Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 321, the Inspiring the Next Space Pioneers, Innovators, Researchers, and Explorers Women Act.

I want to express my appreciation for the leadership of Congresswoman Esty and Congresswoman Comstock.

This bill would help ensure that the incoming administration continues to promote and strengthen important programs at NASA to inspire and mentor girls and young women to pursue studies and careers in STEM areas.

Despite progress in the right direction, women remain largely underrepresented in STEM fields because they continue to face cultural and institutional barriers throughout their studies and career progression.

H.R. 321 would support existing programs at NASA that encourage young girls and women to study STEM fields and pursue careers in aerospace.

These programs include NASA GIRLS, a virtual mentoring program; Aspire to Inspire, a program connecting young girls with women in STEM careers at NASA; and a summer institute program that increases awareness and exposes young, middle school girls to the STEM careers at

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 255, the Promoting Women in Entrepreneurship Act.

The bill helps to build on STEM education and mentorship programs, such as those highlighted in the INSPIRE Women Act.

More women are pursuing STEM degrees and careers overall, but they continue to be underrepresented in many STEM fields. This is especially true in STEM fields with high entrepreneurship rates, such as engineering and computer science. Women who successfully complete degrees in these fields and want to turn their research and their talents into building new companies and creating new jobs then disproportionately face new hurdles, such as obtaining access to credit.

Unfortunately, because of these barriers, it remains as important as ever for our Federal science agencies to support programs and provide grants with the goal of encouraging, inspiring, and supporting women in STEM at all levels of their education and training, including entrepreneurship education and training.

H.R. 255 ensures that longstanding entrepreneurship education and training programs at the National Science Foundation continue to encourage and recruit women who are looking to move beyond the laboratory and commercialize the results of their research. If we are serious about growing our economy, it is just common sense that we would encourage all of our best and brightest--male and female--to commercialize their best ideas and create new companies and new jobs.

I thank my colleagues Representative Esty for her leadership and Representative Comstock for her leadership on this bill. I strongly support the bill and encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support it.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to join communities and individuals all across the United States in recognizing Law Enforcement Appreciation Day. Today is just one of many opportunities throughout the year when we come together to recognize the bravery and sacrifice of our fellow men and women in law enforcement, who work day in and day out to protect our families, friends, and communities.

Our recognition here today is timely, given that the six-month anniversary of the shooting in Dallas on July 7, 2016 took place over the weekend. This tragic shooting claimed the lives of four Dallas Police offices and one DART officer, while injuring nine others. It was a traumatic day for our city. However, the people of Dallas came together in unprecedented numbers to honor the fallen and support the Dallas Police Department through this most trying time. It was a testament to the focus and resolve of the American people as individuals from all across the country came together to denounce the violence and support our law enforcement officers.

Last year alone, 135 law enforcement officers lost their lives in the line of duty. This was the highest number of line of duty deaths in five years, and represents a ten percent increase over 2015. While I do not believe that this is a normal trend, we need to be cognizant of the violence within our communities and ensure that we are taking steps in our everyday lives to reduce the tension between law enforcement and the communities they protect.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to stand with my colleagues today in honor of this day of recognition. Law enforcement officers--including the brave men and women of the Dallas Police Department--perform their duties often without praise or recognition of the day-to-day challenges that they face. While it is important to recognize law enforcement officers on special occasions such as these, we must not forget that these brave men and women are patrolling our streets each and every day and rightly deserve the same recognition.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 353, the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017.

This bill is the culmination of more than four years of compromise and negotiation, and demonstrates that the issues of weather and climate can be addressed in a bi-partisan way.

In that regard, I want to recognize the efforts of Jim Bridenstine and Suzanne Bonamici, as well as the bill's sponsor, Frank Lucas. Their leadership and commitment has really driven this process forward.

Mr. Speaker, weather affects all of us everyday. It is a constant presence in our lives.

Tropical storms batter homes and disrupt lives from my home state of Texas all the way to Maine. States like Oklahoma, Illinois, and again Texas are some of the most tornado prone areas in the entire world.

