Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I started my day with my friend and colleague Dr. Phil Roe, a Republican Congressman from Tennessee. We met with representatives from the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. These dedicated professionals deal with helping patients and their families contend with some of the most difficult circumstances any of us

will ever face: loved ones in pain with difficult medical conditions at the end of life.

We were discussing legislation that Dr. Roe and I have cosponsored-- the Personalize Your Care Act of 2013, H.R. 1173.

Despite widespread agreement in principle that individuals should be fully involved with decisions related to their health care, too often, this is not the reality. Most adults have not completed an advanced directive. If documents are completed, they are not regularly revisited and can be difficult to locate when needed. Because these issues are difficult to discuss, often surrogates feel ill-prepared to interpret their loved ones' written wishes. These shortcomings leave families and health care proxies faced with the burden of determining their loved ones' wishes in the midst of crisis, adding greater stress and anxiety.

One of the great misconceptions about advanced care planning is that it is a onetime event. Attempting to plan for all of the possibilities in a single document or within a single conversation is both overwhelming and impossible. For advanced care planning to be successful, it must become less about legal documentation and more about facilitating ongoing communication about the future care wishes among individuals, their health care providers and their families.

This approach recognizes that documents like advance directives and physician orders for life-sustaining treatment are not the end but the means--the tools--for documenting care preferences based on informed decisions that incorporate an individual's values, personal goals and current circumstance. This process not only provides higher quality care but personalized care. This is the right time to embrace this simple, commonsense reform.

I stepped out of a hearing going on in Ways and Means about the Affordable Care Act, which has basically become a contest, an ongoing soap opera, not an effort to fix the expensive health care system that too often delivers mediocre results. Instead, it is used as a political tug of war. The Personalize Your Care Act is a way out of this cul-de- sac. It is a way that we can come together to empower families, to know what they face, to understand their choices, to make their wishes known, and to assure their wishes are respected.

I strongly urge my colleagues to join Dr. Roe and me to cosponsor H.R. 1173, the Personalize Your Care Act, and to work with us to guarantee this important protection for all American families.

Mr. Speaker, today the House begins consideration of the Water Resources Reform and Development Act, which includes in the title the word ``reform'' but would represent a huge step backwards.

This legislation would have significant impact on the way the Army Corps of Engineers conducts projects that are critical to the Nation's environmental and economic health. I have long worked to help the Corps be a better partner which, in times past, has proved troublesome.

It was my pleasure to work with the head of the Corps previously, General Robert Flowers, and his staff to change the way the Corps does business. Otherwise, we can waste a lot of money and

inflict unnecessary environmental damage.

One of the ways the Corps meets its environmental responsibilities is by compliance with the National and Environmental Policy Act, NEPA, signed into law on New Year's Day in 1970 by President Richard Nixon.

Earlier this year, Glen Bowman, an official with the Georgia Department of Transportation, shared with Georgia legislators President Nixon's observation that clean air, clean water, open space should be the birthright of every American. Through our years of past carelessness, we have incurred a debt to nature that is now being called.

Mr. Bowman told the legislators that 43 years later the price tag is even higher, some problems remain, and daunting challenges loom, but that NEPA's impact is unquestionable. It remains the Nation's guiding environmental star.

He observes that environmental needs and protecting the environment are not mutually exclusive, and it is important to work together to achieve those objectives.

Sadly, for me, the most critical element in a bill that I would like to support is the damage to the NEPA process. Placing an artificial time limit of 150 days, restricting the internal activities of the agencies, giving them limited time to move the process along, interfering with the chain of command, cutting out the public from the process, and forcing a shorter time for litigation is unnecessary. It is ill-advised, and it is not going to solve the problem. Project delays are not a result of the NEPA process. There are billions of dollars of projects that are already approved and ready to go--$60 billion by some estimates. The problem is that Congress has not adequately funded the Corps.

I will be offering an amendment with the gentleman from Oregon, Congressman DeFazio, that simply suspends this ill-advised amendment to NEPA, seriously compromising it and the public process, until the project backlog disappears in order to move forward with the already approved projects. Ironically, this bill would add to the backlog while it truncates the NEPA process.

NEPA protects community values. It can often result in alternatives that are even less costly as well as less damaging to the environment. Before we rush to implement ill-advised changes under the guise of reform, let's get rid of the backlog of already approved projects first and be able to work through the consequences.

Forcing more projects that will be ill-considered will make them less worthy of funding. For agencies that are chronically underfunded and are facing further budget cuts, imposing artificial time limits on an already overwhelming backlog is not a prescription for more development projects being completed and better performance. It is a prescription for sloppy work, ill-advised approvals, and more litigation when we should be concentrating on getting the job done. It will make it harder to serve the public and get the financial support to build vital projects.

