Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this so-called appropriations bill. I say ``so-called'' because it really is mainly about ill-advised and mean-spirited policy changes. Rather than providing the necessary funds to deal with the humanitarian crisis at the border, this bill mainly reduces protections for young people facing violence that we can hardly imagine.

For awhile, it looked like we might do better than this. As the ranking member of the Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee, I was pleased to take part in a recent delegation to Central America ably led by Chairwoman Kay Granger. But as successive versions of the Republican bill have surfaced over the past 2 weeks, in

a quest for votes only among Republicans, they reflected less and less of what we learned on that trip. That was true when I said it yesterday, and it is even more true of the bill before us now.

By the way, to respond to a claim we have heard tonight: Not a person we talked to any time, anywhere blamed the surge in unaccompanied minors on the President's decision to prioritize the deportation of dangerous criminals. That is just not a credible proposition.

The bill under consideration provides less than $1 billion to the Departments of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Justice, and State, far below what is required to deal with this crisis. And what of the money that is in the bill? Most of it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue before us. This isn't a border security crisis; it is a humanitarian crisis. We don't need to deploy the National Guard or surge our border capacity, because we are not failing to catch individuals as they cross. In fact, these young people are turning themselves in!

This new, worse bill brought before us mere hours ago would entice Texas, and potentially other border States, with Federal dollars, to use the National Guard to militarize the southern border. At the same time, it underfunds the additional judges that I thought we agreed were needed. We all know that we need to deal with the claims put forward by these young people who present themselves.

So, Mr. Speaker, let's pass an appropriations bill that reflects our country's values and actually addresses the problems we face. Let's also face up to our responsibility to pass comprehensive immigration reform, as the Senate did a year ago. This bill moves us in exactly the wrong direction. I urge its rejection.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this misconceived and under-resourced legislation.

For a while, it looked like we might do better than this. As the ranking member of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, I was pleased to take part in a delegation to Guatemala and Honduras, ably led by Chairman Kay Granger. But as successive versions of the Republican bill have surfaced over the past 2 weeks, in an apparent quest for votes only among

Republicans, they have reflected less and less of what we learned on that trip.

The bill under consideration provides less than $1 billion for the Departments of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Justice, and State--far below the President's request, what is being considered by the Senate, or what is required to deal with the crisis on our borders and beyond.

The bill only provides funding for anticipated needs for the remainder of this fiscal year, a mere 2 months. I would object to that less if the majority had any plans for actually completing our appropriations bills before the end of September, but we all know that they do not. Indeed, it appears unlikely that our Homeland Security Appropriations bill will make it to the House floor.

The approach taken in this legislation shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue before us. This isn't a border security crisis. This is a humanitarian crisis. We don't need to deploy the National Guard or surge our border capacity, because we are not failing to catch individuals as they cross. In fact, these young people are turning themselves in!

Now, we do have some agreement on the need to expedite the consideration of the claims of these minors for asylum or other forms of relief. But at $12.9 million, the House bill falls far short of even the administration's modest request for more immigration judges.

Instead of focusing on this area of agreement, the majority relies upon a questionable and controversial rewriting of the Wilberforce law, enacted in 2008 to deal with child trafficking. My own view is that the Cuellar-Cornyn proposal incorporated in the bill both fails to address deficiencies in our present screening of Mexican youths for signs of torture or fear of persecution, and risks transferring these deficiencies to the treatment of Central American children. In any event, it is not wise to complicate or delay the consideration of this emergency supplemental request with an authorization bill that surely requires more deliberation.

Madam Speaker, there have been some recent signs of progress down at the border. Over the past few weeks, the average daily apprehensions of unaccompanied children have dropped from 400 to well under 200. That doesn't mean the crisis is over. We can easily see another spike in apprehensions in the coming weeks.

We need a bill that both provides resources and reflects our values. Faith leaders of all traditions across the country are calling on Congress to provide the social and health services these children desperately need.

Perhaps the greatest failing of this legislation is that it fails to move us toward any viable, long-term strategy to address the causes of the current crisis. Beyond any funding we appropriate to help manage the flow of unaccompanied children or families over the next several months, we are setting ourselves up for similar crises in the future if we aren't willing to invest in a long-term strategy to help Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador--the three countries that are the source of the vast majority of unaccompanied minors--to stabilize their economies, to modernize their institutions, to reduce the levels of violence and the grip of the drug cartels and street gangs.

