Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, more than 40,000 people were killed last year on America's roads. This tragic toll is unacceptable, even more so because every single one of these deaths is preventable.

Today, I am introducing legislation named for Sarah Debbink Langenkamp, who was killed while bicycling here in the Nation's capital.

Sarah was a U.S. diplomat whose family had just been evacuated from Kyiv. She was bicycling home from her children's new school in Bethesda on August 25, 2022, when she was struck and crushed by a flatbed truck.

She was riding in an unprotected bike lane on the shoulder of a five- lane urban highway, a route she was forced to take because it was the only connection between the low-traffic neighborhood street of the elementary school and the multi-use path to her home. While drivers are responsible for operating safely around cyclists and pedestrians, fixing gaps in infrastructure presents opportunities to build safe systems that could have protected Sarah.

Disconnected and incomplete networks are unfortunately common features of bicyclist and pedestrian infrastructure in the United States.

These gaps in infrastructure present serious dangers. Deaths and injuries of pedestrians and bicyclists have grown dramatically in recent years, rising to the highest levels in decades, and now make up 20 percent of traffic deaths. This legislation encourages the construction of complete active transportation networks, separated from vehicle roadways, which will contribute to safer trips and fewer deaths on our roads.

I look forward to working my colleagues in the House and Senate to pass this legislation in memory of Sarah and every other person killed on our Nation's roads.

Mr. Speaker, today I introduced the End Oil and Gas Tax Subsidies Act of 2023. This legislation eliminates nearly a dozen of the most egregious tax breaks enjoyed by the oil and gas industry. President Biden proposed a similar initiative in his Fiscal Year 2024 budget.

The climate is changing. This fact is indisputable, as is the fact that humans are the primary cause of the changing climate. The United States emitted nearly 6 billion tons of greenhouse gases in 2020 and the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions comes from the combustion of fossil fuels.

Despite consistent profitability, fossil fuel companies receive billions of dollars in federal tax breaks and subsidies, which underwrite the costs of continued oil and gas production. These forgone revenues undermine the United States' ability to combat the climate crisis and invest in critical initiatives like education, housing, infrastructure, and healthcare.

Recent analysis released by the Stockholm Environment Institute found that just two oil and gas tax subsidies--the expensing of intangible drilling costs and the percentage depletion allowance--increased the value of new oil and gas projects by more than $20 billion in some years. These two subsidies alone helped spur and sustain the shale development boom in the United States. Follow-up analysis examining the impacts of continuing these subsidies found that the subsidies increase average rate of return by 55 percent to 68 percent and more than 96 percent of the subsidy value goes to excess profits.

Oil and gas tax subsidies are unnecessary and a wasteful use of hard- earned taxpayer dollars. I look forward to working with my colleagues to rid them from the tax code once and for all.

Mr. Speaker, Oregon has led the nation in defending the right to vote, which is the very cornerstone of our democracy. Vote at home laws have been extremely successful at increasing voter turnout all while upholding strong security standards. That is why today I introduced the Vote at Home Act.

This legislation will bring Oregon's model nationwide and strengthen the fundamental right to vote that is so central to our democratic process. Nearly 50 percent of voters used a vote-at-home ballot in the November 2020 election, an all-time high in federal races. It is time to build on the innovative electoral reforms expanding access to the right to vote.

The Vote at Home Act updates the Vote by Mail Act, which I first introduced with Senator Wyden in 2017, to promote the ability of voters to vote by mail, expand options for casting ballots, fund the U.S. Postal Service by covering the costs associated with mailing ballots both to and from voters in federal elections, and enact automatic voter registration. Under this legislation, all registered voters would receive ballots in the mail weeks before Election Day, allowing them to carefully research candidates and issues ahead of Election Day to inform their vote. States would be required to ensure that each citizen who provides identifying information to the state motor vehicle authority is automatically registered to vote. Voters are given 21 days to opt out if they do not wish to be registered to vote.

This crucial legislation is a nation-wide effort and is endorsed by voting rights groups including Common Cause, Fair Fight Action, Demand Progress, End Citizens United, Sojourners, Stand Up America, and People for the American Way.

I look forward to working with my colleagues in Congress to enact this legislation and finally establish access to voting at home nationwide.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to remember my friend and former colleague, Cindy Gaulke. During my time as a Portland city commissioner, Cindy was our office's scheduler and a dedicated public servant in the truest sense of the term.

Cindy was an integral team player, focused, and determined. She was the heart and soul of our City Hall office. She was dedicated to doing her job well, sorting things out, and was there when you needed her. And she had a great sense of humor.

When I won a special election to serve in Congress, I turned to Cindy to ask if she would come out to Washington, D.C. to help set up our Congressional office. I was thankful to have a friend and terrific partner as the team figured out how Capitol Hill worked. I will forever be grateful Cindy was willing to share some of her competence with me and my team.