I urge my colleagues to support the DeFazio-Blumenauer amendment to reduce the backlog of projects ready to go before complicating and weakening environmental protections and the public's right to participate.

I now would like to enter into the Record the comments of Mr. Glenn Bowman from the Georgia Department of Transportation.

NEPA Is the Guide Star

(By Glenn Bowman)

Shortly after signing the National Environmental Policy Act

(NEPA) into law on New Year's Day in 1970, President Richard

Nixon discussed it in his State of the Union Address:

``The great question . . . is shall we make peace with

nature and begin to make reparations for the damage we have

done to our air, our land and our water? . . . Clean air,

clean water, open spaces--these should once again be the

birthright of every American. . . . The price tag is high.

Through our years of past carelessness, we have incurred a

debt to nature. Now that debt is being called.''

Now, 43 years later, that price tag is even higher. Some

old problems remain, and daunting new challenges loom. Still,

NEPA's impact is unquestionable; it remains the nation's

environmental guide star.

At Georgia's Department of Transportation--the entity

responsible for more earth work in this state than any

other--NEPA has a huge impact on planning, designing and

building transportation infrastructure. Virtually everything

we do begins with ``complying with the NEPA process.''

We must:

Protect water quality, air quality, endangered plant and

animal species and their habitats, migratory birds, wetlands,

streams, rivers, harbors, flood plains, farmlands and the

soil itself;

Preserve historic and culturally significant buildings and

places;

Save archaeologically significant resources;

Guard against noise pollution;

Make certain native peoples and the disadvantaged are

treated equitably;

Mitigate for unavoidable impacts, and always engage the

public in our decision-making process.

This requires a considerable investment in time, staff and

money. Making a project NEPA-compliant sometimes requires re-

routing; re-locating cemeteries and historic structures; and

archaeological ``digs'' to recover important artifacts. We

create or improve wetlands and streams to mitigate for like

areas that need to be altered. We work with affected

residents to help offset impacts to their neighborhoods and

lives.

Recently, the need to study areas of North Georgia for the

presence of the endangered Indiana and gray bats has garnered

attention. Such examination simply is part of a process we

are required by law to undertake for numerous plant and

animal species, be they cuddly or creepy.

With as many as 700 projects ongoing at any time, not

everyone is always going to be satisfied. But our foremost

mission is to help make those 700 projects realities; keep

motorists safe and moving, and grow that network as Georgia

grows.

Meeting our transportation needs and protecting our

environment are not mutually exclusive objectives; doing both

does not have to be a contentious, adversarial struggle.

Working together--internally, with partner agencies,

businesses, local governments and citizens--we can repay our

debt to nature, have a world-class transportation system, and

preserve the beauty and many wonders of Georgia for

generations to come.

I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy.

Mr. Chairman, I feel like I am just a member of the T&I Alumni Association. I deeply cherish the time that I spent on the committee, on the Water Resources Subcommittee, and I appreciate the hard work that the committee has moving forward, trying to find some areas of agreement in a sometimes fractured House and focus on the big picture: What is going to put America in the best position going forward?

I am going to have an amendment coming forward talking a little bit about some of the backlog and some of the NEPA efforts, but one of the fundamental problems we have now is that we are not providing the resources to move the projects forward. There is a backlog of $60 billion, and there are opportunities here to add to it. The point we want to focus on is being able to deal meaningfully with it so we don't have projects that go stale, that are outmoded, that are past their shelf life.

Another thing that I hope to be able to work with the committee on in the future deals with the principles and guidelines for the Corps that were established in 1983. This was a project of mine for years on the committee. We finally updated them, but they have been stalled by some hold, I think, through the appropriations process that have stymied them, so they are not going forward.

These principles and guidelines, if they were adopted in 1983, were clearly in the process in the mid-seventies. We have learned a lot over the course of almost 40 years; and I am hopeful that we can focus on the big picture, get the resources that are necessary to do the job right and then be able to have the flexibility to make sure that the Corps has up-to-date tools to do its jobs better.

I look forward to further debate. I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy and the hard work that the committee has done.

I appreciate the gentleman, and what he said is correct in terms of a situation here.

Mr. Chairman, streamlining provisions in this bill provide nothing but an empty promise that projects will be built faster. The empty promise comes with real costs: it will lead to more damaging and costly projects, and it will prevent States, local governments and other stakeholders from making realistic plans for the future.

The Corps currently has an estimated backlog of over 1,000 authorized activities that will take about $60 billion. The bill before us adds to the backlog. Both the Corps, itself, and the administration have pointed out that these proposed streamlining guidelines may actually slow project development and do not adequately protect communities, taxpayers, and the environment.