Madam Speaker, I fear that the bill before us fails to address either short-term or long-term needs, and much of what it does contain is irrelevant to the current crisis.

Madam Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate North Carolina's Anne Firor Scott on receiving the 2013 National Humanities Medal. Dr. Scott is being cited ``for pioneering the study of southern women. Through groundbreaking research spanning ideology, race, and class, Dr. Scott's uncharted exploration into the lives of southern women has established women's history as vital to our understanding of the American South.'' I have the privilege of personally knowing Dr. Scott, W.K. Boyd Professor of History Emerita at Duke, as a former academic colleague, constituent, and friend.

Raised in Montezuma, Georgia, Scott graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Georgia in 1941 before earning a master's degree in political science from Northwestern University in 1944 and a PhD from Harvard (Radcliffe College) in 1949.

Dr. Scott did not, however, immediately pursue an academic career. She held a job at International Business Machines (IBM) and briefly entered a graduate program for personnel managers. Scott notes that it was a United States Congressional internship, during which she had the opportunity to write speeches and listen to politicians talking, which had the greatest impact on her career. These experiences, she later wrote, ``made me so painfully aware of my ignorance that I went back to school.''

Following her master's and PhD work, Scott held temporary teaching appointments at Haverford College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before joining the history department at Duke University in 1961, where she stayed until her retirement in 1991. During her tenure at Duke, Dr. Scott became the first female chair of Duke's history department. In her autobiographical essay, ``A Historian's Odyssey,'' Scott reviewed her own journals and realized that she began to do history by chance. But, she added, ``If I came to history by indirection, my decision to study the history of women was not, in retrospect, accidental.''

Having been inspired to study women reformers after working for the National League of Women Voters in the 1940s, Scott later helped found the field of U.S. women's history. Her groundbreaking research-- spanning ideology, race, and class--and her uncharted exploration into the lives of southern women has established women's history as vital to our understanding of the American South. The Anne Firor Scott papers, which include correspondence, subject files and videos from 1963-2002, are held at Duke University.

Her endowment, the Anne Firor Scott Research Fund, established in 1987, continues to support students conducting innovative independent research in women's history. And the annual Lerner-Scott prize, an award which is jointly named for Dr. Scott and historian Gerda Lerner, is annually awarded to the writer of the best doctoral dissertation in U.S. women's history.

Dr. Scott's accomplishments and accolades are many, including the authorship of ten

books and more than twenty-five articles. Dr. Scott was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson to the Citizens Advisory Council on the Status of Women in 1965. She has served as president of the Southern Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians, and on the advisory boards of the Schlesinger Library, the Princeton University department of history, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

She has been the recipient of many fellowships, prizes and honorary degrees, including a University Medal from Duke in 1994, a Berkshire Conference Prize in 1980, and honorary degrees from Queens College, Northwestern, Radcliffe and the University of the South. Scott received the Organization of American Historians' Distinguished Service Award in 2002 and the American Historical Association's Scholarly Achievement Award in 2008. In addition, Dr. Scott was the 1994 winner of the John Tyler Caldwell Award for the Humanities, which is the highest honor given by the North Carolina Humanities Council.

This year, Dr. Scott is one of ten winners to be honored with the 2013 National Humanities Medal, presented by President Barack Obama. The National Humanities Medal honors individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation's understanding of the humanities, broadened our citizens' engagement with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand Americans' access to important resources in the humanities. Previous medalists include Pulitzer Prize winners Philip Roth and Marilynne Robinson, Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison, essayist Joan Didion, novelist John Updike, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, sociologist Robert Coles, poet John Ashbery, filmmaker Steven Spielberg, and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen.

As Jeffries Martin, chair of Duke's history department, has said, ``Anne is not only an amazing scholar whose work did much to shape the field of women's history; she is also an amazing person, full of curiosity and insight about the world.'' I would add that she is a warm and generous person, mentor and friend to many, and a committed citizen--an effective voice for social justice and inclusion for decades. She is the model of the engaged scholar, and one who has contributed greatly to the ``New South'' to which we aspire. It is therefore with great satisfaction and admiration that I commend Anne Scott today for this wonderful, well-merited recognition.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my strong support for House Resolution 562, which expresses the sense of the House with regard to the United States' special relationship with the Republic of Moldova. I am especially pleased to join my colleague, Congressman Joe Pitts, with whom I co-chair the Congressional Moldova Caucus here in the House, and with whom I am proud to have coauthored the resolution before us here today.

