Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend the people of Douglas County and the Douglas County Board of Commissioners for designating October as Douglas County Behavioral Health Month.

Millions of Americans have behavioral health challenges. Unfortunately, many go without needed behavioral health treatment. The goal of Behavioral Health Month is to ``Stomp the Stigma'', the negative attitudes and behaviors toward individuals with behavioral health challenges. Stigma can lead to lack of understanding by friends, family, and coworkers. It can also lead to bullying, harassment, or physical violence. As a result, many individuals are reluctant to seek behavioral health care, isolate themselves, or have feelings of shame and insecurity.

This October, the Douglas County Board of Commissioners is uniting schools, religious organizations, military and veterans' organizations, and healthcare and legal professionals. Together, Douglas County is working to increase awareness and understanding of challenges, reduce stigma and discrimination, and promote accessible services for individuals with behavioral health challenges.

Please join me in commending the people of Douglas County and the Douglas County Board of Commissioners for their efforts to increase awareness about behavioral health challenges and ``Stomp the Stigma''.

Mr. Speaker, let me start off by letting the America people know fully why we Democrats on this side of the aisle are opposed to this bill.

Nobody has worked as hard as Democrats on this bill, Mr. Speaker, but the reason we object to it is that the flood insurance part of this bill was a result of cherry-picking items that they wanted. The American people deserve better than that. Then they attach it to an FAA bill with a 6-month extension. That is no way to treat the issues that we have today.

All you have got to do is click on the television and look at what is happening to American citizens in Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas. And you are going to put something where they cherry-picked this together to solve this particular problem?

There is no sense of urgency here, Mr. Speaker.

Another reason is that, unlike all of our other disaster tax credit relief packages, every time we have had an expansion added to the bill, we expanded these tax credits for low-income people, expanded the tax credits for the new markets area for people to immediately come in and invest. Not in this bill. There is no expansion in this bill.

My friends over there talk about bipartisanship. My middle name is bipartisanship. There is nobody on that committee who works harder for bipartisanship than David Scott.

But the one piece of bipartisanship--our amendment that I worked feverishly on with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy), in which we were able to address the issue of the penalties of expense on those poor people who chose to have their monthly installments there and not be punished for it.

We worked together on that and cut that cost in half. That one bipartisan piece of endeavor in our Financial Services Committee is not even included in this bill. That is why we are opposed to it.

Let's treat the American people the way they deserve. There is no better time. You are talking about expanding the help. Our people, American citizens in Puerto Rico, Florida, and Texas, deserve for us to have a complete flood insurance program, not piecemeal.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. Sinema for that very nice introduction.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Nation who are listening or watching us on C-SPAN, I want to impress that we have exactly, right now, 40,000 soldiers--veterans--who are committing suicide each year.

This is a national crisis, but it is more than that. It is a national tragedy, but it is more than that. It is an American national shame.

These soldiers go where they are commanded to go. They go into a hail of bullets. They go and they fight and they die. They leave an arm, they leave a leg, they leave so much of themselves on the battlefield, and so many leave their minds there because of the devastation. And when we bring them back home, the level of treatment that many of them are getting, and even not getting, is, again, a national tragedy and a national shame.

It is my home that the plea that America will hear this day from these Members of Congress will awaken us to what I believe is, and should be, the number one issue facing this Nation: take care of our veterans.

Twenty a day, 40,000 every year, is terrible.

Now, myself, what am I doing?

Each year, I put on a jobs fair. But I don't put on that jobs fair by myself. Partnering with me is the VA, where we have, in Atlanta, Georgia, at that convention and trades center, a jobs fair each year with the VA, and we are averaging about 450 jobs each year.

But we don't stop there. We have a health fair because it is the PTSD--post-traumatic stress syndrome--that is this archenemy that we are not examining. The reason for that is that there is a severe shortage of psychiatrists in the VA and there is a severe shortage of primary care physicians in the VA.

So right here in this legislature, my good Republican friend, Larry Bucshon from Indiana, and I--and he is a doctor--have worked together. We put together legislation 2 years ago, in 2015, for the special appropriations for veterans that we would pay the tuition, pay the loan forgiveness, for those physicians who are psychiatrists and who will go and work in the VA.

But we didn't stop there. Knowing how the vagarious income levels are structured and the pay scales are structured according to where you live in the United States--and we have VA hospitals, VA centers all over this country, and the salary levels vary--we made sure that an added incentive would be to those graduating psychiatrists who will go and help our veterans and go help us fulfill this shortage, that we would make sure that their incoming salary would be at least 2 percent higher than that average.

