Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, America's water systems are in crisis. The American Society of Civil Engineers 2017 report card graded our wastewater infrastructure a D+, while drinking water received a D. While our clean water needs are estimated to be nearly $11 billion per year, appropriations for clean water infrastructure have averaged just $1.4 billion per year over the past five years. Drinking water infrastructure is in worse shape--the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that we need to invest over $19 billion annually to ensure the provision of safe tap water, while Congress appro riates less than $1 billion. Though most of our water and wastewater systems are 75 to 100 years old, these growing challenges are not due to age alone: federal investment has fallen more than 85 percent since 1977.

Our failure to maintain and improve our water infrastructure doesn't only result in a poor grade on paper, it has real and dangerous outcomes, like the ongoing lead crisis in Flint, MI or lead-tainted water in Portland Public Schools. Water infrastructure-related problems are not confined to attention-grabbing headlines. Last year alone, American communities suffered more than 250,000 water main breaks and saw overflowing combined sewer systems--causing contamination, property damage, disruptions in the water supply, and massive traffic jams. These problems will only increase. It is time to establish a dedicated trust fund for water infrastructure similar to the Highway Trust Fund.

In honor of Water Week, today, I'm introducing the Water Infrastructure Trust Fund Act. This bipartisan bill will provide a small, deficit-neutral source of revenue to help states replace, repair, and rehabilitate critical clean and drinking water facilities. Half of the trust fund revenue will be distributed to local governments as grants and loans through the existing Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) for wastewater treatment construction, while the other 50 percent will be distributed through the existing Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) to finance projects to meet federal drinking water standards.

The Water Infrastructure Trust Fund Act is a step in the right direction to addressing our growing water challenges, keeping our kids and families healthy and our communities safe, livable, and economically secure.

Mr. Speaker, one of the most disturbing aspects of the Republican attack on the Affordable Care Act and the success we have had in extending care to Americans has been the specific attack on Medicaid. Fourteen million of the 24 million people who will lose coverage under the Republican bill are under the Medicaid program. Medicaid is critical to the provision of health care in the United States. Medicaid covers more people than Medicare.

Medicaid expansion has been transformational in the 31 States that took advantage of the provision in the Affordable Care Act to provide coverage to people who make up to 138 percent of poverty--roughly $16,600 for a single individual and almost $34,000 for a family of four.

Until then, Medicaid has provided extension of care to the elderly, to the poor, and to the disabled. It was helpful, but very restrictive. In some cases, people who earned a modest sum--$7,000, $10,000, $12,000--were ineligible, especially in those 19 States that refused to take advantage of the opportunity to expand the Medicaid coverage at Federal expense.

Mr. Speaker, this is America. So even though these poor, disabled people did not have access to Medicaid, many of them did ultimately secure health care. But they got it too late. They got it in the emergency room. They didn't get it in a clinic in a timely fashion. And, of course, the cost for that charity care in emergency rooms or in clinics was borne by the rest of us in increased costs for our insurance.

The Republican draconian provisions, even before they put into effect an absolutely unnecessary and unenforceable work requirement, will be devastating to millions. Bear in mind, these people now are receiving care in an appropriate clinic session. They will be getting it now when it is too late, and that burden shifted on to the rest of us.

There will be a tax credit that doesn't help people who don't have enough money to buy meaningful coverage in the private market. Under the Republican plan, coverage will become worse, deductibles and copays will become higher, and we risk destabilizing the insurance market for the rest of us.

Now, we have heard on the floor, in committee, and on the news shows our Republican friends and the President talking about the Affordable Care Act is in a death spiral and that the insurance industry is collapsing. Hardly.

There was a fascinating article in the weekend New York Times that looked at the insurance industry. Since March of 2010, with the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the overall stock market has more than doubled. It has increased 136 percent. But the managed care health organizations have increased their stock value almost 300 percent. The largest, UnitedHealth, 480 percent.

A signal of an industry in a death spiral?

Absolutely not. The companies are healthy and investors are bidding up their stock. The CBO report that our Republican friends did not want us to have before we voted on the bill in committee in the middle of the night testifies to this underlying stability of the insurance market and the Affordable Care Act.

Medicaid under the Republican plan will be shifted back increasingly to the States, which have repeatedly proven that they are incapable of maintaining high eligibility funding to help the poor and the near poor. And when budget crunches hit, it is the poor who suffer most with restrictions in their coverage.

We have also heard that the Republican plan will provide much-needed flexibility. That is nonsense. There is already ample flexibility under the Affordable Care Act. I represent Oregon. We were able to negotiate an agreement with the Federal Government under the 1115 waiver program that other States have that represented a unique partnership with the Federal Government to achieve better care, better results, and restrain Medicare costs. We have got the flexibility. There is no need to destroy the program.

