Floor Statements

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 8 o'clock and 55 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, February 7, 2012, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

I move to strike the last word.

As I come to the floor today to speak against this

repeal, I cannot help but remember the faces of the individuals with disabilities, individuals with very serious long-term care needs, sitting through the long markup a couple months ago only to, at the end of the day, see the committee majority vote to repeal the CLASS Act. If an expression could convey a thousand words, theirs did that day. I know because I had the same expression, and I felt the exact same way: disappointed and frustrated, saddened at the very real possibility that they and our seniors would be left out in the cold when they are at their most vulnerable.

I'm sure that they and millions of other people with special needs and seniors are watching this now, and they, like all of us here now, know that repealing the CLASS Act will not make 10 million Americans' long-term care needs disappear, and it certainly will not make them suddenly affordable for the overwhelming majority of most families.

The Secretary did the responsible thing. She put the implementation on hold because the actuarial studies did not show that the program, as designed, was sustainable. None of us who supported and voted for the Affordable Care Act thought that everything in it was perfect. Much of it was well put together, well-planned, well-designed. But there were some that we thought might need to be tweaked or even revised in bigger ways, but we needed to take that first big important step in the right direction to make sure that the health care needs of our fellow Americans would be met.

The Secretary in her letter to the Speaker said that the report reflected ``The development of information that will ultimately advance the cause of finding affordable and sustainable long-term care options.''

So what we should be doing is looking at those options or charging an institute like the Institute of Medicine to look at them and recommend a way forward.

Everyone knows that we have a long-term care crisis in the United States. There are 10 million vulnerable men, women, and children who need this care, and we know that over the next decade that number will grow to 15 million. We also know that there are grave racial, ethnic, as well as geographic disparities that exist across the 10 million Americans with unmet long-term health care needs.

We also know that long-term health care burdens family budgets, as well as Medicaid programs in the States that administer them across our Nation. Only about 8 percent of Americans buy long-term care insurance because the premiums are too expensive in many cases for most individuals to afford.

Despite these facts, and these are indeed facts, and as we have seen time and time again, rather than identify and support a medically, economically, and socially responsible solution to this critically important problem, in their zeal to attack the Affordable Care Act and undermine the provisions that have already begun to help all of our constituents, our friends on the other side of the aisle would rather slam that door shut and not continue to work with us to find ways to meet this critical need.

We need to have a plan to ensure access to affordable long-term care, and repealing and dismantling the CLASS Act with no safeguard or stopgap in place first is definitely not the right way to go.

I, like everyone here, Republican and Democrat, have 10 million reasons to take a stand and to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves, to provide a voice for the voiceless and to remind our colleagues and those watching that this fight cannot be over and that we cannot stop until our long-term care crisis is addressed and those who need it, as many of us, Republican and Democrat will, address it in a manner that meets the high ideals of this country.

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

Offered By: Mrs. Christensen

Amendment No. 3: At the end of the bill, add the following:

Too many of our fellow Americans are living on the edge today and have been for far too long. The last thing they need is another showdown at the Not-OK Corral.

They need jobs. They need to save or go back into their homes. And for those who have been living in poverty or those who used to be in the middle class but are now struggling to survive below the poverty level, they need us to help provide the opportunity to help lift them and their families out of poverty and to a better life. Our President is coming to us tonight to again offer us some opportunities to do all of these things and more and to restore our country's economic health.

So let's not put our fellow Americans through another cliffhanger on things that are important to their well-being. Let us pass the payroll and unemployment insurance extension, fix the Medicare payment issue without drama, and come together to work on the bipartisan measures that the President will ask us to pass for our people and our country.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on the subject matter of this special order.

Mr. Speaker, tonight we are here on the floor of the House of Representatives on the eve of the State of the Union by President Barack Obama, the first African American President of the United States and some 46 years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act which made his election and ours possible. And I'm pleased to be joined by members of the Congressional Black Caucus this evening for this Special Order.

I'd like to yield such time as he might consume to the gentleman from New York, who I believe is the most senior member of the Ways and Means Committee, a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Mr. Charlie Rangel.

Thank you, Mr. Rangel. And thank you again, as a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, for reminding the American people why we're called the conscience of the Congress. Thank you for those words.

I'd like now to yield such time as she might consume to the gentlelady from Ohio, who for the last Congress chaired these Special Orders and who is a leader on so many, many issues and whose district I believe the CBC will again be traveling to to help protect the rights of voters in Ohio, Congresswoman Marcia Fudge.

Thank you, Congresswoman Fudge, for those very strong words, and thank you for the ray of hope by pointing out some of the States that are reversing some of those laws that are making it easier for their voters to vote.

I would now like to yield to the former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, a leader not only in California but in the country, a person who has always been the conscience of

the CBC as we are the conscience of the Congress, Congresswoman Barbara Lee.

Thank you, Congresswoman Lee. And just to underscore what you have shared with us this evening, I don't usually quote from Politico, but let me read the last sentence of one of their articles. It says, the framers bequeathed us a Constitution intended to create a more perfect union. Every time an eligible voter is denied the right to vote we are left that much further from achieving that goal.

Thank you again for joining us this evening.

And now I want to yield such time as he might consume to one of our outstanding constitutional experts and attorneys in the CBC, Congressman Bobby Scott from Virginia.

I thank you for joining us and for pointing out some of that data and helping to explain to the American public the injustice that's being done by these voter restrictions on voting and restrictions on registration.

We're also joined by another fighter for justice and equality, a strong voice in the Congressional Black Caucus, the gentlelady from Texas, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.

I thank the gentlelady for those strong words.

Again, I'm going to go back to the article in Politico because everyone has made reference to the charges of fraud. In this article, it reads, ``official and academic studies have consistently shown that the chances of being hit by lightning are greater than the likely incidence of such fraud.''

