Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor a friend and scientist, Dr. Gray Multer. Gray was a marine geologist who dedicated his life to the study and preservation of marine ecosystems.

Born in Syracuse, New York, Gray earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Syracuse University. After receiving his Ph.D. from Ohio State University, he was a Professor of Geology for 30 years, first at the College of Wooster and then at Fairleigh Dickinson University as the chair of its geology department.

During his life, Gray authored or co-authored over 70 scientific publications, as well as several books. In 2008, he was awarded an honorary membership from the International Society for Reef Studies for his distinguished research and service to society.

Gray was known for his warm demeanor and strength of character, always a teacher dedicated to instilling a love of learning in his students. He also volunteered with Habitat for Humanity in his spare time.

It is to Gray's life and work that I would like to dedicate my sponsorship of the Ocean Conservation, Education and National Strategy for the 21st Century Act, as well as the Tropical Forest and Coral Conservation Act.

As Gray recognized, the protection and restoration of marine ecosystems is tremendously important in order to halt their irreversible loss. In his memory, I hope that my support for these bills will benefit the ecology of our oceans and help preserve them for future generations.

I would like to commend the efforts of my colleagues on the Energy and Water Subcommittee for recognizing the importance of hydrogen fuel-cell technologies and what those technologies will play in the future of the American energy portfolio.

Funding for this important research through this bill and through Mr. Pastor's amendment will help America continue to lead in this critical field necessary for our Nation's energy security.

I believe that using these funds to support important breakthroughs in automotive fuel cells through a public-private partnership with an experienced industrial leader will put America on track to commercialize this revolutionary technology within 5 years.

Significant domestic investments have already been made in this technology, and I have personally experienced the successes of these efforts by riding from my hometown of Corning, NY to Washington, DC in a Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicle.

We must ensure the continuation of this industry here in the US by partnering with those who have demonstrated the capacity to innovate and produce tangible results in efforts to commercialize Automotive Fuel Cells.

We must not fall behind our foreign competitors in this field. By making this a priority in Washington and providing the necessary funding for this technology, we can ensure America continues to be the leader in Hydrogen Fuel Cells.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor T. Michael Nicholson, a man who has suffered tremendous personal loss but has used it as inspiration to help others.

Michael at a young age, in a desire to help his community became a volunteer firefighter. He was only a junior in high school. He joined the Bushnell's Basin Volunteer Fire Department in the town of Perinton. Six months after joining he was struck by a car while directing traffic to a fire scene. Michael was severely injured and was given a 50% chance of living.

His legs were broken, his back was broken, and his skull was fractured. Michael was in a coma for three weeks which he was not expected to come out of.

The State of New York agreed to compensate Michael with eighty dollars a week for what they deemed partial disability.

However, the long term effects Michael suffered from prevented him from living a normal life and $80 a week was insufficient to live on. He pled his case to an administration law judge with hopes of being allowed a total permanent disability status.

His request being denied, Michael was told, ``If you want to do anything about this, then change the workers' compensation law.''

So he did.

Using this as inspiration Michael has led a crusade to overhaul the way the workers compensation system treats firefighters. Against all odds he has scored victories in the State Senate and Assembly where a law was created to bring the weekly benefit rate up to $400. This was a significant increase especially since some firefighters were trying to live off of $25 a week.

On November 29th 1992 the United States Department of Justice created the Public Safety Officer Disability Benefit which awards federal benefits to any Public Safety Officer in the United States who is permanently disabled from an ``in the line-of-injury'' suffered in their community.

Disabled firefighters have Michael Nicholson to thank for this. With his hard work and drive he was able to fix what was unfair and it is for this reason I honor him

Madam Speaker, I rise today to address this esteemed body regarding a young woman who at this moment, in my home town of Corning, New York, is preparing to close an important chapter in her life. Alexandra Joy Massa has spent the last decade growing into the beautiful young woman that she is today, working tirelessly to achieve exceptional grades, to excel in sports and in theater, and to serve her community through multiple volunteer efforts. Alexandra is my daughter, and today is her graduation day from high school, a monumental moment in her life and in the life of her parents. It's impossible to believe that eighteen years have passed since she became a part of my life, and that soon she will be heading off to college.