My only heartbreak in all of this is that we were only able to get 12. And I can tell you how much that broke my heart by this Congress. But it is a start.

This bill will be replenished. And if you in the public can help us, if we want to do something right now about cutting down on the number of suicides that our veterans are having, help us get more psychiatrists into the VA system, help me and Larry Bucshon and many Democrats and Republicans who voted for the initial piece of legislation--we only got 12 the first time, but we should get 300, 400, 500. We should be willing to make that appropriation.

We can talk, we can sympathize, we can do all of that, but we need to get better treatment, psychiatric treatment, for our veterans. That will not happen, ladies and gentlemen, if we don't get more psychiatrists into the VA system.

So give Larry Bucshon from Indiana, my Republican friend, a call. My office, give me a call. But better than that, call your Congressman and say: Let's get this bill expanded so we can get more psychiatrists.

The Congress will move if the American people say move.

Now, finally, I must say this. There is no one that embodies the final words of Jesus Christ before he was crucified. Those final words that he spoke to his disciples 24 hours before he was crucified were: ``Love one another as I have loved you.''

And there is no greater love than that one who will lay down his life for his friend. That, ladies and gentlemen, is our veteran.

Mr. Chairman, I love this country. The heart and soul of our country is our financial system.

This bill is a dangerous bill to our economy. Let me tell you why. First of all, it takes away all of our consumer protections. I want to give you an example.

Before we had Dodd-Frank, a bank that is insured by the taxpayers could go in and use their customer's money. They could take their customer's money out to invest in risky bets, and then when the bets go south, it is the taxpayers that have to pick up the freight.

Secondly, let us use this example. Because of the impact and the complexities of our financial system, so much of the cause and effect of the downturn were the big banks. What Dodd-Frank did was provide a test to be able to go in and simulate and confer with the bank to prevent it from going overboard.

Wake up, America. I have talked with our Senators and they have assured me that this bill is dead on arrival in the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to make one point: It is most shameful to take $882 billion out of Medicaid to help the poor--

--and give it to the wealthy. That is the wrong thing to do.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in great support of the Ross-Engel bill against this most deceitful and shameful U.N. resolution. That is what we are here for. This act was shameful and it was deceitful.

When the U.N. voted for this 2334 resolution, it was like cutting Israel's legs out from under it and then condemning Israel for being a cripple. Shameful and deceitful because they wanted to put all of the blame on Israel when it is the Palestinians who refuse to even meet to discuss or to even talk about a two-nation state. It is the Palestinians who say Israel doesn't even have a right to exist.

How in the hell are you going to meet with somebody to talk about a combined future when they will not give you decent recognition?

I thank the gentleman because this part is very important.

Mr. Speaker, this Nation is blessed. We have been blessed with divine intervention all through our history to be that shining light on the hill, to let all of our great work show for the world. We have an opportunity here tonight for this Congress to stand up and show that light for Israel.

Stand up for Israel and show our great works to this world. That is what I say, so let it be written and let it be done.

Article V:

``The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several States . . . ''

Mr. Speaker, this bill is a labor economics jobs bill. The American people need jobs. The labor unions who founded and built the middle class of this Nation need jobs.

But, ladies and gentlemen, nobody needs jobs like young Black men. I see this as an opportunity here today. The highest unemployment rate is with Black young men. For Black young men between the ages of 19 and 35, the unemployment rate is 38 percent--38 percent--and in some communities it is 50 percent.

That is why I come before you today. I support the bill. But I want you all to help me support an amendment. You all know the amendment process is going on over in the Senate.

Over in the Senate, Senator McConnell said he is open to amendments. Here is the amendment: the amendment would just put language in this bill that would put the apprenticeship programs, what they affectionately call ``earn as you learn'' on-the-job training--no Federal money--and target those and guide and direct and encourage in this language that our labor union partners bring in these young African American men to learn these trade building skills. Each of the labor unions are ready. They have the apprenticeship programs, they have them there.

We need this desperately, ladies and gentlemen. Do you know that sitting in the prisons right now are 1 million Black men. Every week, thousands of our Black men are going into prison. The number one reason: they don't have jobs. This is a jobs bill. Yeah, it has got maybe, some people say, 4,000, some people say 2,000, but there will be other jobs that they can learn these skills from when we rebuild our infrastructure.

You all have seen the sign. Black lives matter, but Black lives with jobs.

Help me get this amendment in on the Senate side and let's pass this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I certainly want to recognize and appreciate the gentlewoman from Manhattan for the excellent leadership job that she is doing on this.