So today, as we prepare for the elections in November of this year, we have seen an unprecedented--at least unprecedented since August of 1965--attack on the rights of Americans to vote. As you've heard, these attacks have taken many forms: expanding bans that prevent felons from voting; cutting election administration budgets in States; curtailing early voting, something that was used very effectively in previous elections; eliminating same-day registration; intimidating voter registration by some groups, which extends in some places to intimidation on Election Day; imposing strict ID requirements; creating barriers to getting the required ID; and creating barriers to voting by students in schools outside of their States.

Again, the voter fraud claims are bogus, and as our chairman, Emanuel Cleaver, said in testimony before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary late last year, ``The laws are solutions in search of problems, especially when it comes to voter ID, because there is basically no evidence of fraud.'' Many studies, as I've said, have supported that statement.

With an estimated 11 percent of Americans not having IDs that would meet the requirement, it is projected that these new attacks on the rights of American citizens to vote will prevent

many millions of people--mostly Democrats, mostly minorities and the elderly--from voting and could affect as many as 171 electoral votes. It is clear to me, whether racially based or not, that this is a direct attempt not only to undermine the election process but is a specific attempt to derail what surely would be and ought to be the reelection of Barack Obama.

The CBC is speaking out as is the NAACP, but I'm still waiting for the cries of many of the good people of this country. This is an egregious injustice and a threat to democracy and to the stability of our Nation, and it must not be allowed to continue. The Congressional Black Caucus has met with officials of the Justice Department; and as Congresswoman Jackson Lee has stated, the CBC has sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, which has over 100 signatures from other Members, registering our grave concern over these laws and proposed laws, urging that the Department of Justice examine them and ensure that the rights of voters are protected.

In March, we will take up the torch of those who marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to continue to fight for equal rights and, together with the NAACP and other partners, to begin a voter protection tour to key cities in order to call attention to the injustice; to mobilize efforts to help individuals get the required ID or vote where there still remains some early voting; and to continue to press the Justice Department to do all that is in its authority to protect this right that so many fought, sacrificed, and died for.

As Congresswoman Jackson Lee showed, this is the map. It's called the ``Map of Shame.'' Only 11 States are without voter ID laws or are requesting one or have legislation proposed. How will we ever be able to lead and speak for the rights of the disenfranchised in other parts of the world? That was something raised by Congressman Rangel as we began the Special Order. Where will we get the moral authority if this travesty is allowed to exist and if we undermine this very fundamental right, the right to vote?

Already the undue influence of big money from undisclosed donors is influencing elections. Already the ugly specter of racism has been raised to divide our country and to misinform and inflame some segments of our country. This is not the country that we want to be. The Voting Rights Act was passed in August of 1965, and at that time, it ended over a century of denial of the right to vote to African Americans in the South and to Latinos in the Southwest as well. In voting rights, as with health care reform, as someone said earlier, we are not going back.

I would like to just take a few minutes of the time we have left to call attention to a crisis in my district, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Last Wednesday, January 18, we suffered an economic earthquake with the announcement that the HOVENSA oil refinery--it's either the second or the third largest oil refinery in the Western Hemisphere--is going to close in the middle of February. Now, we're a small community--110,000 throughout the entire Virgin Islands--and we're maybe about 55,000 on the Island of St. Croix, so a hit of over 2,000 jobs is a big hit to our economy. Those are the direct jobs. Of the people who work either for HOVENSA or their subcontractors on the site, there will continue to be about 100 employees for oil storage facilities, but the impact will reverberate throughout that entire community. Businesses that rely on HOVENSA from some of their suppliers--hotels and restaurants and even some of our private schools--are wondering how they are going to survive and keep their doors open when HOVENSA closes.

We are looking at a number of issues, and we still have a lot of questions that we need to ask, but I wanted to bring this to the attention of my colleagues because this is a severe crisis. As all of our States have been, we were already having layoffs and having to cut salaries and impose austerity measures on our population. The closing of this refinery is a major hit, and it has left my community reeling. So I ask for your prayers, and at the appropriate time I will probably come and ask for your assistance on behalf of the people of the Virgin Islands.

I want to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues Congressman Rangel, Congresswoman Fudge, Congressman Scott, Congresswoman Lee, and Congresswoman Jackson Lee for joining me in this Special Order to speak to the issue of voter protection for the people of this country--the protection of a fundamental right that must not be abridged.

I would be happy to yield to my colleague from Texas if she would like to have some more time.

I thank you for your support, and I know that I have the support of the Congressional Black Caucus. It just raises the issue that we have been coming to the floor for the entire year to speak on before this evening, and that's jobs and job creation.

Mine, like other communities across the country, will definitely need to enact legislation, like the American Jobs Act and some of the countless pieces of legislation that the Congressional Black Caucus has introduced in this Congress to create jobs for the people, for people in this country.

I just wanted to add that in addition to the impact on the U.S. Virgin Islands and St. Croix in particular, this closing will have a major impact, especially on the east coast, as Hovensa has been a major supplier of gasoline to the east coast. So, again, I ask for your prayers and your support.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

This year and every time the Democrats have tried to do the right thing for the American people, the Republicans say ``no'' unless they add their poison pills. In the past, that might have led to negotiations that might have ended in a bipartisan solution--but not so today.

Today, Republicans are trying to force us to accept the Keystone pipeline before we are sure it is safe for the communities it will traverse and won't make the air we breathe dirtier than it already is. The President is right to wait until those things are assessed. In their zeal to kill the Affordable Care Act, they want to slash the Public Health and Prevention Fund and other programs that keep people healthy and reduce health care costs for families and our country.

Democrats have been calling for passing our Make It in America and other jobs bills, but the Republicans insist on jobs that damage the public health and on killing jobs in the only sector that is growing-- health care. Because they have not helped the recovery, our fellow Americans still need the payroll tax deduction and unemployment insurance and a fix of doctors' Medicare reimbursements so that they can continue services to the millions of Americans on Medicare.

Let's do a clean bill in the spirit of Christmas, Chanukah and Kwanza.

A big ``welcome home'' to our troops. I thank them all for their service.

I thank the gentlelady for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this point of order on H. Res. 491.