The real cause of delay is limited funding, competition for funding amongst the extensive study and project construction backlog, poor project planning that does not focus on national priorities or on identifying the least possible damaging solution to water resource problems. Project studies take the longest when the Corps and Congress insist on pushing outdated, damaging, and extremely costly projects that inconvenience or even harm communities instead of adopting low- impact, modern solutions that could more easily gain broad-based support.

I am all for getting projects done faster, but our infrastructure deficit slows the economy and puts people in physical danger at worst. We need to address that problem. Undercutting the environmental protections does not address it. It merely complicates it.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman from Michigan permitting me to speak on this.

My friend from West Virginia made a very important point, that under this bill, if it is approved, we are going to extend the backlog to something like $72 million. There are many people who support these various projects, and that is part of the problem.

Simply authorizing is not somehow free. It costs money to be able to move them into the production stage. We have billions of dollars that are ready for construction that are languishing, and because we are not adequately funding year in and year out, we have an amazing number of projects with a shelf life that has expired.

I commend what the gentleman from Pennsylvania and the gentleman from West Virginia have done with the committee, trying to do a deeper dive, trying to fine-tune, trying to make some real progress here. The problem is we have a legacy where, for decades, that same care and consideration was not exercised, where there are a lot of projects that really are not cost effective, that really are no longer state of the art.

I think by moving forward to clear the decks of a little more of the backlog, not diverting--because the Corps and Congress have to contend with people that think just because it has been authorized they are entitled to have the project go forward. I can understand that if it stays on the books, but that is a distortion of where we are now. We are not adequately funding what this bill needs to do.

Unless and until we do a little more aggressive pruning, we are just going to continue to add to the backlog, and we are going to continue to have some projects that will get moved along sometimes for political reasons even though they are not the best projects. The more that we can help the committee move forward, prune it down, tailor it, focus it, we are all going to be better off.

I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, now, after 16 days, one remembers the gleeful Republicans pouring out of the House Chamber on the early morning of October 1 so excited that they got the shutdown, the tool they would use to end the Affordable Care Act. Well, it has now collapsed in disarray on the eve of a far more serious deadline: flirting with the default on our national debt.

I am embarrassed for my Republican colleagues who cannot figure out what they want as they tie themselves into knots, refusing to put a simple, clean continuing resolution on the floor that would end this madness, I guess because they fear all the Democrats and many Republicans would approve it, ending this sad chapter.

It is fascinating what a destructive minority and rudderless Republican House leadership can do, inflicting damage in so many ways. This all would have been unimaginable in normal times. I tried to explain it on the air yesterday to a BBC reporter. I felt foolish and embarrassed. It is inexplicable.

It is time to stop negotiating the terms of the release of the American people and their economy. There is a simple answer, and it is not necessarily calling the Republican bluff on the shutdown and debt ceiling. The answer is to encourage the Republicans to try and pass their own spending bills. Don't insulate them any longer from the specifics.

With the Ryan budget, Republicans are on a glide path to 1962 spending levels; but for an America half a century later, with 150 million more people and three times the number of senior citizens, the math doesn't work for most of us, and it appears that it doesn't work for the Republicans either. Why else would they have stopped the consideration of their own spending bills not even halfway through the process? Remember, we still have pending the Transportation-HUD spending bill that was abruptly halted more than 2 months ago, last summer. It is still pending. It could be brought to the floor at any time.

Let us stop tolerating wildly unrealistic political antics, and dive into budget mechanics. Let them try and pass the Interior spending bill, which they were afraid to even take to the full committee, let alone pass the Health and Human Services bill. Let us get into specifics and stop the hostage-taking. No one should be allowed to weaponize the process of governance, especially people unwilling or unable to do their own job.

The President should use his bully pulpit to spotlight their refusal to act and his alternatives. By all means, let us look at the looming Social Security cut that is going to occur 20 years from now. How much do we want to cut of future benefits for people who are increasingly struggling in retirement and who already get less than most other rich countries?

Let us deal with the long-term costs of our military, with hugely expensive, outdated, unnecessary surplus nuclear weapons. Let us help the military deal with health and pension costs that greatly concern the military leadership because they know they are not sustainable.

My Republican colleagues cannot have it both ways: attacking the President for including the chained CPI in his own budget proposal as an assault on senior citizens, as alleged by my friend and colleague Greg Walden, the head of the Republican Campaign Committee in the House, when that is actually what many of my Republican friends want; attacking the President and Democrats for having obtained $700 billion in Medicare savings without cutting payments to seniors and then making that into a campaign issue in 2012, and then claiming the President and Democrats don't want to deal with entitlements. How hypocritical.

