Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin), my good friend, for yielding time.

I rise today in support of this legislation, which I was happy to cosponsor with Mr. Hoyer and our colleagues in the metropolitan region.

The joint resolution would establish an independent safety oversight commission for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority that will be empowered to create new safety rules, impose fines, issue subpoenas, and direct additional funding toward safety priorities.

Consideration of the joint resolution in the United States House follows the passage of companion legislation in the Virginia and Maryland General Assemblies, the Council of the District of Columbia, and the United States Senate.

The joint resolution before us represents the culmination of more than a year of multijurisdictional, multistakeholder collaboration, and is an example of the kind of bipartisan cooperation we need moving forward for Metro.

For several years now, Metro has been a system in crisis, all lights blinking red. The lack of a strict safety culture has resulted in derailments, falsified track inspection reports, fires, track defects, and, as Ms. Norton just indicated, has tragically claimed lives.

The previous safety oversight body, the Tri-State Oversight Committee, was admittedly ineffective and failed to safeguard Metro personnel and customers. It was clear the safety crisis at Metro needed further Federal intervention.

While I am glad that the U.S. Department of Transportation took action, I would have preferred that the Department act in accordance with the NTSB recommendation that it be the FRA, not the FTA, that provided that day-to-day safety oversight. Very simply, the FRA is and was better equipped to pick up this vital mission and run with it from day one, rather than to learn on the job with a modern, contemporary transit system, as the FTA has had to do.

It is my hope that enactment of this joint resolution will finally convince the FTA to reverse its misguided decision to withhold $8.9 million of Federal transit grants from Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. The FTA announced the withholding of that money on February 10, because the jurisdictions had not yet established a fully certified Metrorail Safety Commission before the FTA's own arbitrary deadline.

The decision to withhold the funds, penalizing other transit systems not related to Metro, which is authorized under the Urbanized Area Apportionments Program, was crude and punitive, and the process that led to the decision was anything but neat.

The 1-year timeline imposed on the jurisdictions to establish and certify the Metro Safety Commission ignored both the unique legislative calendars of the citizen legislatures in Maryland and Virginia as well as the time-consuming, FTA-managed certification process itself for State safety oversight programs.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

The 1-year timeline imposed on the jurisdiction ignored those unique legislative schedules, but the decision to withhold money as a punishment for missing an arbitrary deadline was announced at a time, ironically, when all three jurisdictions were, in fact, moving simultaneously to enact just such legislation, as was requested.

This is no good deed going unpunished, Mr. Speaker, and the FTA did not publish its own toolkit, application, or program standard for the oversight program certification process until February 14 of this year, 4 days after they withheld the money punitively from those three jurisdictions. They couldn't meet their own deadline.

As the House and Senate move to enact this joint resolution, I hope to renew my request of the Secretary of Transportation to reverse entirely the FTA's bad decision to block safety and maintenance investments that are so desperately and obviously needed here in the Metro system in Washington.

I ask my colleagues to support the joint resolution before us today and to recognize that it is a big step forward in the region and in terms of bipartisan cooperation.

Mr. Chair, I rise to speak in support of my amendment No. 41 to H.R. 2810, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018.

My amendment directs the Secretary of Defense to develop a definition for the term Procurement Administrative Lead Time to be applied throughout the Department of Defense (DoD). Additionally, the amendment also requires a plan for measuring and publicly reporting data on procurement administrative lead time for DoD contracts and task orders above a certain threshold.

Given the number and costs of contracts and task orders issued by the Department of Defense, it is important that the Department collect information on the amount of time between when a solicitation is issued and the initial award of the contract or task order. By establishing a uniform definition and collecting this data, DoD, the contractor community, and other stakeholders can better analyze the data and use it as a tool to reduce unnecessary delays.

I am very pleased that the managers of this legislation recognize the need to find and address inefficiencies in the procurement process.

Mr. Chair, I also rise to speak in support of my bipartisan amendment No. 43 to H.R. 2810, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018, which I have offered with my colleague, Mr. Issa of California.