Many of my colleagues have children of their own and they understand all too well the joys, fears, hopes, and anxieties that come with parenthood. Raising my daughter has caused me many frustrated days and sleepless nights, but I wouldn't have traded a minute of them for the world.

Alexandra has brought lots into my life and the lives of those around her, with her warm sense of humor and generosity of spirit. These are beyond measure. Words do not allow me to convey how proud I am of my daughter, of all that she has accomplished in her life, and all that she will become in the coming years.

Now, like all parents, I will have to let go and watch as my little girl leaves home and goes off into a world where her father isn't there to watch over her. She will no longer have to seek my or her mother's permission to stay out late with friends or to go to a movie. She will never again have to listen to my lectures. I can only hope she chooses instead to listen, if only to humor her old man. She has become the adult that her mother and I hoped she would become: independent and intelligent, perceptive and engaging, considerate, compassionate, and kind. Where my little girl stood only a short time ago, a woman now stands, ready to take on the challenges of the world.

It is a bittersweet moment, and a moment of immeasurable pride. In the future, Alexandra

Massa will accomplish whatever she sets her sights upon. I ask only that she always remembers that her father will always love her with that special love only a father can have for a daughter, that only a parent can have for their child.

Thank You, Madam Speaker.

I thank my colleague from the State of New York, my neighbor just slightly to the east, and rise today to discuss from several new perspectives why it is, frankly, so critically important that we get energy legislation correct as we move boldly into the 21st century.

Just a short election season ago, this Nation was assaulted with a message from one side of the aisle that rang like a motto. It repeated itself over and over and over again on the floor of this House and, frankly, in the living room of every American family, often intrusively during dinner hour, where we heard, Drill here, drill now, pay less. How empty today those words ring. In fact, after the price of crude oil has tumbled from its height of almost $140 a barrel, bottoming to somewhere near the low thirties without the new drilling of a single well, we ask ourselves the question, how empty that slogan was.

And so we rise as we build a new national energy policy, one based on thoughtfulness, one based on science, one based on economic reality and not on sloganeering. So while I ran to become a Member of this House, motivated by such things as health care and an economic recovery, I have now become a very, very aggressive individual on this issue, looking at the absolute need to get this right. The first step I took as I approached my job was to go to the only hydrogen fuel cell propulsion research and development system and center in the United States, located in Upstate New York in Honeoye Falls, where to my astonishment as an engineer lifelong and a graduate of an engineering school, I saw the application of science. They took us not into science fiction but into science reality there in Honeoye Falls, working tirelessly for the last several decades, having taken engineering work that had been done out west 25 years ago and propelled us from the NASA Apollo program into the reality of some 116 reality-based automobiles. I had the opportunity to drive one of them, actually two, from Honeoye Falls all the way here to report for my first day. This was like driving an Apollo spacecraft. My eyes were opened to the fact that we were on the verge of a great industrial revolution, and we are at this moment leading the world. But if we listen to sloganeering, if we listen to the naysayers, if we allow the argument to be shaped by narrow special interests, we will never, ever cross the threshold of economic and industrial greatness that these and other technologies put in front of us. It's not just the fact that we have to get it right because we need to rebuild an economy

based on 21st century jobs, it's not just the fact that we believe as a caucus and myself personally that our impact on this world, through the burning of fossil fuels, is actually changing our climate, but it is also coming from the fact that I am a 24-year military veteran who realizes the vast and dramatic expenses that we are committing in our military just to secure an ever-increasing and yet rarely obtainable source of overseas fossil fuel.

Imagine, if you will, if we were not held hostage to the noose of Middle East oil. Imagine the trillions of dollars of resources that we would not be expending in the protection of, the extraction of and the transportation of oil sources from the very nations who use the money that we pay to feed our enemies and their hostile intent against us. This must be broken, and nowhere is that future clearer than right in Upstate New York. I know that my colleague, with his career in innovative engineering where he took his leadership to the New York State Energy Development Agency that has pioneered so much of the technology we need to move forward, agrees and understands with what we can do together standing as a Nation instead of listening to well- crafted and, frankly, crafty sloganeering.

