Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I introduce the Rachel Carson Nature Trail Designation Act of 2013, to recognize Rachel Carson, an environmental pioneer and inspiration for environmental consciousness best known for her groundbreaking book Silent Spring. In September 2012, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the publication of Silent Spring, which has been translated into more than a dozen languages. The idea for my bill, which designates a National Park Service trail in the District of Columbia in honor of Ms. Carson, was brought to me by Glover Park residents.

Ms. Carson was born on May 27, 1907, on a farm in Springdale, Pennsylvania, graduated magna cum laude with a biology degree from the Pennsylvania College for Women (later Chatham College), and received a full scholarship that enabled her to obtain a master's degree in marine zoology from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. A world-renowned environmental scientist, writer, and educator, Ms. Carson worked as a federal employee for most of her professional life as a writer, editor, and ultimately, Editor-in-Chief for the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife Service's publications department.

Ms. Carson accomplished much of her seminal professional work as a federal employee at the U.S. Department of the Interior in the District. She often used Glover Archbold Park in the District as a site from which she drew observations about nature and the environment. She performed research on the dangers of pesticides, and her findings were sustained by the Science Advisory Committee, created during President John F. Kennedy's administration. As a result, federal and state legislatures enacted pesticide legislation. Her work also paved the way for groundbreaking environmental protection legislation throughout the world. Ms. Carson was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received many other honors. She died on April 14, 1964, in Silver Spring, Maryland, leaving a rich legacy that will continue to benefit present and future generations well beyond the 50th anniversary of Silent Spring.

Last year, I testified at a meeting of the National Capital Memorial Advisory Commission on the bill. The commission asked for additional information on Carson's work in the park. We are providing the commission with such information, and would expect its support for the designation at its next meeting.

My bill serves to commemorate Rachel Carson for her tireless efforts to make the District of Columbia, the United States, and, indeed, the world a better and safer place for us all. The trail designated by the bill, located in the NPS's Glover Archbold Park in the District, will be known as the ``Rachel Carson Nature Trail.'' The bill ensures that Rachel Carson's contributions will be remembered and treasured for years to come.

I strongly urge my colleagues to support the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, today, I re-introduce a bill, the District of Columbia District Attorney Establishment Act of 2013, to give District of Columbia residents another element of the self-government enjoyed by all other American citizens. The bill would establish the Office of the District Attorney for the District of Columbia, headed by a district attorney elected by D.C. residents, to prosecute major local criminal laws of 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 major local crimes here. The bill effectuates a 2002 advisory referendum, approved by 82 percent of D.C. voters, to create an office of the district attorney, headed by a locally elected district attorney.

There is no law enforcement issue of greater importance to D.C. residents, or on which they have less say, than the prosecution of local crimes here. A U.S. attorney has no business prosecuting the local criminal laws of a jurisdiction, an anachronism that is out of place in 21st century, home-rule D.C. The goal of the legislation is to put the District on par with every other local jurisdiction on local criminal law matters. Under the bill, the locally elected district attorney would become the city's chief legal officer. 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 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 district attorney would be an important step toward our goal of achieving true self-government. I urge my colleagues to support this important measure.

Mr. Speaker, the 1963 Equal Pay Act (EPA), the first of the great civil rights statutes of the 1960s, was successful for close to 20 years, but it is too creaky with age to be useful today. It is long past time to amend the EPA to reflect the new workforce, which women work almost as much as men. Every Congress, Representative Rosa DeLauro and I, along with scores of other members of Congress, introduce the Paycheck Fairness Act, to amend the EPA to make its basic procedures equal to those used in other anti-discrimination statutes. I was an original co-sponsor of, and attended the signing ceremony at the White House for, the 2009 Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which further strengthens the EPA by restoring its original interpretation. However, the Fair Pay Act of 2013 (FPA), which Senator Tom Harkin, and I have also introduced in prior Congresses, picks up where the EPA and the Lilly Ledbetter Act leave off by taking on workplace gender discrimination in which gender-influenced wages leave the average female worker without any remedy. I have long pressed for passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act and the FPA, based on my own experience as the first female chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), when President Jimmy Carter moved the EPA and other civil rights statutes under the EEOC's jurisdiction as part of a historic reorganization. My colleague Senator Harkin, who is retiring at the end of this Congress, has also worked tirelessly on the FPA. He has always been a great friend of equality. Senator Harkin's work on the Americans with Disabilities Act is a landmark of his service and the Senator has brought the same zeal to issues facing women in the workplace.