My amendment would extend three expiring provisions of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition and Reform Act, which is better known as FITARA or Issa-Connolly. This bipartisan legislation represented the first major reform of the laws governing federal IT management since the seminal Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996, and it was enacted as a provision of the FY2015 NDAA.

When I meet with stakeholders in federal IT from government agencies and industry, I am constantly reminded why previous major IT reform efforts have fallen short of their potential--the lack of a robust implementation plan and congressional oversight. Through countless hearings and briefings, close coordination with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Government Accountability Office (GAO), and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee's work on the FITARA

Scorecard, Congress is committed to the successful implementation and oversight of FITARA.

In working with GAO and OMB on FITARA implementation, we have found that there are areas of FITARA that would benefit from an extension of their original sunset date. These areas include the provisions on federal data center consolidation, transparency and risk management of major IT systems (IT Dashboard), and IT portfolio, program, and resource reviews (PortfolioStat).

Very simply, the federal data center problem is bigger than we initially thought. In 2009, when Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra directed agencies to determine how many data centers they had and begin to consolidate those centers, the government estimated it had roughly 1,100 data centers. That estimate grew to 11,700 by 2015.

As GAO has recommended, we are potentially leaving money on the table when it comes to data center consolidation if we allow FITARA's data center reporting and planning requirements to expire in 2018. Twenty- three agencies have reported roughly $656 million collectively in planned savings for fiscal years 2016 through 2018. This is $3.3 billion less than the estimated $4.0 billion in planned savings for fiscal years 2016 through 2018 that agencies reported to GAO in November 2015. As of April 2017, 23 of 24 agencies have submitted a strategic plan for data center consolidation. Of the 23 plans, only 7 included all required information. The remaining plans either partially met or did not meet the requirements.

We need to let agencies know that they are not going to be able to run out the clock on FITARA's transparency and reporting requirements. A limited extension of the data center provisions of FITARA, scheduled to sunset October 1, 2018, could help us do that.

Additionally, the IT Dashboard and PortfolioStat provisions of FITARA have allowed OMB to evaluate the efficiencies and risk of IT investments and would benefit from a permanent extension of the current December 1, 2019 sunset. These are valuable oversight tools, and we should continue to use them to reform federal IT procurement.

The federal government invests roughly $100 billion in IT each year. I look forward to continued bipartisan collaboration on FITARA implementation to ensure these investments are efficient, effective, and in the best interest of the taxpayer.

I want to thank the Chairman and Ranking Member for working with me on this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I would say to my friend who just spoke, if he wants to do something for Alzheimer's, don't pass the Senate Republican healthcare bill. It would devastate Medicaid and Alzheimer's victims who rely on Medicaid service.

Ensuring that every American has access to high-quality and affordable healthcare is the most important and enduring challenge, arguably, facing our Nation today. Ironically, we are closer than ever before to achieving that goal.

Since the Affordable Care Act was adopted, more than 20 million previously uninsured Americans have gained quality coverage. In fact, we have reduced the uninsured rate to the lowest level ever recorded. Americans no longer face punitive annual and lifetime limits, and they no longer have the fear of having their inadequate health insurance cut off if they dare get sick. Insurance companies can no longer refuse to cover Americans who suffer preexisting conditions, which is the case for tens of millions of Americans.

The Affordable Care Act has been the difference between life and death for adults who have been locked out of the system for years, for sick children who have reached their lifetime limits before they can even leave the hospital where they were born, for families bankrupted by a cancer diagnosis, and for everyday Americans that will require expensive treatments for the rest of their lives due to a chronic illness or accident.

The Republican effort to repeal this bill is a unilateral retreat from the progress made under the Affordable Care Act and from President Trump's own promise that there would be ``insurance for everybody.'' I guess there was a footnote: except for 23 million.

This promise made by the President is not the only falsehood perpetrated by many of my friends on the other side of the aisle about the Affordable Care Act. Here are three more:

Falsehood number one: Republicans say costs are out of control.

The truth is, since the Affordable Care Act became law, healthcare costs have grown at the slowest rate in 50 years. That is right, the slowest rate in 50 years, and considerably below the decade preceding the adoption of the act. Republicans conveniently ignore the fact that, under their own repeal plan, their premiums would go up an average of 64 percent.

