Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, the trial of Larry Nassar and the testimonies of more than 150 brave women have illuminated many injustices. One of the most critical is that our institutions are fundamentally failing to protect young women and men against predators. Officials at USA Gymnastics, Michigan State University, and the U.S. Olympics committee knew about multiple allegations against Nassar. They knew for years, and they did nothing to reprimand the perpetrator or prevent it from happening again to other young athletes.

This bill, however, does not go far enough. Changes to the governance of these bodies going forward is clearly insufficient to guard the rights of those victims who have already been harmed. The burden should not rest solely on those victims brave enough to advance their claim in a court of law.

The past several months in particular have brought to light the systemic problem of sexual harassment and assault. From Larry Nassar, to Harvey Weinstein, to powerful, elected officials, we've allowed sexual predators and harassers to escape scrutiny and consequences for their actions for far too long. This is unacceptable and it's our responsibility to act. We must continue to not only unmask these individuals and their enablers and bring them to justice, but also work tirelessly to prevent these assaults from happening in the first place.

And to the countless survivors of sexual assault and harassment who so boldly continue to share their stories--I hear you, I believe you, and I thank you for your courage.

Mr. Speaker, my vote on January 22 is the same as my vote the prior time: No. The situation is the same as it was then, except there is one week fewer to actually get something done.

This legislation represents a fundamental failure on the part of Republicans to govern. This bill does next to nothing for Community Health Centers, the Children's Health Insurance Program, our veterans, our pension systems--some of which are in a state of crisis, and the victims of natural disasters. Hundreds of thousands of people in Puerto Rico remain without power. And, most glaringly, this bill does nothing to improve the situation of two-thirds of a million Dreamers, who deserve certainty and protection but whose lives Trump's reckless actions have turned upside down.

The situation continues to be outrageous, and it doesn't have to be this way. The priorities I'm fighting for are broadly supported by the American public. We should be able to address them directly and quickly, but I fear that we will be in the exact same spot in three weeks.

Mr. Speaker, with the passing of our dear friend Roy Sampsel this past November, we lost a legend in Oregon tribal politics. His Celebration of Life was held in Portland Wednesday, January 24th. Roy understood that honoring and protecting tribal rights is a critical component of a just society. For tribes along the Columbia River and across the Pacific Northwest, Roy fought to ensure that tribal voices, values, and traditions were woven into the fabric of natural resource policy. He was a compassionate and dedicated advocate whose gift of leadership made him effective as a tireless protector of tribal resources. His lifetime of work with state and federal governments, the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, Portland State University, and beyond pointed us all in the right direction, and continues to make a difference today. While he will be sorely missed, his legacy will live on through the works of the many he mentored.

Mr. Speaker, I share the frustration of the American public who overwhelmingly support protecting young DREAMers, authorizing the Children's Health Program and the community health centers that serve them, and funding government long term, not week to week.

Part of the solution is obvious: Donald Trump should not be in the negotiations, in part, because he doesn't understand the complexities. Indeed, it appears he doesn't even understand the basics. He frequently changes his mind, agreeing with what he last saw on FOX News or heard from the last person he talked to.

The weekend news was filled with accounts of his confusion and how destructive his participation has been, acknowledged by Republicans and Democrats alike, even frustrating his own staff.

Maybe it is time to just ignore Donald Trump and his tweets, send him lots of cheeseburgers, and keep this news off FOX. Without Trump's participation, we will reach a better solution, and we will do it faster.

Mr. Speaker, today is the first anniversary of complete Republican control of our government--the President, the Senate, the House.

When they wanted to deliver their tax plan, the largest transfer of wealth to the richest Americans, they could move with lightning speed. Bipartisanship? Democrats were completely shut out. Although, to be fair, Republicans didn't even know what they were voting on.

DREAMers weren't here illegally until Donald Trump ended the DACA program. If the Republicans had the courage to allow bipartisan legislation on the floor to fix this problem, it would pass overwhelmingly.

The Republicans had known for months that the important and popular CHIP program would end this fall. If they would allow the reauthorization on the floor, it would pass with 400 votes and save us $6 billion over the next 10 years.

Republicans should use their complete control of government to govern. And if they can't agree amongst themselves and want our help, then work with us, but don't hold the American public and their government hostage to your most extreme Members and their radical ideas.

Mr. Speaker, today friends, coworkers, and admirers of Jim Piro gathered to acknowledge his 37 years of service to Portland General Electric and to our community.