Let us stop the hostage-taking and deal with specifics. We can resolve these matters in, actually, a matter of months if the American public and the Congress are forced to confront the realities of fantasy budgets and political slogans. The American people deserve better. Now it is time to give that to them.

Mr. Speaker, it is slowly dawning on some of my Republican colleagues, who were so gleeful about shutting down the government 2 weeks ago, that there will be no reward for not ruining the economy. Some think they should get a prize when they stop the senseless punishment of the American people, paying our employees not to work, and inflicting needless disruption on the lives and costs to the taxpayers--billions of dollars.

It appears that the public has had a hard time figuring all of this out, but has understandably concluded that most of the blame is due to the Republican crusade against health care reform and their reckless choice of tactics.

Is it possible that something constructive can come from the Tea Party debacle? Absolutely. Maybe we can do our job and look for areas of potential agreement.

Last week, Paul Ryan and I continued a long-standing partnership on agricultural reform. We led a debate showing the will of the House to limit subsidy for the terribly flawed and expensive crop insurance program by slightly reducing the lavish subsidies to the largest agribusinesses. It is not the final answer by any means. There is no guarantee the Ag conferees will pay attention to the will of the House, but it is a clear area in that we can reduce spending and improve programs for most farmers and ranchers.

Maybe we could find bipartisan agreement that we should not slash infrastructure spending even further. Let's have a hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee and explore how to fund the transportation bill that expires in 348 days and creates a devastating infrastructure cliff.

If people are concerned about the deficit and government spending, maybe the House could finish work on its own spending bills. My Republican friends shut down the appropriations process more than 2 months ago. It might be instructive, before demanding more reductions in funding services, to see if they can actually pass their own version of the budget. If they can't, maybe they would reconsider taking government spending down to the levels of 1962, which is what their budget program requires, when America had 140 million fewer people, when there was one-third the number of senior citizens.

Regardless, their pleas to negotiate ought to mean that they stop refusing to negotiate with the Senate about the budget. If they are serious and not cynical, they will appoint their conference committees and stop 6 months of stalling.

Let's debate whether, at a time of retrenchment at the Pentagon, we really need to spend two-thirds of a trillion dollars over the next 10 years on nuclear weapons we don't need and cannot use for American security. Ninety percent of the expensive, dangerous stockpile is unnecessary for even the most ardent believer in nuclear deterrence. It has just morphed into a grotesque jobs program.

Should America sign away its mineral wealth to foreign companies for free? Before we cut investments in our people and our future, maybe we should reexamine the Mining Act of 1872, which remains on the books exactly as it was signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant.

These are areas worthy not just of debate but of real, honest negotiation and compromise and action. We can agree on areas to get more value for the taxpayer, help those who need it most, not those who need it least, and allow the process of government to work. If you try in good faith, the American system of government is not as bad as it looks.

Mr. Speaker, H.J. Res 80 would provide sequester- level funding for a limited number of federal programs that serve Native American Tribes. I support ensuring that the federal government plays a strong role in addressing the needs of tribal communities and I voted against H.J. Res 80 because it doesn't do that. It provides less than 50% of funding that tribes receive from the federal government and omits a number of important programs.

This legislation is merely the latest iteration of the Republican piecemeal funding strategy they hope can provide cover from the fallout of their ongoing reckless shutdown. It is not part of any serious effort to reopen the government. It is time to end this shutdown and get to work making necessary tough budget decisions.

I appreciate the gentlelady's courtesy.

Mr. Speaker, one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talked about our being the ``greatest Nation in the world,'' but Republicans are running it like a banana republic. People who ran out of this Chamber gleeful that the government was going to shut down have suddenly discovered that there is 20 percent of the government that they want to operate.

There is a simple way to resolve this impasse. If you want to negotiate truly, appoint the conferees to the Budget Committee. The Republicans have refused to do that for 6 months. If you want to control spending, bring your own appropriations bills to the floor and see if your people have the fortitude to slash government spending further.

Remember, they stopped operation on the Transportation-HUD bill 2 months ago. It can be brought up today. But they refuse to do so because their spending levels are so unrealistic their own Members won't vote for them. They would rather deal in the abstract. They would rather hold America hostage. It is shameful. It is unnecessary.

Bring a continuing resolution to the floor and put the government back to work.

I could not agree more with my friend from Massachusetts, who has actually spent the time getting inside this program. In fact, if the Republicans really care about hungry people in this country, these legislative efforts are a strange way to show it.

They are restricting the ability of Governors to grant waivers in places where people have no access to jobs. Governors, Republicans and Democrats alike, have requested these waivers because people need help, and the system couldn't meet their needs.

