Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to support this important legislation to bolster the United States Postal Service.

As we all saw in the last few years, the postal service is vital to our communities and I'm glad that it is getting the attention that it deserves. From keeping rural and small-town America connected, to delivering Social Security checks and medications, to maintaining our democracy by ensuring that people can safely cast a vote, we have so much at stake.

Meaningful postal reform affects us all and I am happy to support this critical program.

Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, a careful examination of this bill shows many bipartisan proposals. One area of bipartisan agreement is that for too long America has been too weak in its engagement with China.

The Chinese Government is strengthening its economic power while doubling down on religious persecution and forced labor. Those practices undercut the competitiveness of American workers and business. Congress must step up and confront China head on--our trade title does just that.

Those damaged by trade, whether workers, business, or farmers will benefit from a dramatically improved trade adjustment assistance program, which expired in June and completely phases out in July. Our provisions modernizing and reauthorizing GSP and MTB will improve American competitiveness and labor standards around the globe.

And we get tough on China by closing the de minimus loophole that allows $800 per day per person for products undoubtedly, including forced labor, intellectual property theft, and illegal goods. China doesn't give us reciprocity on de minimus--their threshold is less than $8. They are not about to subject their companies to duty-free, unregulated American competition.

Allowing items like air conditioners, microwaves, and suitcases under MTB doesn't help American manufacturing, it undercuts it and directly undermines Congress' goal of rebuilding domestic capacity.

Our changes restore the programs back to their original intent of supporting American workers and domestic manufacturing, not undercutting American suppliers.

At its simplest, this legislation meets workers' needs and bolsters America's capacity to compete. If you want to support the American worker and get tough on China, you have a chance to do so with this bill.

Madam Speaker, I urge everyone to vote in the affirmative.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support this honor for Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey.

As a single mom with three small children, she went on welfare before working her way to success in both business and local politics. She went on to serve with distinction in Congress but she never forgot the children.

In Congress she was a fierce advocate for peace her entire career and she was right. She was a founding member of the Out of Iraq Caucus when that was not very popular with the general public and with most of our congressional colleagues. She was right about social policy. She was right about war and peace. And she is a delightful human being. I am pleased to support this commemoration.

Madam Speaker, since 1938 the intention of de minimis in U.S. trade law has been to ease the burden on the U.S. government related to processing imports--the revenue collected from imports of low value simply wasn't worth the effort. Instead of going through a formal process, these low-value imports enjoyed simplified import processes and didn't have to pay any duties, taxes, or fees due to the U.S. government. The original limit for such low value de minimis shipments was $1.

The government has significantly raised this limit since 1938, to $200 in 1990s and most recently to $800 in 2016. The latest increase has coincided with an explosion in e-commerce packages that use the de minimis provision to enter the United States, currently more than two million packages per day. This influx of imports that do not pay duties, taxes, and fees and provide less data to the U.S. government has created a wide-ranging set of unaddressed issues, including compliance with U.S. laws and American competitiveness.

Regulators including U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Consumer Product Safety Commission have raised strong concerns about compliance with basic U.S. laws designed to protect the United States from unsafe and illicit imports, including goods made with forced labor. Plus, imports that don't have to pay duties, taxes, and fees at the border gain a significant competitive advantage over other similar products, particularly when imported from countries with markets distorted by government intervention.

The Import Security and Fairness Act addresses these concerns by prohibiting goods from countries that are both non-market economies and on the U.S. Trade Representative's (USTR) Priority Watch List from using de minimis. The legislation also prohibits goods subject to enforcement actions from using de minimis and closes the loophole for offshore distribution or processing facilities.

I look forward to working with my colleagues to enact the Import Security and Fairness Act and improve compliance with U.S. law and American competitiveness.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy.

Congress passed a law almost a century ago prohibiting the importation of goods made with forced labor. But, you know, it was really never enforced.

That changed in 2016, potentially, when we passed legislation to eliminate the consumptive demand loophole that allowed people a way around. Well, it is time that we finish the job.

Nothing is more chilling than what the Chinese are doing to the Uyghur people. I have chaired meetings of our Trade Subcommittee that were really appalling. It is Orwellian in terms of what they are doing to detain Uyghurs in internment, re-education, slave labor camps; that international concern the Chinese think will just remain on the sideline.