Mr. Speaker, today, I am reintroducing the Columbia River In-Lieu and Treaty Fishing Access Sites Improvement Act. For decades now, the federal government has forgone its obligations to the four Columbia River Treaty Tribes, after flooding tribal communities, houses, and traditional hunting and fishing sites with the construction of the Bonneville, The Dalles, and John Day dams.

This bill is just part of the work we are pursuing to improve the living conditions at these sites along the Columbia River. This issue deserves significant attention and investment from the federal government. The history of the 31 Columbia River In-Lieu and Treaty Fishing Access Sites dates back decades. Development that began in the 1930s displaced many members of the four Columbia River treaty tribes: the Warm Springs, Umatilla, Nez Perce, and Yakama Nation. Those tribes have a treaty-protected right to fish along the river at their usual and accustomed places that needs to be respected.

The tribes were also promised housing to replace what was inundated after the dams became operational and that promise has largely not been kept. I'm working with my colleagues and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, and the effected tribes to address these unmet needs through the appropriations process and other legislation.

To address fishing access that was wiped out by the dams, the Corps constructed 31 small sites along the Columbia, designed primarily for daily, in-season fishing access and temporary camping. However, largely due to the lack of promised permanent housing and out of a desire to be closer to the Columbia River, their cultural heritage, and traditional fishing areas, many tribal members live in makeshift housing or shelters at these sites. Because they were not designed for longer-term or permanent use, the conditions at these sites are deeply distressing and unsafe, without proper electricity, sewers, or water. I have seen these conditions firsthand on multiple visits, and they have garnered attention from local and national media. The sites are in dire need of urgent upgrades to electrical, sewer, and other infrastructure, beyond their daily operations and maintenance needs.

This legislation calls for BIA to conduct a much-needed assessment of current conditions at the In-Lieu and Treaty Fishing Access sites under BIA ownership on both sides of the Columbia, in coordination with the tribes. It authorizes the BIA to improve existing federal structures and infrastructure, improve sanitation and safety conditions, and improve access to electricity, sewer, and water infrastructure. BIA may contract with tribes and tribal organizations to conduct this important work that will lay a critical foundation for the construction of permanent tribal housing.

This is a significant and meaningful step in improving the living conditions at these sites and should be passed by the House and Senate. Our efforts will not stop here. I will continue working with federal partners and tribal nations to see that the need for more permanent housing is fulfilled and tribal member's treaty rights are respected.

Mr. Speaker, this week commemorates Brain Awareness Week, which presents an important opportunity to educate lawmakers, students, and the broader public about brain science, and its many impacts and benefits. This is critical when you consider that brain disorders and diseases affect the lives of nearly 100 million Americans--from Alzheimer's to ALS to mental illness.

Neurological and neurodegenerative disorders are among the leading causes of disability in the United States and around the world--greater than heart disease and cancer put together. As society ages, this number will increase exponentially as will the cost to the healthcare system and to the economy. Yet, the underlying causes of most neurological diseases remain unknown.

Neuroscience is the next great frontier. Research and work being done in this field needs to be front and center in both the private world and Congress.

The bipartisan Congressional Neuroscience Caucus' mission is to build awareness of the intrinsic role brain research plays in understanding ourselves and our society. As the Co-Founder and Co-Chair, I am committed to working on these important issues and hope my colleagues will join our efforts as members of the Congressional Neuroscience Caucus.

Mr. Speaker, in the aftermath of the November election, it has been exciting to watch the unprecedented outpouring of citizen concern, activism, and, in some cases, outrage. America is finding its voice so Congress can find its spine.

Most recently, the people are demanding Congress be held accountable for the outrageous efforts on behalf of Republicans to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, forcing more expensive coverage for insurance plans that will not be as good and breaking the Trump promise of better, more affordable health care.

It has become clear that the Republican plan would force older Americans between the ages of 50 and 64 to pay 60 percent more for their health insurance coverage.

The Republican plan also seeks to unwind the life-changing expansion under Medicaid that has provided care for the poor, disabled, and lower income and helps people with mental illness and opioid addiction.

Wildly increasing the ranks of the uninsured and lowering the quality of care and affordability is so unacceptable to the American public that it is exposing deep divisions within the Republican ranks.

The wrecking crew is being slowed as public awareness and citizen action spread across the country. This morning, the American public has drawn a new assignment: to resist the Trump budget. It is shocking in its reckless cuts to programs that Americans hold dear.

What does it say that the cuts proposed to the Environmental Protection Agency are so extreme that even the EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, who has made a career out of attacking the EPA, found it too brutal even for him?

The unnecessary expansion of some defense spending, especially the trillion-dollar spending spree that we are embarking on for new nuclear weapons, is completely out of sync with our real defense needs and slashing vital State Department programs that enhance our security.

Trump would not just impose shocking reductions on peacekeeping and humanitarian action, but he would deny the State Department the ability to exercise soft power. This compromises our national security interests and leaves us less safe.

Critical and widely supported lifesaving medical research efforts will be slashed, reversing years of bipartisan effort to enhance medical research to fight disease, illness, and disability.

