of the United States. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting ``no'' on this bill.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Let me just say that, while we are obviously here to give honor and recognize the service of Mr. Dingell, the honor, at least from where I stand, the honor is really all mine to be able to participate in this moment, Mr. Speaker.

I grew up in Michigan. I was born in 1958, 3 years after Mr. Dingell began his service in this body. I grew up in Michigan politics. And if you come from Michigan and if you're interested in politics or government, you know a lot about John Dingell. His name is really synonymous not only with politics and government, but is synonymous with all the good that comes with service in government.

We hear so much these days, of course, about the public's opinion of the work that we do and the often cynical nature of public opinion when it comes to government. Well, John really represents all the best in public service and has been a role model for so many people like me, who have had a chance to observe him and watch and learn from the great example that he sets.

He, after 21 years in this body, was joined by my uncle, Dale Kildee, my predecessor, who was elected to serve in the Congress in 1976. For 36 years, the two served together. So while I knew of Mr. Dingell as an observer of politics as a young man as he and my uncle serving together so closely and so well, I felt like in many ways John became a part, and we became a part, of his extended family. I have often felt that John and Debbie are so close that I can always rely and count on them for counsel and advice and for friendship because it does feel very much like family.

For the whole time during that period that I knew John, I didn't call him John; I always called him Mr. Chairman or Mr. Dingell. I will never forget the first day on January 3, just 6 months ago, when I was sworn in Congress. I came over to shake his hand and I called him Mr. Chairman, and he said, No, call me John; we are friends.

We represent an amazing and beautiful State. I always look at John as a role model, as an example of somebody who, in a position of tremendous authority within this institution, understood how to advance the interests of the State of Michigan by balancing the very important need to be a great and protective steward of the natural beauty and natural assets that make Michigan such a unique place that we both love so much, but to also be able to keep and breathe life into the great capacity of the workforce, particularly of our great industry--and particularly the automotive industry, which was born in our State, and which John has been such a careful advocate for and steward on behalf of. He has seen some difficult times and has helped to steer that industry through tough times, and now seeing it obviously have new life and new vitality. Much of that--a great deal of that--is attributable directly to his perseverance and his willingness to take on a fight and see it through to the very end.

There's no other issue more than health care that I think makes it clear the value of perseverance and the perseverance that he had demonstrated for so many years, term in and term out, reintroducing in this body something that his father first brought to the Congress, and that is the basic right of every American citizen to not ever have to go to bed at night worrying about whether their own health would stand between them and the long-term viability of their own family. John was here not only to see that battle fought, but actually see it brought to a successful conclusion.

So 6 months ago, when I walked onto this floor and realized a dream that I had been contemplating for a very long time--to serve in what I think is still and always will be the greatest democratic body in the history of this planet--it was a great honor to become a Member of Congress; but perhaps an even greater honor, to be able to call John Dingell a colleague--not just a friend, not just a mentor, not just somebody that I had looked up to, but a person with whom I now serve.

I was elected to succeed my own uncle. I would like to think that we have some things in common, Mr. Dingell. And one of the things is you were elected to represent your district to succeed your very own father. I think that what you've demonstrated is that you obviously have your first obligation to serve your Nation, to serve the interests of the people that you represent, but also to do great service to the legacy of your predecessor. I can only imagine what your father must think, looking here and now seeing that not only have you taken up the mantle from him, but have served so long, but more importantly so ably in advancing the goals and the values that he embodied when he came here, and that you were able to see them through to fruition.

So thank you so much for allowing me just a few minutes as a freshman--with not a lot of old stories about the House, but with great admiration for the man who has been here for so long.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 8 o'clock and 11 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, June 28, 2013, at 9 a.m.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment. This is nothing but an attack on the thousands of family farms in my district and across the country.

The district I represent is home to Michigan Sugar, a co-op owned by 900 American family farmers. The idea of Big Sugar is flat-out false. To compare a co-op, a growers' co-op such as Michigan Sugar, to a large, multinational corporation is fallacy and wrong.

Back in my district, when I visit these hardworking third- and fourth-generation farmers, all they ask for is a fair and even playing field. These farmers work hard, they play by the rules, and they shouldn't be punished, as this amendment would do. That's why I stand with the American family farms and not foreign government-subsidized sugar.

Big corporate food processors are not moving overseas because of sugar costs; they are moving overseas to avoid providing health care and living wages to their workers. Furthermore, if Big Business is able to target one crop at a time, the entire farm bill loses its worth.

If you support family farms, you will oppose this amendment.