Cindy was a bright spot of confidence, good cheer and dedication that made our lives function in our Nation's Capital. I am honored to have known her and to have worked with her.

Mr. Speaker, today I introduced the No Tax Subsidies for Stadiums Act. This commonsense legislation will close the tax loophole that allows a tax-exemption on municipal bonds used to finance professional sports stadiums.

For more than a century, the federal government has supported state and local infrastructure projects by excluding the interest on municipal bonds from federal income taxes. Qualified projects eligible for a tax-exemption include roads, sewers and water systems, hospitals, schools, govenunental buildings, and other projects for the public good. However, a loophole in the tax code allows professional sports franchises to use public money to construct stadiums using taxexempt municipal bonds.

Since 2000, dozens of professional sports stadiums have been constructed or rehabilitated under financing provided by federal tax- exempt municipal bonds, costing taxpayers nearly $4 billion. While professional sports teams promise state and local governments that their stadiums will produce local economic development and job creation, there is no quantifiable evidence that they provide these benefits. Providing a federal subsidy for a professional sports stadium requires residents of a state without a professional team to subsidize a stadium in another part of the country, where they receive no benefit whatsoever. Public financing creates a race to the bottom where teams worth hundreds of millions, or billions, of dollars have all the leverage to exploit city budgets for their own gain.

By disallowing a federal tax-exemption, hundreds of millions of dollars a year will be returned to American taxpayers or can be put toward making our communities more safe, healthy, and economically secure. I thank my friends Senators Lankford and Booker in their support for this legislation in the Senate and I look forward to working with my colleagues to enact this critical legislation.

Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to introduce the Promoting Access to Diabetic Shoes Act.

With serious comorbidities and complications associated with it, diabetes has a significant impact on the health of our country. Diabetes is the leading cause of non-traumatic lower extremity amputation in the United States. Research shows that approximately 50 percent of people with diabetes will develop at least some degree of peripheral neuropathy and that 25 percent can expect to develop a foot ulcer at some point. As many as 24 percent of people who develop a foot ulcer will go on to have an amputation.

The good news is that preventive measures such as therapeutic or diabetic shoes can help avert the progression of neuropathy and the need for amputation. However, current Medicare statute does not allow nurse practitioners and physician assistants to fulfill certification requirements as a patient's primary care providers. This means that patients who typically see these providers need to be referred to a physician for certification and continue to see them afterwards. Not only does it increase costs, this policy interrupts patient care and delays access to time-sensitive services.

My legislation would allow nurse practitioners and physician assistants to fulfill these documentation requirements, which is within their scope of practice. Enacting this legislation would streamline this administrative process and allow Medicare patients to get the care they need in a timely fashion.

I urge my colleagues support this bipartisan legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I want to take the opportunity today to celebrate the accomplishments of Duncan Campbell who, in addition to being a business entrepreneur and a philanthropist, I am grateful to call a friend. Duncan is a pioneer in changing the way we help America's children and young people who are facing the greatest challenges in life. Starting as a childcare worker for juvenile offenders and later working on the Governor's Children Agenda and serving as Chairman of the Multnomah County Juvenile Services Commission, Duncan has spent decades dedicated to the pursuit of improving the lives of children who are born into unfortunate circumstances. I especially want to highlight a program he created, Friends of the Children, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

Friends of the Children is a mentoring organization that enrolls children ages 4 to 6 who are facing the most extreme challenges, and provides them with salaried, professional mentors who meet with them every week through high school graduation. Each professional mentor, called a Friend, works with 8 to 10 children. Children spend 16 hours per month with their Friends, working to achieve a set of individualized goals that place them on a path to success.

The Friends model created by Duncan is now gaining national recognition as a solution to some of our greatest challenges, and I find it a privilege to advocate for it here in Congress. It can be used to prevent foster care placement and improve stability for children already in the system. Investing in paid, professional mentoring would reduce the burden on existing systems and increase the number of children receiving evidence-based services. The program has been carefully analyzed by a wide variety of experts. It works. It's extraordinarily successful, having grown into a national network of 30 cities.

Friends of the Children is a program unlike any other. It is the solution to breaking the cycle of poverty and trauma. With the intensity and duration to change life trajectories, it provides more equitable opportunities for youth experiencing trauma or living in extreme poverty. The Friends of the Children relationship-based service model addresses the needs of our country's most vulnerable youth, empowering them to move beyond their circumstances to become healthy, contributing citizens. I encourage my colleagues to partner with chapters that serve their constituents and hear more about how their communities benefit from this program.