Along with my indispensable Senate partner, Tom Harkin, I again introduce the FPA on behalf of the average female worker, who is often first steered to, and then locked into, jobs with wages that are deeply influenced by the gender of those who have traditionally held such jobs. Much of the wage inequality women experience today is because of employer-steering and because of deeply rooted wage stereotypes, which result in wages being paid by gender and not according to the skills and efforts necessary to do the job. I introduce the FPA because the pay disparity most women face today stems mainly from the segregating of women and men in different jobs. Two-thirds of white women and three quarters of African-American women work in just three areas: sales/ clerical, service and factories. We need more aggressive strategies to break through the societal habits present throughout history, the world over, as well as employer-steering based on gender, which is as old as paid employment itself.

The FPA requires that if men and women are doing comparable work, they are to be paid comparable wages. If a woman, for example, is an emergency services operator, a female-dominated profession, she should not be paid less than a fire dispatcher, a male-dominated profession, simply because each of these jobs has been dominated by one sex. If a woman is a social worker, a traditionally female occupation, she should not earn less than a probation officer, a traditionally male job, simply because of the gender associated with each of these jobs.

The FPA, like the EPA, will not tamper with the legal burden. Under the FPA, as under the EPA, the burden will be on the plaintiff to prove discrimination. The plaintiff must show that the reason for the disparate treatment is gender discrimination, not legitimate market factors.

Corrections to achieve comparable pay for men and women are not radical or unprecedented. State governments, in red and blue states alike, have demonstrated with their own employees that they can eliminate the part of the pay gap that is due to discrimination. Twenty states have adjusted wages for female-dominated professions, raising pay for teachers, nurses, clerical workers, librarians, and other female dominated-jobs that paid less than comparable male-dominated jobs. Minnesota, for example, implemented a pay equity plan when it found that traditionally female jobs paid 20 percent less than comparable traditionally male jobs. There may well be some portion of a gender wage gap that is traceable to market factors, but twenty states have shown that you can tackle the gender discrimination-based wage gap without interfering in the market system. The states generally have closed the wage gap over a period of four to five years at a one-time cost of no more than three to four percent of payroll.

In addition, many female workers routinely achieve pay equity through collective bargaining, and countless employers provide it on their own as they see women shifting out of vital female-dominated occupations as a result of the shortage of skilled workers, as well as because of the unfairness to women. Unequal pay has been built into the way women have been treated since Adam and Eve. To dislodge such deep-seated and pervasive treatment, we must go to the source, the traditionally female occupations, where pay is linked with gender and always has been.

The best case for a strong and updated EPA, with at least the Paycheck Fairness Act, occurred here in the Congress in 2003, when female custodians in the House and Senate won an EPA case after showing that female workers were paid a dollar less for doing the same or similar work as men. Had these women not been represented by their union, they would have had an almost impossible task of using the rules for bringing and sustaining an EPA class action suit. The FPA simply modernizes the EPA to bring it in line with subsequent civil rights statutes. From my tenure as EEOC chair, I know all too well the several ways that this historic legislation needs a 21st century makeover.

Let us start with the Paycheck Fairness Act, so we can be prepared to go further with the FPA, which we introduce today. Let us start now to make the pay worthy of the American women we have asked to go to work.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in congratulating the National Alliance for Hispanic Health on its 40th anniversary of service to the residents of the District of Columbia and the national capital region.

Founded in 1973, the National Alliance for Hispanic Health is the nation's foremost source of information on Hispanic health. Throughout its 40-year history, the National Alliance for Hispanic Health has been committed to improving the health of Hispanic communities throughout the United States. Growing from a small coalition of mental health providers, the National Alliance for Hispanic Health has become the largest network of Hispanic health and human services providers in the country.

We appreciate the National Alliance for Hispanic Health's long presence in the District and its continued service to our city's growing Hispanic population. We are particularly pleased with the National Alliance for Hispanic Health's contributions to health-related research and its continued commitment to building a base of knowledge, increasing public awareness, sponsoring collaborative networks and strengthening community infrastructure not only in the District, but throughout the nation, too.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House of Representatives to join me in celebrating the 40th anniversary of the National Alliance for Hispanic Health.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce a bill to require the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) to adopt the Federal Acquisition Regulations, which govern all aspects of the acquisition process for virtually every federal executive branch agency, and to adopt the federal anti-nepotism rules. Significant failures in MWAA's contracting and hiring policies and practices point to a need for substantial reform in MWAA's acquisition and hiring processes. Despite being created by Congress, leasing federally owned land, and benefiting from significant federal taxpayer funds, MWAA is not subject to federal procurement or anti-nepotism laws. This omission has left MWAA without ample guidance for its board members and employees. Many of the problems that have drawn criticism of MWAA could be eliminated if the Federal Acquisition Regulations and federal anti- nepotism regulations were made applicable to MWAA.

