Floor Statements

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bipartisan legislation to help foster children succeed in school.

The Uninterrupted Scholars Act will make a real and immediate difference in the lives of foster children across this country.

I want to thank Congresswoman Bass and Senator Landrieu for their support of this legislation, the Senate for sending this legislation back to the House, Chairman Roe for managing this on the floor, and Chairman Kline for agreeing to have this legislation come to the House today.

In thanking Congresswoman Bass, I want to recognize her not only as the author of this legislation, but for her leadership both here in Washington and in the State legislature in our State of California when she served there on behalf of these young people to make sure that they would have a better opportunity at success.

Foster children are some of the most at-risk students. As a group, they miss more school than their peers, are more likely to drop out, and take longer to finish when they do graduate. Throughout their young lives, they may change care placements multiple times. Each placement means adjusting to a new family and often a new community, new friends, and a new school.

Each move can put their educational success in jeopardy. That's because the caseworkers who advocate for them as they move from one school to another often do so without critical information. Though current law rightly requires foster care caseworkers to include children's education records in their case plans, another Federal law limits the ability of caseworkers to access those records in a timely manner.

Without access to a foster child's school records, caseworkers are limited in their ability to advocate for the child's educational needs, especially as they move from one school to another or from one family to another. Without these records, caseworkers don't have the necessary information to make important and informed decisions about placement, wraparound services, and credit transfers among schools. That means that those vulnerable children do not get the services that they need. This red tape creates unnecessary hurdles for educational successes for many foster children. And if there's one thing foster children don't need in life, it's additional hurdles to jump. They have plenty of hurdles confronting them every day as they try to succeed within the system.

This legislation before us today makes narrow changes to FERPA to allow foster care caseworkers to do a better job on behalf of these young people. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

With that, I yield 5 minutes to Congresswoman Bass of California, one of the authors of this legislation, and again thank her for her advocacy on behalf of foster children and foster families.

I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Washington, Congressman McDermott, a strong supporter of this legislation and an advocate on behalf of foster children.

(Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

I want to thank the gentleman from Washington for his leadership.

I would like to yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas.

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

The care and concern for foster children has been a bit of a relay race for myself back in the late seventies and eighties, to Senator Russell Long, to former Congressman Tom Downey, former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, to Senator Landrieu, now Karen Bass from my State of California, and Congressman McDermott before her.

We've tried to make sure that these young people, with a lot of chaos in their life, far beyond any of their own doing, have a chance to succeed. Clearly, the best chance to succeed is to see that they get a good education and an opportunity to participate in American society and in America's economy. This act, the Uninterrupted Scholars Act, goes a long way toward helping their advocates make sure that they get the best shot at the best education.

So I want to thank all the supporters of this legislation, Congressman Roe and Congressman Kline, for their support and their willingness to bring it to the floor of the House so we can send it to the President of the United States.

Just before I conclude my remarks, Mr. Speaker, I want to take a moment to recognize a cherished member of my staff who will be leaving the committee at the beginning of January.

Ruth Friedman began her career with me as a fellow in my personal office more than a decade ago. Because of her hard work and dedication and unparalleled expertise, she rose to become my education policy director on the committee.

Ruth holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and is one of the foremost experts in early childhood policy. I can tell you that the children of this country benefited every day from her work on the Education Committee.

Ruth has spent her career fighting for the most vulnerable children on issues like child welfare, juvenile justice, early learning, child care, child abuse prevention and treatment. She has worked on countless pieces of legislation successfully, including today's bill, and was instrumental is passing the 2007 Head Start Reauthorization Act.

I want to thank Ruth for her extraordinary service to me, to the committee, to the Nation, and to the Nation's children. Her advice and counsel have been invaluable, and she will be sorely missed, but we know that she has great accomplishments ahead of her.

Ruth, I want to wish you, Pete, and Dylan all of the best. Thank you so much for all of your service to our committee on both sides of the aisle, and certainly to this Nation's children.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to support this legislation, thank Congressman Roe for managing this bill on the floor, and I yield back the balance of my time

Mr. Speaker, our hearts were broken over the senseless shooting deaths of 20 first grade children and their teachers in Newtown, Connecticut, and we wish that we could undue this unimaginable tragedy; but we know we can't do that. Instead, the House held a moment of silence. It is what the House does to show empathy, and it is a kind and sincere gesture, but it is not enough.

Last week, the House held a moment of silence for two adults killed by a gunman in a Portland, Oregon, shopping mall. Earlier, the House held a moment of silence after the horrific mass killings in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater; and it held a moment of silence after our colleague Gabby Giffords and her staff and constituents were shot in Arizona.

A moment of silence felt like an honorable thing to do; but, clearly, a moment of silence is not enough. Americans don't need another moment of silence from the United States Congress. They need us to pass legislation immediately to ban automatic weapons, semiautomatic weapons, high-capacity ammunition clips, and to expand access to quality mental health services. Congress needs to act now. A moment of silence is not enough. It can not substitute for action.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today with my colleagues to pay special tribute to several members of the California Democratic delegation whose service in Congress is shortly coming to an end.

These six members served this House and their constituents with distinction and dedication, and they deserve our admiration and gratitude for the hard work that they have done on behalf of California and our country: Representative Joe Baca, who was elected in 2002, served for 10 years from the 43rd Congressional District; Representative Howard Berman, who was elected in 1982, served for 30 years, most recently from the 28th District; Representative Bob Filner, sworn in this month as mayor of San Diego, was elected in 1992 and served for 20 years from the 51st District; Representative Laura Richardson was elected in 2007 and served for 5 years from the 37th District; Representative Pete Stark, the outgoing dean of our delegation, was elected in 1972, and served for more than 40 years from the 13th District; and Representative Lynn Woolsey, who was elected in 1992 and served for 20 years for the Sixth Congressional District.

There is much that can be said about the distinguished careers of our departing colleagues, but I'd like to offer a few remarks about the work that I have personally joined them in during their time here in the Congress.