Here we go again with another misnamed bill that is designed not for middle class tax relief or for job creation but to hold a ``must pass'' vehicle hostage through some misguided Republican pet projects and policy initiatives that harm the environment and threaten public health. It is also a bill that is wasting time, time that could really be used to create jobs and help the middle class because, with these poison pills, it is going nowhere. Unfortunately, the good things in the bill are threatened because of these other provisions.

The payroll tax deduction, the 2-year SGR fix, as well as one or two other health care provisions are good parts of the bill that are needed by our Nation's families, our doctors and Medicare beneficiaries, but they should not be weighed down by the provisions that allow the Keystone pipeline to bypass regulations, that allow industrial boilers and incinerators to pollute, and that cut billions of dollars and, therefore, important services that are in the Affordable Care Act. With millions of our fellow Americans out of work, it also fails to provide the full extension of unemployment that is needed in this time of improved but still slow job creation--something the Republican leadership has talked a lot about but has done nothing to help.

This bill is pure politics. And what is it that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle do not understand about drug addiction being an illness?

One of the Republican Governors tried a similar proposal for food stamps in Florida. Not only was it bad policy, it yielded nothing. It unfairly targeted and branded poor people, and it wasted taxpayer dollars. All of this is designed to deny unemployment benefits that they have resisted and are still not fully funding. I hear a lot about class warfare, but real class warfare is protecting everything for the rich and punishing the poor, the middle class, the elderly, and the unemployed. It has got to stop.

I urge my colleagues to support this point of order and to vote against the rule and the bill. We need a clean extension of the payroll tax, 99 weeks of unemployment, and a 2-year SGR fix. Yet it should not be paid for by taking funds from programs that are needed to protect public health and safety.

I have an amendment at the desk.

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

This bill stands as an effort to dramatically weaken the Clean Air Act and delay implementation of vital public health protections against toxic particles.

The adverse health effects of particulate matter are serious and have been well documented. Thousands of studies published over the last 9 years make a much stronger case for the regulation of fine particles and indicate that the current standards must be revisited in order to ensure the public health is protected.

The major health effects of fine particulate matter include reduced lung function, cough, wheezing, missed school days due to respiratory symptoms, increased use of asthma medication, strokes, emergency room visits, hospital admissions, lung cancer, and premature death--at levels well below the current national air quality standards.

This bill, H.R. 1633, eliminates EPA's authority to control so-called ``nuisance dust'' except in a very narrow set of circumstances.

First, the Administrator must find that nuisance dust causes substantial adverse public health and welfare effects.

Second, even if the Administrator determines that nuisance dust causes substantial harm, she must also find that the benefits of regulating nuisance dust outweigh the cost, including impacts on employment. This approach upends the way EPA has been setting health- based air pollution standards for 40 years.

The Clean Air Act requires EPA to set each air quality standard based purely on science and medical evidence showing the health effects of exposure to the pollutant. The standard basically identifies the level of pollution that is safe to breathe. The Clean Air Act also requires EPA to set the standard with an adequate margin of safety to account for uncertainty and protect sensitive subpopulations, such as children with asthma. Essentially, this bill would require EPA to determine the level of air pollution that is safe to breathe based on the costs of control, not the medical evidence.

Third, under this bill, the Administrator only has this limited authority in areas where State, local or tribal governments are not regulating nuisance dust. But the bill provides no minimum standard of protection, no Federal floor. That means that even the most minimal State or local requirement is sufficient to bar EPA action on anything that falls under the definition of nuisance dust.

It is absurd, Mr. Chairman, to claim that any State or local dust regulation, no matter how minimal, would be sufficient to protect the public health. We tried to address air pollution only on the State and local level throughout the 1960s. It did not work. Companies blocked cleaner air protections by threatening to leave for other States with weaker standards.

This widely acknowledged failure produced overwhelming support for the

cooperative federalism approach embodied in the Clean Air Act since 1970. Under this approach, the Federal Government sets minimum uniform standards to protect health, and States and localities then decide how to achieve those standards.

Since 1970, every American has had the same basic right to clean and healthy air. My amendment simply preserves those rights. It ensures that the residents of every State and locality are afforded a baseline level of protection against particle pollution. My amendment says that if the State, local, or tribal laws are not sufficient to protect public health from exposure to dangerous particle pollution, then EPA has the authority under the Clean Air Act to step in and take action to reduce that pollution.

This bill tries to turn back the clock to a time when State and local air pollution laws weren't strong enough to protect public health. Those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. Let's learn our history and recognize that both States and the Federal Government play valuable roles in ensuring that Americans breathe clean and healthy air.

I urge my colleagues to support my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

I would just like to add that my amendment does not really take away any authority from the State, local, and tribal governments; it just ensures that they set standards that are based on the protection of the public health.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a devoted servant of God, the Reverend Leon H. Matthias who will retire from active ministry on December 31, 2011.

Sunday, December 8, 1946 seemed to be a perfect day for the arrival of Leon Henson Matthias to George and Ethel Matthias. His humble home provided his first real setting where Christian nurture would take place. The family were members of Gracefield Moravian Church in Cedar Grove and Adrian Joseph, the grandfather, was the sexton of this small- congregation.

After primary and High School he gained four subjects at Ordinary Level from the University of London. In September 1967, he entered the teaching profession and was appointed as an uncertified teacher at the St. James Government School in Cedar Grove where he had received his early primary education.

At 19, he was elected as chairman of the Board of Stewards at Gracefield. The members of the congregation recognized that God was calling him to a special task in His church.

Leon Henson Matthias began his theological training on the island of Trinidad in 1970 and in 1974 he completed the Licentiate in Theology at the United Theological College of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica. He served as student pastor in the Antigua and Tobago Conferences and on August 24, 1975 Brother Matthias was ordained a Deacon. On September 1, 1975, he began his first appointment as a Moravian Pastor in St. Kitts. Six years after his ordination as a Deacon in the Moravian Church, Rev. Matthias was consecrated a Presbyter.