At a time of housing crisis across the country, some of the few Federal tools to increase affordability and combat homelessness are being cut away.

This budget disaster would even zero out Federal support for public broadcasting, even though it represents just a tiny sliver of Federal budget and supports a vital public service. Public broadcasting is supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans, even those who voted for Donald Trump. Appallingly, those cuts would punish

rural and small town America that are more dependent than anybody else on public broadcasting support to be able to maintain that service.

The people who are resisting this reckless administration have this new assignment: resist the budget; make clear to their representatives that it should be dead on arrival; that decades of bipartisan support for vital programs to protect the environment, human services, international humanitarian interest, medical research, even public broadcasting will not be tolerated.

People are making a difference, but America needs all of us to find our voice so that Congress does its job.

Mr. Speaker, this has been a fascinating 2 weeks here on Capitol Hill. We have had, last week, all night sessions in our Ways and Means Committee and on the Energy and Commerce Committee dealing with the Republican plan to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. At times, Mr. Speaker, it is really hard to process all of the claims and counterclaims that are going on. I feel occasionally like I am in an alternative universe, and it is not just because we were up until 4:30 in the morning debating this.

People have lost track of how we got to this point--what was happening earlier, what has been the benefit and accomplishment of the Affordable Care Act, and what is going to happen moving forward were we to adopt a really disastrous proposal advanced by my Republican friends.

Twenty-five years ago, I was in a different role as Portland's commissioner of public works. And one of the elements in my portfolio for several years was to deal with personnel and benefits and health care. I am fully aware of trying to deal with our 6,000 employees to provide them with affordable health care that the city, as the employer, could afford, and that wasn't too burdensome on our employees. We were caught in a situation with rapidly escalating costs, inflation for medical care twice the rate of the ordinary inflation; we were having problems with employers maintaining coverage in an affordable fashion; and the individual market was, frankly, very chaotic and troublesome.

I have with me here a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation from March of 2009. They talked about these challenges--how the United States healthcare spending had risen from 1970 from 7.2 percent of the gross domestic product to where they projected that it was going to cost us by 2018, next year.

It would be $4.3 trillion, $13,100 per resident, and account for over 20 percent of the gross domestic product.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to say that, as a result of the unprecedented reforms that were incorporated in the Affordable Care Act, we were able to deal with this problem. We began 10 years ago, when Democrats gained control of Congress, working on expansion of the CHIP program, children's health, and it was one of the first actions signed into law by President Obama when he assumed office and we weren't facing a veto from the Bush administration.

We have been working for over 3 years trying to lay the foundation for moving forward with a comprehensive approach for healthcare reform. And it should be noted, for all of the hyperbole about socialized medicine and government dictating outcomes and taking control away from the American people, that is the furthest thing from the truth.

In fact, the program that was developed by President Obama and the Democrats, with no help from Republicans, was actually a middle ground. It relied upon the private insurance that most Americans had through work, and be able to expand that coverage, to be able to improve the quality of care, to be able to rein in medical inflation, to be able to deal with some of the most needy of us, and to be able to have a healthcare system that performed better.

The simple fact is we spend about twice as much as any other developed country in the world. And our outcomes, on average, are worse than what happens in those countries that my friends on the other side of the aisle derided--Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany. As a practical matter, those people get sick less often, they get well faster, they live longer, and they do so for a fraction of what we pay.

So what we did, through a very extensive process--multiple public hearings, meetings, seminars, position papers that were generated from a wide variety of areas--was to assemble a program to deal with that. One of the elements that drew the scorn of my Republican friends, and, in fact, is part of their repeal that is one of the centerpieces, is to repeal the mandate that people have health care.

It is ironic that that has become a target from Republicans because the mandate came from Republican alternatives to HillaryCare in the Clinton administration. In fact, 19 Republican Senators, including Senator Grassley and Senator Hatch, supported a healthcare mandate to be able to expand and stabilize the health insurance market.

Well, what we have done through those 2 years that it was enacted, March 23, 2010--we are approaching the seventh anniversary--it went live in the fall and was fully in effect in 2014. So in the 3 years that the Affordable Care Act has been in place, it has had remarkable achievements.

You recall I mentioned what the studies showed that we were facing with rapidly escalating healthcare costs, where it was estimated that we would be having over 20 percent of the gross domestic product, we would be approaching over $13,100 per resident. Well, that didn't happen. Despite the dire predictions of the Republican opposition, healthcare costs did not skyrocket.

In fact, we anticipate now that instead of being over $13,000 per resident, it is under $10,000 after a couple years of operation of the Affordable Care Act. Not over 20 percent of the gross domestic product, but 18 percent. We have found that these are the lowest rates of medical inflation since we have been keeping track.

The Affordable Care Act, by any stretch of the imagination, has been a success. We have seen coverage expand dramatically to the lowest rate of uninsured in the United States in our history while we have contained costs. That success is all the more remarkable because there has been a concerted effort on the part of the Republicans, from the moment they seized control of the House in 2011, to make it worse.