Representative Howard Berman has served in the House for 30 years, and I am honored to name him among my closest friends in this body. During his service, he has worked on a wide variety of issues, but he was especially known as the champion of human rights and for standing up for the middle class, for the working class, and for the poor in our country.

As the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee from 2007 to 2010, Mr. Berman made great progress on behalf of the less fortunate. He was a leader in securing the reauthorization of our global HIV/AIDS program to help provide access and preventative services and treatment for millions around the globe. He also authored legislation removing Nelson Mandela and other members of the African National Congress from the U.S. terrorism list, on which they had been unjustly placed for many years. Finally, he was a leader in raising concerns about human rights abuses by autocratic governments around the world. Particularly, he was a key leader in bringing additional disclosure to the trade in conflict minerals that has financed the ongoing violence in the Congo.

Mr. Berman will be remembered as a strong friend of Israel. He was passionate about the need to achieve a lasting peace in the Middle East, and through his work, he forged a broader coalition on behalf of Israel in the House of Representatives.

Also, I want to recognize Mr. Berman's work on behalf of immigration and the treatment of those who have immigrated to this country and his work on behalf of migrant workers and farm workers all across the United States. For that effort, he received the first annual Farmworker Justice Award by the Farmworker Justice Fund in 2000.

Like Mr. Berman, our dean, Congressman Pete Stark, has spent his entire distinguished career in Congress advocating on behalf of those whose voices were often drowned out in Washington by the influence of the moneyed interests.

Over the last 40 years, Congressman Stark has been one of the foremost advocates in the effort to ensure that all Americans are able to access quality, affordable health insurance. I am honored to have been one of the three principal coauthors in the House of the historic Affordable Care Act, which will provide access to quality insurance for nearly every single American. I can personally attest to the critical and key role that Mr. Stark played in drafting that law and making sure that the law provides needed relief for working families.

This was a crucial accomplishment, yet it was far from Mr. Stark's only accomplishment in the field of health care. As the former chair and ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee for many years, he was a leader on health care reform.

He was the lead author of the original COBRA insurance bill, which ensured that workers faced with losing their jobs would not also immediately lose access to needed health insurance. Those of us who have gone through this recent downturn and recession in this country know from the testimony of our constituents how vital the access to COBRA health insurance is to the health security of their families and to the financial security of their families. He also pioneered the efforts to make modern IT systems available and acquired within the health care systems of this country that will help us improve the outcomes of health care and that will, hopefully, drive down the cost of health care, allowing for the provision of better care for patients.

He, I think along with Sam Gibbons from Florida, pioneered the idea that there should be Medicare for all. He beat on that drum for a very long time, and it was the right drum to beat on. It wasn't achieved, but it did lead to the improvement of health care and to the passage of the Affordable Care Act.

He has also been, obviously, a fearless campaigner on behalf of fairness in our Tax Code. It's unfortunate that he is retiring from the Congress. Since 1986, we've addressed this issue, and maybe there will finally be a chance to get something done in the next Congress, but he paved the way on so many of these issues.

Finally, in my remarks at this moment, I would like to highlight the work of an outstanding Democrat on the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections of the Education and the Workforce Committee, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey.

Congresswoman Woolsey is a friend of working families everywhere. She knows her struggles. Four decades ago, she was a single working mother who was supporting three children. She knows what it is like to worry about the economic security of families. Later, as a human resources manager, she saw how important employee benefits were to workers in good times and in bad--things that working families are still fighting for, like paid leave, paid sick leave, a secure retirement, and health care.

Serving as chair and ranking member of the Workforce Protections Subcommittee, Lynn Woolsey was instrumental in helping to get the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act signed into law, and she successfully fought for new family leave protections for military families dealing with a military deployment or injury. Lynn Woolsey was a partner to ensure that coal miners are kept safe and healthy on the job. She even went underground in the coal mine with our late colleague Donald Payne in order to acquire firsthand knowledge of how the workplace works and the environment in which those miners go to work every day.

In the classroom, Lynn Woolsey continued to fight for women and working families. She was a tough advocate, making sure that women were represented in the STEM field careers and that young women had access to the sciences and to technology and to math and to engineering. Lynn Woolsey worked to ensure that kids had access to an early education, to a well-rounded curriculum, and to services that met their social and emotional needs.

American families have benefited from Lynn Woolsey's fierce advocacy. That's our advocate, Lynn. I will miss her contributions on the Education Committee in the years to come.

She has also fought tirelessly to protect the environment, most especially the Marin and Sonoma Coast and the San Francisco Bay. Hopefully, the President will follow her lead and will designate further protections of our ocean and marine habitat in that area of our very precious coast.

I, for one, am very grateful to these Members for the work that they have done for America's middle class and for those who struggle to join our middle class, for the work that they have done on behalf of their constituents and on behalf of the citizens of this country. They all came here to achieve success on behalf of their constituents and on behalf of this country, and they have succeeded. I want to thank them so very much for their service, for their sacrifice, for their ingenuity, for their innovation, and I would say, with regard to these three, for their spirited, tough, harsh, relentless pursuit of what they believed in terms of public policy.

On my own behalf, on behalf of our delegation, and on behalf of the tens of millions of constituents that we represent in California, I want to thank Representatives Baca, Berman, Filner, Richardson, Stark, and Woolsey for their service and their dedication.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today with my colleagues to pay a special tribute to several members of the California Democratic Congressional Delegation whose service in Congress is shortly coming to an end.

These six Members served this House and their constituents with distinction and dedication and they deserve our admiration and gratitude for the hard work that they have done on behalf of California and our country.

