Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Washington, D.C. Admission Act with 115 original cosponsors, a record number. This is the most important bill I introduce each Congress, and it is especially meaningful this time in light of the historic results of the District of Columbia's statehood referendum last November. District voters overwhelmingly voted in favor of the referendum, which advises the D.C. Council to petition Congress for statehood. Residents are more energized than ever before to continue this momentum for statehood, equality, and self-determination. District residents have always been citizens of the United States but remain the only federal income taxpaying Americans who do not have full and equal citizenship rights. The denial of local control of local matters and of equal representation in the Congress of the United States can be remedied only by statehood.

Therefore, I am introducing the Washington, D.C. Admission Act to create a state from essentially the eight home-town wards of the District of Columbia. This 51st state, of course, would have no jurisdiction over the federal territory or enclave that now consists of the Washington that Members of Congress and visitors associate with the capital of our country. The U.S. Capitol Complex, the principal federal monuments, federal buildings and grounds, the National Mall, the White House, and other federal property here would remain under federal jurisdiction. Our bill provides that the State of Washington, D.C. would be equal to the other fifty states in all respects, as is always required, and that the residents of Washington, D.C. would have all the rights of citizenship as taxpaying American citizens, including two senators and, initially, one House member. The District of Columbia recognizes that it can enter the Union only on an equal basis and is prepared to do so.

A substantially similar version of the Washington DC. Admission Act was the first bill I introduced after I was first sworn in as a Member of Congress in the 102nd Congress in 1991. Our first try for statehood received significant support in the House. In 1993, we got the first and only vote on statehood for the District, with nearly 60 percent of Democrats and one Republican voting for the bill. The Senate held a hearing on various approaches to representation, but the committee of jurisdiction did not proceed further. In the 113th Congress, our statehood bill got unprecedented momentum with the Senate's first-ever

hearing on statehood, which was the first congressional hearing held on statehood in more than 20 years. The House held its hearing on statehood in 1993, and obtained a record number of cosponsors in the House and Senate, including then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, as well as the other top three Democratic leaders in the Senate. In addition, President Obama endorsed D.C. statehood in a public forum before the statehood hearing was held.

Statehood is the only alternative for the citizens of the District of Columbia. To be content with less than statehood is to concede the equality of citizenship that is the birthright of our residents as citizens of the United States. That is a concession no American citizen has ever made, and one D.C. residents will not make as they approach the 216th year in their fight for equal treatment in their country. This bill reaffirms our determination to obtain each and every right enjoyed by citizens of the United States, by becoming the 51st State in the Union.

Mr. Chairman, I thank my good friend from the Virgin Islands (Ms. Plaskett) for yielding to me.

I had to come down as I saw this attempt to use our jurisdiction to undermine our independent agencies. And I want to put an emphasis on independent agencies because they have always been treated differently.

Executive Order 12866 has long subjected agency rulemakings to some review by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, but independent agencies have been treated differently. Congress deliberately created them as independent to exempt them from political review for their regulatory actions by the White House.

The agencies we are talking about are very often agencies that deal with our economy. They are almost always agencies whose subject matter is controversial, like the National Labor Relations Board, which deals with labor management matters, or the FTC, whose role is to prevent anticompetitive business practices, not to mention the Fed.

Now, the executive order provides OIRA with the ability to do cost- benefit analysis ``unless prohibited by law.'' Those words are our - congressional words, ``unless prohibited by law.''

Now, that language is not in this executive order. Does it mean that it is erased so that, with respect to environment and public safety rules for example, ``prohibited by law'' no longer obtains and cost benefit can be done so that you can weigh the cost or the benefit of rules? The benefit would be clear, but the cost of rules that are so protective of the public that we have exempted them in the past--the silence is deafening.

Agencies also have always been able to indicate, because they have the only real knowledge, whether or not their rulemakings are significant. How could we give this exclusive authority now to OIRA? The politicization of independent agencies, making them subject to White House oversight, is very dangerous. It robs them of what is perhaps the most important part of their independence. This bill goes many steps too far.