For the last eight years Jim has been president and CEO of Oregon's largest public utility. In that role he has worked to help advance that utility's efforts to contribute to Oregon's clean energy standards. During his tenure, PGE worked to strengthen its portfolio of clean energy, and is scheduled to be coal free by 2035. By 2040, half of Oregon's electricity will come from renewables and PGE will play a significant role in that transition. Jim was one of the first business leaders to denounce the Trump Administration's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, stressing the importance of national and international actions on climate, which are becoming more urgent over the last decade. He has provided business and civic leadership that has made a difference in the Portland community and beyond. We wish this proud Benson High School engineer well as he transitions into this next phase.

Mr. Speaker, here we are again, facing the possibility of a government shutdown. It is one of the most foolish acts possible. What we have seen in the past when this occurs where there are some people who decide they want to force the government to shut down.

It only hurts our employees, and it hurts the public, having a denial of service in many instances. The employees are sent home. They are off the payroll temporarily. But what has always happened is that we always end up paying them because it is not their fault, and, as a result, the taxpayer loses twice. They lose the services, and they end up having to pay, essentially, public employees to take a forced vacation.

Now, the current controversy is largely about the fate of almost 700,000 undocumented young people who were brought here as children. This shouldn't be a matter of major debate. We can take care of the immigration issues if we allow the process to work.

Remember a couple years ago the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill--not perfect, maybe a C-plus on the scale, but it would have fixed the problem in the short and intermediate term. Unfortunately, the House leadership never allowed us to vote on it, probably because they knew it would pass.

Now we are facing anxiety again. We have had people arguing about what vulgarity the President used or who is acting in good faith, but the fact is that we have a proposal from Senator Durbin and Senator Graham, a bipartisan proposal, that met the broad outlines that the President earlier talked about that looks as though it will pass the Senate, and we have a strong possibility of passing here in the House.

Now, there is some controversy. People are suggesting Democrats want to shut the government down. Absolutely not. My Republican friends are in complete control of the House and the Senate and the White House, and they can, as they did recently with the short-term extension, pass it themselves. But if they want to work with us, they ought to include us in this effort.

I would suggest that we stop governing behind closed doors and having the majority party cater to a small handful of people who are making demands that would not be acceptable to the broad House and probably aren't even acceptable to most Republicans. Let's bring the best approaches forward.

It is pretty simple. Allow the House to vote on the Graham-Durbin proposal. I understand there is one from our friend Mr. Goodlatte, Congressman McCaul. Bring them forward.

There are legislative processes--queen of the Hill, king of the Hill--where you can have multiple votes on issues that are related, and at the end there is one that is left standing that represents the majority.

I would suggest that there is no reason to play games with the integrity of government services, play games with our employees, and play games with providing key services to the public; and, most importantly, stop using almost 700,000 young people and millions of their family members, their employers, and their fellow workers as pawns.

Let's bring the proposals forward, allow an up-or-down vote, and resolve this rather than threaten the possibility of wasting money, wasting services, and further frustrating the American public. They deserve better. This is a simple resolution that was in our capacity this week.

Mr. Speaker, Congress has sometimes made the difficult job of the intelligence community harder by not providing adequate controls and oversight. We have created a vast Department of Homeland Security, a vast security sprawling intelligence network that results in the collection of data that my friend, Mr. Poe, talked about. Yes, warrants can sometimes be inconvenient, but we have judged it as a small price to pay to protect Americans from government overreach.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, one of the phrases one often hears is, ``I hate to say I told you so.'' And it is delivered with a feigned sincerity, but usually people actually like to say, ``I told you so.''

I must confess that I have some of those feelings myself, as repeatedly during the few hours the Ways and Means Committee met, rushing through the massive tax cut, the largest transfer of wealth in our Nation's history, which will be paid for on the backs of our children and grandchildren with increased debt and benefiting people who in the main don't need it--I said at the time that each week after this bill passed, if it did, we would have a series of embarrassing stories about mistakes and oversight and special interest provisions that were stuck into it.

Well, actually, the fact is that that was somewhat understated because we are seeing, literally, every day people understand what was tucked in the bill: mistakes, oversight, and special interest provisions.

For example, there is a provision in the bill that was, we were told, designed to help small craft brewers. That is important to me and the people I represent, and there is broad support for minor provisions that would be able to help them by reducing their tax liability. But the provision that ended up in the final bill has massive opportunities to benefit large producers--a little bit for small craft brewers, but for large, international distillers, an opportunity to reconfigure how they do business to take advantage of multiple opportunities for that tax break.