Mr. Speaker, the United States and Moldova have enjoyed a strong and evolving friendship for many years. Since its independence following the fall of the Soviet Union, the Republic of Moldova--like all nascent democracies--has weathered the at-times uncertain path toward a stable, certain future. But the remarkable progress of the past several decades is a testament not only to the tenacity and spirit of the Moldovan people, but also to Moldova's promise and potential as a strong, independent nation in the future.

In the past several years, we have seen Moldova reach a number of milestones on the path toward broader and more comprehensive engagement with Europe--and with the United States. Our House Democracy Partnership witnessed the country's progress first-hand on a 2007 visit. I was pleased to join Congressman Pitts and more than 360 of our colleagues at the end of the last Congress to support a bill that finally removed unnecessary trade barriers between the Republic of Moldova and the United States.

And we were heartened last fall by the initialing of the Association Agreement between Moldova and the European Union in Vilnius--an Agreement that, as noted in the Resolution under consideration here today, was formally signed by the parties on June 27, 2014, just a few weeks ago. This enhanced Association is especially timely given the role played by the Russian Federation in neighboring Ukraine, where the fomenting of unrest and rebellion has ominous implications for the region as a whole.

Lastly, I am particularly pleased to note that the bond between Moldova and the United States lies not just at the national level; North Carolina and Moldova enjoy a significant friendship as ``sister states,'' through the North Carolina-Moldova Partnership. Our National Guard works closely with their counterparts in Moldova through the Guard's State Partnership Program. This close relationship between my state and the Republic of Moldova has brought our citizens together and promises cultural and economic benefits to come.

I congratulate the Republic of Moldova, and the Moldovan people, and look forward to our continued friendship.

I thank my colleague for yielding and for his leadership in offering this motion to instruct conferees.

Mr. Speaker, our Nation has a sacred obligation to provide for those who served and sacrificed for this country. Just as the military leaves no soldier behind on the battlefield, we must leave no veteran behind when they return home, and yet, Mr. Speaker, as too many veterans and their families can attest, our collective efforts often fall short.

The recent revelations of deceptive and dishonest scheduling practices at the Phoenix VA and elsewhere throughout the country have underscored a much more ominous reality:

serious structural systemic problems at the VA that must be addressed immediately. We clearly have work to do.

As a member of the Appropriations Subcommittee responsible for funding military construction projects and the Department of Veterans Affairs, my colleagues and I have fought for years to ensure that the Department has the resources it needs to provide for our Nation's veterans.

While money alone is not a guarantor of timely access to quality care, a Department tasked with as monumental an undertaking as providing for millions of veterans, generations of veterans--from World War II to the current conflict in Afghanistan--must be ably prepared and equipped from the inside out, from top to bottom, with the resources it needs to get the job done.

Financial resources must translate into human resources. As the head of any large organization can tell you, it is the people who comprise the organization that ultimately make the difference.

That is why I rise in strong support of this motion to instruct, Mr. Speaker. My district in North Carolina is home to tens of thousands of veterans who rely on the VA medical centers in Durham and Fayetteville or one of the many smaller facilities throughout the region for care.

I know firsthand the importance of an organization like the Department of Veterans Affairs, tasked with providing comprehensive medical care for so many veterans and for having sufficient staff on hand to do that, and too many VA facilities around the country don't have sufficient staff. They face glaring shortfalls of key medical personnel, particularly primary care and mental health professionals.

Now, Mr. Speaker, what about the bad actors within VA management? They have received much attention since the current scandal broke. For certain, there is no question that bad actors within the Department must face the consequences of their actions. Those who bent or broke the rules have to be reprimanded or, in egregious cases, terminated.

This body has passed a bill that would provide the Secretary more authority to do just that, but too often overlooked are the tens of thousands of men and women--many, themselves, veterans--at the Department of Veterans Affairs who work tirelessly every day, often long hours, to ensure that our veterans receive the care they have earned and that they deserve.