So I rise with my colleague today to put an exclamation point at the very end of the reality that we must move ahead to get this right. I agree with the President's vision for a future. I agree with our caucuses that we need to move boldly into the future with an economically viable, science-based, thoughtful energy plan that breaks this ridiculous stranglehold that foreign oil has on us. It's not just a matter of drill here, drill now, pay less. We have grown beyond that sloganeering.

Would my colleague yield on that point?

I would like to pick up a very critical point my colleague just made about jobs. Around Lake Seneca, that great deep and beautiful Finger Lake in Upstate New York, every year we run something called the Green Grand Prix. I'm sure you would love to be a participant in it. It is a road race, or a road rally, where navigation is important. I must confess that more than once I made a wrong turn. But I made a wrong turn in a vehicle this year, as I did last year, powered not by imported, foreign, distilled gasoline but rather by alternative fuels. We had ethanol-powered vehicles. We had steam-powered vehicles. We had solar-powered vehicles, hydrogen-powered cars. And this year I drove a Ford F-150 modified at a dealership in Elmira, New York, once a bustling hub of heavy manufacturing, to accept a dealer-approved kit that allowed this heavy truck to be powered by propane with some 350 miles per filling at one-third of the cost of gasoline. This was a technology that was unbeknownst to me, one that Ford Motor Company, in engineering innovation, has now authorized several dealerships around the United States to install without even voiding their basic engine warranties.

We have an abundance of propane in rural New York. This is an alternative fuel that helps us break the cycle of dependence on foreign oil, and for pennies on the dollar, for a mere tax break, to those who invest in this technology, it becomes competitive and real. And not only do those automobiles, those trucks, then get sold, but the individuals who modify those trucks have jobs. The dealerships that sell these vehicles to the public have jobs. The individuals who use them have extra money in their back pocket because they are not paying these overseas foreign fuel providers.

It is not just hydrogen or propane. It is the entire menu of alternative fuels and alternative electrical capability that we need to put on the table. And I will tell you what, if we can spend $700 billion, a move, by the way, I opposed, bailing out banks who don't put a penny of that back in the consumer's pocket through alternative credit sources, we can certainly fund the single most important national security requirement we have before this Nation today. And that is to get an energy policy that is science-based and thoughtful.

Thank you, Mr. Tonko. And I have to tell you, you used two turns of a phrase that I thought were particularly appropriate. You talked about energy flowing. We come from a part of the world that pioneered cheap electricity. And we did it through one of the largest and one of the first great hydropower facilities in the world, capturing the hydro energy of Niagara Falls. And western New York, the great industrial cities of Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse benefited thereby. This was 100 years ago. Now we must look 100 years into the future. And you are right to say we need to think ``outside the barrel'' because unfortunately what we will hear in the coming debate is the demonization of the individuals making the argument and not the thoughtful discussion of the policy. I fear that we will become, once again, held hostage to the economic and energy sloganeering that will make it so difficult for the American people to understand that doing nothing is moving backwards, that doing nothing is surrendering without a new idea to the forces of Big Oil who so clearly ripped off from the American public trillions of dollars just this time last year as gasoline shot up to over $4 a gallon

with no real economic excuse other than gross corporate profiteering.

We cannot continue to be held hostage by the annual cycle of unexplained gasoline price increases and gasoline price fluctuations. And the only way that we are going to reclaim our own energy future is by looking beyond the slogans of the other side in a thoughtful, science-based, economically proven capability to explore all the new sources of alternative energies, not just for automotive propulsion, but also for fundamental electrical generation.

So thank you to my colleague from New York for allowing me the opportunity tonight to raise some key issues that this issue is not only about energy. It is about national security. It is not only about energy. It is about job creation for the future. It is not only about energy. It is about using the resources that we have to ourselves in the great American innovative manner that has always persevered in the face of challenge instead of surrendering to the foreign economies who, like they have been doing so aggressively lately, are taking over economic sector after economic sector. This is a battle that we can win. This is one that we can put ``Made in America'' on for future generations. And we can start right here, right now, tonight, by committing ourselves to thoughtful debate that raises issues and not sloganeering.

