Floor Statements

I thank the ranking member.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to voice my strong opposition to H.R. 1797, which would callously and cavalierly limit access to abortion for women across the country.

Boy, I tell you, the House GOP has truly pushed the limits this time by offering this unconstitutional bill.

Madam Speaker, this week, the much-maligned Miss USA contestant, Miss Utah, alluding to the power dynamics between men and women in the workplace, was lampooned for a flubbed answer when she said, and I quote:

I think especially the men are seen as the leaders of this,

and so we need to try to figure out how to create education

better so that we can solve this problem.

However inarticulate, I think Miss Utah was on to something.

When you consider the subject at hand, women's right to a medically safe abortion, we once again see men taking leadership roles and invading the privacy and medical decisions of women so that now we have before us a bill that is borne of ignorance and disregard for medical science in every way, shape, and form. There is no concern for the biology, physiology, sociology of the woman.

Perhaps, if we could create education better of the importance of women's lives, we would not be here with this bill before us. This bill is an abomination, plain and simple, at its foundation, its heart, its utter disrespect for the dignity and health of women. It also has other harmful effects.

Now, I am sympathetic for those women, as well, who face an abortion at 20 weeks. Often these women are facing complications that endanger their health or they have found out about a severe fetal anomaly. Others are victims of rape or incest. These are the most difficult decisions in their lives.

Medical providers have told us of harrowing tales of women who have developed life-threatening pre-eclampsia with impaired kidney functions, seizures, dangerously high blood pressure that threatens their health. They also tell us of the women who receive an aggressive cancer diagnosis right in the middle of their pregnancy and have to make the difficult choice between their pregnancy and their own life.

In situations like these, women need to be able to consult their families and their doctors and no one else. Perhaps their own priest or rabbi or imam, but most certainly not their politician denying the care they need. It is hazardous, cruel, and simply the wrong thing to do.

I thank the gentlelady for yielding time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today regarding one missed vote on June 12, 2013.

Had I been present for rollcall 217, On Motion to Recommit with Instructions for the Swap Jurisdiction Certainty Act, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. Speaker, I am recorded as voting ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 231, an amendment by Congresswoman McCollum to the FY 2014 Defense Authorization bill to prohibit funds from being used for certain professional sports sponsorships. This was inadvertent. I intended to vote ``no.''

On rollcall No. 231, I intended to vote ``no.'' McCollum Amendment to

Again, I do want to thank Mr. Scott, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I am so delighted to be the lead cosponsor on the Democratic side of the Financial Services Committee of this critical legislation. However, I do want to thank all of my colleagues on both the Ag Committee and the Financial Services Committee for their leadership and support on this nuanced, but important, legislation. It really took the hard work of a bipartisan group of members and staff to get this bill to this point.

H.R. 742, the Swap Data Repository and Clearing House Indemnification Correction Act, strikes the mandate that global regulators indemnify U.S.-based SDRs and regulators from liability in order to access swap trade data in U.S.-based SDRs.

Mr. Scott and Mr. Crawford have done a fantastic job in walking through the details of this bill. I just want to add, Madam Speaker, that striking this indemnification provision does not compromise the new legal framework for the swap markets enacted in Dodd-Frank, nor does it erode any other important market protections. In fact, H.R. 742 ensures the functioning of the newly enacted swap regime and the ability of swap data repositories to function as intended.

The bill passed both the House Financial Services and Ag Committees without opposition. The bill is supported by consumer advocacy groups as well as by business groups. In testimony before the Financial Services Committee, the Securities and Exchange Commission said of the bill:

The SEC recommends that Congress consider removing the

indemnification requirement added by the Dodd-Frank Act . . .

the indemnification requirement interferes with access to

essential information, including information about the cross-

border OTC derivatives markets.

H.R. 742 ensures information regarding the global swap market will be available to U.S. and foreign regulators, which will enhance the global transparency and oversight of derivatives markets.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to my colleague, a senior member of the Financial Services Committee, the gentlelady from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

Madam Speaker, I am so delighted at this point to yield 2 minutes to someone who was formerly on the Ag Committee and is currently on the Financial Services Committee and who understands the importance of H.R. 742, the gentlelady from Alabama, Representative Terri Sewell.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I am so pleased that H.R. 742 is before us so that people understand, Madam Speaker, that this process actually does work from time to time. This provision was added at the last minute to the Dodd-Frank bill. It was not fully vetted and not fully debated. In a very diligent way, two committees on both sides of the aisle were able to come together and really pull together this very modest, but extremely critical, important bill to make sure that there is transparency as well as fluidity in our oversight of derivatives markets.