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce a bill to require the Library of Congress to install the District of Columbia seal in the Main Reading Room of the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress concurrently with the renovation and replacement of the existing glass panels. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee passed this bill unanimously last Congress. The Library is one of the few buildings in the District that remains open to the public on most holidays. It provides not only D.C. residents but visitors and researchers from across the nation with access to incomparable resources. The bill requires the Library to depict the District's seal on the stained-glass windows in the Main Reading Room, where the seals of all the states and territories that existed when the building was constructed, except for the District, are depicted. D.C.'s seal was readily available at that time and should have been included. The seals of Hawaii and Alaska are not included in the display because they were not states or territories when the building was constructed. The fact that these two states were not part of the Union at the time of the creation of the stained-glass windows argues for the inclusion of the District, which, after all, was in fact the nation's capital at the time. We are asking that the omission of D.C. be corrected immediately. This omission was brought to my attention by a District resident, Luis Landau, a former docent at the Library.

The residents of the District have always had all the obligations of American citizenship, including paying federal taxes and serving in all the nation's wars, including the War of 1812, during which the Capitol building, which then housed the Library of Congress, was burned, prompting construction of the current Library of Congress building with the state and territory seals. It is, therefore, without question that the District and its residents should receive equal treatment among the stained-glass windows that portray the history of the United States. D.C. residents deserve to have their history and American citizenship recognized.

There is existing evidence that the seal of the District should have been depicted. The Members of Congress room in the Jefferson Building, which is not open to the public, has a painted depiction of the D.C. seal, along with state seals, on its ceiling. This precedent reinforces our request to be represented among the stained-glass windows in the Main Reading Room, which is open to the public. There is no reason why the D.C. seal cannot be added with the planned restoration of the stained-glass. The right time to add the seal of the District would be during the planned restoration.

Congress already includes the District, or has corrected the omission of the District, when honoring the states. For example, the District of Columbia War Memorial honors District residents who served in World War I, the

World War II Memorial includes a column representing the District, and D.C.'s Frederick Douglass statue now sits in the Capitol alongside statues from the 50 states. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 requires the armed services to display the District flag whenever the flags of the states are displayed. Legislation was also enacted to give D.C. a coin after it was omitted from legislation creating coins for the 50 states. We also successfully worked with the U.S. Postal Service to create a D.C. stamp, like the stamps for the 50 states, and worked with the National Park Service to add the D.C. flag alongside the state flags across from Union Station. It is long overdue to display the D.C. seal, along with the seals of the states, in the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress.

I urge support for this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the Fairness for Breastfeeding Mothers Act of 2017, a bill that would require buildings that are either federally owned or leased to provide designated private and hygienic lactation spaces for nursing mothers. The bill was included in the Public Buildings Reform and Savings Act of 2016, which passed the House last Congress. For years, federal agencies such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have encouraged breastfeeding. The benefits are so great that federal law now requires employers to provide a designated, non- bathroom space for employees to pump breastmilk for their newborns, ensuring that new mothers would be able to continue this essential practice even after returning to work. My bill would extend this requirement to include not just employees, but visitors and guests to federal facilities across the nation.

In Washington, D.C. alone, millions of tourists visit federal sites, such as the Lincoln Memorial. Increasingly, families understand the unique benefits of breastfeeding, and visitors to these buildings who have newborns and babies should have a private space to breastfeed or pump. The benefits of breastfeeding are well-documented. Breastmilk contains antibodies and hormones that boost babies' immune systems, and studies have shown lower risks of asthma, diabetes, respiratory infections and other diseases among breastfed babies. Moreover, breastfeeding also has benefits for nursing mothers, who, research has shown, have lower risks of diabetes and certain forms of cancer. Given the significant public health benefits of breastfeeding for both mother and baby, already recognized in federal policy, my bill is a logical next step to ensure visitors to federal sites have access to clean, hygienic, and private spaces to nurse or pump.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill, which would provide access to designated lactation rooms for guests to federally owned or leased buildings.

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the District of Columbia Courts and Public Defender Service Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments Act. The bill, which passed the House in the 114th Congress, would make a small but important change to the authorities of the District of Columbia Courts (D.C. Courts) and the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS), placing these entities in the same position as their federal counterparts for more effective management and operation.

The bill would give the D.C. Courts and PDS the same authority federal agencies and federal courts already have to offer voluntary separation incentive payments, or buyouts, to their employees. The fiscal year 2016 omnibus bill already gives D.C. Courts buyout authority, but my bill would make this authorization permanent, and would extend it to PDS in addition to the D.C. Courts. Buyouts would allow the D.C. Courts and PDS to respond to future administrative and budget needs, and would provide the flexibility to extend buyout offers to their employees.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has determined that voluntary separation incentive payments may be made only where statutorily authorized. Federal agencies and federal courts already have the statutory authority to offer buyouts, and PDS and the D.C. Courts need the same express authority in order to manage their workforce as budget conditions and needs change.