Now, there are many American companies that are attempting to deal with this, but we need to do more. We need to strengthen their resolve, and we need to be able to get the attention of the Chinese Government.

A stronger regime is absolutely necessary. Crimes against humanity require a response. We must not just vote our support for the Uyghur people and other minorities across China. We need to make sure that we are clear about who gets the benefit of the doubt.

More than a million Uyghurs have been enslaved; half of them forced to harvest cotton, one of the Xinjiang region's largest exports. When American consumers buy a shirt, they shouldn't have questions about whether or not that was made with forced labor.

I strongly support this legislation to ensure that American dollars aren't inadvertently contributing to forced labor. That is the language that the Chinese understand; denying them access to our markets and making sure that people are responsible for their supply chain.

This legislation, I think, is a great start. I am pleased that there is bipartisan support for it. I hope we enact it, and then we work together to make sure that it is enforced.

Mr. Speaker, over this past week, it has been heartening to see the climate pledges and vows coming out of Glasgow. Our success in Glasgow, however, will not come from voluntary pledges and vows. It must include specific, effective steps that can be put in place now to begin making a difference.

I have worked on the climate issue since 1991 when I was a member of the city council that enacted the Nation's first carbon commitments which we have met over those years. But the cascade of recent extraordinary weather events has made it clear--as if we needed further reminders--that we are entering a new era in terms of impact and public awareness of climate disasters.

The Oregon experience has been searing. We had the worst air quality in the world last year due to extreme forest fires. And in my district when we set an all-time heat record of 116 degrees this summer after setting two other previous all-time highs, we recorded temperatures of 180 degrees in the heart of my district. No wonder hundreds of people died.

Working on these issues for years, we have had some successes, but we can no longer afford to be nibbling around the edges. We need bold, transformative action to meet the scale of this problem. We must continue to fight to reduce emissions and improve our resilience by passing the Build Back Better Act and the bipartisan infrastructure bill together.

But as we undertake that enormous effort, we must also undertake the massive issues of community preparedness, resilience, and risk mitigation. We can start with some of the basics: stop allowing new development in risky places like the fire zone, the urban-rural interface, or areas with high flood risk. We must deal with repetitive flood loss in a more thoughtful way, including paying to remove properties and people to ensure that the vulnerable aren't stranded in high-risk areas.

We must enhance the protections of the Stafford Act and help FEMA address the challenges of today's climate. FEMA does not actually have a mandate to deal with the extreme heat like we had in Portland that was killing people. We must empower cities and States to be both proactive and realistic in their approaches to planning,

development, and hazard mitigation. We must radically approach our agriculture and deforestation to stop making it worse.

I have introduced legislation that would make it illegal for products that were grown on illegally deforested land--palm oil, soy, and cocoa--from entering the stream of commerce, and having a border adjustment tax will make a big difference to stop people from exporting their carbon pollution.

Above all, we must mitigate climate change with an emphasis on equity, and we should harness the forces of nature to heal the land and reduce carbon. It is more effective, and it is cheaper. Instead of putting off much-needed policy changes, this will only delay the inevitable and make the adjustments more difficult as we reap the consequences of decades of inaction and denial.

Yes, it is going to take massive investments. But we are already making massive investments. The biggest infrastructure program now, the Federal Government, is paying to clean up after natural disasters. We should take some of that revenue stream and instead invest in mitigation and recovery that will make us stronger going forward.

Over the past months, I have worked to try and assemble my thoughts, talking to experts and thinking about what would make a difference. I have a little report I call ``From Ruin to Resilience: Protecting Communities and Preventing Disaster.'' I look forward to discussing this with my colleagues to understand their issues and things that we can do together on a scale that this challenge demands.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to progress and discussion in Glasgow, but, more importantly, I look forward to progress and action here in Congress and in our communities. Our future and our children's future depend on it.

Madam Speaker, today I rise along with my colleagues, Rep. Bill Pascrell and Rep. Dan Kildee, to commemorate the successful federal career of Ana Hinojosa, Executive Director for Trade Remedy and Law Enforcement at Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) Office of Trade. Ms. Hinojosa retires after more than 33 years of service at CBP.