Falsehood number two: Republicans claim the Affordable Care Act is in a death spiral.

Well, this would come as news to the Congressional Budget Office, Standard & Poor's, and the American Academy of Actuaries, all of whom have concluded that the Affordable Care Act's individual markets are stable and could continue to improve, except, of course, for Republicans talking it down.

Falsehood number three: Republicans say that insurers are fleeing the markets and consumers will have no choice.

The truth is the Affordable Care Act is not imploding, but Republicans have certainly tried to sow dysfunction and destroy the individual markets. In some places, they have succeeded. They have resorted to sabotaging the individual markets to fulfill their own false narrative. They killed the risk corridors that stabilized those markets and have used riders and must-pass spending bills to undermine premium stabilization programs.

This has resulted in huge losses to some insurers, causing them to pull out of markets, understandably, and to increase premiums when they otherwise would not have. Ironically, the same premium stabilization programs that the Republicans have attacked since 2014 are actually in their own repeal bill.

The Trump administration has refused to commit to making the cost- sharing reduction payments that lower out-of-pocket costs for consumers. That has caused premiums to go up. Without those payments, Americans will see premiums increase by an average of 19 percent.

One Blue Cross Blue Shield executive noted the premium increases would be 8 percent if the cost-sharing reduction payments were guaranteed.

Other insurers have explicitly stated that their participation is contingent on those payments. Threatening not to make those payments, of course, undermines the system.

Those payments are not the only aspect of ObamaCare the Trump administration has sabotaged. They have also disrupted enrollment in individual markets by refusing to enforce the individual mandate, by cutting the open enrollment period in half, and by refusing to promote the enrollment itself on television.

Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration have chosen sabotage and repeal over bipartisan cooperation to fix that which is not working. I would propose we work in a bipartisan fashion, and I have three ideas.

First, introduce a public option to increase competition in marketplaces; second, we can implement premium stabilization programs in order to keep premiums affordable for everybody; and third, we can increase premium tax credits and cost-sharing subsidies to lower costs and boost enrollment for middle class Americans. That is the bipartisan solution to healthcare, not a reckless repeal effort that will deny 23 million of our fellow Americans access to healthcare.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 702, the Federal Employee Antidiscrimination Act of 2017, as amended.

I also thank my good friend, Ranking Member Elijah Cummings, for his work on this measure and for his leadership and passion of our committee's ongoing efforts to ensure that Federal equal opportunity programs truly guarantee equal opportunity.

Most agencies are careful to ensure that their personnel policies protect employees' rights and that their EEO programs ensure that if discrimination does occur, employees can seek fair and timely redress.

Unfortunately, there have been instances in which agencies fail to meet the standards of a model EEO program. When that occurs, hardworking Federal employees are harmed.

For example, during the last Congress, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform conducted a number of hearings to examine how allegations of harassment and retaliation were handled at the National Park Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including the Forest Service.

In the case of the Park Service, a former superintendent of the Grand Canyon, one of our premier parks, received a report in 2013 documenting multiple allegations of sexual harassment. But rather than determining whether further investigation was warranted or disciplinary action should be pursued, the superintendent attempted to bury the report.

A year later, more than a dozen current and former employees sent their allegations directly to the Secretary of the Interior. The Secretary referred those allegations to the Inspector General. After an extensive investigation, the IG found ``a long-term pattern of sexual harassment and a hostile work environment'' at the Grand Canyon River District.

The Inspector General's Office also identified more than 20 other individuals who ``reported experiencing or witnessing sexual harassment and hostile work environments,'' and the IG confirmed that previous reports of sexual harassment ``were not properly investigated or reported.''

As disturbing as these findings are, the Inspector General has also found instances of sexual harassment and retaliation at other parks, including iconic places like Yellowstone National Park and the Canaveral National Seashore.

While the Park Service has announced measures to address the serious shortcomings in its EEO programs, it is clear that deficiencies in these programs are longstanding and have hurt numerous employees.