Rep. Joe Baca, who was elected in 2002 and served for 10 years from the 43rd Congressional District; Rep. Howard Berman, who was elected in 1982 and served for 30 years, most recently from the 28th District; Rep. Bob Filner, sworn in this month as mayor of San Diego and who was elected in 1992, served for 20 years from the 51st District; Rep. Laura Richardson, who was elected in 2007 and served for five years from the 37th District; Rep. Pete Stark, the outgoing dean of our delegation, who was elected in 1972 and served for 40 years from the 13th District; and Rep. Lynn Woolsey, who was elected in 1992 and served for 20 years from the 6th Congressional District.

There is much that could be said about the distinguished careers of these departing colleagues, but I would like to offer a few remarks about the work that I have personally joined them in doing.

Mr. Berman has served in the House for 30 years and I am honored to name him among my closest friends in this body.

During his service, he has worked on a wide variety of issues, but he is especially known as a champion for human rights and for standing up for the middle class, for the working class and for the poor in our country.

As the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee in 2007 through 2010, Mr. Berman made great progress on behalf of the less fortunate. He was a leader in securing reauthorization of our global HIV/AIDS program to help provide access to preventative services and treatment for millions around the globe.

He also authored legislation removing Nelson Mandela and other members of the African National Congress from the U.S. terrorism list, on which they were unjustly placed on for many years.

Finally, he has been a leader in raising concerns about human rights abuses by autocratic governments around the world. In particular, he was a key leader in bringing additional disclosure to the trade in conflict minerals that have financed ongoing violence in the Congo.

Mr. Berman will be remembered as a strong friend of Israel who was passionate about the need to achieve a lasting peace in the Middle East. His vast knowledge of and experience with world affairs has been an asset to Congress and the Administration and the American people and I expect that we will continue to benefit from his experience in the years to come.

Meanwhile, Mr. Berman has also been a leader on a number of issues through his long tenure on the Judiciary Committee. I would particularly like to call attention to his efforts to establish a more humane immigration system. He has fought to ensure that people who come to our country in search of a better life and to achieve the American Dream are treated with respect and are given the opportunity to use their talents to better themselves and their communities.

For these efforts, he was appropriately awarded the First Annual Farmworker Justice Award by the Farmworker Justice Fund in 2000.

Like Mr. Berman, our Dean, Mr. Stark has spent his entire distinguished career in Congress advocating on behalf of those whose voices are too often drowned out in Washington by the influence of the moneyed interests.

Over the last 40 years, Mr. Stark has been one of the foremost advocates in the effort to ensure that all Americans are able to access quality, affordable health insurance. I am honored to have been one of the three principal co-authors in the House of the historic Affordable Care Act, which will provide access to quality insurance for nearly every single Americans. I can personally attest to the critical and key role that Mr. Stark played in drafting that law and making sure that the law provides needed relief for working families.

That was a crucial accomplishment, yet it was far from Mr. Stark's only accomplishment in the health care field. As the former chair and ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee for many years, he has been a leader on health care reform.

He was the lead author of the original COBRA insurance bill, which ensured that workers faced with losing their jobs would not also immediately lose access to needed health insurance. Additionally, his legislation to improve our health IT system was incorporated into the 2009 Recovery Act, which is already helping improve the cost and quality of health care in communities across the country.

And he founded the idea of using Medicare as a model for national health insurance for all Americans, not just for seniors. He was ahead of his time when he first proposed this idea but he was right on track.

Mr. Stark has also been a champion on the Ways and Means Committee for tax fairness. He was one of the leaders in shaping the bipartisan, landmark 1986 tax reform bill. Ever since, he has been a leader in keeping up the fight to see that that our tax code does not benefit Wall Street CEOs at the expense of working families. He will be the first to admit that he has not always won those fights, and any examination of the tax code that needs to be reformed is proof of that. But he always fought for average Americans and he deserves our appreciation for doing so.

Finally, I want to highlight the work of the outstanding Senior Democrat on the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, Ms. Woolsey.

Congresswoman Woolsey is a friend of working families everywhere. She knows their struggles. Four decades ago, she was a single-working mother, supporting three children. She knows what it's like to worry about the economic security of families. Later as a human resource manager, she saw how important employee benefits were for workers in good times and bad. Things that working families are still fighting for, like paid leave, paid sick days, a secure retirement and health care.

Serving as the chair and ranking member of the Workforce Protections Subcommittee, Rep. Woolsey was instrumental in helping to get the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act signed into law and successfully fought for new family leave protections for military families dealing with a military deployment or injury.

Rep. Woolsey was a partner to ensure miners are kept safe and healthy on the job. She even went underground in a coal mine with our late- colleague Rep. Donald Payne to acquire first-hand knowledge of how that workplace works.

In the classroom, Rep. Woolsey continued to fight for women and working families. She advocated for women to be represented in STEM careers. And, Rep. Woolsey worked to ensure kids had access to an early education, a well-rounded curriculum, and services that met their social and emotional needs.

American families have benefited from Rep. Lynn Woolsey's fierce advocacy but I will miss her contributions on the Education and Workforce Committee in the years to come.

She has also fought tirelessly to protect the environment, most especially the Marin and Sonoma coast and the San Francisco Bay. She worked to protect our oceans and marine habitat--and to support all of the jobs that are associated with a healthy ocean and thriving fisheries. And she has been a great partner in our efforts to ensure that California's rivers and the Bay-Delta are managed sustainably.

I, for one, am grateful to these Members for the work they have done for America's middle class and for those who struggle to join it.

The wealthy and powerful have always had a lot of friends in Washington. Apparently it is not hard to be on their side. But the middle class and the working class and the poor have not always been so lucky, not always ending up on the winning side of the ledger in Washington Policy fights. But they should know that these departing Members have always fought for what is right for our economy and for our country.

On my own behalf, and on behalf of our delegation and the tens of millions of constituents we represent in California, I thank Reps. Baca, Berman, Filner, Richardson, Stark and Woolsey for their service and their dedication.

It is my pleasure to recognize other members of our delegation who wish to speak this afternoon.

Now I would like to recognize other members of our delegation for the purposes of receiving their remarks.

Mr. Honda.

If I might inquire of the Chair as to the time remaining.