I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing the work of the Metropolitan Police Department, in particular the Second District, and the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia. Representatives from these agencies worked closely with D.C. residents on Belmont Road NW and the leadership of the Islamic Center of Washington to forge a remedy to a life-threatening situation that had hate-crime implications.

These individuals provided extraordinary guidance and intervention in bringing closure to a situation that had exposed D.C. residents to racial and homophobic slurs, as well as threats of bodily harm, for more than five years.

I therefore rise with pride to salute police officers Lt. Jerome M. Merrill, Sgt. Brian H. Brown, Sgt. Miguel Rodriguezgil, and Mr. James T. Towns, Community Engagement Director, with the Office of the Attorney General. In particular, I applaud the leadership efforts of Dr. Khouj, Imam, and Abassie Jarr-Koroma of the Islamic Center of Washington, and A. Mario Castillo, a resident of Belmont Road, who coordinated the teamwork on. this matter.

This civic success story brings to mind a fitting quote attributed to the great American poet and writer Maya Angelou, ``It's good to remember that in crises, natural crises, human beings forget for a while their ignorance, their biases, their prejudices. For a little while, neighbors help neighbors and strangers help strangers.''

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House of Representatives to join me in applauding my constituents and the law enforcement officers.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing Bruce DePuyt, who will be leaving NewsChannel 8 this week after over two decades of outstanding journalism and service to Washington, D.C. and the national capital region.

For 23 years, Washingtonians have turned to Bruce for insight and in- depth reporting on local and national news. Bruce had a talent for bringing local and regional voices together--from elected officials and police chiefs to community leaders--to speak and inform D.C. and area residents on a host of topics important to this region and the nation. Even before arriving at NewsChannel 8, however, people could turn to Bruce for trusted journalism wherever he was reporting.

A graduate of the University of Maryland in 1984, Bruce got an early start in journalism as a college radio station student-host calling women's basketball. After graduating, he went on to work as a reporter and anchor at WVIR in Charlottesville, Virginia, and produced an award- winning weekly talk show, ``21 This Week,'' on Cable News 2 in Montgomery County, Maryland, where he won a Cable Ace award. In 1993, Bruce joined the team at NewsChannel 8, where he has been ever since.

Bruce's career at NewsChannel 8 has been marked by smart commentary, excellent reporting, and penetrating questioning. In 2013, he was named the Best TV Personality by the Washington Blade magazine, and Washington City Paper readers named him the Best Newsmaker in 2010. For his brilliant reporting, Bruce was also awarded the Cronkite Award

by the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Since 2002, Bruce has been the host of Newstalk, a daily mid-morning news show, where he has hosted more than 11,000 guests over 3,300 episodes. Bruce continues to be an active and beloved member of both his community and his church, the All Souls Unitarian Church, where he was a former trustee. For his work, Bruce was given the Pillar of Faith Award by the Howard University School of Divinity.

Mr. Speaker, Members of Congress are familiar with Bruce's excellence here on television. I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing Bruce DePuyt for 23 years of extraordinary work and service as news anchor and reporter with NewsChannel 8 and as a favorite of the national capital region.

Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding.

I stand here in a unique position; first, to oppose this sweeping attack on women's reproductive health in its entirety, but I also am compelled to discuss the unique provision that singles out the District of Columbia, permanently barring the District of Columbia from spending its own local funds--not a cent of it raised in this Congress--on abortion services for low-income women, thus uniquely denying the District of Columbia government the right that local and State governments exercise throughout the United States using their own local funds.

Madam Speaker, H.R. 7 goes further. It insults the District of Columbia.

Just to make sure everybody understands that the bill means to include the District of Columbia, it tortuously defines or redefines the term ``Federal Government'' to include a local jurisdiction, the ``District of Columbia government.''

The District of Columbia government is thrown in with the Federal Government. We are talking about U.S. citizens, the people I represent, who are number one per capita in taxes raised to support the government of the United States of America.

This bill, of course, is annual, and it is less inclined to become law than to be part of the annual upcoming march.

