Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, in Connecticut last week, I heard a lot of different fears from people in my district about sequestration. Almost everyone is worried about the economy. Small business owners and manufacturers in Torrington and Waterbury are worried about staying above water. Parents in Danbury are worried about their children's education. Social service providers in New Britain and Meriden are worried about losing funding to help seniors who need meal assistance and to help families who need housing assistance. People everywhere are worried about keeping their jobs.

And there's a question in common. With this imminent, self-inflicted threat to people's jobs and people's livelihoods, why isn't Congress doing anything about it? Why, at the very least, are we not voting on a balanced alternative?

Our constituents deserve more than an answer to that question, they deserve action. There is no reason businesses and families in Connecticut, or in any state, should be facing this catastrophe. It is entirely of our own doing but it's the folks back home that suffer the consequences.

I ask unanimous consent that the House now take up H.R. 699, the Stop the Sequester Job Loss Now Act, introduced by Mr. Van Hollen to replace the sequestration with commonsense, cost-cutting policies--repealing subsidies for big oil and big gas, refocusing subsidies for big agriculture, and enacting a ``Buffet Rule'' so that the wealthiest are paying their fair share.

We should be allowed to vote on this bill, and we should vote to remove this threat to the well-being of folks in all of our districts who have worked so hard to get by and to bring our country back from recession.

Mr. Speaker, I want to state that on February 15, I missed several rollcall votes due to the Citizens Medal ceremony honoring the following constituents, Rachel Davino, Anne Marie Murphy, Lauren Rousseau, Victoria Soto, Mary Sherlach, and Dawn Hochsprung. These six extraordinarily talented and courageous teachers and administrators dedicated their lives to education and to the children of Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. When unimaginable tragedy struck, they gave their lives protecting those same children. As a community, Newtown will always feel their loss. As a country, we will always look to their courage. Had I been present I would have voted:

I. Nay--H. Con. Res. 15--Adjournment Resolution: I would have voted ``nay'' as the House should stay in session and work to find a reasonable alternative to the irrational, across-the-board spending cuts in the pending sequester.

2. Aye--Final Passage of H.R. 273: I would have voted ``aye'' to prevent a pay increase for Members of Congress in 2013 and am an original cosponsor of a bill to prevent a pay increase for Members of Congress for the entire 113th Congress. In these tough economic times and until the budget is balanced, it's not fair for Members of Congress to receive any form of pay increase when others are asked to cut their budgets.

3. Aye--Final Passage of H. Res. 65: Condemning the Government of North Korea for its flagrant and repeated violations of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions, for its repeated provocations that threaten international peace and stability, and for its February 12, 2013 test of a nuclear device.

Last week, I organized leaders from across Connecticut in small business, labor, government, health care, and social services to hear from them about the impact of sequestration. My constituents were pleased to also brief our House Democratic whip, Steny Hoyer, at a roundtable in Farmington. The consequences of across-the-board cuts are frightening to say the least. People are scared, and people are extremely frustrated with Congress--and justifiably so.

In central and northwest Connecticut--and I know the same holds true across the country--manufacturers, small businesses, and working- and middle class families are doing things right. Having struggled through a tough economy, manufacturers like Ward Leonard in Thomaston and Marion Manufacturing in my hometown of Cheshire have been innovating and making strides.

Mr. Speaker, people are hopeful that we are finally on the verge of better days, but somehow Congress has missed every opportunity to avoid this very avoidable sequester, which would not only squander opportunities but would outright devastate our economy and hurt small businesses and families across the country.

At our roundtable, JoAnn Ryan, president of northwest Connecticut's Chamber of Commerce, said that local small business owners see ``pockets of opportunity,'' but they have ``no confidence whatsoever because of the inability of government to cooperate.'' My friend John Harrity, president of the Connecticut State Council of Machinists, put it perfectly when he said that, after all the progress our manufacturers have made, ``to lose all that momentum just defies common sense.''

That's not to mention what I heard from folks across the district about the devastating and reckless impact sequestration would have on social services, our seniors, and our children's education at every level. Let's not forget that folks in Connecticut and across the Northeast are still recovering from Hurricane Sandy and recent winter storms. Our constituents have had to wait far too long for emergency recovery funds, and they're still recovering and are trying to rebuild their lives, to rebuild their homes and their businesses.

Mr. Speaker, according to George Mason University Center for Regional Analysis, sequestration will directly and indirectly cost Connecticut almost 42,000 jobs. We need to remember that this isn't just a number. It's people's livelihoods, and it's their lives.

Letting the sequester happen will hurt Head Start students and their teachers in Danbury and New Britain, seniors in Meriden who rely on Meals on Wheels for their daily nutrition, manufacturers like Ansonia Copper & Brass in Waterbury, and small businesses throughout Torrington and the northwest corner, and employees and owners who are working hard to achieve the American Dream for themselves and to bring back the American economy.

What's maybe most troubling is that there is no reason businesses and families in Connecticut, or in any State, should be facing this catastrophe. It is entirely self-inflicted and avoidable if our colleagues would let us vote on an alternative. It's the result of a reckless game of chicken. Avoiding it is actually very simple, and the lack of urgency the House GOP leadership has shown in addressing this impending deadline is astounding.

Mr. Speaker, we can and should vote to remove this self-inflicted threat. We can and should remove the sequester. We already have a balanced replacement. Representative Van Hollen's Stop the Sequester Job Loss Now Act would replace the sequester with commonsense, cost- cutting policies--repealing subsidies for Big Oil and Big Gas, refocusing subsidies for Big Agriculture and enacting a Buffett rule so that the wealthiest are paying their fair share. We should be allowed to vote on this bill.