MWAA is an independent public body created by Congress under the Metropolitan Washington Airports Act of 1986 (Airports Act). MWAA, with 1,400 employees, leases Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Washington Dulles International Airport from the Federal Government. In addition to managing the airports, MWAA is responsible for the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project, which has an estimated cost of $5.8 billion, including $977 million in federal funds.

A recent Department of Transportation (DOT) Inspector General report, ``MWAA's Weak Policies and Procedures Have Led to Questionable Procurement Practices, Mismanagement, and a Lack of Overall Accountability'' (Report Number: AV-2013-006), or IG Report, found that ``MWAA's contracting policies and practices are insufficient to ensure compliance with the Airports Act and the lease agreement between DOT and MWAA.'' For example, the Airports Act and lease agreement require MWAA to award contracts over $200,000 competitively to the maximum extent practicable. However, the IG Report found that MWAA recently awarded two-thirds of its contracts exceeding $200,000 with limited competition. The IG Report also noted that MWAA awarded many contracts with no formal solicitation, and that MWAA's Contracting Manual does not require public notification of sole-source contracts over $200,000.

A January 15, 2013, Washington Post article reported that at least 10 percent of MWAA employees have family members working there, including spouses, and children. The IG report also noted that MWAA lacks ``sufficient controls to detect and prevent nepotism.'' It is clear that changes are imperative and overdue.

The lack of transparency and competition on MWAA's contracts and hiring are inconsistent with continuing ownership of the airports by the Federal Government, MWAA's creation by Congress, and the significant federal taxpayer

dollars MWAA receives. The IG Report's conclusion that current procurement procedures and hiring policies are inadequate requires a response that definitively fixes these issues. It makes no sense for MWAA to attempt to reinvent a new set of procurement procedures and ignore the very thorough and tested Federal Acquisition Regulations, which provide legal guidelines for every aspect of procurement and maximize fairness and transparency of the federal anti-nepotism regulations.

I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce two bills that provide different approaches for obtaining voting representation for the more than 600,000 American citizens who reside in the nation's capital and pay the full array of federal taxes that support the government of the United States, but have no voting representation in Congress. These bills are the District of Columbia Equal Representation Act and the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act. I have introduced these bills during different periods in the past. I introduce them today after listening to residents at the many Community Conversations I have held in each ward of the District since a dangerous gun amendment--which would have eliminated all of the District's gun safety laws and would have done much more--forced us to decline to move to final passage of the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act in April 2010.

I introduce these bills today, in the same month that the House majority again eliminated the District's vote in the Committee of the Whole, despite rulings by the federal courts that this vote is constitutional. It therefore is clear that the House would not consider any approach to representation and full democracy for D.C. residents at this time. As my first bill of the 113th Congress, I introduced the New Columbia Admission Act, to make the District of Columbia the 51st state, the only option that affords the residents of the District of Columbia equality with other American citizens, and the option we will always seek. However, today, I am reintroducing two bills that residents have indicated would have their continued support on the way to statehood, which they deserve. Residents embraced these approaches because they were possible at the time. Today's bills will help ensure that there is no weakening in the momentum that these bills helped build here and throughout the country over the past several years.

The District of Columbia Equal Representation Act would give the District of Columbia two senators and, initially, one House member. With statehood delayed, then-Senator Joseph Lieberman and I introduced this bill for several years as the No Taxation Without Representation Act. The House, which was controlled by Republicans, did not act on the bill. The Senate held hearings and marked up the bill in 2002, but did not bring it to the floor.

The second bill, the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act, to give D.C., initially, one House member, almost became law. In 2005, when I continued to be in the minority, then-Representative Tom Davis and I partnered on a bipartisan bill giving House votes to Democratic D.C. and Republican Utah. The D.C. House Voting Rights Act marked the first time in decades that we achieved large majority votes in the House and Senate for voting rights for D.C. residents, and brought the city closer than we have ever come to voting representation in more than two centuries. This bill likely would be law

today had the gun lobby not insisted on adding an amendment that would not only have eliminated the District's gun safety laws, but also would have added measures making the nation's capital one of the most permissive gun jurisdictions in the country.

In introducing these bills, we lay down a marker of our determination to never relent or retreat until we have obtained each and every right to which we are entitled, whether through the frustration and anguish of the incrementalism that Congress has always forced upon the District or through statehood. We will be watchful to both make and seize every opportunity to pursue our rights, regardless of who controls Congress. We accept no imposed limit on our equal rights as American citizens, and we will pursue them all until the day when there is no difference in citizenship between residents of the District of Columbia and other American citizens.