If they are concerned about fraud, waste, and abuse, look at the Crop Insurance Program, which has a higher rate of abuse than the miniscule amount with the food stamp program. And yet they are in the process not of reforming crop insurance, but enriching it and putting in another provision, the so-called ``shallow loss'' provision.

They are cutting benefits for poor people, increasing payments for wealthy farmers, and not dealing with simple, commonsense reforms that would give more value to the taxpayer--and not at the expense of the neediest Americans.

This is kind of a through-the-looking-glass situation. There are two proposals on the floor--``sense of Congress''--that I will probably support.

I have worked on a bipartisan basis to try and reform the egregious sugar program and to try and move in a modest sense to reform crop insurance, but we can do far more. And I note that these have bipartisan support.

It is outrageous that we are giving more money to farmers who need it least, shortchanging farmers and ranchers in States like mine in Oregon, cutting into the benefits for poor people who have no alternative, and taking away the right of the Governor to provide waivers for them.

It is an Alice-in-Wonderland situation that exemplifies the weird space that we are in today.

If we would return to regular order, if we would have honest debate on this floor about getting more value for taxpayers, we could come forth with a farm bill at a fraction of what it costs now. It would be better for farmers and ranchers. It would be better for hunters and fishermen. It would be better for the environment and better for the taxpayer.

I strongly hope that we will stop this Alice-in-Wonderland experience, reopen the Federal Government, and get back to doing our job right.

I appreciate the courtesy of my friend from Wisconsin, and I am pleased to join with him on the floor this evening debating this issue. It is something we have done over the years, working with Mr. Kind, with now Senator Flake, trying to inject a little more rationality and fiscal responsibility into this debate.

Madam Speaker, it is true that the House rejected a proposal during the debate on the farm bill, but 208 of our colleagues voted for a much more ambitious proposal. In fact, I believe that there were more votes for that crop insurance reform than were available for the first iteration of the farm bill itself.

This is a very modest step, and I appreciate it being brought forward, not because I think it is where we need to go ultimately, but I think that this is the sort of thing we ought to be doing on the floor of the House because there are, in fact, areas of agreement to do a better job for the taxpayer, do a better job for more farmers and ranchers, protect the environment. The farm bill is replete with these opportunities.

I find the rhetoric about somehow picking winners and losers and shutting down the richest farmers ironic. The proposal that is offered by my friend, Mr. Ryan, does not deny the richest 1 percent of the farmers crop insurance. It just says, your subsidy is going to be about 50 percent. You have a 15 percent reduction.

That's not picking winners and losers. That's not denying them the use of this tool. But what we should be doing is actually doing a deeper dive.

Crop insurance right now is so lucrative that it, in many instances, actually pays farmers to plant ground that they know is going to fail. They can make money off of it because of how lavishly the crop insurance program is subsidized.

The premiums, the people who sell it, insure it against loss--I mean, study after study from independent, outside agencies suggests that there is a lot that we could do.

In fact, it is ironic that there has been this attack on food stamps, the SNAP benefit, which has a lower percentage of abuse than the crop insurance program. We are on board now, the next 10 years, to have crop insurance likely to be pushing up against $100 billion.

But the fact is that this is an expensive entitlement in need of reform, with more areas of identified abuse than the food stamp program, which gets whacked, and we have a farm bill that is going to provide more lavish benefits for the wealthiest farmers.

I appreciate this discussion this evening. I hope it is the beginning of a more ambitious effort to do what needs to be done with crop insurance. But I think it is healthy to have it here.

I am pleased to join with my friend, Mr. Ryan, to agree with everything Tom Price said. Now that hasn't happened, I think, in any speech that he has given on the floor to this point. I am sure I am making him nervous agreeing with him.

But it illustrates the opportunity that we could have if we would take the time to work together on areas where there is bipartisan agreement and there is a clear need.

I appreciate the gentleman giving me the time. I appreciate him bringing it forward, and I urge support.

Mr. Speaker, today is the ninth day of the Republican shutdown, what started as a tantrum against the Affordable Care Act to defund it, then morphed into a demand to delay it for a year, but now is really an open assault on our system of government.

Unless a fanatic minority holding John Boehner and the American people hostage get their way, they will continue to inflict unnecessary pain on hundreds of thousands of our employees and on the American public. Now they are poised to wreck the global economy by threatening that America will not pay its bills. If it works, they will do it all over again.

Make no mistake, this is an assault on our system of government unlike anything we have seen before. We must stop them now, united in the belief that there are some lines we are not going to cross. There will be no weapons on the floor of the House and no willful damage to the American people.