On August 28, 1976, Rev. Leon Matthias made another decision in his life. He joined in matrimony to Mable Hall in that beautiful western Jamaica Town of Montego Bay. God blessed this marriage with three wonderful sons, Lennox, Leon Jr. and L Richard.

From all accounts, Brother Leon was as popular as he was active. He has always had an abundance of energy that seems contagious, and this has manifested itself throughout his life and the life of anyone with whom he has had contact. As an executive of the Rivals Sports Club in Cedar Grove, where he was a serious cricketer and concert performer, to Youth Soccer Coach in Richmond, Virginia, he displayed versatility and his love of sports.

Rev. Matthias has always enjoyed leadership roles in the church and the community. He however developed a new interest in 1992. In 1990, he was invited by the Lutheran Church in the United States Virgin Islands to participate in an oral history workshop led by Judy Saxton of Baylor University. This opened for him a vast new field of inquiry and an unquenchable thirst for the unwritten folk history of his people. This he has pursued in his visits to Tanzania, London, Johannesburg and Cape Town.

The versatility of the good Reverend has also been manifested in his editing of many publications including Rapport' magazine and the writing of four books--Boy from Popeshead (1995), Against the Odds (1996), A history of the Friedensberg Moravian Church, Tales from the Hill (1997) and Winds of Change (1999) Gracefield--A Northern Star(2005)Down Punty Hill(2008)A Cloud of Great Witnesses ( 2011).

Brother Matthias holds a Licentiate in Theology from the University of the West Indies and a Master of Arts Degree from the Presbyterian School of Christian Education. .In 2002 he obtained an, MLS Degree from Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, specializing in Archival Studies.

His ministry has spanned forty years and the Western Hemisphere-- beginning in Jamaica as a Student Pastor in 1971, serving the Virgin Islands Conference in St. Croix from 1988 to 1996 and St. Thomas and Tortola from 1996 to 2000, then New York from 2002 to 2009 and lastly in Washington DC.

In that time he has served in many positions of church leadership, has mentored many young pastors and served every congregation and community with excellence, dedication and compassion. We are thankful to God for his service, which overcame many obstacles over the years, and for his family who served by his side these many years.

I ask my colleagues to join me in asking God's blessings on Reverend Leon H. Matthias, his wife, Mable and the entire family with gratitude for a life of exemplary service.

Mr. Chair, the REIN Act is the culmination of all of the anti-regulation, anti-government and especially anti-President Obama legislation that has been brought to this body since January 2009.

All of the political gymnastics we and the White House have been put through has made it extremely difficult for our President who tried very hard to craft bipartisan solutions to be able to pass much of his agenda. I am glad that he is now doing whatever he can through executive orders, because yes--our country cannot wait.

Even today, with only a few weeks before the deadlines, our Republican colleagues are blocking extending the payroll tax to keep families from losing about 1,000 badly needed dollars next year, they are blocking the extension of unemployment benefits which not only helps families, including children, but is clearly one of the best stimuli for our struggling economy; and they are blocking even just a temporary fix to cuts in fairer payments to the doctors who take care of our elderly and people with disabilities.

But that was not bad enough, now comes the REIN Act to prevent government from fulfilling its critical role to provide services, and to protect the safety, health and wellbeing of people of this country.

They claim they are doing this to get Congress to do their job. Well as far as I can see Congress was doing their job pretty well in the recent Congresses, but that all ground to a halt with this one.

In all of the over 9 months of this Congress the Republican leadership has talked a lot about jobs but done absolutely nothing to create even one and they have held up or weakened laws that would have created the jobs the American people need.

In fact they have wasted these nine months by insisting on bringing legislation to the floor with rhetoric that would keep the fringe elements of their party happy, but go absolutely nowhere and do absolutely nothing.

This is yet another bad bill, with a bad intent that has wasted our time.

The people of this country want government to be there to protect their homes, their money and their retirement, to keep them safe at work and in their neighborhoods, to provide them with access to quality health care, to ensure that their children will have a sound education and meaningful opportunities.

I ask my colleagues to do what the people are calling on us to: create jobs, extend the payroll reduction and unemployment insurance and pay our doctors a fairer fee for their services; and to stop attacking these necessary functions of government. They not only undermine the role of government, but they are weakening our country and making us the laughing stock of the world.

They should withdraw the REIN Act, but since they won't, we need to vote it down and get on with the important issues our fellow Americans want us to address.

Madam Speaker, I want to again thank our leader, Nancy Pelosi, and the Democratic Caucus for allowing the Congressional Black Caucus to have this Special Order hour once again.

Before I begin my discussion today, though, I want to take this opportunity to wish a very happy birthday to my daughter Karida Green. I am blessed to have two wonderful daughters and four fantastic grandchildren, whom I was able to spend the past weekend with as we celebrated Kobi's, one of my grandsons, 5th birthday.

I also want to extend congratulations to the Federal team that's now in place in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Congratulations to our new district court judge, Wilma A. Lewis, who joins Chief Judge Curtis Gomez and Senior Sitting Judge Raymond Finch in the district court of the Virgin Islands; to congratulate U.S. Attorney Ronald W. Sharpe, who had his investiture this morning; and also Chief Marshal Cheryl Jacobs, who was sworn in about 2 weeks ago. We welcome all of them and thank President Obama and Attorney General Holder for their nominations and the Senate for their timely confirmation.

And let me once again thank all of those men and women who have served in our Nation's Armed Forces and those who serve today for their courage and their sacrifice, and I also want to thank their families who serve and sacrifice along with them. We in the Congressional Black Caucus and, indeed, I think, the entire Congress look forward also to sometime in the not-too-distant future to honor the Montford Marines with a well-deserved and long overdue Congressional Gold Medal.

But this evening, Madam Speaker, the Congressional Black Caucus continues our focus on the need for jobs and to reiterate the call for the leadership of this Congress to bring legislation to the floor that would create jobs. But tonight we also want to call our attention to the continuing plight of the poor in this country and how the budget and other battles that have been fought on the floor of this House and over in the Senate have been hurting them and what is at stake for them also if the supercommittee does not come to a balanced agreement that would reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion or more--and, I would say, hopefully more.