As Members of the Committee on Ways and Means, we would like to commend Ms. Hinojosa on her efforts to support and lead CBP's trade functions. She has served in many trade-related roles in her time at CBP, including at the World Customs Organization (WCO), where she led the directorate that is responsible for assisting WCO Members in implementing effective and efficient controls, ensuring fair and accurate revenue collection, and protecting society by intercepting and suppressing illicit and criminal activities.

Ms. Hinojosa has also played an instrumental role in CBP's enforcement of the prohibition on the importation of goods made with forced labor. As Members who worked hard to close the ``consumptive demand'' loophole in the import ban in 2016, we recognize that the key to the effectiveness of the improved law would be strong enforcement.

Ms. Hinojosa has been critical in leading CBP's efforts in this regard. During numerous congressional briefings, Ms. Hinojosa demonstrated her work ethic and passion for this issue, supporting enforcement on a wide array of products from a diverse group of countries. While much more remains to be done on forced labor, we applaud Ms. Hinojosa's work to dramatically expand and improve CBP's enforcement efforts on this critically important issue.

Ms. Hinojosa was also a Past President of Executive Women in Government, which is an organization that focuses on helping women in middle- to upper-level management positions reach Executive level positions in the U.S. Government.

We wish to congratulate Ms. Hinojosa on her retirement and express of gratitude for her many years of public service, particularly her commitment to enforcing the prohibition of forced labor imports. We wish her the best in her future endeavors.

Madam Speaker, I thank Congressman Levin for the courtesy of yielding to me and for organizing this recognition for Richard Trumka.

As has been documented here on the floor this evening, he was truly a giant in terms of organized labor, for social justice, his passion, his energy. But I wanted to just note one item that I thought was really remarkable.

As I became chair of the Trade Subcommittee on Ways and Means, Mr. Trumka arranged for me to have lunch with him and a half dozen different leaders, with six international union presidents talking about the need to be able to have a worker-centered trade policy.

It was a remarkable exchange of ideas and opinions and commitments to work together. And we took a NAFTA agreement that could not pass on the floor of the House and worked together to be able to have a process that was worthy of support. There was nobody who was more essential to that than Richard Trumka, who was tireless in his efforts to make sure that that legislation moving forward would respect workers' rights, that we would deal with enforcement of labor agreements. They should be worth the paper they were printed on.

I'll go to my grave convinced that if we had had that opportunity earlier with the Obama administration, we wouldn't have had some of those concerns, we could have resolved issues of investor-state and worker rights.

Rich Trumka was tireless in terms of his determination. He was a tough negotiator. He was fair. He was honest. As I say, reaching out even to a new subcommittee chair. He took the time, brought people together so that we could fashion an area of common cause going forward.

It struck me, as the measure of the man, with all the things that were on his plate, that he would take the time to deal with these important details and be able to expose it to other labor leaders. It is the measure of his leadership, the legacy that he leaves, and we are all fortunate that we have had an opportunity to work with him over the years. He will be missed but his legacy will linger on.

Madam Speaker, today I introduced the Medical Marijuana Research Act. This legislation would remove barriers for research into cannabis and facilitate access to an increased supply of higher quality medical grade cannabis for research purposes.

The cannabis laws in this country are broken, including our laws that govern cannabis research. Because cannabis is a Schedule I substance, researchers must jump through hoops and comply with onerous requirements just to do basic research on the medical potential of the plant.

The Medical Marijuana Research Act amends the Controlled Substances Act to establish a new, separate registration process, specific for marijuana. The bill would both streamline the often-duplicative licensure process for researchers seeking to conduct cannabis research and facilitate access to an increased supply of higher quality medical grade cannabis for research purposes.

The Medical Marijuana Research Act will ensure that research on cannabis and other potentially beneficial marijuana-derived substances is based on sound science and reduce the regulatory barriers associated with marijuana research. The legislation requires the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to license outside of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to ensure that there is an adequate supply of cannabis product to study. The legislation also shortens timelines, reduces unnecessary security measures, and streamlines approval for researchers.

I look forward to working with my colleagues in the House and Senate to enact this legislation and enable research into the medical impacts from using cannabis so Americans have adequate access to potentially transformative medicines and treatments.