Sadly, turning on the television to see a part of our country devastated by tornados, or hurricanes, or other severe weather incidents, has become a far too familiar occurrence. To help Americans avoid and cope with these potentially devastating events, we need to have the very best weather forecasting and warning capabilities.

The National Weather Service and the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research at NOAA play a central role in protecting the lives and property of every American.

The bill before us today will help accelerate innovation, and turn cutting-edge weather research into essential weather forecasting tools and products; tools which forecasters can then use to protect American lives.

The legislation removes barriers that exist between the weather research community, our nation's forecasters, and the private-sector weather enterprise. Improving collaboration and cooperation within NOAA, and also between the agency and the broader weather community, will impact the accuracy and timing of our weather predictions. These improvements will ultimately save lives and make our communities safer.

Strengthening our resilience to severe weather events is both vital and necessary to strengthen our nation's economic security. H.R. 353 will advance our weather forecasting capabilities and I urge my colleagues to support its passage.

Mr. Speaker, President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet nominations are nothing short of alarming. With the United States Senate expected to begin nomination hearings this week, we need to ensure that Congress follows a fair and thorough vetting process as we evaluate the suitability of these individuals to fill the various cabinet positions.

One source of concern is the process by which Republicans in Congress are choosing to conduct these nominations. The recent Republican effort to rush the nominees through the process does not invite confidence in our ability to properly consider each individual on their merits. Walter Shaub, Jr., Director of the Office of Government Ethics, raised his concerns of this very fact given that his office is charged with conducting ethics screening reviews of the nominees. The aggressive hearing schedule to consider these nominees is unprecedented and has placed an undue burden on the Office of Government Ethics (OCE) and its ability to conduct thorough ethics reviews. These ethics reviews are essential to the process and help us to identify potential conflicts of interest or other ethical considerations before we confirm these individuals to serve in public office. Director Shaub has stated that it is unprecedented for the Senate to conduct a confirmation hearing before the ethics review process has concluded. This is simply unacceptable and undermines the democratic process.

The nominees themselves are also cause for concern. Namely, I believe that the nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions for Attorney General of the U.S. Department of Justice threatens the best interests and safety of the American people. Senator Sessions has served in the United States Senate for twenty years, during which his record on civil rights and other national issues was questionable at best. For example, he voted several times against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which aimed to hold offenders of violence against women accountable for their actions. He has also taken a very clear position against rights for the LGBT community, which would deny these Americans basic human rights. His positions on criminal justice and government reforms are also disturbing.

Mr. Speaker, I have serious concerns about the means by which my Republican colleagues are approaching the nomination process this Congress. If we are to properly evaluate the qualifications and the ethical suitability of these nominees, we must conduct an exhaustive examination of each nominee based on their merits--not on their politics. The Republicans are failing to uphold these basic principles through their recent actions. In the name of protecting the American people and doing what is best for our country, I urge my Republican colleagues to return to normal order and delay these nomination hearings until OCE can conclude its ethics reviews of the nominees.

George Washington, President and deputy from Virginia.

Delaware: George Read, Gunning Bedford, Jr., John Dickinson, Richard Bassett, Jacob Broom.

Maryland: James McHenry, Daniel of St Thomas Jenifer, Daniel Carroll.

Virginia: John Blair, James Madison, Jr.

North Carolina: William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Hugh Williamson.

South Carolina: John Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler.

Georgia: William Few, Abraham Baldwin.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition of the GOP agenda which will repeal the Affordable Care Act and cause 30 million Americans to lose healthcare coverage.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the Republicans to please examine the harm that this will do. Because of the Affordable Care Act, the uninsured rate in Texas has fallen by 28 percent and still has the largest number of uninsured Americans, allowing 1.7 million Texans to gain coverage.

While Texas did not expand Medicaid, the State still benefits from many other reforms brought by the Affordable Care Act. For instance, Sean, a Ph.D. candidate in economic development at the University of Texas at Dallas and his wife, Jamie, relied on the Affordable Care Act when their son was born prematurely and with a heart defect that required surgery and a transfer to another Dallas hospital. Sean was reassured that, with his family's ACA marketplace plan, his newborn son would not be denied coverage for lifesaving treatment.