Mr. Speaker, this bill, TRIA, is so important. It is very important to note that it hasn't cost the taxpayers anything, and it has been very successful where needed; but, Mr. Speaker, this bill contains another very important piece: we affectionately call it NARAB, which is the National Association of Registered Agents and Brokers--just think if TRIA and the NARAB portion of this bill had been in place in 1999, before we had the terrorism risk, before we had the terrorist strikes of 9/11, and other terrorist attacks.

But in the middle of all of that, even with the downturn of the economic calamity, standing in the middle of this storm were our insurance agents, the lifeline of the American people. What NARAB is doing here is making sure that we streamline the process and make sure that our insurance agents are able to operate across State lines.

Mr. Speaker, we all realize that insurance is a State-licensed, State-authorized operation. NARAB does not interfere with that. As a matter of fact, all 50 of the insurance agents of our States have all agreed with NARAB.

This is an important bill because our insurance agents, our small businesses, are the lifeline in tragedy and distress. We live in a highly mobile society now. It is very important for our agents to be able to go across State lines with one licensing procedure that is held to the highest standard while at the same time being licensed in their own State.

We have had great cooperation from all of our insurance agents, including the insurance agents' association. Our financial advisers and our brokers all agree.

The other thing, Mr. Speaker, is that many of us on the Financial Services Committee have been working on this measure for 10 years. For 10 years, we have been toiling in the vineyards on this and so have others in the Senate.

Now is the time to give our insurance agents the respect and the nobility of purpose of their very fine profession and at the same time reach our primary goal, which is to give the American insurance consumers the choice, the competition, and the benefits that they need.

Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure, as those who are watching this on C-SPAN across the Nation, we can comfortably say that what we have in motion on the floor of the House of Representatives is something that Alexander Hamilton leaned over and said to Thomas Jefferson: ``My friend, what we have here is an old-fashioned, good old compromise.''

Compromise, a word that has been out of our lexicon for so long that the American people are looking for us to put it back in. Well, that is what we have on this floor. It is a compromise.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the ranking member because of her tenacity and her leadership because in his vision on the other side, the distinguished Chairman Hensarling, who is a very good friend, in his own way sought for a $500 million trigger.

We on our side felt that we wanted to hold to the $100 trigger which is when the actual Federal assistance would go into action, and we knew that that was further. I commend the ranking member and I certainly commend Mr. Hensarling for agreeing and recognizing that we would come to the 200 level.

I also want to thank Mr. Hensarling for including in this NARAB, that is such an important measure, and many people may not realize this, but we have worked on NARAB for 10 years in the Financial Services Committee. It has been a major part of my whole legislative history in this body every year working on it.

I want to thank you, Chairman Hensarling, for listening to us, talking, and agreeing to make this a part of this bill that we have before us. Thank you very much for doing that.

The other part, I want to thank both, and I certainly want to thank our ranking member for her wisdom in compromising on the end user. Now, we all know of the differences with Dodd-Frank. I tried to have a clear view on this, and it was very important that we make this technical change, so that we don't let our ranchers, our farmers, and our manufacturers--none of which had anything to do with the Wall Street debacle and none of which are financial institutions--that we will exempt them from the cumbersome and the overbearing need to put margins out when they are doing swaps and derivatives.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is an excellent bill, it is a good bill, and it is one that we urge to move forward.

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

As my colleague from Georgia (Mr. Westmoreland) has just eloquently stated, there is a great need for this, everybody is in agreement on it. The Cotton Number 2 contract is needed as a hedging tool for our cotton industry globally. It is needed so that we can have both delivery points inside as well as outside the United States because our global markets are now more global.

As my colleague, Mr. Westmoreland, mentioned, we have not touched this law since 1916. That is nearly 100 years. You can imagine so much has changed. It is very, very much more global, and we do not need to put our cotton participants in trade, in marketing, in commodities at a disadvantage, as was indicated, to other markets.

This is urgent. If we do not move within the next 3 weeks, so that we can

have this on the books as law in time for our cotton participants in the United States to be able to function for their year 2015--in the cotton business you start early, you start in January and February, so it is very urgent. The legislation benefits everybody. All participants are in agreement.

The bottom line is that this legislation is about modernization. Our markets, as I said before, have become much more global. It is a technical correction. It will help our cotton farmers, our cotton producers, and those who have to hedge in the marketplace around the world, and it does not--does not--put our cotton industry in the United States at a disadvantage globally.