Bear in mind, the Republicans attacked the Affordable Care Act in court, on the floor of the House, and in terms of trying to muddy the waters on the State level. The Supreme Court challenge to the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act failed. The Supreme Court decided that the Affordable Care Act was constitutional and would remain.

But the Supreme Court made a devastating decision that allowed individual States to opt out of Medicaid expansion. That was part of the program that was so important to be able to extend care on a cost- effective basis to some of the lowest income people in the country. Thirty-one States did. Nineteen States refused to do so. That undercut the coverage, made huge problems, created situations where there were people in the Republican-controlled States that refused to extend Medicaid, despite the fact that the Federal Government was paying for it, that we had people who were too poor to qualify for assistance. Shocking, embarrassing, and to the detriment of those States, they had much worse outcomes.

But it is ironic that some of the people who started attacking the Congressional Budget Office projections about the impact of the Republican plan pointed to the calculation on the part of the CBO that they underestimated the number of people who would be uninsured.

Well, that was precisely because there was no expectation that States would not expand Medicare, and if that unfortunate decision hadn't been made, we would, in fact, have seen them hit their target numbers.

Despite the claims of outrage on the Republican side that there would be employers dropping coverage for their employees en masse, we found that, in the main, employers retained coverage. Now, this is not the case going forward with the Republican proposal.

I think there was a reason why my Republican friends insisted on jamming this through the Ways and Means Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee before we had a chance for the scorekeeper, the CBO, to give the results of their analysis: because they knew how bad it would look.

The CBO anticipates that there will be 14 million more uninsured Americans, including 2 million who will lose coverage provided by their employer because of the way their alternative tax credit for health insurance would be structured. In my State, it is estimated that as many as 465,000 Oregonians could lose coverage. The uninsured rate will triple in our State.

One of the areas that has been most successful with the Affordable Care Act has been for older Americans. They benefit from the protections against discrimination, and they are going to see a return to much higher premiums and higher costs.

The Republican plan would take the requirement that seniors pay no more than three times the rate of insurance for premiums for younger people, that will be five times greater. And instead of the subsidy that is based on income, there will just be a flat subsidy across the board. This means, in practice, that older Americans are going to face steeply higher premiums, and they are going to pay far more out-of- pocket because of the less generous subsidy.

One example that ought to get, I think, everybody's attention: In 2026, a 64-year-old with an income of about $26,500 would pay $14,600 for their health insurance as opposed to $1,700 today, an increase of almost $13,000.

Now, there are winners and losers under the Republican approach. The healthy, young people will catch a break, but older Americans will pay a lot more at precisely the time when they need health insurance.

Now, our Speaker appeared to be confused when he was describing the difference between the Republican approach and the Affordable Care Act, when he talked about how all of these people are being subsidized by the majority, who aren't sick. As many commentators rushed to point out to the Speaker, that is what insurance is about. Many people pay some to subsidize those who suffer loss. You pay a couple of hundred dollars a year for auto insurance so that, when you have a $10,000 loss, that is picked up by the people who don't suffer a loss but paid the premiums nonetheless.

Think about what the Republicans have put in place. They are doubling down on what the Trump administration has done trying to discredit the efficacy of the program, casting it in

doubt. The administration has already stopped enforcing the mandate.

The IRS is supposed to check and enforce to make sure that people sign up for the ACA and everybody is part of the insurance pool, just like States have mandatory auto insurance. You are not allowed to run the risk of harming your fellow motorists by not having insurance. That is widely accepted and understood that it is necessary to have the system work right.

Now the Republicans are increasing the damage that Trump has imposed, unilaterally, by not enforcing the mandate. They are going to repeal the mandate. In place of the mandate, they are going to have a 30 percent surcharge in case people drop coverage and decide to reenter the insurance pool.

Well, think about that for a moment. The people who are young, healthy, who feel invincible and don't have healthcare problems now are very likely not to get insurance at all. They figure that when they get sick, they can go ahead, pay the 30 percent premium. If they find out they have got cancer, some serious disease, then they can sign up later. It is designed to destabilize the insurance system that we have.

By the same token, we are looking at the other end of the spectrum where the people who are lower income, older, and sick are going to pay a disproportionate burden. That is why the CBO determined, in their analysis, that in 2026, actually, there will be a drop in terms of insurance premiums, in terms of the cost. They will start to go down. They will go down because older Americans will be unable to afford the premium. They will drop the coverage.

It is not that they don't need health care. It is not that they are going to somehow avoid becoming sick or having accidents, but they are not going to have insurance coverage. That means the care that many of them are going to experience will be what we were fighting against before the Affordable Care Act. It will be in the emergency room. It will be when it is too late. It is not in a clinic before things get worse. It is after the fact, and it is in a setting that is not nearly as effective.