Thank you, and I now recognize Congresswoman Lois Capps.

Thank you.

Before I yield, I turned around and saw that Andrew and Fish and Hannah are here, so welcome the Stark kids.

I yield now to Congresswoman Barbara Lee.

I'd like now to recognize Congresswoman Doris Matsui.

I now yield to Congresswoman Anna Eshoo.

I would like to now to yield to the Democratic leader, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.

I thank the Leader.

If I might inquire of the Chair of the time remaining.

Next I would like to recognize Congressman Sam Farr.

I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr).

I want to, also, as Congresswoman Eshoo and Congressman Farr acknowledged, that there's others in our delegation from the other side of the aisle who will also be leaving after this session of Congress: Brian Bilbray, Mary Bono Mack, David Dreier, Elton Gallegly, Wally Herger, Jerry Lewis, and Dan Lungren. I've been here long enough that I've fought with all of them, I've legislated with all of them, and we've had accomplishments together.

I think Jerry Lewis and I had the longest floor debate in the modern Congress over the creation of the desert national parks, the Mojave Desert national parks. When we were all done, we immediately turned around. He was opposed to it, I was for it, but he immediately turned around and made sure that the public had access to it, that there would be improvements, visitor centers. And that's the way legislation goes.

I think very often the public doesn't understand, but Members of Congress do, that this isn't just a working relationship. Over time you get to know one another's families, you know their children's successes, their children's desires, their illnesses and the troubles that befall families, because we're like all other American families. It happens here. People don't think of that when they think of the Congress. And you build relationships, friendships and dependencies on one another's expertise to help guide us through all of the issues that we will confront in a congressional year.

Congressman Stark and I entered public life together by running against one another back in 1969, man against machine. You figure it out: I don't know who was the man and who was the machine, but I knew then who it was, this very popular banker and this law school dropout, but other than that I was doing well. But it's a long span and a lot of friendships, and it's about family and our ability to talk with one another.

I would like, at this moment, to yield to Congressman Stark for any remarks that he might have.

Thank you very much. I know, as we all know in this life, Members leave the Congress, they don't leave public policy, they don't leave public life, and I expect we will be hearing from them as they leave the Congress in their future endeavors. I know that Mr. Bilbray still wants to clean up the salt in the Salton Sea, and I know that Dan Lungren probably still wants to take down Hetch Hetchy. I'll be glad to join him on both efforts on that one, and I know Wally Herger still brings the concerns about the watersheds of the great northern parts of our State. So this relationship goes on, their advocacy goes on, and that's true on both sides of the aisle.

Ms. Woolsey, if you would like to say anything.

Thank you so much. Thank you for your service.

Mr. Speaker, that brings to a conclusion our delegation's honoring those Members who are leaving. I would just say, and this is not news to Members of

the House, but on a bipartisan basis, this is a very, very spirited and rambunctious delegation on both sides of the aisle, and a lot of seniority is leaving the Congress with this delegation, a lot of expertise. But I'm very proud to have served with all of them and for their contributions and the sacrifices they made in public office on behalf of public policy that they strongly believe in and became advocates for.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time. I want to recognize Mr. Berman who is here and thank him again for his service.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to make my colleagues aware of a letter I was recently presented from Members- elect from California who are concerned about the impact of impending budget decisions on infants, toddlers, preschoolers and their families in California and throughout the Nation. I commend our colleagues for this letter and I share their concerns.

The letter, signed by 11 Representatives-elect from California, led by Rep.-elect Julia Brownley with the support of First 5 LA highlights the impact of sequestration on children in California and urges Congress to ``protect the youngest among us.''

I join the Members-Elect in urging Congress to champion the needs of our most vulnerable population--our children--as we consider the pending decisions regarding the budget.

The full text of letter is copied below. Signers include Representatives-elect Julia Brownley (CA-26), Scott Peters (CA-52), Alan Lowenthal (CA-47), Raul Ruiz (CA-36), Mark Takano (CA-41), Jared Huffman (CA-02), Ami Bera (CA-07), Tony Cardenas (CA-29), Gloria Negrete McLeod (CA-35), Juan Vargas (CA-51), and Eric Swalwell (CA-15).

Congress of the United States,

Washington, DC, November 28, 2012.

U.S. House of Representatives,

U.S. Senate.

Dear Colleague: In January, we will take office in the

113th Congress, Joining many of you to work together to

address the pressing issues facing our constituents and the

nation. Today we write, in advance, to share our concern

about the impact of sequestration and other budget decisions

in the days ahead on infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and

their families in California and throughout the nation.

According to the a report issued by Chairman of the Senate

Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, HHS, Education and

Related Agencies Appropriations, allowing the automatic

scheduled cuts to take effect the day before we enter into

office would mean that 120,000 young children and their

mothers in California will lose vital nutrition benefits

through the WIC program and more than 11,900 Infants,

toddlers and preschoolers in the state would be without Head

Start services proven to alter their life trajectory and

increase the chance that they

will complete college, get a good job and become productive,

contributing citizens. Further, in California alone, 5,100

low-income children would lose access to child care services

which their parents rely on to help them work to support

their families.

Today, children under the age of 5 represent 12 percent of

our national population, but 100 percent of our future. Cuts

to programs that serve this critical population are

shortsighted and will result in larger costs down the line.

We stand ready to work with you as colleagues next year to

tackle the challenges which face our nation--challenges which

know no partisan bounds. For now, know that, as your

constituents, we stand behind you with the interests of the

youngest among us in mind as you deliberate the fate of our

fiscal house and a burgeoning problem which should not be

left to address tomorrow.

Collegially,

Incoming First Term Members-Elect in the California

Delegation--Julia Brownley, Scott Peters, Alan

Lowenthal, Raul Ruiz, Mark Takano, Jared Huffman, Ami

Bera, Tony Cardenas, Gloria Negrete McLeod, Juan

Vargas, Eric Swalwell.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Mr. William Shinn as he retires after 45 years in public service to the people of Contra Costa County and the City of Concord. Bill Shinn has been known throughout the community as a man of integrity, and he has served with uncommon selflessness; we are all beneficiaries of his efforts.