I offer my congratulations to Duncan, on the work he's done these last 30 years and I look forward to working with him for years to come.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy in permitting me to speak on this. It is not quite as simple as my friend from Florida implies.

Today we are voting to upend the healthcare system and interrupt patient care. Ending the public health emergency prematurely would have far-reaching implications, and this is a waste of time. The Biden administration has already made clear that they are planning on ending the emergency in May.

Why are we spending time abruptly ending this declaration, which is going to end in 3 months anyway, when we could have instead had a serious conversation about making this as smooth a transition as possible?

There are many things that are involved here. Congress already started this work in the omnibus by beginning a process to wind down Medicaid enrollment policies and extending important programs like telehealth.

I was happy that my bipartisan legislation to extend Medicare's Hospital at Home program was extended in this manner. We fought for this because we viewed the waivers and policies of the last 3 years as a blueprint for future opportunities to innovate and extract value from our healthcare system.

This work was bipartisan because both sides of the aisle saw the benefit of the pandemic-era policies. It is unfortunate that instead of continuing to build on that work, my colleagues are posturing.

I have heard from hospitals in my district, and I imagine you have heard in yours, how important it is to extend, not end, the waivers that address their capacity and staffing challenges.

If this bill were enacted, those operations would be upended. State Medicaid programs would be in unnecessary chaos, with millions at risk of losing their health insurance. Seniors would lose access to COVID tests because Medicare would no longer be able to pay for them. These are just a few examples of the complexity and how irresponsible this legislation is. It certainly does not honor the more than a million Americans who have lost their lives to this disease.

After a traumatic 3 years full of loss, the last thing the public needs is additional chaos at the hands of the Federal Government.

At the start of the pandemic, we saw an often divided Congress come together to bring meaningful relief to American families. I had hoped that we would continue that same spirit of cooperation and dedication to our constituents at the end of this chapter.

I know we have all heard from our hospitals and healthcare systems about the needs they still have. I believe we can work together to make this a stable transition and learn lessons from the pandemic.

I urge my colleagues to reject this legislation and instead come to the table to work to ease the transition in a reasonable fashion.

Mr. Speaker, had I voted, I would have voted ``yes'' on passage of H.R. 500, the Financial Exploitation Prevention Act (Roll Call No. 94). By allowing registered open-end investment companies to delay the redemption of a security if the request was believed to be the result of financial exploitation, this bill protects American's hard-earned savings. Should this legislation become public law, it will bolster our financial security by preventing abuse of seniors and vulnerable adults.

Mr. Speaker, today I introduced the Restoring Equal and Accountable Legislators in the House (REAL House) Act. This legislation would expand the number of members of the U.S. House of Representatives to restore the chamber's direct link to the public and foster greater diversity among Representatives and the Electoral College.

Members of the House of Representatives are their constituent's most direct connection to the federal government and its resources and services. The COVlD-19 pandemic underscored the importance of the proactive and local constituent services unique to House members. However, the number of constituents living in a single congressional district has dramatically increased since the number of House members was arbitrarily capped in 1929. Current district sizes threaten the direct constituent connection on which the House was founded. Simply, congressional districts are too large.

Today, there are 435 voting members of the House of Representatives, a cap from when the U.S. population was only 122 million people. With the current U.S. population of 328 million people and the same number of representatives, the size of congressional districts has nearly tripled. The average congressional district now includes 800,000 constituents.

If Congress fails to act, by 2050 each member of Congress is on track to represent more than 1 million people.

This growing imbalance makes it more difficult for members to be responsive to the will of the people, and voters are more likely to sit out elections when their voice and input are not fully represented in government.

The artificial cap also has a more insidious effect: an unrepresentative Electoral College. In the Electoral College system, each state gets a certain number of electors based on its total number of representatives in Congress. As the disparity between the largest and smallest states widens, the votes of those in larger states matter less and less.

The REAL House Act will help our government better reflect our districts and constituent needs. To restore the House's direct link to the public and to foster greater diversity among Members and the Electoral College, we must increase the number of Representatives.

I look forward to working with my colleagues in Congress to enact this legislation and finally overcome the arbitrary cap of 435 voting members of this chamber.

Madam Speaker, I was very encouraged with today's reports that the Republican leadership is planning to teach their Members about how the debt ceiling works. This is a very good sign, especially after the embarrassing first week with 15 votes to elect a Speaker, and the House leadership ending up exactly where it started. Unfortunately, the leadership is hallowed out, but they have empowered the exact same element or any other faction who want to hold the Speaker hostage.

But there is a key difference going forward. They are playing games with the full faith and credit of the United States, which is underpinning the global economy. Note, the debt ceiling is not just a way station on the way to a full government shutdown. While government shutdowns have real costs and consequences, the debt ceiling has massive ramifications that you cannot unwind.