I yield back and thank my colleague for the opportunity to join him in this great discussion.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 377) recognizing Armed Forces Day and the exemplary service of the members of the United States Armed Forces.

I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the resolution under consideration.

I yield myself as much time as I might consume. Madam Speaker, Armed Forces Day was established to recognize the men and women serving in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard. I rise today to urge my colleagues to support House Resolution 377, honoring the exemplary service of the men and women of the United States Armed Forces.

The armed services have performed with dedication and bravery on behalf of the United States of America, and they have been killed or injured in conflicts and operations around the world in order to bring peace and stability in the name of democracy. Armed Forces Day recognizes the sacrifices that the Armed Forces and their families have given and continue to give to the United States of America.

This resolution shows that the House of Representatives remains committed to supporting the members of the Armed Forces and their families. It encourages all Americans to show their support and appreciation for the brave Americans and their families. We also commend those citizens whose organizations volunteer to support our servicemembers and their families at home and abroad.

Those who wear the uniform of our military services deserve our honor and great respect. Armed Forces Day is an opportunity for all other Americans to display their pride and appreciation for this noble and selfless service. So I now call upon Members of this great House to join me in supporting this resolution, thereby expressing our common pride and regard for our military on behalf of a grateful Nation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, it is with a particular honor that I have been asked to rise to introduce this legislation, remembering in my own life story the excitement of a 17-year-old young man as that individual entered the United States Naval Academy; and reflecting upon a, frankly, long, 30-year journey that has brought me here today in this great House to call upon my fellow colleagues to join me in recognizing the millions of Americans who have now followed the veterans who have joined me now out of the armed services. It is right and just as a son of a military member, as the brother of a military member, as the colleague of so many veterans of this great body, it fills me with emotion and clarity of eye and thought to imagine that that 17-year-old young man could journey so far as to be here today to call upon all Americans to honor all those in service and in uniform around the world. It is a tremendous honor to bring this resolution to the floor of the House of Representatives. I close my remarks on that note.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, I would like to take a moment to recognize the service and achievements of the Clifton Springs Hospital & Clinic Auxiliary. The Hospital Auxiliary celebrated 50 years of community service on January 26, 2009. A reception to commemorate the first meeting of the Auxiliary was held on the same day. During their first year, the Auxiliary ambitiously initiated five projects that were used to better patient care: occupational therapy, hostesses to serve daily coffee/tea, magazine distribution, flower committee and Pinkie Puppets for Easter. The Hospital Auxiliary has since organized numerous fundraising events to pay for projects and equipment that would not have come to fruition otherwise. These important projects have been critical to increasing the comfort of Clifton Springs Hospital patients. For their tireless dedication to patient well-being, it is my pleasure to honor the Clifton Springs Hospital & Clinic Auxiliary.

Thank you very much. It is an honor to be here tonight, and it is a privilege to speak in a space that has seen the great debates that have shaped this country, and now we embark on just such a debate.

The reality is I rise today with a unique perspective, frankly, from a small town in western New York State, in the heart of Upstate New York, my hometown of Corning, New York. I am reminded of the arguments and debates of the early 1970s when we realized that the crushing burden of smog that obscured the buildings of our great cities like New York and Los Angeles was comprised largely of nitrous oxide, ironically, another naturally occurring

chemical but, when concentrated in parts per million above 30, became deadly. Some of us in this Chamber are old enough to remember, looking out at television scenes and, in fact, living in our great metropolises where we could not see a half a mile on a smoggy day, and yet the scientists of this great Nation went to work and understood that it was largely the nitrous oxide being emitted from unregulated internal combustion engines that was literally choking us to death.

Those same scientists, many of them in my hometown of Corning, New York, invented the catalytic converter, and found a way through that process to remove nitrous oxide from the exhaust streams of automobiles. When that solution was laid before chambers like this and before legislatures all over this country, it was deemed, as it often is deemed by my close and intimate friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle, as attacks. It was said to be a job-killing innovation that would destroy the automobile industry, that would drive millions from their jobs. Yet I come from a town that was fundamentally transformed by that technology and by the provisions of the Clean Air Act of the early 1970s, interestingly enough, formulated largely by some of the same leaders who today stand to draw this country forward under a new cap-and-trade regime that will install and initiate the same revolutionary technologies because, where I come from, thousands of working-class Americans found new jobs in creating innovative technologies and in removing nitrous oxide to the manufacture of catalytic converters--one, two and sometimes four--which are today on every automobile manufactured in the United States of America, throughout Europe and in most of the Far East.