I am so pleased to be a part of this remarkable consensus on the indemnification of this bill, and I urge all my colleagues to support this critically important legislation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman from Georgia.

I rise today to support H.R. 1256, the Swap Jurisdiction Certainty Act.

I proudly supported the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act because I believed that regulations of derivatives were desperately needed, and today I stand here to support what is a very modest change because I believe that the inability of the CFTC and the SEC to come together on a definition of ``U.S. persons'' is centrally important to effective cross-border rules and regulations and rules of the road.

Now, I did support the gentlelady from California's amendment for switching the presumption. Because of the closed rules, we were unable to take that up at this time, and I believe it would have improved the bill. However, although this amendment was not adopted, I believe that the regulators will continue to have the authority to regulate any overseas swaps transactions under U.S. rules if they conclude that it is appropriate.

I believe that without this bill we could find U.S. companies going outside not only the jurisdiction of the United States and our losing our competitiveness, but those swaps activities could migrate away from U.S. companies overseas to companies outside of the reach of U.S. regulators. So I would urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment to the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill for fiscal year 2014. My amendment is intended to restore the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to fiscal year '13 levels by transferring $3,346,000 into the Office of the Secretary and Executive Management. The amendment is wholly offset. It is budget-neutral.

Mr. Chairman, as you know, the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is an integral part of ensuring that our rights and values are carried out through the Department of Homeland Security. Today, it is even more important than ever to ensure that this Office is adequately funded.

While this body continues to increase funding for immigration enforcement--and we expect even more funding and personnel to be added in any comprehensive immigration reform bill that we adopt--it is essential that we maintain adequate safeguards to protect our rights and liberties.

I offered a similar amendment last year that sought to provide the office funding that it requested to adequately review 287(g) and Secure Communities programs, and I thank the chairman and the ranking member for directing $2.39 million to be used for review of these 287(g) programs.

As I mentioned last year, I remain gravely concerned about any 287(g) programs that have been found to facilitate racial profiling in our communities or enforcement programs that make it harder for immigrants, especially women victims, to get help from the police.

If my colleagues on the other side of the aisle continue to insist on fully funding 287(g) programs, as they do here in this bill--$44 million above the President's budget request and cited as one of the reasons for a White House veto--at the very least, we should have rigorous safeguards and oversight. And I'll tell you, I must question whether or not we're on a path that recognizes that oversight is paramount as we continue to allow local police to act as Federal immigration officers. The bill increases these programs for review of 287(g)s, but I question whether or not we really get it.

I am here today because I disagree with the approach of the bill. Specifically, the bill would cut the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties by 15.5 percent and then direct the office to pay for this increase of reviews for the 287(g) and Secure Communities programs by making further internal cuts to other essential areas of their mission.

In addition to oversight of 287(g) and Secure Community programs, the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties provides Homeland Security officials with advice on the full range of civil rights and civil liberties issues.

The office engages with communities that are disproportionately impacted by Homeland Security policies and activities. In 2005, the Office had regular roundtables with Arab Americans, Sikhs, Muslims, and other ethnic minorities. Today, they work in 13 core centers around the country.

The office investigates detention facility violations through site visits to ICE detention facilities to investigate civil rights violations.

Complaints from the public, oversight of intelligence collection, and, as I mentioned, comprehensive immigration reform has a chance of becoming a reality. And we know there's going to be a vast increase of enforcement funding and personnel for this Department, but we can't continue to balance essential rights with the security of our country if we play these zero-sum games. It is essential that we adequately fund the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to implement changes to our immigration law in a way that respects our values that the country was founded upon.

Again, my amendment is budget-neutral, Mr. Chairman. It only transfers a very small amount, which is vital funding, to this $21.6 million office.

I urge my colleagues to support this important amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

I want to thank you so much, Representative Horsford from Nevada--and Representative Hakeem Jeffries as well, who is here with us--for focusing on this effort and to conduct, this evening, this Special Order on lifting Americans out of poverty.