There was an article yesterday talking about how the tax rate for American companies that manufacture overseas, the tax on that activity will be half as much as if they were manufacturing in the United States, providing an incentive to offshore jobs at a time when most of us would like to make sure that it is, here at home, at least, a level playing field, not to disadvantage people manufacturing here at home.

And, of course, there is another story in today's Wall Street Journal, ``Tax Law's Effect Fuels Farm Outcry,'' because there was a provision inserted in the bill that would give farmers a more lucrative deduction when they sell agricultural products directly to farm cooperatives. There is a story about one gentleman in there who felt that this could put him out of business. It is going to sting large agribusinesses like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland. The new provision could reshape parts of the agriculture economy and sharply reduce many farmers' taxes as well as scrambling these individual businesses.

John Power, a North Dakota accountant who was the accountant for the small grain operator who is going to be hammered, said: ``It is kind of hard to imagine they intended to make farming tax free. Fixing it becomes difficult because they don't think it's something that can be fixed with regulation.''

There are a variety of these provisions that are a result of not following what we call ``regular order,'' without having hearings on the provision, of allowing lobbyists and staff to be able to draft the bill on the fly without having members of the committee--not just Democrats, but Republicans--fully know what was in it. That is legislative malpractice. It is one of the reasons why, despite giving over $3 trillion of tax cuts, the bill remains unpopular.

Americans are nervous about increasing our national debt over $2 trillion, and they know that the benefits for average citizens are going to go away in a few years and some are actually going to see tax increases, but the benefits for the top 1 percent and the largest corporations are permanent.

People know that it is not fair, that it is unnecessary, and that it is going to have more and more problems here, not just in States like mine where citizens are no longer going to be able to fully deduct their State and local taxes, property taxes, resulting in significant inequity, in scrambling property values, not just in Oregon, but it is across the country where people are going to be facing these problems.

Mr. Speaker, Friday, the Trump administration declared war on State legalization of marijuana as they come out on the wrong side of history and the American public.

The Obama administration recognized that the vast voter-driven movement to legalize marijuana at the State level was something that couldn't be stopped and, in fact, that the Federal Government shouldn't interfere. Their Justice Department issued guidance, known as the Cole amendment, that, as long as these voter-approved State legalization efforts were enforced rigorously and thoughtfully, the Federal Government wouldn't interfere with what the voters wanted.

Friday, Sessions and the Trump administration overruled that guidance and declared open war on the part of 93 U.S. attorneys to feel free to interfere with what local voters have decided.

This is strongly opposed by the American public. Over 60 percent in poll after poll show that Americans favor legalization of marijuana. When it deals with medical marijuana, that percentage is over 90 percent. We have seen State after State, approve medical marijuana including Florida, with a 71 percent ``yes'' vote in November of 2016.

If the question is, regardless of how you feel about marijuana, should the Federal Government interfere with what the voters have decided, three out of four voters say the Federal Government should keep their hands off it.

Luckily, at least as far as medical marijuana is concerned, they are protected from interference by the Justice Department because of the amendment that I have authored with my friend Dana Rohrabacher. It is in the continuing resolution. It needs to be in any long-term funding bill. In fact, we should embrace an amendment by our colleague Tom McClintock from California, that would expand those protections to any State legal marijuana activity.

The Justice Department is not just on the wrong side of history and the American public, they are missing a chance to cure the damage caused by selective and cruel enforcement of marijuana laws. We are still arresting tens of thousands--mostly young men of color, especially African-American men--for something the majority of Americans now think should be legal.

We miss a chance to win the war against opioid death and addiction. In States that have medical marijuana--surprise--there are fewer pills prescribed. The longer the States have had medical marijuana, the lower the overdose deaths. In California, which has had medical marijuana the longest, there are a third fewer opioid deaths. We are missing an opportunity to build on that.

We are missing the opportunity to increase the hundreds of millions of dollars that are now going to the State tax coffers to deal with education and addiction and law enforcement through State legal efforts and away from the drug cartels and the black market. Indeed, if we clean up this mess, we will have billions of dollars to devote to public purposes and further undermine the strength of drug cartels that use the black market to fund their efforts.

It is past time that Congress steps up and fixes this mess.

The good news is this reckless action by the Trump administration and Jeff Sessions will accelerate the time that we support what State and local governments should do: rationalize our cannabis policy and stop this ineffective, failed prohibition.

Mr. Speaker, today I'd like to highlight the achievement of a group of young people in Northeast Portland.

In 2014, fourteen 6th grade girls at Beverly Cleary School formed the Grant Park chapter of Jane Goodall's ``Roots and Shoots'' youth service organization. Their goal was to raise funds for orphaned chimpanzees at Goodall's Tchimpounga Rehabilitation Center in Africa.