Mr. Speaker, District of Columbia residents raise billions of dollars annually for their local budget, and, like Americans everywhere, regard 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 2013, the second bill I have introduced 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 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 negative effect on the city's bond rating, adding unnecessary interest costs for local taxpayers; significantly improving the District's ability to make accurate revenue forecasts; and reducing the countless operational problems that result because the city's budget cannot be implemented until Congress approves it. Also of major importance is that the bill would allow the District to use the typical state and local government fiscal year (July 1-June 30), allowing ample time to prepare for the opening of schools in September, instead of the federal fiscal year (October 1-September 30). 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. I appreciate that my bill to avoid a D.C. government shutdown when the federal government shuts down is in the Senate Appropriations Committee-passed fiscal year 2013 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill. President Obama included this provision in his fiscal year 2013 budget, and the Republican-controlled House Appropriations Committee indicated in its report accompanying its fiscal year 2013 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill that legislation to avoid D.C. shutdowns was necessary. In addition, several years ago, I 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. This approach ended the annual nightmares of lengthy delay of the budget of a big city until an 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 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. I used an unusual procedure, getting the House authorizers to agree to the inclusion of budget autonomy in the fiscal year 2011 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill, which was passed by the subcommittee. Unfortunately, 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 Congress. In an Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing in May 2011, Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) endorsed budget autonomy. Since that time, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (R) have both indicated their support for budget autonomy.

Even if the District of Columbia Budget Autonomy Act of 2013 were enacted, Congress would still retain jurisdiction over the District of Columbia under article I, section 8, clause 17 of the U.S. Constitution. Because this authority allows Congress to make changes to the District's budget and other laws at any time, it is unnecessary to require a lengthy repetition of the District's local budget process in Congress. The time is overdue to permit the city to enact its local budget, the single most important step Congress could take to help the District better manage itself.

Members of Congress were sent here to do the business of the nation. Members have no reason to be interested in or to become knowledgeable about the local budget of a single city. In the past, the House and Senate have more often than not passed the District's budget as is. Our bill takes the Congress in the direction it is already moving in. Congressional interference in one of the most vital rights of self- government should end this year by enacting the District of Columbia Budget Autonomy Act of 2013.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the New Columbia Admission Act. The residents of our nation's capital are and always have been citizens of the United States. Yet they are the only taxpaying Americans who are not treated as full and equal citizens. The only way for them to obtain the citizenship rights they are entitled to is through the same statehood used by other Americans. Therefore, I am introducing the New Columbia Admission Act to create a state from essentially the eight home-town wards of the District of Columbia. This 51st state, however, 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 premises, the principal federal monuments, federal buildings and grounds, the National Mall and other federal property here would remain under federal jurisdiction. Our bill provides that the State of New Columbia would be equal to the other fifty states in all respects. Consequently, residents of New Columbia would have all the rights of citizenship they are entitled to as taxpaying American citizens, including two senators and, initially, one House member.

Just as the New Columbia 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, this is my first bill in the 113th Congress. 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% of Democrats and one Republican voting for the New Columbia Admission Act. The Senate held a hearing on its companion bill, introduced by Senator Ted Kennedy, but the committee of jurisdiction did not proceed further. Although this start was encouraging, soon thereafter, the District, which is the only U.S. city that pays for state functions, found it necessary to ask the federal government to take over the costs of some state functions, posing fiscal barriers to entry into the Union on an equal basis, and in addition, the Democrats lost control of the House. The District of Columbia recognizes that it can enter the Union only on an equal basis and is prepared to do so. I then introduced the second best option available, a bill for Senate and House representation for D.C., and later, when Republicans controlled the House, a bill for a House vote. Because these bills had strong support from Democrats, I will introduce them again as well, but with the understanding that residents will never stop short of their full citizenship rights and, therefore, of statehood.

The final analysis is that we have no alternative. 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. It is too late for the residents of the District of Columbia to make such a concession as we approach the 212th year in our fight for equal treatment in our country. This bill is the first I file in the 113th Congress, and it reaffirms our determination to obtain each and every right enjoyed by citizens of the United States by becoming the 51st State of the Union.

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

I want to thank Mr. Shuster, Mr. Rahall, and my good friend Mr. Denham for their very important work to bring this matter to the floor so soon after the recess. I'm sure everyone appreciates it, and I certainly associate myself with the remarks of Mr. Denham. He and I worked on the very passages he quoted.

I, therefore, rise in support of H.R. 219, the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act of 2013. This bipartisan measure consists of reforms to expedite the recovery process for those communities that received disaster declarations for

Hurricane Sandy as well as for future Presidentially declared disasters. I do believe this may be the first time that some of these reforms with any significant event have been tested because many of the provisions included in the bill are matters that we have long worked for and that were incorporated into similar legislation in past Congresses. Several of the provisions will streamline the rebuilding process to provide jobs in the region and to achieve full recovery. The measure is also supported by the International Association of Emergency Managers, the Association of State Floodplain Managers, the National League of Cities, and more.