I certainly urge that we all accept this amendment and move forward with a very, very important part of American industry, the cotton industry.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the accomplishments of a dear friend and colleague, Mr. Ennis Antoine Jr. Over the last twenty years, Mr. Antoine has left an indelible impression on the city of Atlanta, Georgia through his entrepreneurial advances in real estate and philanthropic endeavors.

Whether it be in his church, his community, or business, Mr. Antoine strives to turn any challenge into an opportunity. In 2004, Mr. Antoine moved from a promising career in journalism to pursue his passions in the realm of real estate, marking the beginning of a career that would be recognized as among the most prolific in the booming real estate market of Atlanta. Later, in 2008, Mr. Antoine made history by becoming the first African American to be honored with the Realtor of the Year award for his outstanding commercial accomplishments during a time in which Georgia was still reeling from the Great Recession. Recently, the Atlanta Board of Realtors elected to honor Mr. Antoine by making him their 90th president and the first African American president in the history of the organization.

Throughout his distinguished career, Mr. Antoine has used his success to empower those around him. Well known by his friends and family for a seemingly inexhaustible amount of energy, Mr. Antoine spends much of his weekends volunteering at his local church as a deacon and assistant pastor, in addition to also mentoring youth.

On many weeknights, he can be found teaching real estate classes, where he passes on the practical business skills he has accumulated through years of shaping the Atlanta real estate market.

When Hurricane Katrina decimated his hometown of New Orleans, Mr. Antoine took in over 40 friends and relatives whose homes and livelihoods had been destroyed by the flood waters.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to not only honor the impressive achievements of this man and his recent election as the President of the Atlanta Board of Realtors, but also to commend his compassionate contributions to my Congressional district and to the great State of Georgia. I ask my colleagues to join me in venerating this distinguished individual.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to offer a tribute to a leader in advertising research and innovation--Joe Philport, Ph.D.--who plans to retire at the end of this year.

I have a special appreciation for advertising, based on my professional background. After earning an MBA from Wharton, I started an advertising business in Atlanta, Georgia, representing major corporations and other clients.

Therefore, I know the importance of ratings when buying and selling media for advertising. All parties benefit from the availability of a trusted currency to measure audience.

Dr. Philport led the development of a modernized method to measure audiences for out of home advertising.

In 2002, he became chief executive officer of the Traffic Audit Bureau (TAB). In those days, out of home media was measured by traffic counts, or how many people were likely to pass by a billboard or a bus shelter.

By early 2010, guided by Dr. Philport's leadership, TAB introduced a new ratings system that measures audiences that actually see out of home ads.

The modernized TAB Out of Home Ratings provides detailed information about audiences, including age, gender, and ethnicity.

This sort of information is important to those buying media, the customers. Mr. Speaker, I have been a longtime billboard customer, so these types of improvements in audience measurement are important to me personally.

The ability to collect and analyze vast amounts of data offers benefits in the efficiency of communicating messages. We all know the need to balance the use of data with respect for privacy. As a former advertising executive and as a buyer of advertising, I ask my colleagues to join me in commending Dr.

Joe Philport for his contributions to the advertising industry and to wish him well in retirement.

Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen of the Congress, ladies and gentlemen of America, and President Barack Obama, I rise this morning with a heavy, heavy heart at the passing of two great, magnificent Americans from my home State of Georgia, Herman Russell and Governor Carl Sanders--two men, two giants whose lives intertwined at a most important time in the history of this Nation and especially in the history of the South, for these two men, Herman Russell and Governor Carl Sanders, ushered in and gave birth to the New South, the South away from segregation. It was Herman Russell and Governor Carl Sanders who broke down the barriers of segregation and paved a new way and a new day for this Nation. That is why we are so proud of these two gentlemen.

Every school should look at their autobiographies, because they made it the hard way, against the odds. Herman Russell, born into poverty in south Atlanta, came up and didn't let the ravages of segregation stop him, didn't let his speech impediment stop him, and emerged with the world's largest, most profitable construction and real estate financial firm owned by an African American. But, oh, it wouldn't have happened if he hadn't had a Governor at that time named Carl Sanders, who broke down those racial barriers. I will tell you about him.

As a quarterback at the University of Georgia, he left the University of Georgia and went and volunteered at 19 years old to fight in the military for his country. He came back and ran for the State House of Representatives, against the segregationist party. And this man, because of him being in the right place at the right time, and because of Herman Russell being in the right place at the right time, Major League Baseball came knocking, and there we built Atlanta Stadium. Ivan Allen said: Build it, and they will come. It was Carl Sanders who passed the legislation setting up the Atlanta Fulton County Recreation Authority that made it happen--all of this happening while all around us in the South was racial turmoil, and Herman Russell building his great company and becoming the first African American to sit on the board and a member of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce.