Mr. Speaker, it is really disappointing that part of the assault is on the Medicaid program itself. Medicaid is this program that provides care to the elderly, disabled, pregnant women, children, poor people. It is part of the bedrock safety net of this country. Republicans were against the expansion of Medicaid and making the qualifications to have Medicaid be more generous.

Under the Affordable Care Act, it is 138 percent of poverty, so lower and middle-income families are able to access this care. Prior to that, there were widely varying requirements across the country, and many of the States, particularly in the South, the States that declined to expand Medicaid, were facing really onerous restrictions--$10,000, $12,000, $7,000 family income--making it very, very hard and for only the most desperately poor to qualify for it.

Now, the Republican plan will eliminate the Medicaid expansion in its current form. It would cap Medicaid funding, and, ultimately, we are going to watch, reverting to what we had before--in effect, de facto rationing.

In Oregon, the Republican plan would shift $2.5 billion back to the States over the next 6 years. States are going to be left with impossible decisions: reducing benefits, cutting people off of Medicaid.

This is what has happened historically when people ran into difficult financial times in the States. They didn't raise taxes to make sure that the poor were provided coverage; they cut back coverage even more.

Sadly, under the Republican plan, 14 million Americans would lose Medicaid coverage by 2026, and it would start having its impact in less than 3 years.

The policy would also severely set back efforts to combat opioid addiction and improve mental health treatment.

In my community, as I visit health centers, find out what is going on in clinics, in local government, officials that deal with the homeless, the drug addicted, the mentally ill, we found that they are using the opportunity to enroll people in Medicaid to give them proper care and not put that burden on local governments that they simply can't cope with.

The Republican plan would prevent that. We won't be able to have people most in need provided with the mental health, the addiction services, the health care that they need.

The Republican plan would put 2.8 million people with substance disorders, including over 200,000--about 220,000 is the estimate that I have seen--with opioid disorders, at risk of losing their coverage, including the coverage of addiction treatment, continuing the tragic cycle that we see played out in our streets across the country, but particularly in Appalachia. Some of the areas that actually were most opposed to the Affordable Care Act have received the greatest benefit.

In a time of concern about budget deficits, repealing the Affordable Care taxes--which we approved in the Ways and Means Committee in the middle of the night last week--would create an immediate windfall tax cut for the highest American taxpayers. The Affordable Care Act was a balanced plan that actually reduced the deficit while it improved healthcare outcomes across the country.

This approach is going to provide--for example, the top 400 earners would see an average tax break of about $7 million a year, and people who are millionaires will be receiving tax cuts averaging $57,000 apiece; but, as it plays out, we will find taxes would raise significantly on about 7 million low- and moderate-income families.

Mr. Speaker, it also puts in jeopardy Medicare coverage for 57 million Americans by cutting the Medicare trust fund resources. Because of the total impact of what we have done with the Affordable Care Act, we have watched the Medicare trust fund have its life extended 2 years. The Republican tax proposal will cut $170 billion from the Medicare trust fund, moving it closer to being insolvent.

It is fascinating. Donald Trump promised not to touch Medicare or Medicaid. This plan violates both those promises. And as I had mentioned, the Trump promise that everybody would be covered under the Republican plan rings false. That is simply not the case.

Mr. Speaker, it was interesting, in the course of our deliberations, we received correspondence from the American Association of Retired Persons. They represent 38 million members in all 50 States, in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. It has a proven track record of being nonpartisan, a nationwide organization that helps people turn their goals and dreams into real possibilities for older Americans. They have a wide range of issues for which they have championed and gained notoriety; but, most significantly, we have watched them be involved with healthcare decisions, and they have been proven nonpartisan. In fact, I took issue with them when we were dealing with the Medicare part D prescription drug program in 2004.

It was unfortunate, I thought, that they kind of threw their weight to an inadequate program that was not paid for, that added to the deficit, and didn't do anything to fight to reduce prescription drug costs. But they made the judgment that this was the best they could do for the people they represented, and they didn't hesitate for a moment to work with Republicans to be able to enact that.

They wrote on March 7 to the chairs of our Energy and Commerce Committee and our Ways and Means Committee to express their opposition to the American Health Care Act. They did so because it would weaken Medicare's fiscal sustainability. They said it would dramatically increase the healthcare cost for Americans age 50 to 64 and put at risk the health care of millions of children and adults with disabilities and poor seniors who depend on Medicaid programs for long-term services, supports, and other benefits.

They have long fought to protect Medicare, and they pointed out in their correspondence that the 2016 Medicare trustee report said that the Medicare part A trust fund is solvent until 2028. This is 11 years longer than the projection immediately before the Affordable Care Act. Because of the changes in the Affordable Care Act, we gained solvency, 11 years longer.

Now, they have serious concerns about the Health Care Act that repealed provisions that strengthen the

fiscal outlook, specifically the repeal of the .9 percent payroll tax on higher income workers. According to their analysis, this provision would hasten the insolvency of Medicare by up to 4 years and diminish Medicare's ability to pay for services in the future.