Earlier this month, nine Members of the House joined the Fighting Poverty with Faith initiative and took the food stamp challenge. We agreed to live on what is the average food stamp allotment for a week, $31.50, and I can tell you that it is not easy.

There are over 48 million Americans today who are food insecure. More than 16 million children live in households that are food insecure in the richest country in the world. Millions face hunger every day in this country, a fact that we should all be ashamed of.

These numbers are only getting worse, not just because of the recession but because almost all of the growth of wealth in the past decade went to the top 10 percent of people in this country. For most Americans, their incomes dropped; their incomes really crashed. And the gap between the rich and the poor got wider, a dangerous trend for a country already struggling to maintain its leadership in the world, something everyone should want to do everything in our power to maintain.

For all of our 40 years of existence, the goal of the Congressional Black Caucus has been to close the gap that leaves some communities behind or some out altogether; to close the income gap, the job gap, the housing gap, the health gap, the education gap, and all of the disparities that have been so doggedly persistent for some communities, not because those on the losing side didn't want them to change or didn't work for change but because the opportunity too often was just not there.

Colleagues, America is the land of opportunity and all of us, not just the 43 members of the Congressional Black Caucus but all 441 or, really, all 541, need to be working together to make sure that it is for all and not just for some.

This country was founded on the principle that all men and women are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights, not to be separated from us. Inalienable rights--the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Many times even when we pass programs that should have helped, they don't reach communities that need them most. Those communities in some cases are not prepared to compete or they may not be priorities for the Governors of those States who often get to decide where those programs go. And that's why our assistant leader, James Clyburn, joined with Congressman Rangel to develop the 10-20-30 program, an initiative that they have taken to the White House and to the Republican as well as the Democratic leadership.

Under this initiative, which seeks to help out the most chronically distressed communities, 10 percent of all funding and programs would go to communities with 20 percent or higher poverty levels for 30 or more years. And it may surprise everyone, but two-thirds of all of the jurisdictions that would qualify for that 10 percent are in Republican districts. I think if it were under any other administration or if it were proposed by someone on the other side of the aisle, perhaps this would have been passed long ago; but today those communities, not all of which are racial and ethnic minority in makeup--many are, but not all are--would continue to suffer and, in essence, be denied those inalienable rights, and that's not the country that we know and love.

At our annual legislative conference in September, we heard from researchers who reported on persistent poverty and its impact on health and the quality of life in the communities that are chronically distressed. Their report tracked the stubborn persistence of concentrated poverty in U.S. metropolitan areas over a period of nearly 40 years. Neighborhoods with poverty rates above 30 percent have been recognized as places with few opportunities for employment and education, high levels of disinvestment and crime, and meager civic participation. Living in such neighborhoods over extended periods of time reduces the life chances of children, whether their families are poor or not.

The report also looked more deeply at a subset of urban neighborhoods that can be characterized as the ``original ghetto,'' extensive areas whose cores were almost exclusively nonwhite and poor in 1970. The report showed that the Nation continues to suffer from racially and economically divided cities, undercutting efforts to reach important goals for our country, for health, for education, for employment and civic engagement.

More specifically, that report found that concentrated poverty has risen substantially since 2000. About one in 11 residents of American metropolitan areas, or 22.3 million people, now live in a neighborhood where 30 percent or more of their neighbors live in poverty. Such neighborhoods suffer from private sector disinvestment, poor public services and schools, and unacceptable levels of exposure to crime, natural hazards, and pollution. The number of people in high-poverty neighborhoods increased by nearly 5 million people since 2000, when 18.4 million metropolitan residents, 7.9 percent of the total, lived in high-poverty neighborhoods.

The rise since 2000 is a significant setback compared to the progress of

the 1990s. The number of people in high-poverty neighborhoods stabilized in the 1990s and the concentrated poverty rate fell, fueling optimism that faith-based initiatives and rising prosperity were reversing a crisis that had grown dire in the 1980s.

Today, however, it appears that the improvement of the 1990s was just a temporary respite. The increase in the number of Americans living in high-poverty neighborhoods tracks directly with the Nation's increasing poverty rate. Between 2000 and 2009, the number of people in poverty grew by 10 million, from 33 million to 43 million, raising the poverty rate from 11.3 percent to 14.3 percent in 2009. Today it's over 15 percent. And we all have seen the Pew report which shows that white wealth is 20 times more than African American wealth, 18 times more than Hispanic wealth, and that more African Americans live in extreme poverty. If this trend continues, it is a very bad prognosis for the economic health of our Nation.

Also, everyone knows that I'm a family doctor by training, training that I received right here in the Nation's Capital at George Washington University's School of Medicine and Howard University Medical Center, so the health of my fellow Americans is very important to me. So I have to just point out that poverty is a sure prescription for poor health and for premature, preventible disability and death. Just eliminating poverty alone would improve the health of millions and the terrible health standing of our country, which is an embarrassment. Or let me quote one of our Surgeon Generals, ``An affront both to our ideals and to the ongoing genius of American medicine,'' as was said by former Surgeon General Margaret Heckler back in 1985, and it continues to be true today.

As many have said, the American Dream has become a nightmare for too many in this country, including those who recently came in pursuit of it, our immigrant community. The Rebuild American Dream movement and many of the Occupy Wall Street protests are all about making it a good dream again, and not just a dream, but an opportunity to make it a reality. As quiet as it's kept--and we, Democrats, have really been too quiet--Democrats have always been about keeping the American Dream alive for everyone who lives and who comes to this country, for making opportunity available to all for a solid education, good health, a decent job, a home in a safe neighborhood, and a secure retirement. We have never lost sight of or lost faith in this. And we continue to fight for it, despite the big money opposition and the special interests who think they will win out in the end, but they won't because we are on the side of the American people, and they will always side with what is in their best interests and not in the best interests of our country.