Similar chronic problems have occurred at the Department of Agriculture. The EEO program there has now been the subject of two extraordinary letters sent by the Office of Special Counsel to the President of the United States.

In May 2015, the Special Counsel wrote to warn the President that USDA's civil rights program ``has been seriously mismanaged, thereby compromising the civil rights of USDA employees.''

Just last month, the Office of Special Counsel wrote again to the President, finding that ``while the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights has taken positive steps to improve its performance, based on the significant number of cases that are still subject to delays, OSC has determined that the agency response is unreasonable in part. USDA may need to devote more resources to the Office to ensure that cases are promptly processed and hold senior supervisors accountable for the mismanagement in this office.''

Such findings are not to be tolerated, and they highlight why this bill, H.R. 702, the Federal Employee Antidiscrimination Act, is urgently needed.

This measure would require that the head of an agency's EEO program report directly to the head of the agency himself or herself. The measure would also require that an agency's EEO program be operated independently of its human resources or general counsel offices, ensuring that the EEO program is focused solely on protecting the civil rights of all employees and applicants.

H.R. 702 would strengthen the accountability mechanisms central to the effectiveness of the EEO process. For example, the bill would expand the notifications that agencies are required to provide when discrimination is indeed found to have occurred, and it would require agencies to track and report whether such findings resulted in any disciplinary action.

The bill would also prohibit agencies from attempting to gag employees by banning policies, forms, or agreements that seek to prohibit or restrict an employee from disclosing to Congress, the Office of Special Counsel, or an Office of the Inspector General any information that might relate to a violation of any law, rule, regulation, or waste, fraud, or abuse.

H.R. 702 is essentially identical to the bill we considered in the last Congress, which passed the House by a vote of 403-0. I urge Members to support the measure again.

As I close, Mr. Speaker, I join with Ranking Member Cummings in urging the Senate to move on this measure as expeditiously as possible, without the addition of extraneous and harmful amendments that might seek to curtail due process rights of Federal employees.

Any employee who engages in discriminatory or retaliatory behavior or who harasses another employee must be held accountable. The American public expects no less. Current personnel policies and practices are adequate to ensure that this can occur, and there is no need for any amendment to this bill that would undermine or weaken employees' due process rights.

Mr. Speaker, I talked to Representative Elijah Cummings recently. He is doing great. He is full of fight and can't wait to get back here to Congress. We expect to see him shortly.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, that was a hard act to follow. I was transported to the 1960s. I was always a fan of Merle Haggard, but not necessarily his political philosophy. I don't believe the proposition that if you disagree with the policies of your government, you have to leave the country. I actually believe the beauty of America is that you get to disagree, you get to respectfully dissent, and you still get to live here as a full-fledged American.

I am pleased to join my colleagues in consideration of this bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service in Bakersfield, California, as the Merle Haggard Post Office Building.

Merle was born in Bakersfield in 1937, and, as my friend from Florida said, took a circuitous route to becoming ``the poet of the common man,'' as he was known.

As a teenager, he often found himself in reform school after committing petty crimes. By the age of 20, he was serving time, as Mr. DeSantis said, in a California prison. It was that experience, however, that helped him turn his life around.

In prison, Merle Haggard rediscovered his love of music, and later put his talent to work on the Bakersfield club circuit. By singing about poverty, the struggles of the ordinary man and woman, and how music saved him during dark times, he captured the imagination and the attention of the entire country, and had 38 number one country hits.

In 1994, Merle was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In 2010, he received a Kennedy Center Honors from President Barack Obama. After a long and fulfilling life, Merle died on his 79th birthday in April of last year.

Mr. Speaker, we should pass this bill to recognize the incredible accomplishments to our culture that Merle Haggard represents to celebrate his country music and his ability to give a voice to working men and women everywhere who keep their ``nose on the grindstone'' and ``work hard every day.''

Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of H.R. 1988, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers on this side. I just want to echo the sentiments of Mr. McCarthy, the majority leader, in honoring a great artist who overcame enormous obstacles in his life to achieve great success and to make contributions to American culture.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the distinguished ranking member, for yielding.