What if these fanatics had their tactics used against them? What if Democrats and Speaker Pelosi demanded that the disastrous war in Iraq stop and, if it didn't, we would wreck the American economy? that our deeply felt concerns about preparing for climate change and global warming were nonnegotiable? What if Senator Chris Murphy, who had 26 innocent children and their teachers massacred in his district, what if he said, Enough. Unless we get background checks for purchasers of guns to make sure that unfit people can't get them, something that 90 percent of the American people agree with, unless I get that, I am going to shut down the government? Can you imagine the howls of outrage?

There is a tremendous disconnect here. One glaring symbol of the disconnect can be found in the subbasement of the Rayburn office building, the House gym. Now, make no mistake, everywhere I have worked I have started fitness programs for our employees. They save money; they improve productivity; they can even save lives. I helped start a fitness program for our employees here on Capitol Hill. If anything, it may be more important for people in Congress who are leading a crazy, unhealthy lifestyle and can seldom get together and interact like human beings. For 17 years, this is where I have tried to start every single day, to exercise, to enjoy bipartisan camaraderie, an island in the storm of Capitol Hill. It is convenient to be able to shower there instead of at home. It is important. It is very important, but it is not essential.

I had somebody argue with me yesterday that it doesn't cost that much because we pay dues. We have an access key that lets us in and there aren't any staff members there now. Well, that is true. It doesn't cost very much, but it costs. The electricity, the hot water, the towels, they are not provided by gym fairies. They are provided by taxpayers. And the same is true for countless facilities across America, closed by the senseless Republican shutdown.

In fact, since we have decided that we are going to pay all the employees when it is over, we are paying them not to work. And it is costly not to collect fees. You can make a better argument for restoring those services than you can for the House gym. Some of the most fanatic about inflicting unnecessary pain on the American public are regulars, enjoying our House gym while the staff gym is closed.

Mr. Speaker, if you and the House Republicans are serious and not cynical about the shutdown, then shut down the House gym until this madness ends.

Mr. Speaker, we begin the second week of the Republican government shutdown. The proximate cause was the Republican effort to delay money that the government needs to fund the Affordable Care Act, to stop the Affordable Care Act. Well, it is also now the second week of the Affordable Care Act, which clearly now will not be repealed, defunded, or delayed.

Just this last weekend, we all approved legislation that would pay all of the Federal workers on furlough the salaries they lost by being sent home making them whole. This is important because they had nothing to do with this travesty. But now, we're paying them not to work. One wonders why we're still in the middle of this exercise. Is there any way out of this cul-de-sac?

I find it encouraging that some of my Republican friends are talking about negotiating. We've been waiting for 6 months for negotiations to begin on the budget. Hopefully, Republicans will appoint conferees, and we can get down to talking about what level of spending we want, need, and can afford.

But maybe we can help things along in dealing with another area--to come together on the looming deficit of infrastructure. America's civil engineers tell us that more than $2 trillion is needed over the next 5 years for roads, bridges, transit, sewer, and water. These deficiencies create uncertainty, congestion, safety, and health problems, and undercut America's long-term productivity. Why don't we come together to address this problem? Ronald Reagan supported a nickel-a-gallon gas tax increase in 1982, when that was real money. The Clinton plan that led to our only balanced budgets in 40 years included our last gas tax increase. And remember the Simpson-Bowles deficit plan that called for a phased-in gas tax increase of 15 cents?

Since the last increase in the gas tax, the purchasing power of the highway trust fund has dropped by two-thirds due to inflation and greater vehicle efficiency. If we want to bring Americans together, let's work with the huge coalition that stands ready to work with Congress in taking this action. It includes people in the construction industry, obviously, but also local governments and professions like architects and engineers, truckers, and bicyclists. Everyone from the AFL-CIO to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce acknowledges that it is past time for Congress to act, and they will work with us if we take action.

The failure to address this loss of purchasing power is also a source of the budget deficit. Since the last big transportation bill expired in 2005, we have had to make four major general fund transfers of approximately $50 billion just to prop it up at its current inadequate level, and it's going to get worse when the transportation bill expires in 51 weeks.

I urge my colleagues to join me in averting another fiscal cliff, this one with the highway trust fund. Let's work with the vast array of interests that want to rebuild and renew America. Don't ignore this deficit. Instead, let's act responsibly in fixing the trust fund, putting hundreds of thousands of Americans to work at family wage jobs, in rebuilding and renewing America's infrastructure--making us safer, healthier, and more economically secure.

Mr. Speaker, welcome to the alternative universe in the House of Representatives. We just voted, as we knew we would, to pay the furloughed workers when the shutdown ends, as we knew we would.

What started as a right-wing tantrum to defund ObamaCare, which failed, as it inevitably would, and then it became a demand to pull the rug out for another delay, we're now arguing about something. Negotiations? What?