I urge my colleagues in both Chambers and on both sides of the aisle: lay off the shots at ``VA bureaucrats,'' set aside partisan differences, work together to solve this crisis. We must address these shortcomings by enacting comprehensive VA reform legislation that is worthy of the men and women who have sacrificed so much.

That is why it is critically important, Mr. Speaker, to ensure that the Secretary of Veterans Affairs has the authority and the resources required to hire and employ sufficient numbers of medical professionals. This motion would do just that, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Chair, I rise today in opposition to the House FY15 Transportation-HUD Appropriations bill. Today's bill lands with the same sound as its abbreviation . . . THUD.

While I appreciate the hard work of Chairman Latham, Ranking Member Pastor, and their dedicated Appropriations staff, our insufficient 302(b) allocation, made worse with lower than expected FHA and Ginnie Mae receipts, makes this bill's funding levels unacceptable. Simply put, the House bill would make sustaining and improving our nation's infrastructure impossible, a task made more difficult by years and years of deferred maintenance.

On the transportation side, the bill makes deep cuts to the capital programs and job creating infrastructure investments. Amtrak is cut by $200 million despite record ridership; the Federal Transit Administration's New Starts program is cut by $252 million, stifling the shovel-ready projects; and the TIGER program is cut by more than 80 percent, despite the program's popularity and success at advancing critical surface transportation projects across the country, with thousands of meritorious proposals still unfunded. And, once again, the bill includes no funding for progress towards a high speed rail system.

Funding for community development and housing safety-net programs is even worse. The bill would cut funding for the HOME program by 30 percent to $700 million, the lowest level in the program's history. The bill would also limit the ability for our country to maintain and improve our nation's public housing stock by funding the Public Housing Capital Fund below the sequester level and would only provide a paltry $25 million for the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative, the successor program of Hope VI program and our only comprehensive public housing revitalization program.

Additionally, the bill would force public housing agencies to turn needy families away from shelter by significantly underfunding the administrative fees needed to run the housing voucher program, the best hope of thousands of America's poorest families for safe and decent housing.

Another program that provides housing to vulnerable Americans in my district and many others is the Housing for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) program. Despite benefiting from an amendment in the Appropriations Committee, the bill before us today would cut HOPWA by more than $24 million below last year's funding level.

Perhaps the most disappointing and regrettable fact about this bill is that the cuts it imposes could have been avoided, had the Republican leadership understood that we cannot cut our way into fiscal balance. House leaders could reconsider their refusal to talk with the President and work with him to address the real drivers of the deficit--tax expenditures and mandatory spending. Instead, they have again and again slashed critical domestic investments.

We must rid ourselves of unworkable budget caps and sequestration, lifting the drag they represent on our economy and the mockery they make of the appropriations process. The bill before us today is Exhibit A of this travesty, and I urge my colleagues to raise their voices and their votes against it.

Mr. Chair, I submit a clarification of my vote during consideration of H.R. 4745, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015. I fully intended to continue my strong support of the Housing for Persons with AIDS program and mistakenly voted ``no'' on rollcall vote 277, the Nadler Amendment. I intended to vote ``aye.''

Amendment Offered by Mrs. Capito

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I want to join with Mr. Quigley, Ms. Duckworth, Ms. Waters, and other colleagues to call attention to the abysmally low funding contained in this bill for the TIGER program and to the need to increase and multiply this investment for the sake of our communities.

We have many concerns with this T-HUD bill before us, but I want to talk particularly about the TIGER program, otherwise known as the National Infrastructure Investments. It is a critical grant program which provides a unique opportunity for the Department of Transportation to invest in shovel-ready projects across transportation modes that promise to achieve critical national objectives, laying the groundwork for our future prosperity.

TIGER bridges critical gaps in formula funding programs to ensure that we are able to make investments in projects that are essential to both local and national goals. Each innovative project this program funds is multimodal, multijurisdictional and/or otherwise challenging to fund through existing transportation programs and funding streams.

Unfortunately, the bill before us would reduce the program's landmark flexibility by restricting the eligibility for TIGER to only road, bridge, freight, and port projects. Now, there is nothing wrong with these kinds of projects, but the downside of this restriction is that there is no room for funding that involves pedestrian crossings or bike lanes or recreational trails or planning activities or public transit or inner city passenger rail.