Before we went out over our break--one more break than we needed-- Congresswoman Barbara Lee introduced H.R. 3300, the Half in Ten Act of 2011, which proposes to cut poverty in half within the next 10 years. In 2008, House Concurrent Resolution 198 unanimously passed Congress and committed us to doing just that, cutting poverty in half. The new bill provides us with a framework for doing it, and we need to honor the commitment that we made in 2008 and pass the bill, H.R. 3300. The Half in Ten Act would establish a Federal interagency working group on reducing poverty. The working group will develop and implement a national plan to reduce poverty by half in 10 years while working to eliminate extreme poverty, which I talked about earlier, child poverty, and the historic disparity in poverty rates in communities of color. The working group will improve how we collect data on those who are in poverty and near poverty, and make regular reports on their progress so that Congress and the American people can better understand the impact of our policies and programs and make more informed decisions about how we as a people treat our most vulnerable.

The working group will be charged with developing and implementing a national plan on poverty with four distinct but interrelated goals: one, to reduce the national poverty rate by half in 10 years; two, to eliminate extreme poverty, those with income under 50 percent of poverty; three, to eliminate child poverty; and four, to eliminate the historic disparity in poverty rates in communities of color. That working group would consult with experts across all relevant Federal agencies as well as outside poverty groups who work directly with those most affected by those Federal programs so that we can develop a comprehensive, far-reaching, sustainable plan.

I really want to thank the gentlewoman from California, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, our former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, for her work on eliminating poverty, for her leadership of the Out of Poverty Caucus, and for introducing H.R. 3300.

We have another bill that will soon be introduced by Congresswoman Gwen Moore which also speaks to poverty. She's preparing a bill that would reform TANF, and I think everyone would agree that TANF has not really worked as it was intended to. As we look at it, it's created a permanent underclass. Block grants are locked in at 1994 levels. Many who move off of assistance after 5 years still don't have jobs, and they don't have child care. The rise in food stamp usage shows where those pushed off of assistance have gone.

The average age of a TANF recipient is 7.8 years of age. Twenty percent of children live in abject poverty in this country. It has damaged the social safety net that was meant to respond to the countercyclical nature of the economy. When there is a recession, as there is now, it's supposed to be that last bit of help. So the bill is still being drafted, but some of the things that it would do are, it would stipulate that the number one goal of TANF is child poverty reduction. It would stop the clock during a recession. It would guarantee child care for TANF work-eligible recipients. It would lift all time limits on work participation requirements and the 30 percent safe cap on education. And it would adjust the Federal work participation requirements so that States could get credit when individuals with disabilities participate in work-related activities, even if the nature of those activities or the number of hours do not match the standard TANF requirements. Those are just some of the things that we expect to have going into the bill. And again, in addition to H.R. 3300, when Congresswoman Gwen Moore introduces her TANF reform bill, we hope that all of our colleagues will support it.

There is an elephant in this hallowed room and every room in this Congress, and that's, of course, the deficit-cutting proposal that the supercommittee is responsible for bringing forth in about 9 days. Actually, it would be more than a proposal because we would have to vote on it as it is, just up or down, no amendments. We hear that there will, more than likely, within those 9 days be an agreement. And if there's any hope for a fair and balanced agreement, it's because we know that the House Members that the Democratic Caucus has placed on the committee will work to ensure that it is. And those are our assistant Democratic leader Jim Clyburn, vice chair of the caucus Xavier Becerra, and our Budget Committee ranking member Chris Van Hollen.

We've said over and over again that this plan needs to include a further extension of unemployment benefits, which is something that has been demonstrated over and over again as a guaranteed stimulus for the recession that we're not yet out of. But it also, of course, provides a needed bridge until we can get this Congress to create jobs again. It's been over 300 days, and we still have yet to see the Republican leadership produce and enact a jobs agenda for this country, something that we all know is so badly needed.

And just to talk about where we are, in the third quarter of 2011, 31.8 percent of 14 million Americans who are out of work have been so for more than a year. That amounts to 4.4 million people. Older workers are more likely to remain out of work for a year or longer; 43 percent of unemployed workers older than 55 have been out of work for at least a year. Although those with more education are less likely to lose jobs, once unemployed, long-term joblessness is distributed across all educational levels. And we keep hearing about employers who might have a job opening, saying for those who are jobless, don't apply. Now that just does not make any sense.

Unemployment cuts across every industry and occupation. More than 20 percent of unemployed workers in every industry have been out of work for a year or longer. And in mining, manufacturing, transportation, utilities, financial activities, the percentage of workers who have been jobless for a year or longer is over 40 percent. We cannot get out of this recession without jobs.

So, again, we call on the leadership of this body to enact a jobs agenda. We, the Democrats, have proposed and requested in the strongest way possible that the American Jobs Act be a part of the supercommittee's report. It in itself, because of the tax and other revenue it would generate, is an important part of reducing our deficit. We also want other revenues to be a part of that agreement. This is not in any way class warfare. The poor and the middle class have already given up much, have made major concessions and sacrifices. And in the interest of saving our country, they would likely do more up to a point. But now it's time for everyone else to give. It's the patriotic thing to do.

Unless some, or even all, of the Bush tax cuts, which were meant to be temporary and should have expired already, are allowed to expire, the majority of the deficit will come out of programs that would help the middle class and the poor. The country I pledge allegiance to is a fair country. Congress has a sacred responsibility to keep it fair, and with liberty and justice for all.

If no agreement is reached or if the House and Senate fail to pass whatever agreement is reached, mandatory across-the-board cuts will be imposed. And the President has already said he will prevent any attempts to stop the mandatory cuts from taking place, and I hope that threat extends to mandatory defense cuts, because what we keep hearing is that those defense cuts will just not ever happen. And if defense is spared, the mandatory discretionary cuts would further come out of programs that would help the poor and the middle class and would hurt them even more than some of the budget agreements we have already reached. Some of the cuts that this Congress has already made would hurt the poor and hurt jobs.