The girls' idea was to produce a vegetarian cookbook with sales benefiting the chimpanzee sanctuary. They wrote letters to chefs across the country asking for recipes and then spent most Friday evenings together cooking the food and taking notes. They also created artwork and bios for the chefs to go along with each recipe. Three years later, these young women are in 9th grade and the cookbook, called ``Saving Pan,'' is done.

A first printing of 400 copies of Saving Pan was sold out in a week and raised $4,000 for the Sanctuary. For meeting their goals and making a difference, congratulations to Brooke Abbruzzese, Talia Baskin, Lily Buckenmeyer, Martha Bulkeley, McKenzie Caldicott, Ruby Cooper-Karl, Emma Francioch, Willa Gagnon, Maeve Larco, Matisse Nash, Maya Rashid, Charlotte Stoeger, Hanna Stokes and McKenzie Tell.

Mr. Speaker, it has come to this: Republicans are poised to pass the largest transfer of wealth in our Nation's history, financed by mortgaging our children's future with a mountain of increased debt.

What is wrong with this picture?

Well, first of all, nobody really knows everything that is in this bill. It has been written over the last few days to satisfy donors and win the final few votes necessary for Senate passage. It is not tax reform. It is not even a policy, but a collection of special interest provisions being sold on a false set of promises.

It is, decidedly, not middle class tax relief. It is permanent, massive tax reductions for the largest corporations and wealthy individuals. Every independent expert agrees and the American public understand that the benefits of this bill flow not primarily to the middle class, but to people like Donald Trump.

The vast majority of Americans get little and temporary tax reduction, only to see the bottom 80 percent of our taxpayers, on average, actually facing a tax increase when the bill is fully phased in.

The permanent, massive tax reduction for the privileged few comes at a very high cost for the rest of America. Despite false promises, it will not remotely pay for itself through economic growth.

We start with a massive increase in national debt; increased interest costs; a total increase of $2.3 trillion, and likely very higher as the accountants and lawyers discover how to fully exploit the many new loopholes created by lobbyists.

This bill is not tax simplification. It greatly complicates the Tax Code. Look at trying to understand just the passthrough provisions.

Also, we have an IRS that is struggling right now because my Republican friends have cut its budget 17 percent since 2010. They have 23,000 fewer employees, an outmoded data processing system, and more taxpayers--10 million more returns. It is not clear the IRS can even administer this bill.

Middle America will pay with increased economic insecurity, as it will increase insurance premiums an average of 10 percent a year. It will destabilize the health insurance market and increase the ranks of the uninsured by 13 million people over the next 10 years.

Most Americans will pay the price with the massive increase in debt, making it harder for everyone who wants to borrow money to start a business, finance a college education, or buy a home. It increases the likelihood of sending even more American money overseas to pay for the foreign holders of American debt that has increased.

It does not address the problem of offshoring our economic activities and the resulting revenue loss. It provides more incentives for this to continue and even get worse. The increased debt will make it even harder to rebuild and renew America and to meet the needs of our aging and growing population.

After the wreckage of the Amtrak train in the Pacific Northwest, Trump pointed out the need for infrastructure investment to rebuild and renew the country. That is not going to happen.

It is already triggering an automatic $25 billion cut in Medicare. Republicans are scrambling to figure out how to avoid that. We are hearing from Republican leadership that this increased debt illustrates the need to cut back on programs that meet the needs of average Americans and low-income citizens while we are showering increased tax benefits on the wealthy.

It has been a bonanza for all the attorneys, accountants, and lobbyists finding ways to further enrich the most privileged. In the weeks to come, we will find out more special gifts used to nail down the last few votes. I don't know whether the Corker kickback is true or not, but it leaves the public wondering why the immediate about-face from the Senator from Tennessee when nothing has changed except there have been a few provisions added.

No wonder the American public is opposed. They are right, and the Republicans are wrong.

Mr. Speaker, this bill will be the largest transfer of wealth in our Nation's history, financed by mortgaging our children's future with a mountain of increased debt. It is not really even a policy. It is, rather, a collection of special interest provisions being sold on a false set of promises.

It is not middle class tax relief. It is, instead, permanent and massive tax reduction for the largest corporations and wealthy individuals like Donald Trump. Eighty-three percent will flow to the top 1 percent.

Everybody else will receive only a small, and temporary, tax reduction. Ultimately, 86 million Americans, middle class Americans, will have their taxes increased.