The proof is as clear as the clean skies of Los Angeles where just 30 years ago you could not see the Los Angeles bay from the skyscrapers that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. Yet the argument from my dear and intimate colleagues on the other side of the aisle is always to say ``no.'' It is to say ``no'' at the opportunity of every great innovation this Nation in the world has stood to see every single time. It is scare the public. Tell them they'll be taxed, and stop technological innovation when, in fact, it is just that regime that will power this Nation well beyond the 21st century.

The last 40 years have seen us move forward in information technology, and now we stand on the cusp of an entirely new economy based on jobs that cannot be exported and on environmental technologies. I come from a small town that has already lived and seen that. It is time for us to fear not. It is time for us to stand in the light of day and to tell the truth.

For the first time in generations, almost a third of the House of Representatives is represented by those who are the sophomore and freshman class, who have been sent here with a mandate by the American people to do the work that needs to be done, not to stand and say ``no'' and to be obscure and obstructionist but, rather, to get the job done. It is on our shoulders, not fearful of elections, not fearful of false facts, not fearful of lies and of insinuations and of distortions but, rather, to stand in the clear air, much of it created through the innovations that we saw in the Clean Air Act in the 1970s.

It is an honor to stand and to be part of this great debate. Let the debate begin here and now with truth and clarity and forcefulness. Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time.

Well, Congressman and colleagues, thank you very much. After I concluded my remarks, I noticed that I had received a text message from my 18-year-old daughter. My 18-year-old daughter, like many of her age, represents an entirely different way of looking at the future, one, frankly, framed by optimism and not constrained by the ideology of ``no.'' And she text me a message and said, ``You go, dad.''

Many tell me that I get impassioned about these issues on the floor of the House, and there is some truth in that. But I ask my colleagues and I ask those people who sent me here to Washington and I ask us all, how can you not be? When you are confronted with the tremendous challenges that we face--and I hope I am mistaken, but I know I am not, because I do believe that global climate change is real and that there is an immediate imperative--but I combine that umbrella under which we conduct this discussion with the very hard-core business reality that we are presented with a tremendous economic and business opportunity to begin a process. And I am honored to be part of that process as we speak power to truth and debunk the incredible false statements that sometimes rise on the floor of this House to scare people away from taking the bold steps that we were sent here to take.

So I look forward to being back with you and my colleagues, the scientists, Representatives like my fellow New Yorker, Paul Tonko, who already has an incredible legacy of leadership in New York, to my good friend, Congressman Hall, who, frankly, has led this not just from the floor of a stage, but from an absolute understanding of the imperative of science, and to those few words that I can add to this great debate as we move forward to undertake this challenge. I thank you for the opportunity to join you tonight.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Robert Fay Rockwell Jr. Bob Rockwell was born November 8th, 1911 in Bradford, PA. He attended Whittier College in California where he became friends with fellow

student, Richard M. Nixon. He moved to Corning, NY in 1933 to run the local department store (The Rockwell Company) owned by his grandfather. Soon after, he departed to serve in the 70tn Construction Battalion (the Seabees) in World War II. He was stationed in North Africa and Oakland, CA.

Upon his return to Corning, he became close friends with Frederick Carder, founder of world-famous Steuben Glass. Later he amassed the world's largest collection of Frederick Carder Steuben Glass. His liking of aesthetics wasn't limited to glass art; Bob started collecting Western Art including Remingtons and Russells in the early 1960's for display in his department store. He donated most of these two collections to what was then called The Rockwell Museum. This museum got its first home in 1976 in an old hotel in downtown Corning. During this time, he became president of both the Corning Chamber of Commerce and the Corning Rotary Club. In 1983 the Rockwell Museum of Western Art opened in Corning's refurbished old city hall building and has been popular with the great numbers of tourists who visit the area. The multimillion dollar value of Bob's donated art and glass is a testament to his generosity, but his legacy is further enhanced by his compassion and help to his fellow man.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of Robert Fay Rockwell, Jr., a close friend of myself and of our community in New York.