Oh, my friends, the world, these are two great trees who were planted by the rivers of waters, and they brought forth their fruit and their season, and none of their leaves withered, and let

me tell you that every single thing they touched prospered. They touched me. I wouldn't be in Congress this day if it weren't for Herman Russell, an African American who dared to fight segregation and reach across, and Carl Sanders, a White Governor, who, himself, fought and integrated the schools in Georgia when it was not popular.

When I got ready to run for the State House, it was Herman Russell who I asked, Could you help me?

He said, Yes, I will. Who have you got with you?

I said, I have got Andy Young. I have got Maynard Jackson. I have got ``home run king'' Hank Aaron.

Then Herman said, Well, where are your White folks?

I went, and the first door I knocked on was that of Governor Carl Sanders, who took me in and gave me a contribution. He didn't stop there. He even assigned two of his lawyers, Norman Underwood and Dale Schwartz, to get out into the community and help me. That is what Carl Sanders and Herman Russell mean. They built Atlanta the right way.

When Pete Rozelle wanted the NFL--all of this while the civil rights movement was churning, but in Atlanta, the NFL was coming--he picked up the phone and called Carl Sanders. Can you get me somebody there, Governor, who has got $5 million or $6 million? We will bring an NFL team to Atlanta. Carl Sanders got on the phone and called his old buddy at the University of Georgia.

We thank God for Herman Russell and Carl Sanders. God bless Herman Russell and Carl Sanders, and God bless the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Carpenter/Walden Family Reunion, and I ask that my colleagues join me in honoring this wonderful occasion. This reunion affirms the importance of family gatherings, drawing together relatives from Atlanta and as far away as Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Baltimore, Washington, DC, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. They are continually reaching out for more relatives to come from all parts of the United States to reunite for a weekend of activities to reconnect and celebrate the meaning of ``Family.''

The Carpenter family celebrates the matrimonial union of Pason Carpenter (born 1828) to his wife, who predeceased him, and from this union, nine children were born and raised by his second wife, Henrietta. From this union, there have been at least 100 direct descendants and hundreds of other relatives who bear the Surnames of Carpenter and Walden. We are the descendants of Pason Carpenter, whose son, Charlie Carpenter, bore a son named John H. Carpenter (who married Arie) and among 7 children, their grandfather, Willie Carpenter (who married Estelle Moody) and their 8 children were: Leroy, Florence, Naomi, Hawthorne, Georgetta, Willie Jr., Earl, and Curley. This reunion committee is largely comprised of the children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great great grandchildren of Leroy Carpenter.

The Carpenter/Walden's first reunion was started by Emma Shands, who hosted mass cook-outs in her backyard many years ago during the 1950s in Hopewell, Virginia. In July each year, all of the Carpenters and Waldens along with friends and relatives came. This ``cook-out'' tradition still goes on today and serves as a traditional homecoming that takes place on the first Sunday of August and everyone gathers in Virginia to celebrate. The Carpenters and Waldens connect with family and friends and worship at Diamond Grove Baptist Church in Skippers, Virginia. One of the family's most senior members, Emma's brother, Buddy Walden, has extended his efforts to link the family, and his research of the family roots entailed venturing from state to state. This tradition prompts an inquiry at each reunion closeout for a family volunteer to host the next reunion held bi-annually in that family's hometown. This has been the Carpenter/Walden tradition for the past 10- 20 years where hundreds of relatives from all corners of the United States reunite for a weekend of activities, reconnecting, and celebrating. Youth filled with exuberance along with the elders seasoned by wisdom of years will unite because of this occasion. They honor Johnny Walden, the oldest of the family's seasoned elders at the age of 90+, twins Jeff and Kaiser Carpenter who are our Carpenter/ Walden history/storytellers, and the family now welcomes the youngest additions, Simone Carpenter and Jerome Goode, Jr.

The Governor of the State of Georgia, Nathan Deal, recognizes this momentous gathering with a welcome letter and the host city of Stockbridge, GA, issued a proclamation to honor the Carpenter/Walden reunion. I ask that this great legislative body stand with me and add to these acknowledgements by honoring the Carpenter and Walden families. I am proud to represent the Carpenter/Walden family members who call the 13th Congressional District of Georgia home.