Following his graduation from Mt. Diablo High School in 1959, Bill entered the United States Navy and served our country with distinction. Upon his release, he returned to Concord and joined the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department as a Deputy Sheriff. He quickly worked his way up the ranks to Captain, managing the County Detention System and security for Superior Court judges and courthouses.

During this time, Bill earned an Associate of Arts from Diablo Valley College, a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Criminal Justice from Sacramento State University, and a Master of Business Administration from Golden Gate University. In addition, Bill is a graduate of the FBI National Academy. After 29 years serving the people of Contra Costa County in law enforcement, Bill retired his badge to continue engaging in community work.

In 2004, Bill was elected to the Concord City Council, beginning his third ``career'' in public service. He served on the County-wide Committee on Ending Homelessness and chaired the city's Redevelopment Agency, the East Bay Regional Communications System, the County Parole Commission and the Concord Human Relations Commission. Bill was re- elected to City Council in 2008 and continued work on issues important to his constituents. Bill also served as Vice Mayor as well as Mayor of the City of Concord.

As dedicated as Bill is to community service, he is equally devoted to his wonderful family. He and his wife, Gale, raised two daughters and now enjoy the company of their four grandchildren.

Mr. Speaker, I invite this chamber to join me in honoring Councilman William Shinn for his life-long service to our nation, our county and our community; and to join his family, friends and colleagues in congratulating him on a highly successful career. We wish Bill the very best as he begins a well-deserved retirement.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today with my colleague, Congressman Mike Thompson, to recognize the many accomplishments of Solano County Supervisor Barbara Kondylis as she retires after twenty years of distinguished service on the Solano County Board of Supervisors.

Barbara as born in Seymour, Indiana, and raised in Port Jefferson on Long Island, NY. In 1969, Barbara moved to Vallejo with her husband Gabriel. Barbara completed her education in the Bay Area, earning a Bachelor's Degree in Public Administration from the University of San Francisco and a Master's Degree in Public Administration from California State University, Hayward.

Barbara won a Vallejo City Council seat in 1979 and served for nine years. She then turned her attention to the Solano County Board of Supervisors, winning the seat in 1992. Barbara was motivated to run because she was concerned about government process and land use decisions that threatened Solano County's environment, as well as the plight of women and children, particularly issues of family violence, poverty, and family planning.

Barbara has accomplished much on behalf of Solano County's children and families. She established the Office and Family Violence Prevention, the Family Justice Center, and Baby Coach, an innovative program to ensure good outcomes for high risk mothers and their babies. Barbara also successfully promoted AB 2010, which passed the California Legislature, allowing Solano County to charge Vital Records Fees, increasing revenue $80,000 a year directed to reduce family violence. She helped implement Court Appointed Special Advocates who have helped hundreds of children going through dependency court. Barbara also proposed and initiated ``Smile in Style'' which provided dental screenings and other services to thousands of elementary school children, allowing many to get emergency dental care.

During her long career, Barbara has served on many local and regional boards including the Solano County Water Authority, City-County Coordinating Committee, San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, Mare Island Re-Use Committee, Health and Social Services Sub-Committee, Tri City-County JPA for Agriculture Lands and Open Space Preservation, Vallejo Sanitation and Flood Control District Board, Vallejo Justice Committee, California State Association of Counties Board of Directors and Executive Committee, Solano County Children and Families First Commission, Baby First Solano, Association of Bay Area Government Board, Delta Protection Commission, and California State Association of Counties Condition of Children Taskforce.

Mr. Speaker, we invite this chamber to join us in honoring Supervisor Barbara Kondylis for her tireless and dedicated service to the people of Solano County. We also join her family, colleagues, and friends in congratulating her on a successful and fulfilling career as an elected official and wish her the very best in her future endeavors.

Mr. Speaker, I along with Mr. Garamendi and Mr. Mike Thompson of California invite our colleagues to join us in honoring the County of Solano, California, for its 2012 designation by America's Promise Alliance as one of the ``100 Best Communities for Young People.''

Selected from 320 applicants across all 50 States in a competitive process, Solano County is the only California community to receive this designation six consecutive times. Over 75 local partners contributed to this most recent application, including community and faith-based organizations, city and county agencies, educational institutions, businesses and service groups serving children, as well as many young individuals.

This application exhibits the outstanding collaboration that has brought repeated recognition to Solano County. Programs involved include the YIPPEE Foundation's Teen Mentoring and Job-Training programs, Lawrence Hall of Science Inventor's Lab, Solano Transportation Authority's ``Safe Routes to School,'' Solano County Court's Teen Interns, Dixon Teen Center, Benicia Library's Teen Librarian, Vacaville Youth Roundtable, Rio Vista Care/Family Resource Center, each of which resulted in strong support for Solano County's children and youth. Furthermore, Solano's school districts and community leaders continue to actively work to raise graduation rates with innovative approaches to tutoring, mentoring, recreation and health activities, as well as volunteer opportunities for youth.

Young people in Solano County have worked hard to achieve academic and personal excellence, and the community has provided them an opportunity to do so. Programs including the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets at Armijo, Jesse Bethel, and Vanden High Schools, the Eagle Scout program, and Solano County 4-H deserve recognition for facilitating thousands of hours of community service. We also recognize our students' determination to reach the regional and statewide Academic Decathlons as well as the effort put forth by each of the volunteers participating in tutoring and mentoring programs at the Matt Garcia Center, The Boys and Girls Clubs, and the Big Brothers/Big Sisters programs.