Bob Rockwell was born on November 8 of 1911 in Bradford, Pennsylvania. He attended Whittier College in a far-off land in California where he became friends with a fellow student, Richard Nixon. He moved to Corning, New York, in 1933, to run the local department store, the Rockwell Company, owned by his grandfather.

Soon after, he, like so many of the Greatest Generation, departed to serve overseas in World War II and joined the 70th Construction Battalion of the great Seabees in World War II. He was stationed in North Africa and later in California.

Upon his return to Corning, he became close friends with Frederick Carder, founder of the world famous Steuben Glass Works. He amassed the world's largest collection of Frederick Carder's Steuben glass, priceless in its volume.

His liking of aesthetics in art was not limited to only glass. Bob became the largest collector of Western art, including Remingtons and Russells, and in the early 1960s, opened a display of

that collection in his department store. He later donated most of these collections to what was then called--and now is world famous--the Rockwell Museum. This museum got its first home in 1976 in an old hotel in downtown Corning.

During that time, he became president of both Corning Chamber of Commerce and Corning Rotary Club and forever left his mark on both organizations. In 1983, the Rockwell Museum of Western Art opened in Corning's refurbished old City Hall building. It's become a popular local and national icon.

The multimillion dollar value of Bob's donated art and glass is a testament to his generosity, but is only one of such testaments. His legacy is further enhanced by his compassion and help to his fellow man.

And let me close by saying, from the heart to Bob and to his family and from all of us in Corning, New York, and in western New York State, Bob, we are always in your debt for your tremendous contributions to our community.

Madam Speaker, I would like to take a moment to recognize the life and achievements of Daniel E. Button, a former Congressman who represented New York's 29th District. Button, who died this week at age 91, was a father of five and a Columbia University-educated journalist in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1966, dismayed by what he saw as entrenched corruption, Button decided to run for Congress and won by doing the hard work of walking the district in a seemingly unattainable quest. He won by only 17,000 votes but was re-elected in 1968 for a second term. Even though Button's tenure as New York's 29th District Representative lasted only two terms, they were filled with Button's drive to fight for what he believed was right. For standing up and taking action for what he believed in, it is my pleasure to honor the late Congressman Daniel E. Button.

Mr. Speaker, it is with deep solemnity that I take this moment to offer my sincere condolences to the families and friends of the 50 individuals who lost their lives when Flight 3407 crashed in Clarence, NY on February 12th. While we can never bring them back we can make sure they are honorably remembered for their many contributions, both big and small, in the lives of those all around them. I further extend my condolences to my colleague, Rep. Chris Lee, who represents the 26th Congressional District where the tragedy occurred.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to quiet a voice, to complete a commitment that I made to the 640,000 voters who sent me here.

Ten years ago this month, I completed a course of chemotherapy that saved my life under some of the best and most expert medical care available in the world.

I believe passionately and I believe strongly and I believe to the core of my soul that all Americans should have access to the same medical care that I had access to 10 years ago. And so today I stand to complete a promise and a commitment: I will personally, with malice towards none and negativity towards none, won't accept the Federal and congressional health care benefits policy until such time that all Americans have access to the same medical care that all of us in this exalted and honored Chamber have access to. It is not a pejorative, it is a one-person commitment to try to change the system we have today. And I will not rest until all Americans have access to quality health care.

Madam Speaker, I am compelled to observe that, while Rome burns, my friends and colleagues across the aisle argue process.

We were elected to come here and make a difference in the lives of the people who we represent. Today, I will proudly cast a vote in the affirmative for the expanded State Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 to do exactly that.

We are in a time of financial and economic crisis, and we cannot ignore the individuals who have sent us here to help them. It is a plain and clear call to action. It is wrong to say that you support children's health care and, at the same time, vote against it. This is not about process. It is about standing with America's children, and I am proud to do so today.