It is unconscionable to me that the GOP refuses to look at what works and what needs improvement in this law instead of a full repeal as the only option. This will deeply harm American families.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H. Res. 11, Objecting to United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 as an obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peace. On December 23, 2016, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 2334 which describes Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as illegal, with the United States abstaining from the vote.

Now, U.S. Congress has chosen to disapprove of President Obama's leadership and longstanding U.S. foreign policy on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. UNSC Resolution 2334 merely reiterates the international community consensus and bipartisan U.S. policy that building settlements impedes the path to a lasting peaceful two-state solution. H. Res. 11 asserts that the UNSCR is ``anti-Israel'' and ``one-sided,'' but it does not break new ground or create any new policy. For example, in 1987, the Reagan administration abstained and allowed the passage of UNSCR 605, reaffirming the application of the Geneva Convention which included Jerusalem in the ``Palestinian and Arab Territories, occupied by Israel since 1967.''

Instead, I am urging support of an alternative resolution introduced and led by Congressman David Price. Instead of disapproving of a resolution that reaffirms longstanding U.S. policy, Congress would work towards the progress of a two-state solution. H. Res. 11 would undermine our decades-long efforts towards a peaceful situation between Israelis and Palestinians and it is not the best way to show our support for Israel, our strong ally. Our goal must be to reaffirm U.S. policy in the Middle East and to find solutions with the international community.

We must be steadfast in our commitment to a two-state solution and to longstanding U.S. policy. That is why I urge my colleagues to oppose H. Res. 11 and to support the alternative resolution introduced by Congressman Price.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support the designation of February 19, 2015 as National Anthropology Day. Throughout the third week of February, but particularly on the 19th, anthropological societies, museums, and student clubs in more than 100 American cities will celebrate the anthropology's contributions to advancing understanding of the human condition and applying this understanding to addressing some of the world's most pressing problems.

The American Anthropological Association, together with the Archaeological Institute of America and American Association of Physical Anthropologists, represent a combined total of more than 200,000 members, and will lead in a host of public educational activities to demonstrate the ways in which anthropology produces a body of facts about how we identify ourselves and create communities, beliefs, cultures, and how we can live sustainably in our natural and built environments.

Anthropology teaches respect for cultural differences--a sensibility that is crucial in today's increasingly mobile and interconnected world. The field of knowledge contributes to the well-being of humanity in nearly every facet of our lives, including, promoting health and strengthening health care delivery systems, developing appropriate technology that meets individual and societal needs, understanding and preserving the past to help us face collective future challenges, identifying best practices in education, environmental and cultural resource protection, and preservation of our diverse linguistic heritage, and celebrating our nation's ethnic, racial, and cultural diversity.

As lawmakers, we must do all we can to support these efforts. I am proud to join with communities across the country in recognizing February 19th as National Anthropology Day.

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to commemorate the 90th birthday of my friend and colleague, former Congressman Louis Stokes.

Louis Stokes rose from local housing projects in Cleveland, Ohio to serve 30 years in the U.S. House, first elected in 1968. Reluctant to enter the political arena, Stokes was persuaded to run for office by his younger brother, Carl B. Stokes, the first Black mayor of a major American city, elected in 1967. Prior to serving in Congress Louis served for decades as a civil rights lawyer. Louis Stokes was the first black to represent the State of Ohio in Congress and was a founding Member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Throughout his tenure in the House, Stokes chaired several congressional committees and was the first African American to win a seat on the House Appropriations Committee.

During his long tenure in Congress, Louis Stokes headed and participated in several major House investigations. In March 1977 he was appointed to lead the Select Committee on Assassinations, formed to conduct an investigation of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Stokes also served as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, becoming the first Black Member of Congress to head this committee.

Stokes was the dean of the Ohio Congressional Delegation. His work in the area of health led to his appointment as a member of the Pepper Commission on Comprehensive Health Care, and he was the founder and chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus Health Brain Trust. In 1991 Stokes chaired the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. When Louis Stokes retired in 1998, he became the first African American in the history of the U.S. Congress to have completed 30 years in office.

Following his service in Congress, he became senior counsel at Squire, Sanders, and Dempsey L.L.P., a global law firm, and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University. Stokes also served as vice chairman of the PEW Environmental Health Commission at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and was appointed by former Health and Human Services Secretary, Donna E. Shalala, as chairman of the Advisory Committee on Minority Health.