Just in 2011, 250 programs were cut that probably eliminated about 370,000 jobs. Those are just some of the things that we have already lost. There are almost 60,000 jobs lost from the spring budget cuts of the Federal Government in three areas, with secondary impact on a wide array of businesses, ranging from automobile producers to local restaurants and dry cleaning establishments. Federal support for law enforcement, environmental cleanup of nuclear weapons production facilities, and General Services Administration Federal buildings fund, those are some of the cuts that have just wiped out jobs at a time when we need to be creating them.

So we need to make sure that we allow our economy to grow. We need to continue, or begin, to invest in education and health care and renewable energy and innovation of all kinds. The only way we can do this is with a big agreement, but one that includes far more revenue than the mere $300 billion that is now on the table.

So we want balance and fairness from the supercommittee. We want a jobs agenda enacted. We want to see the American Jobs Act be a part of it. We want to see unemployment payments continued and extended beyond where they are today, and we want to go further to make sure that poverty is reduced in our country because, again, over 16 million children in this country are going hungry every day and living in poverty; and that is something that any country worth its salt should not tolerate.

I would now like to yield to my colleague from Texas, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Thank you, Congresswoman Jackson Lee, for joining us. Thank you for the work that you do on the Judiciary Committee, and especially for your strong defense of children and the rights of children and the protection of children in this country. We look forward to the introduction of your bills as well, and we ask for the support of our colleagues for them, both as cosponsors and when they get to the floor.

I yield to the gentlewoman.

Thank you. And thank you for the optimism about the outcome of the Affordable Care Act at the Supreme Court. I wish I shared your optimism, but we'll take that as a very positive outlook on the outcome, and I hope that indeed your predictions are correct.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of the Special Order this evening.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am honored to join my colleagues in support of H.R. 2447. Nearly 70 years after the Marine Corps became the last military branch to accept blacks under orders from President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941, Congress will vote today on whether to grant the Montford Point Marines the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's highest civilian honor. I would like to commend my colleague, Congresswoman Corrine Brown, for her leadership in sponsoring this important and historical legislation and shepherding the bill to the House floor.

``Loyalty and Service'' to our nation despite prejudice and discrimination is one of the mantras used to describe the first African-Americans to serve in the United States Marines. These black marines were segregated during their basic training at Montford Point Camp between 1942-1949.

Overall, 19,168 African-Americans served in the Marine Corps in World War II and helped pave the way for the future of African-Americans in the Marine Corps. Although we have come a long way, we cannot be satisfied and neither is the Marine Commandant. Today, of the 22,155 African American who currently serve in the Marine Corps, there are only about 1,326 officers. The Marine Corps has 88 generals today, but only six are black.

I applaud the efforts of advocates who have committed to increasing the number of African-American officers in the Marine Corps and am a staunch supporter of this legislation. African-Americans continue a legacy of service in the Marine Corps and increasing the number of black officers is long overdue.

But today, we honor those African-Americans who were the first to serve and all who have served and are currently serving. Most of the 19,000 Montford Point Marines have died, but today we join the movement to honor their legacy by bestowing them with the highest military decoration awarded by the U.S. government. This is long overdue and I urge passage of this historical legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I expect to be joined by several of my colleagues in a few minutes, but let me begin. We are pleased, and I want to take this opportunity to thank the Democratic leader for again allowing the Congressional Black Caucus to control this hour of Special Orders.

And here we are again, Mr. Speaker, 10 months into this Congress and not one job-creating bill has been brought to the floor. I know that the people in my district are suffering, as are constituents in all of our districts, and we need to do something significant to help them, not next year, but now.

As a physician, it amazes me that it's even affecting people's health. It's increasing violence and crime in some of the hardest-hit communities. When we were here a few weeks ago, I was remarking on an article that showed how the mortgage crisis was affecting people's health adversely. But, of course, joblessness is.

People don't have insurance. They don't have money to buy their medication. They are putting off needed health care to try to save money for other things to provide a roof over their family's heads and food on the table for their families. And so this long-term unemployment is affecting people's health, and it's especially hard in those communities that have been distressed for long periods of time, even before this recession. With no movement from the leadership in this body to even just bring the American Jobs Act to the floor where we can debate it and have it voted on, the people are really beginning to lose hope.

To the extent that some have not yet lost hope, I think it's because they see President Obama and this Congressional Black Caucus, as well as the Occupy Wall Street and occupy all of the other places where those demonstrations are being held and the Reclaim the Dream movement all working relentlessly on their behalf.

Today the President is rolling out his new proposals to address the crisis, the crisis that began this recession in the first place, the mortgage crisis. I understand the theme is ``We can't wait.'' And we can't wait here in this House either because the American people have been waiting on us for help, and they can't and should not have to wait any longer.

I hope that my colleagues across the aisle would also add a strong dose of compassion to their passion for reducing the deficit. In fact, at this time, in addition to compassion, setting politics aside and doing what's best for the economy and our country is what needs to take precedence.

And it is not cuts. It's not repealing the health care reform bill, the Affordable Care Act. It's not stopping regulations that protect the health and wealth of the people in this country. It's not destroying the safety nets that enable the poor to survive and then provide them with a chance to lift them and their families out of poverty.

Not just Democrats, we should all be ashamed that so much of this country's wealth is concentrated in the top 1 percent while our fellow Americans, including millions of children, are going homeless and hungry.

I want to focus for a moment on health care jobs, especially since the Affordable Care Act, a job creator, is on the Republican chopping block. If it were repealed, it would not only set health care back, but it would place a heavy burden on an already hard-hit economy. Already we know that the health care sector is the only one where jobs are being created; and according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over the next decade, the 30 fastest-growing jobs, 17 of them, more than half of them, will be health-care related.

They also report that during the recession, while most industries lost jobs, health care added over 600,000 jobs. With an anticipated coverage of over 30 million new individuals, it isn't rocket science to see how the Affordable Care Act doesn't kill jobs but will be the sector to bring this economy back to life. The provisions in that act are projected to create more than 4 million jobs over the next 10 years.