We do not intend, Madam Speaker, to let our colleagues get away with not supporting democracy, including the right of local governments to spend their own local funds on choice. Everywhere on Earth you can support such a right, except for the 700,000 people who live in your own Nation's Capital.

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the District of Columbia Local Prosecutor Establishment Act of 2015, to give District of Columbia residents another element of the self-government enjoyed by all other American citizens. The bill would establish a local prosecutor's office designated under local law, to prosecute all local crimes in the District. Under the Home Rule Act, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, a federal entity, is responsible for prosecuting most local crimes here, the greater part of its caseload, in addition to prosecuting federal crimes. This bill is special because it effectuates a 2002 advisory referendum, approved by 82 percent of D.C. voters, to create a local prosecutor's office.

There is no law enforcement issue of greater importance to D.C. residents on which they have less say than the prosecution of local crimes here. A U.S. Attorney has no business prosecuting the local crimes of a jurisdiction, an anachronism that is out of place in any American self-governing jurisdiction. The goal of the legislation is to give the District the same jurisdiction over the criminal justice matters that state and local jurisdictions justifiably regard as mandatory. The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia would continue to handle federal matters, like the other U.S. Attorneys in our country. As presently constituted, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia is the largest in the country, only because it also serves as the local city prosecutor. The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia needs to be freed up to handle national security and other vital federal cases, particularly in the post-9/11 nation's capital.

Amending the Home Rule Act to create a local prosecutor would be an important step toward our goal of achieving true self-government. I urge my colleagues to support this important measure.

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the Transit Tax Parity Act of 2015. The bill would expand federal commuter tax benefits for transit and make them equal to those for parking. Currently, the transit benefit is half the level of the parking benefit. This bill would permanently raise the transit benefit to equal the parking benefit for commuters, in an effort to equalize the commuter options and to reduce congestion and pollution.

This bill would encourage commuters to use transit by equalizing tax benefits for mass transit and parking benefits at a time when transit systems have precipitously lost riders because of the inequality in benefits. Congress did the sensible thing when it increased the commuter benefit cap to be the same as parking in previous years, but when that parity ended, transit benefits decreased to $130, just over half the benefits for driving. The decrease in transit benefits has led to a striking reduction in transit system ridership across the country. For example, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), the second largest transit system in the nation, runs throughout the national capital region and has seen a 25 percent decrease in Metrorail commuters, with riders switching to alternative means of commuting once they reach the

$130 limit. Congressional action is urgently needed to make federal tax benefits for transit and parking equal at $250.

Millions of people commute in and out of cities every day, bolstering the American economy and improving the overall well-being of the country. Why would we want to encourage people to drive rather than use mass transit? At the very least, there is no excuse for preferential treatment of driving. There are also environmental benefits that result from encouraging commuters to use mass transit and commuter rail instead of driving. Greater use of transit is consistent with the goals of reducing pollution from auto emissions, improving public health and reducing traffic congestion, which adds huge costs to the American economy and disrupts family life.

I strongly urge my colleagues to support the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the District of Columbia Paperwork Reduction Act, to eliminate the wasteful congressional review process for legislation passed by the District of Columbia Council and to align longtime congressional practice and the law. The congressional review process for D.C. bills is ignored by Congress providing it no benefit, but imposes substantial costs (in time and money) on the District. Congress has almost always used the appropriations process rather than the disapproval process and entirely abandoned the congressional review process as its mechanism for overturning D.C. legislation twenty-three years ago, and only used it three times before that, preferring riders on D.C. appropriation bills instead. Yet Congress still requires the D.C. Council to use Kafkaesque make-work procedures to comply with the abandoned congressional review process established by the Home Rule Act of 1973.

Our bill would eliminate the congressional review process for legislation passed by the D.C. Council. However, Congress would lose no authority it currently exercises because, even upon enactment of this bill, Congress would retain its authority under clause 17 of section 8 of article I of the U.S. Constitution to amend or overturn any D.C. legislation at any time.