Mr. Speaker, we ask our colleagues to join with us in recognizing the Solano County Department of Child Support Services, which served as the lead agency for the 2012 application and extend our sincere congratulations to each of the organizations, agencies and individuals involved who have worked tirelessly on behalf of Solano's children and youth.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today and invite my colleagues to join me in recognizing and congratulating Mike Biddle, President and Founder of MBA Polymers, a plastics recycler, upon being awarded the 2012 Gothenburg Award for Sustainable Development.

In receiving this prestigious award, which is considered the equivalent of a Nobel Prize for the Environment, Mr. Biddle joins a distinguished list of past recipients, including UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Vice President Al Gore, and the former Prime Minister of Norway and Director General of the World Health Organization, Gro Harlem Brundtland.

The United Nations estimates nearly 85 billion pounds of electronics waste is discarded around the world every year. Yet due to the difficulties involved in separating and sorting through the different types of plastics, only a small fraction of these plastics are recycled,

while the rest is tossed in landfills, burned, or shipped to third world countries for environmentally toxic and often dangerous extraction methods.

A self-described ``garbage man,'' Mike Biddle set up a lab in his garage in Pittsburg, California nearly twenty years ago to begin experimenting with ways to sort and recycle complex plastics in an attempt to turn these landfills into what he calls ``above ground mines.'' Since then, Mr. Biddle has developed and patented a 30-step plastics recycling system that includes magnetically extracting metals, shredding plastics, sorting them by polymer type, and producing graded pellets to be reused. What is truly remarkable is that this process uses less than ten percent of the energy required to make plastic from oil while carrying little of the risk to the environment.

Mr. Biddle should be commended; his story illustrates the sort of progress that can be made towards an economically and environmentally responsible solution to plastics waste around the world.

However, his story is also illustrative of a greater problem here in the United States. While MBA Polymers remains headquartered in Richmond, California, the company's main processing facilities operate in China, Austria, and the United Kingdom, where their respective governments have implemented forward thinking electronics-waste recycling regulations that ensure a steady stream of complex plastics and materials for MBA Polymers to utilize.

While the United States produces more electronics and plastics waste per capita than any other country in the world, rather than take advantage of this resource, U.S. brokers ship nearly ninety-five percent of the plastics waste that is collected here overseas. In short, we are literally shipping jobs overseas because of our failure to implement a competing plastics recycling program in the U.S.

As we are paying to ship plastics to third-world countries with little labor protection and no environmental controls, many countries in Europe and Asia are reaping the benefits of reusing and recycling their waste products. Furthermore, in doing so, we are adding to our dependency on foreign oil by needlessly consuming petrochemicals to make plastics, while simultaneously adding to the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at a time when all nations should be focused on reducing their carbon footprint.

The United States cannot afford to continue to watch from the sidelines while foreign countries become more energy efficient, more economically competitive, and enhance their energy and natural resource security--all while creating good, sustainable jobs. A national policy of plastics and waste recycling in the U.S. is desperately needed. In doing so, we could create tens of thousands of new skilled green jobs, we could save a materials manufacturing base and millions of barrels of oil per year, and we could do it while better protecting our environment.

It is our responsibility to ensure that more entrepreneurs like Mike Biddle aren't forced to take their business to international competitors. Rather, it's time to bring these good, green jobs back to the U.S. with a broad policy to encourage recycling and green product development here at home.

Again, I applaud Mr. Biddle and his team at MBA Polymers for winning this important award, and I look forward to working with my colleagues in Congress to help create an environment in which Mr. Biddle's successes can be realized here at home.

Will the gentlewoman yield?

I want to thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I want to thank the gentlewoman from Illinois, Judy, and Todd from Pennsylvania. Thank you so much for your service in the Congress. I've known you as members of the Education and Labor Committee, and I can't thank you enough. I've known you when I was in the minority, I knew you when I was chairman, I've known you when I was ranking minority member.

But you've always been willing to discuss the issues with us. You've always been willing to make suggestions. We haven't always agreed. We've agreed a lot on these issues of child nutrition and school reform and out-of-home children and where do they go to find the schooling and the support systems they need to be successful in our education systems. And I just can't tell you how much I appreciate your service. Thank you. I thank you for that.

And Todd reminds us--I'm listening to you talk about your family. Somebody once said, there's no great way to do this job with a family because the family sort of is the shock absorber for our schedules and everything else. But you obviously have done it pretty darn well.

I just want to thank you for your service to the Congress, to the country, and to obviously the people that you've represented so terribly well. Thank you.

Madam Speaker, on November 15, 2012, I was unavoidably detained and missed roll Nos. 605, 606, and 607. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on roll Nos. 605 and 606 and ``yea'' on Roll No. 607.

On November 16, 2012, I was unavoidably detained and missed Roll No. 608. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' to approve H.R. 6156.

Mr. Speaker, I rise with my colleague Congressman John Garamendi to recognize and congratulate Saint Mary's College of Moraga, California, upon its 150th year of academic excellence in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Saint Mary's College was founded in 1863 in San Francisco as a liberal arts institution reflecting the life and work of the founder of the Christian Brothers, John Baptist de La Salle. The College was founded to serve some of California's earliest denizens, many of whom were immigrants with few resources and the first in their families to attend college. In 1928, after establishing a brief presence in Oakland, the college moved to its current location in Moraga, California.

Saint Mary's is a Lasallian Catholic College with a strong history of service to our country. In the 1940s, Saint Mary's joined the war effort in becoming the West Coast naval aviation training center. Lieutenant Gerald R. Ford of Michigan, who would later become President of the United States, was stationed at Saint Mary's for three years as he trained young pilots for duty in the Pacific Theatre. After the Second World War, Saint Mary's welcomed returning veterans studying on the G.I. Bill and continues to support our Veterans today through the Yellow Ribbon program.

St. Mary's rightfully boasts of a faculty composed of scholars at the top of their field with a devotion to teaching students to be engaged global citizens. Nearly 45,000 alumni have earned degrees at Saint Mary's, leading to every imaginable career path. The Graduate Business programs have produced scores of corporate leaders in businesses around the world, while the School of Education has produced world-class teachers who are in turn educating millions of students around the globe.