After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Congress enacted two pilot programs: one for debris removal and another allowing FEMA to make limited repairs instead of lease payments to provide housing when cheaper than using temporary trailers. Both pilot programs were successful and resulted in savings for the Federal Government. Local governments and emergency management professionals have discussed the need to make the debris removal program permanent in order to expedite debris recovery. The housing program will be especially useful in large urban areas, such as in New York City, where temporary trailers simply are not an option. This bill would codify both expired pilot programs, providing additional tools for FEMA to help communities recover.

This measure would also authorize FEMA to use fixed grants based on cost estimates at the request of the local community--another favorite we have been pressing for years. Although Congress authorized FEMA to use cost estimating 12 years ago, which is the way the insurance industry does it, for example, FEMA has not done so. The new authorization includes incentives for the local communities to use cost estimating by allowing them to rebuild according to today's needs and by eliminating long delays in the recovery process caused by cost disputes. Moreover, this provision explicitly authorizes FEMA and the applicant to mutually agree on a professionally licensed expert to prepare a cost estimate to be relied upon by FEMA instead of using an adversarial process in which both hire their own cost estimators, paid for by the Federal Government, and then get into a dispute as to which one is the best to use. This process alone will eliminate one of the most inefficient uses of Federal funds I have ever heard of in which FEMA pays for the State's experts to submit competing estimates of the costs of repair to the government's experts. No more of that. No more waste from that.

Finally, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held an oversight hearing last month on the preparedness, response to, and recovery from Hurricane Sandy. At that hearing, I questioned FEMA Administrator Fugate about the need to expedite the dispute resolution process. I am pleased to state that this bill includes a 3-year dispute resolution pilot program for FEMA to draft procedures in order to expedite project closure and to decrease recovery costs caused by project delays.

Madam Speaker, I strongly urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

First, let me say I appreciate the gentleman's remarks and comparing what we are going through here to what we all went through. He and I were both on the committee after Hurricane Katrina. I can tell you, we never expected to see anything like it, particularly in this part of the country. I certainly agree that this is the time to finally get these reforms done. This is the time to get it done, when we've got a huge Katrina-like event and we've got everybody's attention and we're going to save millions upon millions of dollars. I thank the gentleman.

I'm pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

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

I just want to say that I'm pleased to see that the gentleman from Mississippi has done what we have always done when any part of our country faced a disaster, we all closed in, and we really closed in like nothing you've ever seen with Mississippi and Louisiana, and nobody from the east coast rose to have any problem with moving in.

The reforms this bill now contains, the reforms of Chairman Denham and me, and before Chairman Denham came to the Congress, reforms that had been in our bill for some time; and it is true that these have not come out, and we have got a lever now to get them out. And when we get them out, they're going to help Mississippi and Louisiana, and they have more of this than the east coast has ever had. And it's going to help all the unforeseen places that now we are seeing experience precisely what only certain parts of the country before had had to endure.

I'm pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

I yield the gentlewoman 30 more seconds.

I want to agree with the chairman of the subcommittee about cost estimates and how it saves money and how it is one of the many lessons learned that I think will be acted out in this bill.

Madam Speaker, this bill is a downpayment. We all understand this. We understand that the devastation done in four States, I believe it is, was of a magnitude of what we experienced for the first time at the gulf coast.

We are going to come around, and we're going to do what we're supposed to do at times like this. But when we have a major event like this, it does not pay to simply go along doing things the way we have always done them.

This is when things get corrected. This bill is a good step toward correcting what our committee and our subcommittee have tried to do for years now. I appreciate all the effort of my friends and colleagues on the other side and, of course, Mr. Rahall and our friends who have also, in a bipartisan fashion, pushed for these changes and now have an opportunity to see how they work in a laboratory that is a very big one indeed, one far larger than we expected, but one from which we will also learn what is yet still to be learned about these major disasters.

Madam Speaker, I have no more speakers, and I am pleased to yield back the remainder of my time.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 and the Benjamin Harrison Society's work in bringing attention to the little known involvement of the District of Columbia in the war.