The congressional review process (30 days for civil bills and 60 days for criminal bills) includes those days when either house of Congress is in session, delaying D.C. bills from becoming law, often for many months. The delay forces the D.C. Council to pass most bills several times, using a cumbersome and complicated process to ensure that the operations of this large and rapidly changing city continue uninterrupted, avoiding a lapse of the bill before it becomes final. The review period, based on legislative, not calendar, days means, for example, that a 30-day period usually lasts three calendar months and often much longer because of congressional recesses. The congressional review period for a bill that changed the word ``handicap'' to ``disability'' lasted nine months. The Council estimates that 50-65 percent of the bills the Council passes could be eliminated if the review period did not exist. To ensure that a bill becomes law, the Council often must pass the same legislation in three forms--emergency (in effect for 90 days), temporary (in effect for 225 days) and permanent. Moreover, the Council has to carefully track the days the House and Senate are in session for each D.C. bill it passes to avoid gaps and to determine when the bills have taken effect. The Council estimates that it could save 5,000 employee-hours and 160,000 sheets of paper per two-year legislative Council period if the review period were eliminated. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy addressed the issue of saving such resources by eliminating the amount of paperwork sent to Congress when he proposed a cut in the number of reports that federal agencies are required to submit to Congress. Our bill is a perfect candidate because it eliminates a paperwork process that repeats itself without interruption.

My bill would do no more than align the Home Rule Act with congressional practice over the last twenty-three years. Of the more than 5,000 legislative acts transmitted to Congress since the Home Rule Act, only three resolutions disapproving D.C. legislation have been enacted--in 1979, 1981, and 1991--and two of those mistakenly involved federal interests in the Height Act and the location of chanceries. Placing a congressional hold on 5,000 D.C. bills has not only proven unnecessary, but has imposed fruitless costs on the D.C. government, residents and businesses. District residents and businesses are also placed on hold because they have no certainty when D.C. bills, from taxes to regulations, will take effect, making it difficult to plan. Instead of using the congressional review process to overturn D.C. legislation, Congress has preferred to use appropriation riders. Therefore, it is particularly unfair to require the D.C. Council to engage in a labor-intensive and costly process that Congress has itself long abandoned. My bill would only eliminate the automatic hold placed on D.C. legislation and the need for the D.C. Council to use a process initially passed for the convenience of Congress, but that Congress has since eliminated in all but law. This bill would promote efficiency and cost savings for Congress, the District, its residents, and businesses without reducing congressional oversight, and would carry out a policy stressed by Congress of eliminating needless paperwork and make-work redundancy.

I urge my colleagues to support this good-government measure.

Mr. Chairman, I thank my good friend from Maryland for yielding me this time.

Mr. Chairman, this bill has a lot of chutzpah even for a probusiness majority. The point of the review and comment regulatory process is to hear from everybody, to pull everybody into the process.

I have experienced how this process worked when I chaired the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In order to make sure I heard from everyone, I took a process which issued guidelines, which did not come under the Administrative Procedure Act, and put it under the Administrative Procedure Act to make sure I heard from everyone.

In a real sense, I knew, I thought I knew what the public wanted because I was a civil rights lawyer. I was particularly interested in whether the reforms I was instituting would work in practice. So I was more interested, in a real sense, in what the business community said.

I must tell you, Mr. Chairman, in these processes, the business community, small and large, dwarfs the public in the amount of comment that agencies receive.

This bill breaks a cardinal rule by excluding, of all people, the public, while industry gets an advance look at a bill. Understand, it is the industry that is being regulated, industry that has the high- cost lobbyists, the high-cost lawyers that the public does not have.

So what is the point here, Mr. Chairman? It is clear. The point is to get industry in on writing the bill itself and writing it at that stage before the public even gets to know what the bill is. This is not a tilt in favor of the objects of regulations; it is a slide in their favor.

If the point is the usual bipartisan point, to help small businesses--which, by the way, is already a stakeholder--along with other businesses, why pit small businesses against small children and small mortgage holders and small IT users?

Another extraordinary thing I see in this bill is that the court- hating majority, at least in this bill, falls in love with the judiciary by inviting litigation before the rule is final. The courts will just love that. On top of everything else, this bill adds $18 million over 10 years to agency spending?

$18 million that this majority certainly will not appropriate.

Small business always have been a bipartisan concern. We have many more of them in our districts than we have large businesses. Small businesses are not who will come to ``consult.'' It is the global multinationals who are applauding this bill as we speak.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate and commend Mrs. Brooks of Indiana and Mr. Payne of New Jersey for sponsoring the Social Media Working Group Act of 2013 which addresses an emerging and important topic in emergency management.

More and more, we are seeing social media, especially Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, playing a critical role in the preparedness, response, and recovery operations in emergency situations.