Folks in Connecticut and across the country can't afford this gamesmanship. They need us to act. They need us to do our jobs so that they can keep doing theirs.

I would like to thank the gentlelady from California for organizing this Special Order hour, and I

want to thank you for your longtime leadership on the gun violence prevention issue; and to our friend and colleague Congresswoman McCarthy, for your tireless effort, sadly over decades now, to ensure that this Congress takes action to keep our communities safer.

Last night in this Chamber, people affected by gun violence, including a number of families and officials and first responders from Newtown, were here in this Chamber. I have the honor of representing this small, brave town that now finds itself at the center of this national debate. And, folks, they are the face. They are paying the price of our political inaction.

Among the people here last night was a courageous educator by the name of Natalie Hammond. Natalie was the lead teacher at the Sandy Hook school that day, and she was in the hall trying to stop that madman, and her colleagues on either side were killed and she was seriously injured. She got out of physical therapy and came out publicly for the first time to be here last night to put a human face on the cost of inaction.

These people, as the gentlelady from California suggested, as The New York Times and others have suggested, are so courageous. And they have one question for us: What are we going to do? What is this country going to do to address this epidemic?

The President spoke eloquently, yet very directly, last night about how we must do better as a country. As he said, the families of Newtown deserve a vote.

He is right. Commonsense measures that respect Second Amendment rights, like universal criminal background checks, a reinstatement of the assault weapons ban, and restrictions on high-capacity magazines should, at the very least, be voted on in this Chamber and in the Senate.

The voices of the American people should be heard in this Congress. It's up to us. It's up to us, as elected leaders, to see that these families, that every family touched by gun violence has a vote.

Lynn and Chris McDonnell, the parents of Grace McDonnell, were here in the Chambers last night, as witness to their daughter, who loved pink, who did a beautiful painting, which they gave to the President of the United States.

The McDonnells asked me this morning, they said, you know, Elizabeth, what more can we do to ensure that Congress acts? And I was astounded by the question. To think that this grieving family, what more could they do? It's, what more must we do?

They are doing everything they can to make sure that every Member of Congress understands not only their loss--their loss is America's loss, because every child that was murdered, every life lost on the city streets of our country is a loss that ripples throughout families and communities, lives. We will never know what these people could have done, could have contributed to our society, and it is an enormous hole in the fabric of our country.

The price of inaction is too high. The price of inaction is being paid every day by grieving parents like Lynn and Chris McDonnell.

So I want to thank, again, the gentlelady from California for all you're doing to ensure that we do the right thing here today, that we continue the discussion of this critical issue, that we do not lose our will to take action, and that we do bring about real change to save lives in our communities across this country.

The parents, the families, the children of Newtown deserve no less than our best efforts. We must act.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Congressman Lujan. And I'd like to thank Chairman Whitfield for his leadership on this important issue and for bringing this bill to the floor so quickly this year.

I rise as the proud sponsor of the Collinsville Renewable Energy Promotion Act. This bill, as the chairman so aptly described, would provide FERC limited authority to license the Town of Canton, in my district, to operate two small and dormant dams for hydroelectric power.

The Upper and Lower Collinsville dams on the Farmington River were first built in the 18th and 19th centuries to power an ax manufacturer. While this business closed in the 1960s, the dams have remained and are a lasting symbol of the Farmington Valley's very proud manufacturing history.

And just as our communities have been reinvented over the years, we now have the opportunity to reinvent a dormant dam into a dam producing local, clean energy. If the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, under the authority of this bill, permits both dams to generate hydropower, the dams could produce nearly 2 megawatts of power, enough to power more than 1,500 homes, which I'll note, parenthetically, with 3 feet of snow in the last week, were much in demand, that additional power. Licenses for this purpose had previously been issued, and this bill would allow the reinstatement of the inactive FERC licenses.

Now, as with any dam on any river, there are legitimate concerns about the river and the ecosystem's health. The Upper and Lower Collinsville dams already exist, and our legislation addresses many concerns to fully protect the river's health by requiring FERC to complete an updated analysis of the environmental impact of the projects and seek additional public comment before taking action.

Now, this project started long before I was elected to Congress, and I'm proud to continue the work on this bill. Just a few months ago, this body passed the exact same language offered by then-Congressman Chris Murphy, Connecticut's new Senator. He's been a longtime champion on this issue, and I'm grateful for his and First Selectman of Canton Richard Barlow's work spearheading these efforts back home.

I would also like to mention another longtime supporter of this project, Art Fournier. Sadly, Art passed away this past July. But during one of the occasions I had the opportunity to discuss issues with him and gain from his lifetime of experiences, he brought up this

bill to enforce upon me how important it was. He was committed to public service and to ensuring that the world was a better place for the next generation. His commitment to public service was evident from his service on many boards and commissions in the town of Canton, including on the Hydro Power Advisory Commission.

Another strong advocate for this project also, sadly, died this summer, Mark Quattro. Mark, too, made us aware of the importance of this project for the little town of Canton, and he was deeply committed to the community and served on many town organizations, including the chamber of commerce. It would be a fitting tribute to honor these two fine citizens of Canton, Art Fournier and Mark Quattro, by passing this bill today.

I'd like to thank, again, Chairman Whitfield, as well as Chairman Upton and Ranking Members Waxman and Rush and their staffs for bringing the Collinsville Renewable Energy Promotion Act to the floor today for a vote. This project has a long history of bipartisan support at the local level, and I'm proud to be working with my colleagues across the aisle to empower local communities to utilize existing resources to create locally produced clean, renewable power. I respectfully urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Amendment VII:

``In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.''