In the summer of 1814, British troops invaded our nation's capital. The poorly planned

campaign ended in the wounding of Joshua Barney and the burning of the capital city-- most major public buildings were burned, including the United States Capitol and the White House. However, a brave navy commodore, Joshua Barney and flotilla of men, militia and marines, stood in the Rives' Farm of Washington, D.C., with two 18 pound cannons and three 12 pound cannons defending the nation's capital until their ammunition was depleted and the wounding of Commodore Barney. In 2009, the Benjamin Harrison Society's lead historian, Acqunetta Anderson, asked volunteer archaeologists from the Smithsonian Institution to conduct the archaeological excavation of U.S. Reservation 520 to confirm Barney's artillery position during the Battle of Bladensburg on August 24, 1814, using historic descriptions, archaeological prospecting, mapping and excavation. The significance of the site, besides providing insight into an example of mid-19th century architecture, was that the Rives' barns provided a reference point for determining the position of Barney's battery during the battle. Barney's two 18 pound cannons and three 12 pound cannons were described as being within several yards of this location. The excavation of the median in Bladensburg Road by the D.C. Department of Transportation in September 2011 added to the investigation. The original turnpike level could be distinguished approximately 23.6 inches below the present road surface and spring water was observed still running across the road opposite Barney's Spring. Brick fragments, presumably emanating from the second Rives' barn, were also found in the median trench, further strengthening Ms. Anderson's theory that the Battle of Bladensburg occurred both in Maryland and Washington, D.C. in Ward 5 on August 24, 1814.

The Benjamin Harrison Society should be commended for their dedication to the research of the history of Washington, D.C. and the War of 1812, Battle of Bladensburg. Their research revealed that Barney, and his flotilla of men, militia, and marines battled the British in Washington, D.C. during the Battle of Bladensburg on August 24, 1814. The archaeological knowledge gained from this project can assist the National Park Service in cultural resource management, as well as the Benjamin Harrison Society, the Daughters of the American Revolution, Benjamin Harrison Chapter, and the Washington, D.C. War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission with site interpretation of both the Battle of Bladensburg and the Star-Spangled Banner Trail in Washington, D.C. It will help to finalize the Commission's plans for the commemoration of the Battle of Bladensburg and the War of 1812, beginning in 2012.

I ask the House to join me in recognizing the Benjamin Harrison Society and their involvement in research and commemorating the War of 1812.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this important legislation. H.R. 6364 establishes a commission to ensure that there is suitable observation of the centennial of World War I. This bill is a fitting tribute to all servicemembers who valiantly fought in all theaters of World War I.

The commission the bill establishes leaves ample time for appropriate commemorative works, events, and a tribute before the 100th anniversary of the war in 2014.

I would like to thank my colleagues, but especially Representative Ted Poe, who has been singularly focused on this bill and who has worked with me and with others until this day, and I certainly pledge to work with him next year as he continues on this very laudable mission. I thank also my friend, Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, Rob Bishop of Utah, and Raul Grijalva of Arizona for working with me to preserve the District of Columbia World War I memorial in particular.

Earlier this year, in his search for a suitable memorial for World War I, Representative Ted Poe introduced H.R. 938, which would have nationalized the D.C. memorial by redesignating it as the District of Columbia and National World War I Memorial. He made clear, however, that he was not necessarily focused on the D.C. memorial, but that his goal was a World War I memorial here.

While I very much support commemorating all the servicemen and -women who fought in World War I, I had to oppose altering the integrity of the D.C. memorial. The D.C. memorial was built with the blood and treasure of D.C. residents only, including funds from schoolchildren. Of the more than 26,000 D.C. residents who served in World War I, the 499 who died, more than the number from three States, have their names engraved on the memorial. Our memorial is deeply symbolic of the historic and continuing concerns of District residents, particularly our veterans who continue to serve without equal congressional representation, equal rights as citizens, and equal local government control.

In the spirit of cooperation among Members of both parties, the House-passed version of H.R. 6364 would have protected the D.C. War Memorial, and H.R. 6364 as amended by the Senate similarly will have no effect on the D.C. War Memorial. In fact, all of the provisions regarding memorials have been removed from the bill. Instead, it establishes a commission to observe World War I across the country as we approach the centennial of the start of the war. I believe that the reason that this has been done reflects nothing more than the fact that the commission's approach to two important commemorations has been the usual approach almost always to important commemorations, and World War I had enormous effects on those who fought, on the Nation and on the world.

More than 4 million men and women from the United States served in uniform during World War I. Among them, two future Presidents: Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Two million men and women from the United States served overseas during World War I. The United States suffered 375,000 casualties during that war, including 116,516 deaths.

The national commission will plan, develop, and execute programs, projects, and activities to commemorate the centennial of World War I throughout the United States. Importantly, not only here, but throughout the United States, people are anxious to learn more about the history of this war, to become involved in its commemoration, especially considering the effects of this war on the 20th century until today. We very much look forward to the commission's efforts to honor the participation and sacrifices of the United States and its citizens in the war effort.

And once again, I want to thank Representative Poe for the extraordinary effort and energy he has put into this bill and the way he has worked cooperatively with all of us on both sides of the aisle.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his work in helping to bring this bill to the floor today.