Since we decided to pay everybody anyway, let's vote on the continuing resolution so we can at least get work in exchange for paying our employees and stop losing tens of millions of dollars every hour.

The Republicans now want to negotiate. I think that's terrific. We've been waiting 6 months for the House Republicans to appoint their conference committee so we can reconcile differences on the budget.

Let's vote on the continuing resolution. Let's appoint conference committees and get back to work.

Mr. Speaker, today is the last day on Capitol Hill for Janine Benner, my deputy chief of staff. Janine and her husband, Greg Dotson, a key member of the Commerce Committee, are a true Capitol Hill power couple--not the type that you see in the society pages of the Post or holding forth on the Sunday morning talk shows. When you see them on television, they are sitting next to a Member of Congress, helping them on a bill or an amendment to look smarter and do their job better.

Ms. Benner joined our offices as a legislative assistant in 2001, shortly after the 9/11 attacks, and leaves having seen Congress at its best and worst--the near meltdown of the economy, wars, and the shutdown. She has seen landmark legislation and made important contributions to many. She knows that we often make it harder than it should be, but that didn't stop her or discourage her.

History will judge what Congress has accomplished in her 12 years, but there's no doubt that Ms. Benner made it better with her countless daily actions behind the scenes and helping in meeting with thousands of people, listening, learning and helping them understand the mysterious ways of their government and how to be more effective.

Janine Benner was a colleague and mentor to hundreds of professionals and interns, not just in our office. She worked with them helping them learn and encouraging them to weave the tapestry of legislative activity. She brought her Ivy League education, passion, and commitment--especially to the environment--to help fine-tune opportunities on Capitol Hill to coax more value for the American people.

She led our staff efforts dealing with climate change and global warming. Janine helped manage and guide livability initiatives to make the Federal Government a better partner. She was a part of our initial work in 2002 in Johannesburg that led to our efforts with the Water for the Poor legislation and, more recently, with Water for the World, to help bring sanitation and safe drinking water for people around the world. She returned from the United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen in 2009, being a part of that hopeful and frustrating process with a renewed commitment to deal with energy and climate change and found ways to make a difference.

She organized and participated in my bipartisan 3-day backpacking trip around Oregon's magnificent Mount Hood with my colleague, Greg Walden, and his family and staff, working together to learn and build trust that led to the Mount Hood Legacy Stewardship Act that protected that Oregon treasure.

No Hill staffer knows more about the challenges, dangers, and opportunities dealing with natural disaster. She dove in behind the scenes working in the detailed minutia that brought about the Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2004. No Member or staff did more to make that happen and with ongoing efforts.

She continues to nudge the Federal Government to be more productive. She spent years to refine and modernize procedures for the Corps of Engineers.

Whether it's in Copenhagen or Johannesburg, flying over the Klamath Basin or hiking around Mount Hood or being in a Capitol Hill lockdown yesterday, she brought experience, good humor, and intellect not to just some bills enacted or amendments passed; she helped improve Federal agencies like the Corps and FEMA that need more attention. She took time off and did amazing volunteer work in key Oregon campaigns with spectacular results.

Besides being a good citizen, she is a proud mother to her darling daughter, Dahlia. She and Greg could live anywhere in America. They could make more money and not have questions about whether they're going to be paid or whether their employer was going to take away their health insurance, but they've chosen to serve the public, help Congress, and make the world a better place. It was an honor to be able to work with her. There is no one who better exemplifies the dedication, confidence, and commitment that holds this place together.

Thanks, Janine.

Mr. Speaker, the floor of this House has been the scene of many heated exchanges of late--the shutdown controversy around the Affordable Care Act and budget differences--but in the midst of some real tension and frustration, there was a bright spot last evening.

I was pleased that there was a unanimous consent agreement to approve H.R. 3233 that I introduced with Representative Adam Kinzinger that kept the Special Immigrant Visa program alive for Iraqi nationals who helped the United States during the war effort at great peril to themselves and their families. These are the interpreters, the guides and drivers, people who performed a myriad of functions that were essential for American operations both militarily and diplomatically and for our development efforts.

Since I introduced the first legislation on these refugees 6 years ago, I have watched impatiently as the flawed Special Immigrant Visa program has sputtered, leaving Iraqis and Afghans twisting in the wind trying to escape those countries, away from people with long memories who seek to do them harm.

Then, Monday night, it died. September 30, the visa program for the Iraqis expired. After 72 hours of furious activity, last night, the United States sent a signal that we were not going to leave them behind. Last night, Congress came together--the House and the Senate, Republican and Democrat--to make it possible to uphold our end of the bargain. But, unfortunately, the program still is horribly flawed, disastrously slow, and in dire need of reform. But we can take heart that the bipartisan leadership displayed on this issue might make it possible for us to actually make it work.