In the past few years, social media has become a valuable tool that has been used by emergency managers at all levels to warn those in harm's way of impending natural disasters. I might add that the same could occur in terrorist disasters.

Moreover, it has been used to inform survivors of how to access disaster assistance and tips for speedier recovery. Equally important, social media has been used to coordinate and manage assistance from nonprofits and volunteers who want to help in recovery efforts.

It is not just emergency managers who use social media regarding emergencies. Individuals have used social media to help identify locations where assistance may still be needed and to raise awareness of impending hazards. They have used it to communicate with loved ones who may be impacted by an event, as well as to reconnect pets with their owners.

It was no different here in the District of Columbia, Mr. Speaker, after 9/11, and I refer to the earthquake centered in Mineral, Virginia, but certainly felt in every part of the Nation's Capital.

Because cellphone service was jammed, residents turned to social media to communicate. Within minutes of that earthquake, Twitter noted that over 40,000 earthquake-related tweets were sent about the occurrence.

Facebook noted 3 million mentions related to the earthquake.

In 2010, the Department of Homeland Security established the Virtual Social Media Working Group to provide recommendations on how to use social media before, during, and after emergencies. The existing working group consists of emergency responders, nonprofit organizations, and Federal agencies.

H.R. 623 would codify the working group to make certain that their good work continues. To allow for broader representation, the bill expands the working group membership to include the private sectors and requires consultation with nonmembers. To ensure accountability, the bill requires an annual report to Congress on important issues such as best practices and lessons learned. It would also provide recommendations on various issues, including how to improve the use of social media for emergency management purposes.

This is a very timely bill, Mr. Speaker. It will assist in informing the public of critical emergency information which may well save lives and reduce injuries. I strongly urge my colleagues to support this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, as I was coming to the floor, I tweeted and Facebooked that I would be on the floor managing this bill. We are used to Tweeting and Facebooking our every movement, usually for fun--and yes, even to come on the floor.

I will be very interested to know whether, after we had the tragic accident last month in our Metro system when we lost one life--and we know for sure communication between the District of Columbia fire, emergency, and Metro was informed--I will be very interested to know whether Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of social media were helpful. I cannot believe they were not.

We all think of social media for social fun. What is important about the bill that my two colleagues, Representative Brooks and Representative Payne, have brought to us is, of course, that it shows a very essential use.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne), a cosponsor of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the sponsor and cosponsor

once again on this vital and valuable bill.

As we see the kinds of, really, unheard of events we are experiencing, it seems to us often that phones and cell phones are so 20th century. Twitter and Facebook are the functional equivalent for many Americans of 911. So today on this floor, I think we are resolved that social media are, to be sure, often about fun and games, but they may also be about life and death.

I am pleased to support this bill and ask Members for its support here in the House.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, District of Columbia residents raise billions of dollars annually for their local budget, and, like Americans everywhere, claim the right to control the funds they themselves raise to support their city as fundamental to their American citizenship. Therefore, today I introduce the District of Columbia Budget Autonomy Act of 2015, the second bill I introduce this Congress, to allow the District's local-taxpayer-raised budget to take effect immediately when passed by the city, without being subject to congressional approval.

Control over the dollars raised by local taxpayers is central to local control, the oldest American government principle. Beyond this core principle, permitting the city's local budget to become law without a redundant congressional approval would have multiple practical benefits for both the city and Congress. For the city, a timely budget means eliminating the uncertainty of the congressional approval process, which has a significant negative effect on the city's bond rating, adding unnecessary interest costs for local taxpayers; improving the District's ability to make accurate revenue forecasts; and reducing the countless operational problems that result when the city's budget cannot be implemented until Congress approves it (even when it is not delayed, which rarely occurs). Also of major importance, the bill would permit the District to use the typical state and local government fiscal year (July 1-June 30), which is used to provide ample time to prepare for the opening of schools in September, instead of the current federal fiscal year (October 1-September 30), used for the convenience of Members of Congress, not the needs of the city. Moreover, the D.C. local budget consumes valuable subcommittee, committee, and floor time in both houses of Congress, the most inefficient and redundant annual process in the Congress. Yet the D.C. budget is of interest only to those members who use it to promote their own issues, violating a principle of local self-government that they value for their own districts and states.