Many of us have benefited from having TIGER funding help a critical project in our districts. Let me just give one example, though, of a project that has gotten a lot of bipartisan praise, a project that would not have received funding if these eligibility restrictions had been in place. It is the Indianapolis Cultural Trail, which is a bicycle and pedestrian network that is one-third funded by TIGER. It is now touted as a draw to convention planners, as a central catalyst for hundreds of millions of dollars in new commercial and residential development, and it is the linchpin of a vibrant community. It simply could not have been funded if these restrictions which the majority has included in this bill had been in place. My district has been fortunate to receive TIGER funds to help build our multimodal Raleigh Union Station, but my community is not alone.

Over the last five funding rounds, TIGER has provided $3.5 billion for 270 critical infrastructure projects that have covered all 50 States, D.C., and Puerto Rico. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Previous TIGER funding rounds have shown significant latent demand for this type of Federal program. In TIGER rounds one through five, the U.S. DOT received more than 5,300 project proposals, seeking more than $115 billion, with between only 4 and 8 percent of grant applicants each year able to receive funding. In the current grant application round, the U.S. DOT has received nearly 800 applications, requesting $9.5 billion, with only $600 million to invest. That is a request of more than 15 times what can be awarded.

The bill before us would make the situation even worse. Next year, rather than doubling down on these essential transportation infrastructure investments as the President's budget request would do, the bill before us calls for dramatic funding decreases of over 80 percent to the TIGER program.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time House Republicans have tried to cut or eliminate TIGER funding. It is hard to escape the conclusion that this is another example of reflexive opposition to anything coming from the Obama administration, because this is, in fact, a model program in terms of stretching Federal dollars. TIGER programs have been catalysts that have leveraged Federal funds to secure further investment from the private sector and other sources. Each dollar invested through TIGER has leveraged 3.5 non-Federal dollars.

The projects that have received TIGER funding, along with those that are anxiously awaiting an award announcement, will help our local communities address transportation challenges, create good-paying jobs, spur local economic development, revive our city centers, and create regional integrated transportation solutions. We can do better than the bill before us today. Let's reexamine and restore the funding for these TIGER grants.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Dr. Peter Lange, of Durham, North Carolina, for his commitment and service to Duke University. Dr. Lange, the tenth and longest-serving Provost in the University's history, has ably guided the University's teaching and research mission during a time of marked change and challenge for communities of higher education.

Peter Lange and I have been good friends since our days together on Duke's political science faculty. He arrived at Duke in the fall of 1981 and immediately made his presence felt as a gifted teacher and a lively and engaging colleague. Peter was a well-regarded specialist in European politics and political economy, but he also showed a talent for administration from the beginning. I was particularly happy to see him become Director of Graduate Studies soon after his arrival, thereby relieving me of that position! In the 1990s he ably served as department chair in political science and thereafter took on key university-wide assignments in the Provost's office.

In 1996, Peter was appointed Provost, the University's chief academic officer. The hallmarks of his tenure have been a multiplication of interdisciplinary programs and the internationalization of the University as a whole. He has overseen establishment of programs and initiatives--such as DukeEngage, the institution's Africa Initiative, and the Institute of Global Health-- that connect faculty from different disciplines to collaborate on real- world problems, and then use that knowledge to serve society and enhance both the undergraduate and graduate educational experiences. As University President Richard Brodhead said, his impact has been deep and has extended throughout university life.

As Provost, Dr. Lange has twice overseen the development of University strategic plans, shaped resource development and allocation to best serve the University's intellectual priorities, and remained engaged on admissions, financial aid, information technology, and other facets of university life. Dr. Lange has appointed all of Duke University's current deans, as well as two-thirds of current faculty members. His vision, persistence, and administrative skill have contributed greatly to Duke's status as a world class institution.

Mr. Speaker, Peter Lange has dedicated his life to expanding intellectual horizons and the University's realms of service. The students, faculty, and staff of Duke University have benefitted immeasurably from his leadership, vision, and boundless energy. As his time as Provost comes to a close, I want to thank him for his exemplary service and congratulate him for a long and impactful career.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Madam Chair, I rise in strong opposition to these efforts to target the funding for the National Science Foundation's Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences directorate (SBE).

The world is changing rapidly, and we need quality research to help us understand how imminent and unforeseen changes in areas such as technology, climate, immigration, and the economy will affect our society and our future. And these things do have policy implications.