I don't know what our friend from Tennessee was talking about. I am not here as a liberal legislator. I am here as a local government person. I spent 14 years in local government.

We are not sanctuary cities. We are trying to solve crimes by seeking cooperation from the immigrant community. This bill will make it harder. Most of our local police chiefs would tell you that--if you would listen to them.

Oddly enough, the Members supporting this bill are the same Members who sanctimoniously decry Federal mandates and overreach--except when they want one. Here we are, dictating how local governments should implement Federal immigration laws.

At the local level, we know effective, community-based policing relies on trust between the police and communities. This bill would erode that collaboration and that trust.

How can we expect our Nation's immigrants to turn to the police if they witness or fall victim to a crime if they are afraid of being deported or separated from their families?

The bill will punish local police departments and those relationships. It should be defeated. This local government guy will oppose this bad policy bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my dear friend, the distinguished ranking member, and I thank my friend Mr. Royce, the chairman of the committee, for their leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 397, reaffirming the commitment of the United States to NATO's principle of collective defense as enumerated in article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.

As the head of the U.S. delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, and as rapporteur for the Transatlantic Subcommittee, I can attest to the anxiety within NATO regarding the administration's commitment to the alliance.

Case in point, one cannot talk about the U.S. commitment to article 5 in 2017 without mentioning President Trump's failure to embrace it in full view of our NATO allies when he was in Brussels earlier this year. It has been widely reported that even the President's own national security team was blindsided by the omission.

I welcome this resolution, but it would have made a stronger statement to bring it to the floor immediately after the President's disconcerting speech in Brussels. This resolution maybe is less a profile in courage as it is a sigh of relief.

Since the House failed the leadership test on this account, let's redeem ourselves by taking up the Engel-Connolly bill on Russian's sanctions, and the Iran-Russia sanctions package recently passed in the Senate by 98-2, and send it to the President's desk for signature.

Any delay only furthers the trend of obsequiousness to the executive branch and enables this administration's disastrous retreat from global leadership.

I am proud to support this resolution, I am glad it is on the floor, and I hope it is an auger of things to come.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding.

I rise to remind us that Martin Luther King once said: ``Injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere.''

We are all in this together. The idea that we can cherry-pick whose rights we will proclaim and defend is a mistaken notion. It is also un- American. So the future rights of LGBT members in Chechnya are important to Americans, and we need to stand up for their security, their safety, and their fundamental human rights.

This resolution is important. I congratulate the chairman and ranking member for bringing it before us. I congratulate my good friend, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and David Cicilline for their leadership. I am proud to support this resolution today.

Mr. Speaker, thank you (Kam sa ham ne da).

I rise today as a co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Korea and member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to extend to President Moon Jae-In, the President of the Republic of Korea, a warm welcome from the House of Representatives on the occasion of his first visit to the United States.

The U.S. and R.O.K. share an alliance forged in blood. Yesterday, June 25 marked 67 years since the outbreak of conflict on the Korean Peninsula.

Out of the ashes of the Korean War emerged a partnership that endures to this day, and it is one of the true success stories of U.S. collaboration in the Asia-Pacific.

The R.O.K. is an economic juggernaut with a vibrant democracy, and the U.S. considers it the lynchpin of U.S. foreign policy in the region.

During his visit, I think he will be glad to find that Korean- Americans are as engaged as ever in community activism and civic leadership, and that Korean pop-culture, food, and entertainment are further enriching American culture.

Alliances are often defined by economic ties or military ties, but the U.S.-R.O.K. alliance runs even deeper . . .

We have family ties, and I and my fellow members of the Congressional Caucus on Korea are proud to contribute to that bond.

I wish President Moon well and look forward to a successful trip and working with him going forward.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support increased accountability and whistleblower protection at the Department of Veterans Affairs. And I recognize that S. 1094 represents a compromise approach that was crafted specifically to address severe, long-standing problems at VA hospitals.

But a number of S. 1094's provisions concern me. As Vice Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, these concerns would be amplified if these provisions were applied to other contexts or across the federal government in future legislation.