I would thank my colleagues, Adam Kinzinger, Tulsi Gabbard, Chris Gibson, Steve Stivers, and Steny Hoyer and others who stepped in during this tumultuous time to make sure the project continued.

Despite what was going on behind the scenes, there were many staff without whose tireless dedication to doing the right thing this would never have happened. I would like to thank Robert Karem in Leader Cantor's office; Mariah Sixkiller in Steny Hoyer's office, Dimple Shah in Chairman Goodlatte's office, and Chad Kreikemeier in Senator Shaheen's office. The Senator helped spearhead that effort on the other side of the Capitol.

And off the Hill there were veterans, veterans like Matt Zeller, who was not going to let the person whom he depended on in Iraq suffer that fate. Organizations off the Hill, like the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project and their staff, Katie Reisner and Becca Heller, were invaluable in keeping the progress going.

It was kind that Chairman Goodlatte, the Judiciary Committee chair, introduced the unanimous consent request. There was lots of scrambling and many items at loose ends, but somehow we were able to follow through with this small but critical step to keep the program alive. Now the challenge is to finally make it work for these desperate Iraqis and Afghans.

Kirk Johnson's book, ``To Be a Friend Is Fatal: The Fight to Save the Iraqis America Left Behind,'' is a call to action. It details what we need to do to meet our obligations.

In the midst of all the controversy and frustration here on Capitol Hill, we were able to come together for a brief moment this evening. Let's not let the shutdown overshadow the myriad of details that are important--even life and death--for people at home and abroad. Those who risked their lives for the American mission in Iraq and Afghanistan deserve our best efforts. Last night we saw a glimpse of it. I hope we are able to follow through.

Mr. Speaker, this is day two of the Republican shutdown, holding America hostage. The stated objective of their fury is what they feel to be the ``unconstitutional'' Affordable Care Act that will wreck the economy and destroy health care in America.

They harbor these feelings and will not relent until the law is defunded, even if it means shutting down the government, denying people essential services, furloughing Federal employees, and raising the specter of default on our national debt. This is despite the fact that the health care bill passed 3 years ago. It was declared constitutional by the United States Supreme Court and was argued extensively in the 2012 elections, which the Republicans lost.

We've now seen the first day of the Affordable Care Act, already about 10 million visits to the Web site, phone lines jammed, hundreds of thousands of Americans--doctors, nurses, people in hospitals, insurance companies--involved in making the biggest advance in health care since Medicare 50 years ago.

Are the Republicans afraid that the program will succeed, that Americans will see that this effort to help 40 to 50 million Americans with low income or people with preexisting conditions will actually get help?

Republicans, in any event, should not pull the rug out from underneath the people who could benefit from the law or the hundreds of thousands of people who have made significant investments and are working to improve the delivery of health care in America at great effort and expense for themselves.

According to the independent Congressional Budget Office, this is going to provide more access at less cost and lead to a deficit reduction on the order of $1 trillion over the next 20 years. In fact, the Republicans in the House of Representatives have taken $500 billion of these savings from the Affordable Care Act and stuffed it in their budget to make it appear that it's more affordable.

If they were serious and not cynical, they would remove the money from their budget that's attributed to the bill they're working so hard to defund. While they're at it, if they're serious and not cynical, they would have a conference committee on the budget.

Wasn't it interesting, the 11th hour Hail Mary proposal late Saturday night to have a conference committee on the continuing resolution despite the fact that there was nothing to conference--it was defund ObamaCare or nothing.

But if House Republicans really think conference committees are such a good idea, why don't we have a conference committee on the budget? The Senate has been waiting for the House Republican leadership for 6 months to approve conferees so we can see if we can reconcile some of these differences.

If my friends were serious and not cynical about saving money, they would bring their own spending bills to the floor. Remember, it's been over 2 months since they abruptly stopped the appropriations process with the Treasury-HUD bill still in limbo, just walked off the floor halfway through the debate. The remaining eight spending bills appear to be so bad under the Ryan budget, which uses those evil ObamaCare savings, that their own Members don't even seem to want to vote for them.

Finally, if they are serious and not cynical, they should absolutely take the debt ceiling blackmail off the table. There's no reason to threaten to destabilize not just our economy, but the global economy, by pretending for 1 minute that America won't pay its bills. We will. But to threaten we would do otherwise invites chaos.

This is day two of the Affordable Care Act. The sun came up in the East. No one was forced to go to the post office for their prostate exam. No women had to go to the airport screeners for a mammogram. No doctors have been arrested or hospitals shut down. What did happen is people are getting better insurance with more choices at more affordable rates. I even bet that the sun sets in the West tonight.

Isn't it time to end the Republican shutdown?