We shouldn't be wasting hard-earned taxpayer money, in fact, on policy solutions that are not rooted in sound research, precisely the type of research that some of these efforts here today seek to curtail.

As a result of research funded by the SBE directorate, for example, we are learning how to better respond to natural and economic disasters, how to improve the educational methods practiced in our Nation's classrooms, how to expand outreach to children regarding STEM education.

We have learned how to increase the safety of our troops in combat, how to better reduce violence among our young people, and we have expanded our knowledge of how the human mind works through the BRAIN Initiative, led by Ranking Member Fattah and Chairman Wolf.

In this era of Tea Party preeminence and so-called fiscal discipline at the expense of rational policy decisions, taking cheap shots at Federal programs and research projects has become a favorite indoor sport.

I wish my conservative colleagues would spend as much time learning the facts about the programs they deride as they do in preparing the flurry of floor amendments and floor speeches to target them.

Helping policymakers make informed decisions is what NSF's Political Science Program (PSP), in particular, is all about. Let me just say a word about the SBE's Political Science Program, which is close to my heart by virtue of my previous life.

The PSP has consistently produced valuable, practical research that informs policymakers and government agencies on issues as vital as natural disaster response, environmental regulation, and foreign policy. Here are a few examples.

NSF's Political Science Program helps us gain a better understanding of public reactions to natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina, which was researched at Rice University, as well as to the BP oil spill, which was researched at Louisiana State University. It has helped Federal, State, and local authorities develop more effective evacuation and recovery plans.

It has supported research on the causes and consequences of terrorist attacks, at Pennsylvania State University and at UNC-Chapel Hill; on competition for natural resources as a driving force in international conflict, research at the University of Georgia and at the University of Colorado; on third-party peacemaking, research at the University of Notre Dame; and on dispute resolution mechanisms that lead to lasting peace, at the University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa.

But this isn't just about political science research; it's about the entire SBE. NSF's rigorous peer-review process assures that only meritorious proposals are funded.

In an era when a quick Internet search can generate a statistic or an opinion to support any argument, it is more important than ever that we have clear, dependable, peer-reviewed research into the most pressing social, behavioral, and economic questions of the day.

Should you question the quality of such research, I simply note that nearly a quarter--that is 50 of 212--of the Nobel Prize winners in science funded by NSF since 1951 were recipients of funding from the SBE program. Every winner of the Nobel Prize in economic sciences since 1998 has been an NSF grantee.

In short, SBE taps the best minds in the country to help us better understand and address some of the most vexing policy dilemmas we face. The body of work it has produced informs the decisions of America's first responders, military leaders, regulators, diplomats, and policymakers.

I urge my colleagues to reject misguided attempts to target the work of NSF and, in particular, of the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate, which is and will be uniquely valuable in informing our country's policy decisions as we face the future.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to direct the House's attention to Public Service Recognition Week, a time in which we honor the more than 20 million men and women who serve our nation as federal, state, county, and local government employees.

These people are our friends and neighbors, and they perform critical work every day that is vital to our nation's welfare. They keep us safe from terrorist threats and food-borne illness, develop new treatments for diseases, protect our environment, educate our children, provide care to veterans, deliver our mail, and the list goes on. Despite the popular notion of the isolated ``Washington bureaucrat'', the overwhelming majority of government employees serve in our own communities in all fifty states--including 85 percent of federal employees. Yet, we often overlook or simply take for granted America's public servants.

Of course, the government's ability to effectively perform essential functions depends on a well-trained and highly-engaged workforce. According to the Government Accountability Office, nearly 30 percent of federal employees on board at the end of fiscal year 2011 will be eligible to retire by 2016, including one-third of the government's top scientists, engineers, physicians, mathematicians, economists, and other highly specialized professionals. We must redouble our efforts to identify and recruit the next generation of talented public servants to ensure government can continue to tackle our nation's toughest challenges.

At its best, government is an instrument of our common purpose. It is a powerful tool to defend the vulnerable, expand opportunity, and help our country reach its full potential. In a representational democracy, government is not an abstract idea but a living institution that is powered by men and women dedicated to promoting and protecting the common good. To all of those who have stepped up to the plate and devoted their lives to this noble calling, I thank you.