This game of chicken with the global economy is very much more consequential. You can recover from the shutdown. But the Trump attacks on professionals, for example, drove thousands of people out of government service, and it is going to take years and millions of dollars to repair. These implementations of political slogans have real consequences.

In the end, I suspect we will be right where we started. The only way to reduce the deficit, to balance the budget books, is to actually reduce government spending, which they refused to do in the Trump administration when they were in total control of the government. They instead had a huge increase in the deficit. There were, of course, tax cuts that were a part of that, unfunded, and there was a major spike in military spending.

My friend, Hal Harvey, a leader in climate science, is fond of saying that you can't refute science, math, and economics. That is exactly the situation that my Republican friends are facing with this game of chicken with the debt ceiling.

There is no gimmick, there is no commission, and there is no slogan that avoids the painful truth that you actually have to reduce spending. There are real things we could do.

I would suggest any Member could avail themselves of a secret weapon that is in each and every one of our districts. There are amazing young people who are involved with civics, with leadership congresses, with the efforts to understand how government works. I think we ought to employ them. They understand the dynamic: Cut spending, raise taxes, or just collect the taxes that are due and owing, which would be hundreds of billions of dollars. Unless and until we do this, all the rest is simply meaningless slogans and posturing, unfortunately with real risks of threatening the full faith and credit of the United States.

My friends have no alternative to the borrowing, and I am afraid that we are going to end up going through this meaningless exercise, agitating ourselves, confusing the public, and losing an opportunity to make real progress, improving the budgeting process, and making the tax system more effective to just collect the taxes that are already due and owing, which we are ignoring.

I strongly encourage the process that my Republican friends are involved with in terms of educating Members about the impacts of the debt ceiling, and I hope that we are able to come together to deal with the realities of what that implies.

Offered By: Mr. Blumenauer

Amendment No. 127: Page 3, line 9, strike the closing

quotation mark and the final period.

Page 3, after line 9, insert the following:

``(4) Rule of construction.--Nothing in this subsection

shall be construed as a denial of the effects of petroleum

products on global greenhouse gas emissions, including the

effects on the ability to meet the nationally determined

contribution of the United States under article 4 of the 2015

Paris Agreement.''.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy in permitting me to speak on these resolutions. This is a poll-tested focus group effort to change the subject.

We all know that attacking facilities or not providing healthcare to an infant is already illegal. This is a veiled attempt at distracting from the real consequences of the Dobbs decision.

People have had their rights taken away and can no longer receive the care they wish. When we see doctors consulting their lawyers when patients are dying on operating tables because they are afraid of abortion bans, voting on this resolution is an embarrassment.

It is unconscionable that when people are living in fear, even dying because they are denied healthcare, the House is ignoring this in favor of a political stunt.

I stand with the American public and in opposition to this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor much encouraged, having heard the words of the Speaker and the chairman-designate, Mr. Gallagher.

I was one of those people 25 years ago who was part of the consensus that we could engage Communist China into the world economy. I had an opportunity to travel extensively, meeting with the Chinese leadership at that time. They were saying the right things. I think some of them were sincere. It was an encouraging opportunity.

But over the course of the last 20 years, it has taken a wrong turn. We have watched the Chinese play a cynical game. They have not lived up to their obligations under the WTO. We don't have a procurement provision, for example. We have watched repression increase, and we have watched this current regime in unprecedented ways exploit opportunities.

I have legislation to close the de minimis loophole that allows China to import 2 million packages a day, untaxed and uninspected, and Heaven only knows in terms of forced labor, in terms of illicit goods that are coming in here. I have had legislation to try to change that.

I think this select committee can be a forum to bring us together on a nonpartisan basis to take areas in which there is profound agreement, like closing the de minimis loophole.

I commend the Speaker and the leadership moving forward. I look forward to working with Democratic leadership on this, to use it as an opportunity to get us back on track, particularly given the insidious nature of the current regime's forced labor.

We have made great progress legislatively to give us more tools. I think there is a potential for this select committee to build on it and make more progress, and I look forward to working with them. I will support the proposal.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate how Mr. Neal laid out the facts here.

The Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act is a sham. The facts are that this legislation will shield tax cheats at the expense of working families.

The last time Republicans were in charge, they systematically defunded the IRS. The agency lost nearly 20 percent of its funding, shed more than 20,000 employees, and the audit rate for millionaires dropped 70 percent. We heard one of our Republican colleagues make that point.

This legislation will enable those at the top of the heap to be able to remember the taxes they should have reported. It raises, as we have heard, $187 billion in revenue. This bill, if enacted, would add to the deficit $114 billion because it is misguided and misdirected and wrong.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge the rejection of this legislation enforcement of the laws for everybody.