A partial list of problematic provisions includes:

The bill requires a lower standard of evidence that would allow removal, demotion, and other disciplinary actions even if the majority of evidence is exculpatory.

The bill supersedes existing collective bargaining agreements.

The bill provides for the clawback and forfeiture of bonuses and pensions under a standard that is broad and susceptible to abuse.

The bill denies senior executives of the right to appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board, which they have under current law.

The bill imposes unreasonable timelines on the ability of employees to respond to allegations that may lead to discipline and eliminates the ability of the Merit System Protection Board to mitigate penalties that may have been overly harsh and raise due process concerns.

The bill prohibits the use of administrative leave for employees challenging demotions. This provision could also force employees to use their accrued sick or annual leave while on appeal, which Courts have considered a taking in violation of the Constitution.

While S. 1094 is a bipartisan compromise aimed at dealing with a specific and troubled department, a number of its provisions are problematic and would not serve as an example for future civil service- related legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to demand that Congress get serious about the Russia investigation.

In December, along with Mr. Engel of New York, I introduced the SECURE Our Democracy Act that would sanction any foreign individual or entity found to have unlawfully interfered with our election process. That shouldn't be a partisan issue, yet all of the bill's 88 cosponsors are Democrats.

I am also a cosponsor of the Protecting Our Democracy Act to establish an independent commission to get to the bottom of the Russia investigation.

A recent NBC-Wall Street Journal poll conducted in April found that 73 percent of our fellow Americans want such an independent commission. They want to get at the truth. So do I. So should all of us. I have signed a discharge petition to get that bill to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support these two measures, and to bring them to the floor for consideration. It is our constitutional duty to provide oversight of any executive in any executive branch.

The American people demand answers and accountability, not obstruction and intimidation. Appointing a special counsel, independent of the White House and the Attorney General, was one way to begin to restore credibility that has been badly tarnished. I urge us to proceed with the Russia investigation with all dispatch.

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

I must say, Mr. Speaker, I originally rose in support of what I thought was a simple reporting bill. In listening to my friend from Florida, this is part and parcel of the negative narrative that is sent in all too frequently on the other side of the aisle about hardworking civil servants and Federal employees. They are not all somehow committing crime on official time. Official time, in fact, has been used to the benefit of the workforce and to the benefit of management.

If this bill, H.R. 1293, is nothing but a precursor to further encroachment on the rights of Federal workers, then I will oppose this bill, and I will urge my Members on this side of the aisle to oppose this bill because, by voting for it, we are enabling something much worse to follow and have this thrown in our faces.

So, Mr. Speaker, I regret that, under the circumstances, and with the message I have just heard, I can no longer support this bill. I can no longer urge my colleagues to support this bill, and we will, in fact, urge a negative vote on this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, my friend from Florida is my friend and he knows I respect him, but when you give an opening statement on a bill that goes far beyond a reporting requirement that we thought we were supporting and you use the occasion to disparage Federal workers and to characterize them in a decidedly negative way as if that somehow really described the average civil servant and what they are up to, then on this side of the aisle, we take exception. Then it is no longer a simple reporting bill; it is a precursor of bad things to come, and we are not going to be party to it. We are not going to enable that. That is why, reluctantly, I must now oppose this bill and urge my Democratic colleagues and those on the other side of the aisle who want to protect Federal employees and honor them and give them the dignity and respect they deserve also to oppose this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I now am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton), my dear friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia.

Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend because I am going to run out of time. I must say to my friend, my prepared remarks were designed to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I must say, the gentleman from Florida, who is an honorable man and a friend, and we have collaborated, but his own words transformed what this really was. They persuaded us that by voting for this, we are not voting for a reporting bill. That is just the beginning.

My friend from Florida is the one who characterized criminal activity on official time, and unsavory things going on on official time, and allows that to dangle out there as if that characterizes Federal employees generally.

I say to any friend--and I thank him for yielding--that has transformed our perception of this bill. This is no longer a simple reporting bill--although technically that is what it is. It is a precursor, apparently, to an assault of Federal employees--and on official time, specifically--and we cannot be partners to that. We cannot be enablers to that.