As we mark the passage of Public Service Recognition Week, I urge all my colleagues to join me in commemorating the hard work and sacrifice made by our nation's federal, state, and local government employees.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences on receiving the 2014 National Medal for Museum and Library Service. This prestigious award, offered annually by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, is the nation's highest honor given to museums and libraries for service to the community.

I have the good fortune to represent our state's Fourth Congressional District, which has earned accolades as one of the nation's best places to live, work, do business and raise a family. The vibrancy of this district stems from a remarkable concentration of world-renowned educational and cultural institutions--North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences prominently among them.

As one of the oldest natural history museums in the United States-- providing services to our state for the past 134 years--it has transformed how museums engage their community and how members of the public understand, learn and participate in science activities. It strengthens North Carolina's K-12 education pipeline, increases the public's science literacy, and prepares tomorrow's researchers with college- and workforce-ready skills.

The Museum of Natural Sciences has positioned itself as a highly- regarded venue for topflight special exhibits of all kinds. Right now, it features a Rainforest Adventure exhibit, and it has hosted special exhibits on Birds of Paradise, Dinosaurs, Wildlife in North Carolina photography, and Journey through the Arctic in recent years. But it has also gone off the beaten path to expand the breadth of the Natural Sciences with special exhibits on the Titanic, Genghis Khan, the Brain, and my two personal favorites: Chocolate and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Along with the museum's permanent collections, these outstanding exhibits have helped make the Museum the most-visited museum and one of the top overall attractions in the state. Consider these numbers: more than 1 million people come to visit this museum in Raleigh every year; more than 30,000 others experience the museum's off-site offerings, with its world-renowned scientists and staff visiting locations such as schools, libraries, hospitals and senior and community centers; and millions of additional people are able to take advantage of interactive educational programs offered online. The Museum also makes unique efforts to reach lower-income communities and those with special needs.

Our Museum is one of just ten recipients of the Institute of Museum and Library Services National Medal for Museum and Library Service--an award reserved for museums that are making exceptional contributions to their community. The Museum of Natural Sciences has had a remarkable impact on the community--not just in Raleigh, but across the state of North Carolina.

As we congratulate Director Emlyn Koster and the Museum's other current leaders, it is also important to recognize long-time Director Dr. Betsy Bennett, who retired just over a year ago. Betsy took the museum from modest circumstances to the gleaming, high-tech, user- friendly facility we see today. The Nature Research Center, for example, which opened in 2012, is a testament to her dogged determination to see her shared vision come to fruition. Betsy's skill working with the State Legislature, successive state administrators, and collaborators in Washington is legendary. As former Governor Jim Hunt aptly noted, she is a ``force of nature.'' As her partner in the never-ending quest for funds, I have particular reason to see this award as a culmination.

Mr. Speaker, once again, I offer congratulations to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences--and each of the other National Medal winners--for achieving this distinction. And I thank each of this year's medal recipients for their innovation and their dedication to serving their communities. Our nation is better for your service.

Mr. Speaker, as an advocate over the years for wild horses, I rise today to join a chorus of advocates in urging the Bureau of Land Management to implement a safer and more sustainable wild horse and burro management strategy. Along with a majority of Americans, I recognize that our federally-protected wild horses and burros are national treasures to be protected and preserved for future generations.

For decades, the agency has pursued an unsustainable and highly controversial approach to wild horse management. Today, the U.S. government maintains more wild horses in captivity than remain free in the wild. At the same time, the Bureau is underutilizing proven, cost- effective and humane alternatives for wild horse management that would keep wild horses on the range and avert the need for roundups, removals, sale and slaughter. This is an untenable situation, both for America's wild horses and for American taxpayers.

A June 2013 report by the National Academy of Sciences recommended using available fertility control as a ``more affordable option than continuing to remove horses to long-term holding facilities.'' I urge the agency to fix what is not working and to move toward these science- based recommendations. I stand ready to engage in a constructive dialogue with my colleagues and with agency officials to implement much needed changes to the current management program and to provide a more certain future for America's wild horse and burros.

Madam Speaker, today we could be debating a jobs and infrastrature package. We could be working on a comprehensive effort to balance our budget and replace sequestration once and for all. But instead, we're wasting time debating this retread of an old Republican ploy to further decimate the nation's discretionary budget.