Think about it, Mr. Speaker, we are dramatically increasing the number of uninsured Americans. We are going to give them more expensive insurance of a lower quality. They will have higher deductibles and copays. At the same time, we are jeopardizing the future of Medicare, which so many American seniors rely upon.

They pointed out that about 6.1 million Americans age 50 to 64 purchase their insurance in the nongroup market, and that over half of them were eligible to receive subsidies for health insurance coverage. They note the significant reduction in the number of uninsured since passage of the ACA, with the number of people in that age bracket dropping by half.

Yet, according to CBO, what is going to happen if the Republican plan is enacted, that that number is going to go back up again, it is going to be unaffordable for a number of seniors, and they are going to be paying a much higher cost.

Mr. Speaker, it is troubling that we are having a debate where we really have tried to discredit independent sources, where we have had no hearing dealing with the legislation that is rushing toward the House floor.

It is ironic that there was debate and discussion criticizing Democrats for the 3 years we spent developing the framework for moving the legislation forward. And after 6 years of my Republican friends being in power in the House, chipping away, undermining the Affordable Care Act, trying to make it worse, discrediting it, and voting over 60 times to repeal it, they do not have a plan in place to replace it.

Now, this is the best we can come up with. It is a program that is widely discredited.

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 50 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, March 17, 2017, at 9 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, today, joined by 14 original cosponsors, I am pleased to reintroduce the Superfund Reinvestment Act. This legislation would provide much needed funding to clean up toxic waste sites throughout the United States and relieve the financial burden of cleanup that is currently shouldered by the American taxpayers.

There are more than 1,100 severely polluted Superfund sites across the United States that approximately 49 million Americans live within three miles of. These contaminated sites harm air and water quality and threaten the economic and social vitality of vulnerable communities. These communities can be exposed to toxins such as arsenic, benzene, PCBs, mercury, and a wide range of solvents, which can lead to health problems such as infertility, low birth weight, birth defects, leukemia, and respiratory difficulties.

The Superfund program was originally created in 1980 to clean up these contaminated sites help reduce exposure to the health risks and fears that come from living close to toxic waste. Unfortunately, at approximately 30 percent of Superfund sites known as orphan sites, those responsible for the pollution cannot be found or do not have the ability to pay, so instead the federal government foots the bill.

Originally, payments for orphan sites were financed through taxes on chemicals, petroleum, and corporate income, which were deposited into the Superfund Liability Trust Fund. This Fund ensured that those industries responsible for pollution pay for the remediation of sites where there is no responsible party. These taxes expired in 1995 and were not reauthorized. As a result, the Trust Fund has been depleted and the funding for the cleanup of orphan sites has shifted primarily to general funds.

The Superfund Reinvestment Act would reinstate taxes on the petrochemical industry to fund the cleanup of hazardous waste sites across the country. It would make sure that polluters, not taxpayers, are paying for cleanup of orphan sites. The bill includes excise taxes of $.163 per barrel on crude oil or refined oil products and taxes ranging from $.51 to $11.35 per ton on certain chemicals. The bill would reinstate a corporate environmental income tax of .12 percent on a corporation's modified alternative minimum taxable income that exceeds $3.735 million. This legislation would expand the definition of oil to include unconventional crude oil sources, such as tar sands and oil shale. This legislation also would guarantee that money from the Trust Fund is only spent on Superfund cleanups.

I urge my colleagues to join me in working to strengthen the Superfund program by ensuring that polluters continue to pay. With our environment at such a high risk, we need a fully funded Superfund program now more than ever. Restoring these taxes will go a long way towards making certain that funds are available to cleanup America's most toxic waste sites and to help keep our communities and our families safe, healthy and economically secure for future generations.

Mr. Speaker, March 13 through 17, 2017 commemorates Brain Awareness Week, which presents an important opportunity to educate lawmakers, students, and the broader public about brain science, and its many impacts and benefits. This is critical when you consider that brain disorders and diseases affect the lives of nearly 100 million Americans--from Alzheimer's to ALS to mental illness.

Neurological and neurodegenerative disorders are among the leading causes of disability in the United States and around the world--greater than heart disease and cancer put together. As society ages, this number will increase exponentially as will the cost to the healthcare system and to the economy. Yet, the underlying causes of most neurological diseases remain unknown.

Neuroscience is the next great frontier. Research and work being done in this field needs to be front and center in both the private world and Congress.

The bipartisan Congressional Neuroscience Caucus' mission is to build awareness of the intrinsic role brain research plays in understanding ourselves and our society. As the Co-Founder and Co-Chair, I am committed to working on these important issues and hope my colleagues will join our efforts as members of the Congressional Neuroscience Caucus.

Mr. Speaker, the presidency should not be a get-rich- quick scheme. No president or presidential family should be able to exploit the Oval Office to get rich or become even wealthier.