Saint Mary's is also proud of its extracurricular programs. The athletic department has brought national and international attention to Northern California through athletic excellence in basketball, baseball, softball, crew, soccer, golf, and rugby. Furthermore, world- renowned artists, authors, scholars, musicians and political leaders share their unique talents not only with the student community, but with all of Northern California.

I invite my colleagues to join me in recognizing Saint Mary's College of Moraga, the faculty, staff, alumni and students as they celebrate 150 years of extraordinary success as an educational leader in the State of California.

Mr. Speaker, I rise with my colleagues Congressman John Garamendi, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Congressman Jerry McNerney, and Congressman Pete Stark to recognize Dr. Pat Stroh, the Director of the Family and Children's Services Program in Contra Costa County and congratulate her on her well-earned retirement.

Dr. Stroh earned her Master's Degree from Ball State University and her Doctorate in Education Early Childhood Focus from Walden University. Prior to coming to Contra Costa County in 1998, she served as Director of Head Start in Lexington, Kentucky and directed a U.S. Army Child Development Program in Europe.

Over the years, Dr. Stroh's outstanding work in public service has demonstrated her strong commitment to the children and families of Contra Costa County. Under her leadership, Contra Costa's Head Start Child Development Program's enrollment more than doubled and expanded from a part-day, part-year schedule to close to a full-day, full-year program. In addition, during very difficult economic times, Dr. Stroh was also able to more than double the program budget.

Dr. Stroh's interest and influence extends well beyond our county's borders. As a member of the Board of the National Head Start Association as well as the California Head Start Association, she has worked diligently to enhance and expand the collaborative efforts of these organizations. Pat has also served as Validator and Mentor with the National Association for the Education of Young Children. As a result, the United States Congress was quick to recognize Dr. Stroh as the 2008 California Head Start Association Administrator of the Year for Invaluable Service to the Community.

Our community and Dr. Stroh's colleagues have honored her numerous times, recognizing her passion for children and her ability to develop programs that improve their chance of success in the world. As we well recognize, the success of our children bodes well for the success of our families and our entire community.

Today, we invite our colleagues to join us in honoring Dr. Pat Stroh once again for her dedicated service to the families and children of Contra Costa County. We are pleased to join her family, colleagues and friends in congratulating her on a long and highly successful career and wish her a happy and healthy retirement.

Mr. Speaker, I rise with my colleagues Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Congressman John Garamendi; to recognize and congratulate Rocio de Mateo Smith upon her retirement as Executive Director from the Developmental Disabilities Area Board 5.

Born and raised in Mexico City, Rocio de Mateo Smith attended Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, where she received a B.A. in Mathematics. In the United States, she received a B.A. in Psychology from California State University, Hayward and an M.S.W. from the University of California, Berkeley.

For the past 30 years, Rocio de Mateo Smith has worked in the field of developmental disabilities with a special emphasis in services to immigrant communities. In her role as Executive Director of Area Board 5 on Developmental Disabilities, Rocio advocated for the service rights of people with developmental disabilities of all ages, both at the individual and systemic levels. Prior to this position, she was the Developmental Disabilities Coordinator for Alameda County Health Care Services Agency and, before that, was the Executive Director of Agency for Infant Development, a Fremont-based program for infants with disabilities and their families.

Rocio is a true champion when it comes to advocating for people with developmental disabilities and her knowledge with regard to resources in the community is unmatched. She has served and impacted countless individuals and families in the Bay Area, representing them and guiding them toward appropriate services. For all her efforts, Rocio is not only highly regarded, but has been recognized and honored extensively as an outstanding woman and as a true advocate for persons with disabilities.

Mr. Speaker, I invite my colleagues to join me in commending Rocio de Mateo Smith for her committed and diligent service to the community. I am pleased to join her family, friends, and colleagues in congratulating Rocio on an outstanding career and wish her the very best as she begins a well-deserved retirement.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.

The House meets today to spend time debating a resolution that is on a purely fabricated problem. Rather than focusing on the real problems facing American families, we are, instead, focusing on a resolution of disapproval--a resolution that does not create a single job.

In July, the administration announced a waiver process under the welfare law that would allow Governors to use innovative approaches to move more welfare recipients into employment. Immediately, Washington Republicans claimed the waiver would

gut the welfare reform; but fact checker after fact checker has publicly discredited attempts to characterize the waiver as going soft on work requirements, and we are still waiting for the majority to show us exactly where the administration's waiver proposal eliminates the work requirement.

Even the Republican staff director of the Ways and Means Committee subcommittee at the time of the 1996 welfare reform law says that these claims are false. In fact, the administration has even clarified the rules, writing that no State will get a waiver unless it shows an increase in employment of 20 percent.

Actually, the Republican position here is fairly consistent. They haven't done anything here to create new jobs. They're against welfare recipients getting jobs, and they're against Governors increasing employment opportunities by 20 percent. So I guess we now know, in these last waning days of session, that the Republican Party here is against all jobs. No matter who is standing in line for the jobs, they're against those jobs even though the Republican Governors have petitioned for the right to change the welfare law so they can put more people to work. The administration says you can do that if you put 20 percent more people to work. Imagine putting 20 percent more people to work on the welfare rolls of California or New Jersey or Texas, but the Republicans say no.

The Republican Governors and Democratic Governors asked for this authority in 2002, 2003, and 2005, and the House passed a much broader waiver authority in trying to give the Governors, if you will, State flexibility. That's what they were asking for, but now all of a sudden, in this political year, their candidate is running a little behind, so we see this as an effort to try to attack the President of the United States for doing exactly what the Republican Governors and what the Republicans in Congress have done and have voted on and passed.

As President Clinton says, it takes brass to denounce something that you, yourself, have already supported. The hypocrisy doesn't stop there, but you've got to have a lot of hypocrisy when you're defending a candidate who believes in everything and stands for nothing.