This legislation fails utterly to invest in the American people for this $2.3 trillion. But it is a bonanza for the attorneys, the accountants, and the lobbyists finding ways to further enrich the most privileged in America.

And, for weeks to come, we are going to learn more about the special gifts hidden within this bill to nail down the last few votes.

No wonder the American public is opposed. They are right, and the Republicans are wrong.

Mr. Speaker, had I been present for the vote today on the Democratic Motion to Recommit H.R. 2396 (Roll Call No. 681), I would have voted aye. The motion would require financial institutions found to have engaged in deceptive or fraudulent practices to continue to annually report their policies and practices regarding the disclosure of nonpublic, personal information.

Additionally, had I been present for the vote on H.R. 2396 (Roll Call No. 682), I would have voted no. This bill would ease the annual privacy notice requirements for financial institutions that share consumers' non-public personal information with nonaffiliated third party companies, weakening important consumer protections.

I'm deeply frustrated that the House has, yet again, decided to take up a measure intended to violate U.S. obligations under the Iran nuclear agreement. Though the nuclear agreement explicitly commits the United States to resuming the licensing of new commercial aircraft sales to Iran for civilian use, H.R. 4324 would impose additional certification requirements on the Treasury Department in order to carry out these current obligations.

Given Trump's clear disdain for having to take affirmative action to keep the agreement intact, this attempt by Congressional Republicans to force his administration to act further on the sale of commercial aircraft is shameful. Thus, had I been present for the vote on the Motion to Recommit H.R. 4324 (Roll Call No. 683), I would have voted aye. Had I been present for the vote on final passage of H.R. 4324 (Roll Call No. 684), I would have voted no.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentlewoman's courtesy, and I appreciate her advocacy on this.

This is serious business. There are people--no secret--in the administration and there are people in Congress who would like to undermine this agreement. The mixed signals that have been sent by the administration are truly disturbing.

One has to wonder what North Korea is thinking about, that there are people who suggest that we ought to go ahead and blow it up when, in fact, they are abiding by the terms of the agreement, and officials in the administration agree with this. What sort of deterrent is that to North Korea in terms of its reckless action with nuclear weapons? It seems to reinforce that behavior.

But there are also elements in Iran, hardliners who didn't agree with this agreement, who felt that it was too evenhanded, who felt that the leadership gave up too much, and who don't want closer relationships with the United States or the other Western powers that worked with us--including China and Russia--to enact this historic agreement, which, as I pointed out, was agreed to even by officials in the Trump administration that Iran has abided by.

Are they a nation of bad actors? Absolutely. There are forces within the government that are very destructive. But the point is we focused on something that all of us agree is absolutely critical, and that is not having Iran rushing forward to become another nuclear state. We have seen that the breakout time under this agreement has lengthened. It is acting as we intended.

It was also one of those rare areas where we actually had Germany, Great Britain, France, Russia, and China working with us to negotiate an agreement.

Now, this is going to be perceived as an effort by the United States to undermine the agreement. Should we give them and the hardliners in Iran an excuse to walk away because we violated it? What is going to be the assessment of our allies who are deeply committed to this and have resisted efforts to unravel it?

We need all the help we can get in the international arena. We have watched this administration systematically isolate us, this last week with the reckless decision to go ahead and relocate the Embassy--or at least claim we are going to relocate the Embassy--condemned by virtually everybody else in the world. We are standing alone with an action to destabilize a very volatile situation.

This comes forward at a time when Iran is abiding by it, to go ahead and crank up the report on the assets of a variety of Iran's senior political, religious, and military leaders, including people who aren't subject to the sanctions.

It is placing, it has been mentioned, strain on the Department that has finite resources--it needs to focus on things--taking away resources from efforts to target on actual sanctionability. It seems to be decidedly wrongheaded.

It is interesting that Congress had until this week to reimpose the sanction lifted under the agreement per Trump's decertification in October. Congress chose not to. I think that was a wise decision. To me, it indicates, at least, that the agreement has been largely successful.

But, if we are going to jeopardize the framework, giving the hardline elements an opportunity to claim that we are repudiating, while giving a green light to some of the folks there who have no intention of being able to work on a cooperative basis, we ought not to fan the flames. We ought to be trying to nurture opportunities for cooperation.

We should focus on areas where they are doing things we don't agree with. If you want to target some specific sanctions that we somehow haven't imposed that are within the purview of the framework and wouldn't violate it, go ahead. But having these actions, I think, sends the wrong signal. It is the wrong resource.

Mr. Chairman, I think it is important to reject this legislation.