The emoluments clause of the Constitution expressly forbids the President from accepting payments from foreign governments which, in my opinion, happens whenever an agent of a foreign government stays in any president's hotel. While this constitutional protection may have been enough in the past, we are now in uncharted waters. Hardly a week goes by without reports of taxpayer-funded trips by the President or his family to one of his family-owned properties throughout the world. These excesses have surpassed anything that this nation has seen before, and this unprecedented abuse of taxpayer dollars demands an additional ethical check on the office of the presidency.

That's why I'm introducing the No TRUMP Act, the No Taxpayer Revenue Used to Monetize the Presidency Act. This legislation would prohibit the use of taxpayer funds to pay for food, lodging, or other expenses at hotels owned or operated by a president or his or her relatives, ensuring that there is no personal financial incentive for the current or any future president and family to stay or hold official meetings or events at certain properties across the United States or abroad. In the interest of safety, the bill would allow the Secret Service to continue guarding First Family residences--Trump Tower in New York and Mar-a- Lago in Palm Beach, FL.

With so many unresolved concerns about White House business conflicts, this is a responsible step to make sure that the public doesn't subsidize the President's private interests.

Mr. Speaker, America is literally falling apart and falling behind. Every day, we see new stories of deficient bridges, ballooning maintenance backlogs for aging transit systems, urban areas choking on congestion, or rising roadway fatalities. Earlier today, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave America's infrastructure an overall grade of D+, unchanged from 2013. Roads received a D, while transit came in at a D-.

There is universal agreement that we must address these growing infrastructure challenges. The only question is how to pay for it. That's why I'm introducing the Raise And

Index to Sustainably and Efficiently Invest In Transportation (RAISE IT) Act.

The federal gas tax, unchanged since 1993, has lost more than 40 percent of its purchasing power due to inflation and rising fuel efficiency. Stuck at 18.4 cents a gallon for 24 years, the gas tax has led to more than a decade of uncertainty in the federal transportation program, a perennially insolvent Highway Trust Fund, and more than $140 billion borrowed from the general Treasury fund to maintain current, inadequate surface transportation funding levels. The Highway Trust Fund will run a $15 billion deficit this year and will be bankrupt by 2021.

Raising the gas tax, supported by a broad coalition of stakeholders from the AFL-CIO to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, AAA, truckers, and transit, would fix the Highway Trust Fund and provide certainty to commuters, businesses, and local governments that count on a strong, continuing federal partnership. The RAISE IT Act would index the federal gas and diesel taxes to inflation and phase in a 15 cent a gallon increase over three years, generating $210 billion over the next ten years.

Congress should follow the lead of the eight Republican-led states that raised gas taxes in the last two years. Countless editorial boards, transportation and economic policy experts, and blue ribbon panels like Simpson-Bowles Commission, all call for an increase in the federal gas tax. In the words of President Reagan, who more than doubled the gas tax in 1983, ``the cost to average motorist will be small, but the benefit to our transportation system will be immense.''

Mr. Speaker, had I been present for the vote on H.R. 1362, a bill to name the Department of Veterans Affairs community-based outpatient clinic in Pago Pago, American Samoa, the Faleomavaega Eni Fa'aua'a Hunkin VA Clinic (Roll Call No. 127), I would have voted Aye.

Had I been present for the vote on Motion to Table the Appeal of the Ruling of the Chair (Roll Call No. 128), I would have voted ``No.'

Mr. Speaker, early last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) abruptly pulled animal welfare violation documents from its website. This database contained thousands of inspection reports and other information about violations of the Animal Welfare Act and the Horse Protection Act made by research laboratories, zoos, dog breeding operations, and other facilities. While the agency has begun to repost some of these documents, it has so far only restored a small fraction of the information that was taken down. In the meantime, consumers and animal welfare advocates lack the transparency needed to make informed decisions and hold violators accountable.

For the life of me, I can't understand why USDA would hide this vital information. Ensuring transparency under these laws is a no-brainer. Luckily, many of my colleagues feel the same. Today, I am pleased to introduce, with 34 of my colleagues, the Animal Welfare Accountability and Transparency Act. This bill would require USDA to repost this information on its website and would increase accountability for those who treat animals inhumanely.

Providing consumers with information about where their pets come from and how animals are treated is the least we can do to discourage people from violating the law. It is critical that we ensure the standards set forth by Animal Welfare Act and the Horse Protection Act are upheld. This is why the Animal Welfare Accountability and Transparency Act would create an additional incentive to abide by these laws.

The bill would take away certain tax benefits for businesses that are found to be in violation of those laws. Under current tax rules, the costs of breeding and working animals are treated the same as machinery and equipment, and businesses may deduct these costs from their taxes over a specified period. The bill would prohibit businesses found to have violated the Animal Welfare Act or the Horse Protection Act from claiming these accelerated depreciation bonuses for tax purposes.