Mr. Speaker, therefore, we must oppose this bill, in light of the context my friend from Florida himself said.

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly gratified for the clarification of my friend.

It now gives me great pleasure to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from

Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch), my good friend and a senior member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to my friend from Massachusetts.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Lawrence), my dear friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Michigan.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. Watson Coleman), my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes).

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my friend from Maryland. Official time is a very useful tool in the Federal workplace, both for management and for labor, and has proved its worth over the years.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

In attempting to summarize, Mr. Speaker, I do want to reiterate that my friend from Florida is an honorable man. When he says this is about one thing, I believe him. Perhaps in the introduction to this bill there was a characterization that was not intended, and I accept that explanation.

Federal workers are hardworking civil servants. They serve the American people. I know my friend from Florida agrees. The overwhelming majority of them are dedicated. They seize a mission every day, whether it be at the VA, the Social Security Administration, or our Nation's parks. They are dedicated to the proposition that they are there to serve the American people. It is important to honor their service, to respect their service, to not allow even the inference to be drawn that a negative example somehow could be construed as characteristic of the whole, for that is false.

That is the narrative we Democrats and, hopefully, a number of Republicans want to change, because it is not true. We want to honor those civil servants.

All too often, our civil servants have become pin cushions. Again, I know my friend from Florida does not intend that, but there are others who have intended that. That sparks something, certainly, on this side of the aisle and with this Member, who represents a lot of Federal employees and cherishes their service. For us, it is a very personal matter.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 624, the Social Security Number Fraud Prevention Act of 2017, as amended.

Introduced by our colleague, Mr. Valadao from California, this bill is a commonsense step to addressing an enormously growing problem of identity theft and protecting the personal information of every American.

Each year, 18 million Americans become victims of identity theft. That is 18 million. A leading cause of this problem is the unauthorized acquisition of Social Security numbers by criminals.

H.R. 624 would address this issue by restricting the instances in which agencies may include the full Social Security numbers on documents sent through the mail. The bill would prohibit agencies from including those numbers on mailed correspondence unless the head of an agency himself or herself determines that inclusion is absolutely essential.

Agencies would be required to issue regulations delineating the situations in which Social Security numbers are necessary, and would be instructed to partially redact numbers wherever feasible.

Agencies would also be expressly prohibited from making Social Security numbers visible on the outside of any mailed packages.

In recent years, many agencies have taken steps to reduce their use of Social Security numbers, and this bill would simply codify some of those practices agencies have already adopted. For instance, the Social Security Administration itself no longer prints Social Security numbers on its annual cost-of-living adjustment notices or benefit checks, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is in the process of removing Social Security numbers from the Medicare cards issued to beneficiaries.

These steps are critical to ensuring that the Federal Government adequately safeguards the personally identifiable information of individuals and does everything it can to protect Americans from identity theft.

Although this bill helps provide a lot of protection, reducing the threat of identity theft by removing Social Security numbers from mailed items is not always as easy as it seems. Many agencies confront high costs when reprogramming outdated legacy information technology systems to allow mailings to be printed differently.

Agencies across the Federal Government have been reluctant to retire those legacy IT systems because of funding constraints that limit IT investments, slow modernization, and force agencies to defer needed IT upgrades in favor of some more pressing, urgent problems.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the important responsibility Congress has to fund these IT modernization efforts as it considers this bill.

Mr. Speaker, the Social Security Number Fraud Prevention Act is a good, bipartisan bill that is necessary to protect the American public. I urge my colleagues to support its passage, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman from California an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I think this is an important piece of legislation. This is one of the fastest growing crimes in our country: the diversion of Social Security checks and rebates. It is almost without any kind of corrective action. There are few prosecutions and even fewer convictions. So, if you are a criminal and you are looking for something that is relatively cost-free for you, this is the way to do it.

This bill would provide some important protections to the American public. I would hope that we build on this.