You know, it was very, very difficult to listen to Representative Barbara Lee provide those data and those statistics of the numbers of Americans who are living in poverty. Reflecting on my own personal experience, reflecting on what I see every single day among my constituents, the stark poverty, especially of children, it is very, very difficult to talk about this because this is just not abstract; this is very real.

For the purposes of this discussion though, with your permission, Representative Horsford, I would like to just modify your motto or your theme for one moment. Instead of talking about lifting Americans out of poverty, I'd like to talk about lifting America out of poverty.

You see, America is heading down the road to not just having 46 million Americans living in poverty, not just having half of Americans during the recession relying on food stamps and having that as their only means of support, not just having African Americans or Hispanics or those living in stark rural poverty being the victims of poverty, but having poverty pervade our entire community. Because we, by not investing in educational opportunity of young people, are eating our seed corn.

Rice farmers have taught us not to eat our seed corn. They say that when we do that, when you plant something, you eat a certain portion of it and you preserve some of it so that you can plant and have a harvest for the future. Those people who eat their seed corn are committing an act of desperation. And that is what we're doing by cutting off educational opportunity to programs.

I'm specifically talking about TRIO. TRIO is a set of federally funded college and university-based educational opportunity outreach programs that modify and support students from low-income backgrounds from first generations. It's not a race-based program, but it includes military veterans, students with disabilities. Currently, they serve about 790,000 students from middle schools through postgraduate studies.

These programs are very, very important because we have found that there aren't enough trust fund kids, Representative Horsford, to really put this country on a sustainable course of graduating enough high- skilled workers and innovators for our country to enjoy the kind of economic hegemony in a global economy. There aren't enough.

If we graduated every high school senior this June, if every single high school senior went to college, it still would not be enough in order for us to reach those goals of maintaining global hegemony. Yet we have allowed, since 2005, the TRIO programs to lose $66 million in funding, which translates into 88,000 fewer low-income and potential first-generation students--including adult learners, military veterans, and students with disabilities--to study.

Of course, under sequestration, which went into effect March 1, TRIO has received another $42 million cut, which means that in the beginning of the 2013-2014 program year, individual grant awards will be reduced by 5 percent. That translates into 40,000 fewer students to be served by TRIO.

Now, as I indicated in the beginning of my discussion here, this program is a set of programs that seek to identify brilliant students, but for their income, or but for their having not been born into a family where college was a tradition, who can contribute to the growth of our economy in our society.

Talent Search is a very low-cost early invention program which identifies students with college potential in grades 6 through 12. They really work toward giving students information about going to college. Seventy-nine percent of Talent Search participants were admitted to postsecondary institutions.

Upper Bound is an intensive intervention program that prepares students for higher education. Seventy-seven percent of these students who participated in Upper Bound enrolled in college.

The Upper Bound Math/Science program--which we know we need more of them--is a model similar to Upper Bound; 86.5 percent of these students go on to college.

We have Veterans Upper Bound and Student Support Services. Again, the numbers are very, very high for students who matriculate and complete in these programs.

The Educational Opportunity Centers is a program where we have reached back for displaced workers, people who have not been in college, and bring them back into the fold. We have seen a 57 percent increase in the number of participants who have been college dropouts that have re-enrolled or displaced workers.

We also have the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program--named after the famous astronaut who lost his life--which prepares low-income minority students for doctoral programs.

I will yield to you for questions, Mr. Horsford, but just let me finish this segment by reiterating this point. If we fail to invest in young people, I mean starting out with starving them--you know I'm still reeling from the comments of my colleague Barbara Lee because the food stamp bill that is before us will have nearly a quarter of a million students lose their free lunch program. And the majority of folks who are served by the food stamp program are not these welfare queens or slick hustlers; they're elderly children and disabled people--so if we as a country have decided that we don't need to feed babies, we're eating our seed corn, and that is an act of desperation that will take us down a perilous road.

That's exactly right, because we can't lift America out of poverty without lifting Americans out of poverty. We are a family.

Well, I can tell you, we can have a society by design or by default. We can just let it all go as it will.

I was very moved earlier by the tribute that our colleagues on a bipartisan basis made to Senator Lautenberg upon his passing. And once again, here's an example of an American who ultimately became very wealthy, but it was because America embraced him with their values.

He went to school on the GI bill. He was able to go to school. He did not have any wealth. And because he was an American and an American soldier, he was able to benefit from our community of interests to build not only a great senator, but great economic enterprises and a lot of jobs that he created. That's the way America is supposed to work. And we need to realize that educational opportunity is one of our basic strategies for staying on top in a global economy.