I am also happy to have worked with my colleague from Oregon, Senator Ron Wyden, who introduced a Senate version of this legislation late last week. This bill is a small step that this Congress can take quickly to show that we respond to animal abuse and that the federal government should be transparent with consumers. I call on my colleagues to support this bill so that we can send a strong message to animal abusers across this country that their horrendous actions will not be kept in the shadows.

Mr. Speaker, the true American carnage is what's happening on our roadways. More than 40,000 people were killed last year on streets in communities around the country, yet this is accepted as inevitability. We can do better. We have to do better.

Even more concerning, fatalities of our most vulnerable road users, pedestrians and bicyclists, make up a disproportionate share of those deaths, with pedestrian fatalities increasing 16 percent from 2009 to 2014 and jumping another 9 percent from 2015 to 2016. People who die on our streets are disproportionally children, seniors, and people from low-income or minority communities.

Communities across the country have recognized that there is only one number of acceptable deaths on our streets: zero. Vision Zero is the goal of eliminating all transportation-related fatalities, including pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users, motorists and passengers. Cities from Portland, Oregon to Fort Lauderdale, Florida are implementing interagency Vision Zero plans that connect engineering, education, and enforcement to reach the goal of ending transportation deaths and serious injuries. Despite the horrific national statistics, Vision Zero is already making a difference at street level.

Congress should encourage this innovative approach to transportation safety, and today I'm pleased to introduce the Vision Zero Act of 2017 with my friend, Representative Vern Buchanan. This bill creates grant programs to plan and implement a Vision Zero framework, giving local communities of all sizes access to funding and best practices to set and reach safety goals. We should no longer accept bicycle and pedestrian fatalities as harsh reality, and this bill gives us the tools to reverse this trend.

Mr. Speaker, in this Chamber last night, as I listened to the President's address to the joint session, I could only think of one word: ``resist.''

Whether one voted for Donald Trump or not, we are all obligated to resist his incoherent and contradictory pledge to dismantle the protections of the Affordable Care Act with empty slogans.

Perhaps the most revealing moment of the Trump administration so far was his declaration Monday in his meeting with America's Governors that health care is complex. ``Who knew?'' he said.

Well, anybody who has done any work, any research, or had even had conversations with the people who rely on health care, who study health care, or deliver health care. This was not a secret that it is complex. Yet, for months, he has made reckless, misleading comments and has unleashed efforts to make the Affordable Care Act less effective and to destabilize insurance markets.

We should resist his cynical and cruel step of singling out people who have somehow been harmed by illegal immigrants as a special category. Why not an office dealing with the far greater number of Americans whose lives are turned upside down as a result of gun violence--which, by the way, is the method of choice for homegrown terrorists who, experts in his own government point out, are responsible for more terrorist acts and violence and death of Americans than people who are foreign-born.

We should resist empty promises to rebuild and renew America by failing to provide any meaningful detail. That squanders an opportunity for bipartisan cooperation and a badly-needed effort to revitalize America and put millions of Americans to work at jobs that can't be outsourced overseas and that will strengthen each community. It is important to resist an administration program long on divisive rhetoric, misinformation, and lost opportunities.

The least popular new President in our history, as near as we can tell, has mobilized millions of Americans to be involved, to resist. It is critical that Americans of good conscience, who care about the future of their country and want to change the trajectory and tone of politics, dive in now to protect programs they care about which are under assault, to reject shortsighted policies that will spend billions of dollars on things we don't need, like even more nuclear weapons. How many times do we have to be able to blow up the world in order to achieve deterrence?

We should resist spending less on critical parts of our defense. For example, the diplomacy and international aid saves human lives; it undercuts the calls to radicalism for people without hope. Making the job of our diplomats and our aid workers harder and more dangerous and less effective should be resisted at every turn.

We should resist draconian budget cuts and hiring freezes that undercut the opportunity to take care of our veterans, especially their health. Their health is a long overdue promise that Trump has occasionally talked about but is now actively undermining.

We should resist unparalleled potential budget assaults on things that make a difference to our communities, like arts, public broadcasting, programs for children, things that matter deeply.

Together, we can resist these destructive policies in Congress, in the budget, and in legislation, while we strengthen their support for similar programs at home. Everybody should resist by being involved in their community. There is something every one of us cares about at home and on the national stage. We should resist politics of division, hatred, and hopelessly flawed and failing priorities.

We should resist. It is within our power to dramatically change the political equation. Remember, Donald Trump lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes, while Democrats picked up seats in the House and the Senate. The country is much more evenly divided, and they are not united in support of this administration.

By doing our job now, it makes it possible to build on the successes by making sure everyone has a chance to participate in the voting process. Fight efforts at voter suppression.

It is time for all of us to engage in that resistance that adds energy and hope across America. It must start now and will continue until we defeat hate, bigotry, shortsighted policy, and misallocated priorities.

America can halt and reverse the damage that has been set in motion. We should resist. We should resist now.