Mr. Speaker, I join with his wife Jay, children, Shelley, Angela, Louis and Lori, grandchildren, family and friends in wishing Congressman Louis Stokes a very happy and blessed 90th birthday. You have been a trailblazer for so many. May you have many, many more.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1020--although, reluctantly, I must qualify my support. I will begin with the parts of the bill that I strongly support.

I want to thank Ms. Esty for her language to amend NSF's Noyce Master Teacher Fellowship program. This is an important update to the program to ensure that we are tapping into our entire pool of talented math and science teachers who might serve as master teachers in their schools and districts.

I also want to thank Mr. Lipinski for his language to authorize the National Science Foundation's informal STEM education portfolio. While we know that informal STEM education learning holds great promise to increase engagement in STEM by diverse populations and to enhance learning of STEM content, there is still more R&D to be done to make sure we are developing and implementing the most effective programs.

My support for those sections of this bill is unqualified. However, I must express my concern about the definition for STEM included in this legislation which differs in a significant way from the definition of STEM that Chairman Smith proposed in last year's version of this same bill.

Specifically, the current version would define STEM as ``science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, including computer science.'' Last year's version, developed in collaboration with the STEM Education Coalition, read as ``science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, including other academic subjects that build on these disciplines such as computer science.''

This second definition, the one this entire House agreed to last year, was agreed to because it left the door open

for other critical fields such as statistics and geology that don't cleanly fit into S, T, E, or M of STEM in K-12 teacher certifications and curricula.

I think we can all agree to the importance of computer science education. The current disconnect between the high demand for information technology jobs and limited opportunities for students to be exposed to computer science at the K-12 level puts American students and American companies at a significant disadvantage.

However, it baffles me as to why we would implicitly devalue such fields as statistics and geology in order to highlight computer science.

Statistics is an essential tool across all fields of science. Without good statistics, the biomedical research results that we count on to develop new diagnostics and therapeutics for diseases would be meaningless.

Without geology, oil and gas companies would not be able to locate and drill for new sources of energy. Without geology, we will never achieve early warning for earthquakes to save lives. Whether we are from Texas or California, we ought to place high value on geology.

I am also baffled why this bill is so urgent that we had to skip regular order to bring it to the floor. I requested that the committee hold a hearing or a markup on this legislation so that we might settle the definition dispute in committee after an open and public debate, but my request was denied.

Mr. Speaker, I will support this bill today, but I hope that the Senate will be wiser than we are being today in defining STEM. This is not simply semantics. How and what science is taught in our Nation's classrooms is essential to our future economic competitiveness, national security, and overall well-being.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize one of the preeminent civil rights organizations in America, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, on their 106th anniversary. Widely recognized as the nation's oldest and largest civil rights group, this organization has been essential in helping African Americans find and maintain their voice since its founding in 1909.

Founded by W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells and a host of other progressive and forward thinking leaders, the NAACP has always been on the front lines for Blacks in this country.

Established partly in response to the horrific lynchings of the early 1900s, the group quickly expanded, focusing many of its early battles on the court system and legalized segregation. With the stated purpose of securing the rights guaranteed by the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments for all Americans, the NAACP worked tirelessly to secure equal protection under the law and the right to vote.

With the founding of the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund in 1939, America saw the brilliant litigation strategy of Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall as they advocated for the famous Brown v. Board of Education decision, which many credit with beginning the modern Civil Rights Movement.

As the 20th century neared its close, and African Americans experienced the transition from the overt racism that plagues the Jim Crow South to urban areas plagued by poverty and crime. Again, the NAACP adopted its mantra to meet this challenge and remains a relevant advocate improving the lives of Blacks in America.

I rise to recognize and celebrate the 106 year history of the NAACP's advocacy and. From the early 20th century, fighting for Blacks to serve as officers in World War I, to the present day efforts to address disparities in economic access and the criminal justice system, the NAACP continues to fulfill its mission of providing a voice to the voiceless and improving the quality of life for all Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 810, the NASA Authorization Act of 2015. NASA is a critical engine of discovery, science, innovation, and inspiration.