Madam Speaker, today I am pleased to introduce the Bringing Regulatory Advances into Neuroscience (BRAIN) Act of 2021.

Today, brain and central nervous system (CNS) disorders account for an incredible burden both on individual patients and their families as well as the United States health care system. One in five adults in America--more than 50 million people--live with a mental illness while 20 million Americans suffer from a neurological condition. Brain diseases and disorders cost the U.S. more than $1.5 trillion per year, a significant portion of which is paid for by the Medicare program. Seven of the 21 chronic conditions tracked by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are related to the brain and this represents an average annual cost of $23,325 per Medicare beneficiary, higher than the average cost for all other chronic conditions.

The BRAIN Act of 2021 would establish a Neuroscience Center of Excellence (NCOE) under the Food and Drug Administration. Modeled after the FDA's Oncology Center of Excellence, an NCOE would create opportunities for innovation in the development and regulation of treatments for brain diseases and disorders. By focusing on patients, it would ensure that investments in research are more likely to produce safe and effective treatments which would provide relief for those who have been waiting too long.

The blueprint for a center of excellence like this was included in a discussion draft of 21st Century Cures 2.0, circulated by my colleagues Representatives DeGette and Upton. The draft legislation would require the FDA to create at least two new intercenter institutes, including one focusing on high prevalence and burdensome diseases like those affecting the brain and CNS.

It is clear that there is an enormous need to address these conditions and a Neuroscience Center of Excellence would make significant progress for people who have been suffering for far too long.

I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan legislation.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy and his leadership on this issue. I agree with his comments earlier.

The notion that somehow this is a wild, Democratic, socialist spending spree and we need to raise the debt ceiling to deal with it is patently false. I just note that there was $5 trillion that was spent recently in the end of the Trump administration and recently here dealing with the COVID crisis.

Much of that spending was passed on a bipartisan basis. It wasn't wild socialist spending. These are funds that the American people desperately needed.

The dismissive comment about cash for kids--give me a break. Being able to provide 69 million American children with monthly payments has resulted in lifting almost half of poor children out of poverty, and it is wildly popular by the American public. This is not reckless. This is reasonable. It is more necessary now than ever.

I do hope we are able to move forward with the broad outline of programs moving forward for infrastructure, the environment, and fighting the climate crisis. In the meantime, we must and we will meet our obligations to pay for money that the Congress has already spent.

Now, I see my colleague Brendan Boyle here who has an idea to stop the lunacy of the debt ceiling charade for a long-term solution. But unless and until we do that, we need to meet our obligations and be able to protect the full faith and credit of the United States, and I hope we do that in a more honest basis.

Madam Speaker, Portland Metro Councilor Bob Stacey announced he is going to retire next month. To say Bob is an unsung hero is true only for those who were never privileged to work with Bob or watch him in action. He is a hero in every sense of the word and the quintessential champion for livability in our community--and not just for Oregon--because his long and distinguished career earned him a national reputation.

I have had the special privilege to work with Bob in every facet of his distinguished career. As a young legislator, he worked to enact Oregon's landmark land use legislation; and Bob, as a young attorney for the One Thousand Friends of Oregon, fought to establish and protect Oregon's iconic land use legislation with pioneers like Henry Richmond, Dick Benner, and Richard Whitman--true Oregon pioneers. His work put him into direct conflict with the cult, the Rajneeshees, who at that point had taken over the central Oregon town of Antelope. They actually tried to poison him as he had the courage to stand up for the integrity of local government and land use planning.

When I was elected to the Portland City Council and became the commissioner of public works, Bob was my chief of staff helping to manage a diverse portfolio of critical bureaus including planning, transportation, and environmental services. He was director of the Portland Planning Bureau for over 5 years with landmark achievements including the Central City Plan and the Albina Community Plan during a very challenging time for the city financially. And Bob was respected and beloved by the planning bureau staff. He was tireless and creative.

He spent a period of time in private practice I think just to figure out what it was like. He served as a special adviser to Governor Barbara Roberts. He was executive director at our regional transportation agency TriMet, director of planning and policy, and then he was executive director of the One Thousand Friends of Oregon, the watchdog group committed to protecting the integrity of our land use.