Increasing recognition of the hardships and delays caused by the congressional approval process has led Congress to begin freeing the city from many congressional constraints. We made significant progress in the last Congress on a major element of budget autonomy. There is unprecedented bipartisan and bicameral support for preventing D.C. shutdowns, which have been constantly threatened as the Congress now almost always fails to pass appropriations bills. Under the fiscal year 2014 D.C. Appropriations bill, D.C. was, for the first time ever, exempt from shutdowns for an entire fiscal year--2015. The fiscal year 2015 D.C. Appropriations bill also exempts D.C. from shutdowns for all of fiscal year 2016. In addition, the president's budgets last Congress and the Senate's D.C. appropriations bills would have granted D.C. budget autonomy. This progress from both Congress and the Executive invites the inevitable next step--a permanent shutdown exemption bill.

The importance of eliminating shutdown threats to the District was definitively shown recently. The three leading bond rating agencies favorably cited the fiscal year 2014 D.C. Appropriations bill provision exempting D.C. from a shutdown in fiscal year 2015. In upgrading their ratings on the District's outstanding general obligation bonds, Standard & Poor's Rating Services and Fitch Ratings both favorably cited the provision, and Moody's Investors Service favorably cited the provision while maintaining D.C.'s rating.

Several years ago, we negotiated an agreement with a Republican-led appropriations committee that ensures that the city's local budget is approved in the first continuing resolution (CR) if the D.C. Appropriations bill has not been approved by the start of the fiscal year, another important step that responded to practical realities. This approach ended the annual nightmares of lengthy delays of approval of the local budget of a big city until a national appropriations bill was passed, often months after the start of the fiscal year. As a result, under CRs, the city has been able to spend its local funds at the next year's funding level, even though federal agencies must spend at the prior year's funding level. We are deeply appreciative that this process, which eliminated serious problems for the functioning of the D.C. government, has continued.

We nearly secured budget autonomy for the District in the last days of the lame-duck session in the 111th Congress, when Democrats were in control. We got the House authorizers to include budget autonomy in the fiscal year 2011 D.C. Appropriations bill, which was passed by the subcommittee. Unfortunately, the Democratic Senate did not include budget autonomy in its appropriations bill, and Congress passed a CR instead of regular appropriations bills in the lame duck.

Most important, we gained critical support for D.C. budget autonomy in the 112th and 113th Congresses. In an Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing in May 2011, Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) endorsed budget autonomy. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (R) during that year both indicated their support for budget autonomy. Last Congress, Majority Leader Cantor and Chairman Issa both continued in their support for budget autonomy. The President's fiscal year 2015 budget, for the second time, will have granted D.C. budget autonomy. The Senate's fiscal year 2015 D.C. Appropriations bill granted the District budget autonomy, which was the first ever appropriations bill to grant it. We also got budget autonomy introduced as a stand-alone bill in the Senate.

We kept the budget autonomy referendum from being overturned in Congress. However, a federal district court struck it down and an appeal is pending before a federal appeals court.

Even if the District of Columbia Budget Autonomy Act of 2015 were enacted, Congress would still retain jurisdiction over the District of Columbia under article I, section 8, clause 17 of the U.S. Constitution until statehood is achieved. This authority allows Congress to make changes to the District's budget at any time, as we saw last week when the House voted to permanently ban the District from spending its local funds on abortion services for low-income women. Therefore, it is unnecessary to require the District to incur the costs and delays of transmitting its local budget for congressional approval. The time is overdue to permit the city to enact its local budget, the single most immediate step Congress could take to help the District better manage itself.

Members of Congress were sent to Washington to do the business of the nation, not a local jurisdiction. Members have no reason to be interested in or to become knowledgeable about the local budget of a single city or jurisdiction far from their own. In the past, the House and Senate have more often than not passed the District's budget as is. Our budget autonomy bill takes the Congress in the direction it is already moving.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Colorado.

Is there any way to make an anti-women, anti-health, anti-choice bill worse? Sure there is. Add a provision that keeps a local jurisdiction-- the District of Columbia--from spending its own local funds on abortion services for poor women, exactly as 17 States of the Union do. Americans will ask: How on Earth can you do that in this country? Laughably--by declaring the District of Columbia government to be a virtual Federal agency.

This bill hurts millions of women across the country who have a constitutional right to make choices about

their own health. It compounds that discrimination by violating the oldest American principle--local control of local funds.

The Senate has repeatedly rejected this bill, and I expect them to have the good sense to repeat that rejection.