During the last Congress, our committee leadership and Members from both sides came together to work through a compromise NASA authorization act. It was for a 1-year bill, but it provided important policy direction to the agency at a time when we in Congress wanted NASA to build on its progress and keep its focus on the priorities established through successive authorization acts. That bipartisan bill passed the House last year by an overwhelming 401-2 margin.

The bill, H.R. 810, which is also a 1-year reauthorization, takes that same policy language and updates the authorization of appropriations to be consistent with the funding levels enacted in fiscal year 2015. The bill also provides necessary date changes where relevant.

While this is not a perfect bill, especially in terms of its short duration and lack of meaningful outyear funding guidance, it includes many important policy provisions that will help guide the future of NASA at a critical time for our space program.

H.R. 810 emphasizes NASA's role as a multimission agency with programs in aeronautics, science, exploration, and human spaceflight. It also establishes a

clear long-term goal of sending humans to the surface of Mars and directs NASA to prepare a human exploration roadmap of what is needed to get there.

The bill also provides policy direction on a host of other priority activities, including space and earth science, aeronautics, space technology, and education, as well as good government directives on curbing cost growth and strengthening program management, among others.

Consistent with the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, H.R. 810 directs that safety be the highest priority in the commercial human spaceflight program to transport our astronauts to the international space station.

NASA is doing all that it can to make effective progress on its programs thanks to its passionate and dedicated civil servant workforce and extended contractor and academic communities. We want to sustain NASA's progress on critical programs, including the Space Launch System and Orion, by providing consistency and constancy of purpose and direction. This bill enables such stability while providing our committee the time needed to develop a comprehensive multiyear reauthorization of NASA once H.R. 810 is enacted into law.

I want to recognize the efforts of the committee leadership, including our chairman, Lamar Smith, and most especially our subcommittee chairman, Steve Palazzo, and the ranking member, Congresswoman Donna Edwards, for their dedication and willingness to work together with me to achieve this bipartisan bill, H.R. 810, the NASA Authorization Act of 2015.

We need a strong NASA with an inspiring agenda for our children and grandchildren, and we need to fund it at a level commensurate with the tasks we have given them to achieve. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 810, the NASA Authorization Act of 2015.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today, along with my colleagues of the Congressional Black Caucus,

to recognize the lasting legacy of the Selma marches. 50 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael, Congressman John Lewis, and a number of other fearless fighters, led the historic marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in protest of discriminatory voting laws.

In the years prior to the Selma marches, less than 1% of the black voting age population was registered to vote in Dallas County, where Selma is located. However, more than 80% of Dallas County blacks lived below the poverty line. Various efforts to get blacks in Dallas County registered to vote were met physical violence and economic intimidation. But with the local leadership of the Dallas County Voters League, and the help of two national organizations, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee, the Selma marches were born.

During the first march from Selma to Montgomery, in what would become known as ``Bloody Sunday,'' the nation watched in horror as African Americans were brutally beaten by police officers, attacked by dogs, and sprayed by fire hoses. Their courage, in the face of dehumanizing treatment from law enforcement, thrust the issue of segregation and race relations in the Deep South into the national consciousness. It led to President Lyndon B. Johnson presenting to a joint session of Congress what would become the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the most important piece of civil rights legislation in the history of this country.

50 years later, the images of ``Bloody Sunday'' are permanently etched into our Nation's history as a deep and painful reminder of the struggles we triumphantly conquered to get to where we are today. And yet, the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, at the hands of law enforcement, serve as tragic reminders that we still have so far to go.

The work of Selma is not finished. The work of Dr. King, Stokely Carmichael, and Congressman Lewis is not finished. But we must remain encouraged and faithful for the progress still left to achieve. While the discriminatory voting laws of the 1960s are no more, we have encountered a new brand of voter disenfranchisement in 2015 that poses a serious threat to the electoral process. And once again, the great citizens of this nation must fight to protect their constitutional right to vote. It is with the painful lessons learned from the marches on Selma, and with the same tenacity and fearlessness that we will continue to fight this battle today.

Amendment XXII:

Section 1:

``No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once.''