What we need to be doing now is what the President has called for, improving math and science in our schools, and then we should be providing education and training for those jobs on all levels, from the community health workers to doctors, nurses, and allied health, to the most technical jobs in research and technology. And many of those jobs are available right now. They will just increase over the next 10 years.

I want to read from ``Health Care Employment Set to Explode,'' which was published in FierceHealthcare on October 20 of this year. It reads: Amid health care reform changes to promote

health care integration, and national deficit reduction to save, health care jobs are projected to soar, according to a report by Bipartisan Policy Center Health Professional Workforce Initiative, with The Deloitte Workforce Initiative, released on Tuesday of that week. Health care employment is expected to rise to 11.9 percent in 2018, and that means total health care employment will jump from 15.8 million, where it was in 2008, to 19.8 million in 2018, according to that report. From 2008 to 2018, health care employment will grow by 23 percent compared to only 9 percent in all other employment sectors, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. During that time, health care professionals will see the following changes in job growth: registered nurses will grow by 22.2 percent; licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses will grow by 20.7 percent; home health aides will grow by 50 percent; nursing aides, orderlies, and attendants will grow by 18.8 percent; personal and home care aides will grow by 46 percent; and physicians and surgeons by 21.8 percent.

There have been so many misrepresentations about the bill from its opponents both inside Congress and out, and it's not fair to the American public who at the very least ought to be able to depend on their elected representatives for accurate information, and they ought to be able to expect us to act on that accurate information.

There are some analyses that suggest that the effect on the economy will be minimal, and even though I do not agree, I want to read from the conclusion of one such paper, and that paper is entitled ``How Will the Affordable Care Act Affect Jobs? Timely Analysis of Immediate Health Policy Issues,'' written by John Holahan and Bowen Garrett, and it helps to dispel some of the erroneous representations about what the Affordable Care Act would or would not do.

In its conclusion they write: The Affordable Care Act is unlikely to have major aggregate effects on the U.S. economy. But they also say increased spending because the Affordable Care Act will increase demand for health services and demand for labor in the health sector. Cuts in Medicare and various cost-containment provisions, if successful as proposed by the Ryan plan, would have just the opposite effect--it would kill jobs. New taxes on insurers, medical devices, and pharmaceutical manufacturers could have adverse effects on those industries except for the fact, they say, that coverage expansion would provide new revenues well in excess of any new tax obligations. Cost- containment efforts, if successful, will have the opposite effect, reducing growth in spending on Medicare and Medicaid. So cost- containment efforts, if successful, will have somewhat opposite effects, reducing the growth of spending on Medicare and Medicaid, which will reduce taxes or borrowing the Federal Government would have to undertake. Cost containment then that reduces the Federal budget deficit would result in faster economic growth, more employment, and higher family incomes. Cost containment would also free up private dollars to be spent in nonhealth areas of the economy, thus stimulating the economy in many ways.

They also go on to say that concern over the impact of the Affordable Care Act on small businesses is misplaced. All small businesses with fewer than 50 workers will be exempt from the assessments. Most larger firms already provide health insurance to their workers and so are unlikely to face assessments under the law. Small businesses should benefit from the availability of lower-cost plans and the efforts to increase competition and contain costs within the exchange.

So I hope that begins to clear up some of the misrepresentations about how that bill would hurt the economy, because it would not kill jobs, it would not hurt small businesses, and it's not likely to have a great impact on larger businesses either.

The Congressional Black Caucus comes to the floor every Monday night that we are in session to call attention to the issues that we know are important to our constituents and important to Americans across this country. The primary one is jobs, but access to health care is not far behind, and we ought to support rather than misrepresent or try to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a good bill that's good for the American people, good for our economy, and good for our country.

We are once again calling on this body to pass the American Jobs Act. The fact that it comes from President Obama should not be a reason to dismiss it and declare it dead on arrival, as some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have said. After all, many of the proposals come directly out of bills that they themselves have proposed.

So I would say to my colleagues, please, the American people are sick of the politics. They're sick of the bickering. They need jobs now. They can't wait. We should not wait. Let's pass the Jobs Act now.

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

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 7 o'clock and 30 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, October 25, 2011, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Madam Speaker, today I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 358: a bill that is completely unnecessary; a bill that denies women the freedom of choice; a bill that re-opens an abortion debate that was settled in 2010; and a bill that will have a detrimental impact on the health and health care of women across the United States and in the U.S. Territories.

Contrary to the very false claims of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, not only is the Hyde Amendment fully in effect and fully enforced, but the Affordable Care Act includes several strong provisions that explicitly prohibit the use of U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund abortions. In fact, those provisions were endorsed by the Catholic Health Association. Additionally, there have been numerous audits-- including by the Government Accounting Office and the Inspector General--as well as congressional hearings, they all concluded that the law is being followed.

The sad irony here is that this bill is named the ``Protect Life Act.'' However, despite its name, this bill does very little to protect and improve the lives of women. What this bill would do, however, is to restrict--for the first time in history--how millions of women with private health insurance can spend their own private health insurance dollars. It also will undermine the success we achieved in expanding access to affordable, quality health care for women because it will force health plans participating in the health insurance Exchanges-- which will begin in 2014 and which are expected to lift tens of millions of Americans out of the ranks of the uninsured--to drop comprehensive coverage. And, if those aspects of this bill are not bad enough, consider this: H.R. 358 also eliminates the existing protections for women who seek abortion care in emergency circumstances and in situations that would literally save the woman's life. How, I must ask, does such a provision protect a woman's life?

Today, millions of Americans are suffering the consequences of very real hardships--so many of which sometimes seem insurmountable. In times like these, we should be working together to create jobs by passing the American Jobs Act and we should be working together to move this nation forward building upon--and not trying to dismantle--the many successes we achieved with the historical health reform law. The problems we are facing today are very serious and require serious people to develop serious solutions instead of pursuing an ideological agenda that divides the nation. As a physician, I fully support legislation that would actually protect and improve lives, not only in title, but in reality. This bill, however, is not such a bill. I, therefore, strongly oppose H.R. 358 and urge my colleagues to do the same.