My friend from Florida and I serve on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and we have heard testimony about this crime as it has grown exponentially over the last 5 or 6 years. It is my hope that U.S. attorneys all across America will put more emphasis on this crime and use their resources to go after people who are predators of American taxpayers, especially many of our seniors who rely on these checks or these rebates to augment and supplement their income. So there are victims of this crime, and they are the American taxpayer.

I think it is an important first step. I support the legislation, and I urge my colleagues to support it as well.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the international students and the U.S. institutions of higher education they attend. They have been unfairly penalized by the Trump administration through unconstitutional and illegal immigration executive orders.

I urge my colleagues and the administration to recognize the vital contribution these international students make to our country. International students who spend time in the United States become ambassadors when they return home, sharing an appreciation of our values, counteracting stereotypes about Americans and the United States, and enhancing respect for cultural differences and democratic norms.

International students contribute to the economic well-being of the United States. According to the Association of International Educators, during the last academic year, international students and their families supported 400,000 jobs and contributed $33 billion to our domestic economy. In my district alone, 4,978 international students and families contributed $137 million to our local economy, supporting 1,725 jobs.

Actions taken by this administration and this President have generated a great deal of fear and uncertainty within academia. It hurts America. I urge us to support more international students to come to our country.

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

Mr. Speaker, I laud the leadership of the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce) and my good friend, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Frankel), for taking a particular lead in our committee on this terribly important topic.

I rise in support of H.R. 1625, the Targeted Rewards for the Global Eradication of Human Trafficking Act. Let me start by again thanking both of my colleagues for their leadership. I am also proud to be an original cosponsor of this bill to help bring human traffickers to justice.

Human trafficking is an abhorrent practice, increasingly perpetrated by organized criminal enterprises, that deprives people of their most precious gift: human autonomy. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness presume autonomy. Without autonomy, identity is lost, and the ability to pursue those inalienable rights Thomas Jefferson wrote about in our Declaration of Independence do not exist. They are nullified. This major transnational crime threatens United States security and humanitarian interests all over the world.

This bill would allow the State Department to pay cash through the Rewards for Justice program for information leading to the arrest and conviction of human traffickers worldwide. These cash rewards are a proven method for cracking open international criminal networks.

Congress originally established the program to gain more information in terrorism cases. We have since expanded it to include other crimes as well. With this legislation, we will give law enforcement the ability to use this valuable tool in the fight against human trafficking.

Over the last two decades, the United States has actively fought human trafficking through provisions laid out in the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, which established the annual Trafficking in Persons Report and subsequent reauthorizations.

Human trafficking is nothing short of modern-day slavery. As the TIP Report demonstrates, human trafficking affects, unfortunately, every country in the world, including, of course, the United States, as the distinguished chairman described.

As ranking member of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations, I joined with the then-subcommittee chairman, James Lankford, now Senator from Oklahoma, to investigate the abuse of foreign nationals employed by government contractors. Together, we introduced the End Trafficking in Government Contracting Act, which was enacted as part of the fiscal 2013 National Defense Authorization Act.

Whether it takes the form of forced labor or sexual exploitation, every case of human trafficking deprives an individual of their basic human rights. More than 20 million people fall victim to this heinous crime every year. A disproportionate share of the victims are women and children, and only a very small fraction will ever see their traffickers held accountable. We must and can do more to bring the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill. It will give law enforcement a proven method to help finally bring an end to this modern-day slave trafficking.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Frankel), my good friend and coauthor of this important piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Let every Member of Congress who is a parent, let every American who is a parent ask himself or herself: How would you feel if your loved one, your child were made prey by human traffickers? Imagine the heartache. Imagine the terrible grief, the trauma and tragedy of such a situation--and now remember 20 million fellow human beings go through that experience every year.

This is a crime that is repugnant to all human value. This is a crime we can

stop. This is a subject matter that can bring us together, irrespective of whether we are Democrats or Republicans, for the sake of our fellow human beings, for the sake of that human autonomy that is celebrated in the Declaration of Independence and enshrined in the Constitution of the United States and the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Let us take this step today. Let us rededicate ourselves to the idea that all human autonomy is sacred and that that is what we, too, are dedicated to support and uphold. I urge passage of the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.