I especially want to thank the ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Elijah Cummings, who introduced the Hatch Act Modernization Act of 2012 in the House, and to thank Senator Daniel Akaka, who introduced the bill in the Senate.

I want to especially thank Chairman Darrell Issa, who held very productive and revealing hearings on the Hatch Act during this session, without which this bill could not have come to the floor today.

And I thank our friends in the Senate, Senators Joseph Lieberman and Susan Collins, who had their own hearings to modernize the Hatch Act, and who supported the provisions of this bill that pertain to the District of Columbia only.

The Hatch Act Modernization Act of 2012 contains two of our longtime priority bills for the district--the District of Columbia Hatch Act Reform Act and the Hatch Act National Capital Region Parity Act--giving D.C. full equality under the Federal Hatch Act.

Our first bill, the District of Columbia Hatch Act Reform Act, which is included in this bill, passed the House in the last Congress but stalled in the Senate. I have been fighting for the bill for most of my term of service in the Congress.

The D.C. Hatch Act Reform Act eliminates discriminatory treatment of the District of Columbia, which, alone among U.S. jurisdictions, still falls under the Federal Hatch Act, as it did before Congress made the District an independent jurisdiction in 1973 able to enact its own local laws.

My provision retains Federal Hatch Act authority concerning prohibited partisan and political activity that applies to every locality upon receipt of Federal funds or functions, and requires the District to enact its own local Hatch Act barring similar local violations. And I'm pleased to say that the District has already done that and is waiting only for passage of this bill and for signing by the President.

Hatch Act violations in the District are rare, but the District needs to be

able to enforce its own Hatch Act to be fully accountable and responsible for local violations, with which only a local objective body would be familiar.

The present treatment of District employees under the Hatch Act, as if these employees of a local government were employees of a Federal agency, has led to confusion for the Office of Special Counsel, or OSC, which enforces the Hatch Act.

In a recent case, an advisory neighborhood commissioner, elected by the people of the District of Columbia, was cited for violations of the Hatch Act when he ran for higher office, even though these commissioners are elected officials under local D.C. law.

Or to cite another absurdity, the District of Columbia will have its first election for a partisan attorney general in 2014. Under current law, the winner of that election would be treated as if he were a Federal employee. That would mean that the person who won the office of attorney general for the District of Columbia would have to resign that office in order to seek reelection in 2018. And this is not what the Federal Hatch Act, let alone a local Hatch Act, would have intended.

As a result of the failure to clear up the confusion between local and Federal jurisdictions, the application of the Hatch Act to D.C. government employees has been inconsistent by the OSC. The present law leaves the OSC with local responsibility when Federal jurisdiction is not indicated. This fix, therefore, is long overdue.

Our second bill, the Hatch Act National Capital Region Parity Act, allows OPM to permit Federal employees who reside in the District to run as independent candidates in local partisan elections. Under the Hatch Act, Federal employees generally may not be candidates in partisan elections.

In the 1940s, Congress gave OPM the authority to exempt Federal employees living in towns in Maryland, Virginia, and the immediate vicinity of the District from the Hatch Act's prohibition on Federal employees running in partisan elections, so that towns with a high concentration of Federal employees would not be deprived by having a significant percentage of their residents unable to participate in local affairs.

However, OPM was not given the authority to exempt Federal employees living in D.C. because the city did not have local elections before the Home Rule Act of 1973. The Hatch Act Modernization Act includes these two bills and brings the District one step closer to equal treatment and self-government, and implements these and other commonsense revisions to the Hatch Act.

I applaud the chairman and the ranking member for the entire Act, and I thank them very much that our bills are included.

Madam Speaker, as we end the 112th Congress, we are faced with two crises: the fiscal cliff crisis; and now a gun crisis and a mental health crisis, that comes to us from Newtown, Connecticut. When you consider that this is a Congress which has not been able to handle even minor issues, much less crises, one begins to wonder whether we will live up to what is required of any person who is a Member of the United States Congress.

This morning, I come for something less than a crisis for the country, something far easier to solve. I am calling on the Defense Authorization Conference Committee to solve a simple noncrisis problem, a problem, though, that casts shame on our treatment of our active-duty military, our veterans, and their families.

Thanks to Chairman Buck McKeon and Ranking Member Adam Smith, the House passed Defense Authorization bill contains a simple provision. That provision says that when you raise the flags of the 50 States at military ceremonies, if you're raising or displaying the flags of the 50 States, you must also display the flags of the District of Columbia and the five territories.

The territories and the District have always served disproportionately in war, but what we are asking for today and what the House bill provides is the simple respect that anyone who wears the uniform and any family member of that active military person or veteran is entitled to.