Just weeks before the administration announced its waiver process, the Republican Workforce Investment bill was reported out of my committee. The mantra of the Republicans all through that bill and all through the consideration over the last couple years has been ``State flexibility.'' Well, they accomplished it in this bill. It provides so much State flexibility that the State with an approved unified workforce training plan can, at the State's discretion, eliminate all work requirements from TANF. It passed out of the Education and the Workforce Committee on a partisan vote, with all Republicans supporting that effort to let Governors eliminate all work requirements.

So this debate is a little bit behind the times and is probably not dealing with the serious problem, which is the reauthorization of the Republican Workforce Incentive Act. What a difference a few weeks and a convention make, and here we are using the valuable time of this House before we go to adjournment to carry out a political prank--a manufactured problem, a fabricated problem--based upon fabricated facts. Yet still we don't see ourselves dealing with the questions of middle class tax cuts, and we don't see ourselves dealing with jobs bills that we've been asking for time and again while this Congress has been in session.

It's a sad way to end this session of the Congress of the United States without providing the access to those jobs that this Congress could have been providing throughout this entire year to strengthen the economy. Then again, as the Senate leader has said, they don't want to work with this President. They want him to fail. And for him to fail, that means the American people can't have jobs. That's the goal here.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

(Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

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

Mr. Speaker, this is all interesting, except the fact is there's nothing in what the Secretary of Health and Human Services has proposed that's inconsistent with the Republican position over the years, with the Bush administration position over the years, with the Clinton administration position over the years and the Obama administration position over the years, and that is that when they passed historic welfare reform there would be an authority in there so, as the Governors lived with this over time, they could make adjustments. And that's why we keep reciting to the various instances when Governors have asked for this--29 Governors of both parties, a couple of Republican Governors recently--asking for this authority, because they thought they had a better way to put it to work.

It's rather interesting today that one of the questions is whether or not we would extend the education time so people can get the proper credentials, the proper training for a job. Many people have been unemployed now for a couple of years from a job that may not be coming back and the skills they have need to either be updated or they have to learn new skills to get the job that's available in their locality or maybe a ways down the road.

It's also interesting that the Business Roundtable is in Washington this week talking about this exact problem: How do we develop those new skills because of the skills mismatch that exists in this country today for hundreds of thousands of jobs that are available, but apparently the skills are not there?

Now, I wonder if that skills training so that that person can get a job in a good industry and a good job, what if that takes 13 months as opposed to 12 months or what if it takes 8 months instead of 6 months? Why don't we live with the Governors having the flexibility if they believe that's the economic plan for their arrangement?

We see consortiums now, because of the Higher Ed Act, coming together--community colleges, State universities, manufacturing consortiums, employer consortiums--developing the programs to develop the skills for the American workforce. And some of that is inconsistent with the requirements under this law, and that's why Governors who want to move to the future came and asked for that relief. And that waiver authority exists in the Social Security Act. That waiver authority is explicitly for this purpose.

But in the name of politics, we're going to deny those States that are struggling, those Governors that are struggling, with the ability to do this. And under the rules, as the memorandum has suggested, they would have to show a very substantial increase in moving people from welfare to work. Supposedly, that's the goal of everybody who's a Member of this body, but politics is has overwhelmed that.

If you had these concerns, we could have fixed it and moved on with getting people off of welfare to work. But we will leave here with some kind of political statement, a hollow political victory that means nothing except that those people will still be waiting to get off of welfare and go to work. The Governors will still be waiting to implement the program to get them off of welfare and go to work. And the Congress will go home.

In the face of the desperate need of these people to acquire these skills to improve their talents, to provide for these families, to feed their kids, to educate them, to provide for health care, the Congress will go home. It won't give the Governors this authority because it'll look bad for their Presidential candidate. They won't give the Governors this authority because they can score a point here. Those Governors weren't trying to score a point. They were trying to score some jobs. They were trying to score some jobs for their citizens.

But political games are going to win out here because the clock is running out on this Congress. So we could have helped those Governors. You could have tweaked this so you could have said you change from what President Obama wanted, and we could have gone on and people could have had opportunity in America. You keep saying you're for it, you just don't get around to providing it.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this partisan bill. It's unfortunate. Maintaining this country's advantage in science and technology is an important issue, and it should not be a partisan issue. Democrats have long supported efforts to increase STEM careers in this country and to address the question of STEM visas.

We all recognize how important these careers are to the future economic strength of this country. We could be working together in a bipartisan way to address these issues in a fair and thoughtful manner, but this bill does not do that. Instead of working together, the majority has chosen a partisan route.

This route puts American workers' wages at risk at a time when they can ill afford it. It allows a dangerous race to the bottom that will drive wages down for American workers. It allows employers to pay visa holders less than the actual wages paid to similarly situated workers at those employers. A U.S. worker and a visa holder could be working right next to one another, doing the same work, and the foreign worker is cheaper. We know what this will mean for U.S. workers' pay and job opportunities. Depressing families' wages is not what our country needs. That's why I joined with Congresswoman Lofgren on legislation that would require a visa holder to be paid at least the actual wage being paid to a U.S. worker with similar experience.

I also have deep concerns that this partisan bill is also a payoff for predatory for-profit education institutions. The Republican bill includes language that specifically allows for-profit institutions to participate in this program. Why is that? Tech and other high-skilled employers have not been pushing to get more foreign graduates from for- profit schools. This provision would allow these institutions to find new, potentially lucrative revenue streams for their shareholders without regard

to the actual needs of the American labor market.

Mr. Speaker, the American people have made it clear that they are fed up with the powerful special interests gaming the system to increase their bottom line. They are fed up with partisan exercises meant to gain political advantage during an election cycle. It is no surprise that for 2 years this Congress had an opportunity to have a full and open debate on this very important issue but that the Republicans have chosen partisanship, obstruction, and polarization over moving this country forward. That's why we see this bill at the last minute, and that's why we see this bill requiring a two-thirds vote.