Currently, the Congressional Budget Office rightfully assumes annual adjustments for inflation and population growth to reflect the cost of maintaining current services. For example, next year more children will attend schools on military bases. The CBO assumes a small increase in funding for these schools to ensure teachers and administrators have the resources they need. This idea that funding should keep pace with inflation and need makes sense. It reflects reality. It is an important concept in the business world, but the so-called reform before us today would freeze adjustments for inflation and population growth, undermining the usefulness of CBO's baselines and making it more difficult to measure the real-world impact of discretionary spending changes.

While this bill may appeal to those who profit from demagoguing the budget, it would drastically hurt the nation in the long-term. Flat- funding would mean a death by a thousand cuts to discretionary spending programs: every year inflation and population growth would chip away at the effectiveness of the investments we make in our future. At least the Republican budget is upfront about the obvious and drastic cuts it makes to education, food and nutrition assistance for women and infants, infrastructure, research and health care for seniors. This bill is about locking-in a years-long path to these deeply misguided goals under the guise of ``reform.''

Ordering CBO to ignore the needs of our people and the real impacts of spending is the height of fiscal recklessness. Congress experimented with imaginary budget assumptions when it passed the Reagan tax cuts and again with the George W. Bush tax cuts. As a result, we now find ourselves in a very real amount of debt. We remain unable to pay for needed investments in our crumbling infrastructure, and unable to pay for the education and retraining required to maintain American competitiveness, thanks to the refusal of our Republican colleagues to consider raising revenue by closing egregious tax loopholes.

So I'll vote ``no'' on this unwise and deceptive approach. And I ask colleagues to get down to the serious work of budgeting. Ranking Member Van Hollen suggested an alternative that would replace the sequester and reduce the deficit. His approach would not ax Head Start programs for our nation's children, would not cause the further deterioration of our national infrastructure, would not kick seniors and veterans out of federally-supported housing, and would not furlough schoolteachers at bases like Fort Bragg, where the kids of our servicemen and servicewomen are being forced to go without school for five days this fall. Let's stop the partisan showmanship and get to work. Find a way to rid our nation of sequestration and put our country on a fiscally sustainable path.

Mr. Speaker, March 7 is Employee Appreciation Day. I rise today to mark my appreciation for the staff members who so ably help me serve the people of North Carolina's Fourth Congressional District.

My staff are model public servants. They work long hours and late nights. Every year, the staffers working in my North Carolina district offices help thousands of constituents, and all of our local communities, navigate federal agencies. They help me reach out to local businesses and educational institutions to ensure their needs are represented in Washington. Every year, my Washington, D.C. office staff researches thousands of pieces of legislation. They help me hear and respond to hundreds of thousands of constituent communications. They help constituents arrange tours, and they join me in meetings with constituent groups, local and State representatives, universities and businesses on every issue imaginable. The list of tasks my staff helps accomplish could go on and on, but most importantly, they help ensure that the people of the Fourth District have a voice in the people's House.

The previous year has been a challenging one for congressional staff. Congressional staffers were not immune from the unnecessary and mindless across-the-board sequestration spending cuts that affected so many programs that invest in our people, ensure our strength and security, and protect our poorest citizens. Like employees of many executive departments, my staff endured furloughs and reduced pay over the previous year. I truly admire the all-hands-on-deck approach my staff took to maintain a high-level of constituent service in the face of these challenges, and their efforts to ensure sequestration was replaced and critical programs were fully funded once again.

In recognition of their dedication and diligence, I would like to include in Congressional Record the name of each staffer currently employed by my office.

Nadia Alston, Sonia Barnes, Jean-Louise Beard, Nora Blalock, Andrew High, Asher Hildebrand, James Hunter, Tracy Lovett, Sean Maxwell, William Munn, Cassie Rice, Kate Roetzer, Dave Russell, Laura Thrift, Jackson Tufts, Justin Wein, Robyn Winneberger.

I would also like to extend special thanks to the staffers who have departed my office over the previous year and to include their names in the Record. I want them to know that their years of dedicated service strengthened our district and our State, and that their hard work did not go unnoticed or unappreciated. I wish them well as they pursue new and promising opportunities.

Robin Bolash, Sandra Massenburg, Beau Mills, Teresa Saunders, Kate Schisler.

I am grateful, Mr. Speaker, for the effort that my staff continues to put forth and for the opportunity Employee Appreciation Day offers to say thank you.