I thank the House for recognizing that in some matters all of us are certainly equal. We are all equal in according respect for members of our military. I've spoken with Senator Levin, the chair of the Defense Authorization Committee, and am convinced that he is for this provision. I have spoken to the White House at the highest levels, and I have asked all concerned to simply recede to the House provision.

For reasons that escape us all, the Senate removed this provision when the House, last year, put it in the Defense Authorization bill. It would be impossible to remove this provision if the Members of the Senate, who are responsible for doing so, could have heard from our veterans who went to speak to the staff of Senator McCain and Senator Levin and told of their own experience. There was the colonel who said that when he was welcomed home from the Gulf War, the flag of every State was raised, but not the flag of the District of Columbia. There was the mother who wrote me, Tomi Rucker, to say that she and the father went to the graduation of her son from Navy boot camp Great Lakes Naval Station full of pride, and as each graduate's name was called, the home state flag was raised, but no flag for Jonathan Rucker of the District of Colombia when his name was called. The colonel's son, who came back three times from war, a combat veteran in Iraq, and each and every time the flag of the District of Columbia was not raised as the flags of others were.

And my colleagues from the territories have come forward with equally heartbreaking stories. This, my colleagues of the House of Representatives, you can solve, you can solve this very day, and my colleagues in the other body need only follow your lead.

The Defense Department some months ago issued a memorandum that said that raising the flags should be done at the discretion of the commander. Well, it wasn't at the commander's discretion that our young men and women volunteered to risk their lives for their country. And would such a memorandum have been put forward to say that the commander could decide whether to honor the flag of Virginia or Maryland, to take my closest neighbors, when their veterans came home? What is the difference between their veterans who have gone to war and the veterans of the District of Columbia?

There are very few ways to honor our veterans. We honor foreign dignitaries by raising their flag. The least we can do is to honor our own military, our veterans and their families, by raising the flags of their home district or territory.

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

I rise in support of the bill before us today. S. 3315 amends certain statutes which require the Government Accountability Office to submit annual audits or reports to Congress. While the annual reporting requirements previously mandated are no longer necessary, this bill will require GAO to report its findings to Congress on issues covered by the reports every 3 years. This requirement will provide GAO with a more streamlined approach in reporting to Congress and will reduce the unnecessary costs and time spent to conduct annual audits or reports on these particular issues.

It is important to know that all the committees affected by this legislation have been consulted and have agreed to these changes. At a time when constituents are rightly demanding a more efficient government, now is the time to enact this legislation.

I thank the majority for bringing this bill to the floor and the Senate for passing the underlying measure. Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I have no speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank the gentleman from Utah for his kind remarks.

(Ms. NORTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

I rise today in strong support of the D.C. Courts and Public Defender Service Act of 2011. I would like to thank Senator Joe Lieberman, the chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which has jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, and particularly Senator Daniel Akaka, the chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Oversight and Government Management and the Senate sponsor of the bill, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia for ushering the bill through subcommittee and committee and getting it passed by voice vote.

Both Senators Lieberman and Akaka are retiring this year. They each will leave rich legacies of accomplishment to the Nation, and both Senator Lieberman and Senator Akaka have always been good friends of the District of Columbia. They will be very much missed in both Chambers by all of us, I know, but particularly by the residents of the District of Columbia.

S. 1379 is an important bill for the administration of justice in the District of Columbia. It will allow the chief judge of the superior court or the court of appeals to delay judicial proceedings in the event of a natural disaster, terrorist attack, or other emergency. It is clear that the Nation's capital is at risk to such emergencies. Most recently, Hurricane Sandy, the unprecedented storm that devastated the east coast, and was expected to hit the District much harder than what actually occurred.

S. 1379 also allows the chief judge of the court of appeals to hold judicial conferences biennially rather than annually as required by current law.

This option is common sense, considering the increase in the use of electronic communication today and the significant cost savings involved.

The bill also allows the D.C. courts to enter into reimbursable agreements with the D.C. government for equipment, supplies, and other services, a measure to assure that reimbursement costs do not come from congressional appropriations.

The bill reduces the term of service, from 5 to 3 years, required of judges of the family court division of the superior court, a policy aimed at easing recruitment of able judges to the family court division.

In addition, the bill authorizes the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, a federally funded government agency, to purchase professional liability insurance for its attorneys, staff, and board members, which is, of course, indispensable to all who practice law today.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill.

I want to thank the gentleman from Utah for his work on this bill, and I particularly want to thank the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Issa, who went to great lengths to make sure that this bill, in fact, made the agenda of the Congress and who has been so important to understanding and making sure that particularly minor D.C. bills like this received quick treatment and, I must say, in addition to his work on very important bills for the District of Columbia that are still in progress like our budget autonomy bill.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.