He barely lost a race for the metro council president but then went on to serve three terms as a councilor where he was insightful and influential for our entire region. He has been a thought leader in all things that matter--environmental protection, land use, climate, traffic congestion, affordable housing, air quality, and economic development. He was always clear-eyed and visionary, but thoughtful, all while being one of the nicest people, Madam Speaker, you would ever want to meet.

He is stepping down in a few days to deal with some health issues, and while I will miss him, it is important that he take care of himself.

Oregon thanks Bob for an exemplary achievement in public service in his own quiet, thoughtful way. He has been a key part of all the important issues in our region for almost half a century, and I thank him for his lifetime of public service.

Let me express my deep appreciation to the committee and staff for helping us zero in on a couple of things that are longstanding interests of mine.

One is an amendment requiring the Department of Defense to have a cost estimate and program evaluation for unexpected cost increases for the W80-40 nuclear warhead life extension program. I appreciate this giving us a little more information.

But I would like to focus on one particular area that has been deeply troubling me for years. I have, in the middle of the city of Portland, a Superfund site that people have been working on cleaning up the toxic residue of years. And one party has not been a part of this effort, the Department of Defense.

The Department of Defense built and decommissioned battleships for World War I, World War II, and the Korean war in the heart of the city. We have been working on a hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars cleanup working with the private sector, working with individuals, with utilities, and local governments. The Federal Government has been missing in action.

We found this last summer as we were starting some of the remedial cleanup. Over 400 shells were dug up, and still, the Department of Defense is missing in action, not taking responsibility for cleaning up the toxic legacy of military activities in my community and around the country.

I have worked on this for years. I have been extraordinarily frustrated that the Department of Defense pushes this responsibility off. It is time to change. I appreciate what the committee has done. I hope this is a new era.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman's courtesy and I appreciate the work that has been done with the en bloc amendment, that is, adopted a proposal that I had to fully fund the $1.7 million in reoccurring annual appropriations to meet ongoing operations and maintenance of in-lieu fishing sites along the Columbia River.

Mr. Speaker, these are areas that had been fished by Native people for a millennia. But with the construction of the dam projects, they were flooded out. There was an obligation on our part to be able to deal with these sites, some of which are used for year-round housing, and the conditions are appalling in terms of lack of sanitation, distressingly unset, not proper electricity, sewers, or water.

I am pleased that we are starting to address this opportunity to be able to do right by these Native people. It is an obligation that is long overdue. If you look at it, it is appalling. These are conditions that one does not expect to see in the United States. These are people who have fished in this area for

generations. They deserve to have the Federal Government meet its long overdue obligations to restore those in-lieu fishing sites.

I appreciate the committee putting my amendment in the en bloc, and I hope it will move forward so that we can finally square accounts with Native people in these historic sites.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy in permitting me to speak on this bill.

I never served in theater, but I have worked on this issue for 14 years. We started with Senator John McCain and Senator Kennedy, and it moved forward on a bipartisan basis, both the House and the Senate, with the special immigrant visa. But, sadly, it always was too slow, too bureaucratic, and there really wasn't the sense of urgency that was necessary to make sure that the people who put their lives on the line to help Americans in these difficult circumstances were dealt with.

Something has changed. First of all, President Biden has made an extraordinarily difficult call that we are going to wind down that presence of the United States in terms of military. It is a difficult call. It was one that needed to be made because the circumstances were not going to change. If it was 5 years, 10 years, it would just be more billions of dollars and more lives; putting off the day of reckoning.

I admire the President for doing so, but I hope he brings that same sense of urgency to deal with these people who we can't afford to leave behind.

Another thing that has changed is the energy of new Members of Congress who served in the theater; my colleague, Jason Crow. We just heard from Peter Meijer. They have added a sense of urgency on a bipartisan basis that has helped us craft this legislation, that will solve the problems if we are willing to implement it in full force.

I call upon the administration to expedite the transition. I call on all of us to continue to make sure that we provide the resources, the attention, and the urgency to make the program successful. But make no mistake, we have a lot of work to do to protect people who helped us. Being a friend should not be fatal.

Mr. Speaker, I urge approval of this legislation as an important next step and urge that we redouble our efforts to make it successful.