Exactly.

And that is an extremely important point, because these young people who are going to college are doing us a favor to become educated. The jobs, you know, making the widgets, are dying out from not only technology but from outsourcing.

We are going to only win this game by having the highest skilled worker, whether it be in farming or manufacturing or research and development. And to see this Congress gutting research and development, anything that looks academic or associated with intelligence or studying at all, it's just across the board decimating it. Again, it's eating our seed corn. Hopefully we can reverse this curse before they get too far down the line.

Thank you so much for letting me participate in this Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today regarding my absence from the House for the first votes on the evening of May 22, 2013. During this time, I was unfortunately detained in traffic returning to Capitol Hill following an event in downtown DC. I would like to submit how I would have voted had I been in attendance for the following votes:

Rollcall No. 169, on Agreeing to Amendment No. 1 (H.R. 3). I would have voted ``no.''

Rollcall No. 170, on Agreeing to Amendment No. 2. I would have voted ``yea.''

Rollcall No. 171, on Agreeing to Amendment No. 3. I would have voted ``yea.''

Rollcall No. 172, on Agreeing to Amendment No. 4. I would have voted ``yea.''

Rollcall No. 173, on Agreeing to Amendment No. 5. I would have voted ``yea.''

Rollcall No 174, on Agreeing to Amendment No. 6. I would have voted ``yea.''

Rollcall No. 175, on Agreeing to Amendment No. 7. I would have voted ``yea.''

Rollcall No. 176, on Agreeing to Amendment No. 8. I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Chair, on designated rollcall No. 169, ``no;'' 170, ``aye;'' 171, ``aye;'' 172, ``aye;'' 173, ``aye;'' 174, ``aye;'' 175, ``aye;'' 176, ``aye.''

Amendment No. 10 Offered by Mr. Holt

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlelady. Just let me say that a 2013 GAO study estimated that the financial crisis cost the U.S. economy a total of more than $22 trillion--a crisis brought on by Wall Street deregulation that allowed firms and markets to operate unchecked and without accountability.

Supporters of this bill seek to ignore those lessons and bind the SEC to the myopic vision of deregulation that was completely discredited when it nearly caused a second Great Depression.

This bill raises intractable hurdles to regulation, making it impossible to protect investors, even in the presence of fraud. Instead, this bill requires the SEC to eliminate accountability for market participants, despite the systematic risk that it imposes.

Now, my dear colleagues on the other side, I've heard them wax on and on and on about a cost-benefit analysis. This bill focuses totally on the cost to market participants and talks nothing, nothing, nothing about the benefits of the SEC regulation in protecting investors and avoiding systemic risk, nothing about the value of preventing another financial meltdown.

The Republicans' cost-benefit rhetoric on this bill cloaks its reality, which is that this bill benefits Wall Street and costs taxpayers. Wall Street bemoans all regulations as too costly; yet they keep posting record profits and keep paying record bonuses.

I urge all of my colleagues to support those hurt by the financial crisis and to vote against this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I unexpectedly missed rollcall vote 110 on April 17, 2013. Had I been able to vote, I would have voted in favor of rollcall vote 110.

Thank you so much, gentleman from Virginia, for yielding me the time.

It's really my privilege to discuss the jobs program that is at the heart of the Congressional Black Caucus budget. The Congressional Black Caucus does acknowledge that, while me must address our debt and deficits, in the short run, an austerity budget, as the Republicans have proposed, hurts our economy rather than helps.

We have proposed a comprehensive jobs plan, paid for proudly with the largesse and the revenue that the rich have received and tax reform measures that will propel our economic recovery for everyone, not just the haves, improve our economic competitiveness, and provide opportunities for those communities that still have not reaped the benefit of recent economic resurgence.

The CBC budget includes a $100 billion investment in a national direct job creation program estimated to create 2 million jobs directly, as well as another 800,000 jobs indirectly in the private sector; $50 billion for school modernization; $50 billion for preserving teacher, law enforcement, and first responder jobs, good public service jobs that we all need; $230 billion for investing in our Nation's crumbling infrastructure; $50 billion in rebuilding America's neighborhoods; $13 billion in job training programs; and another $7 billion in summer jobs programs.

Our significant investment in jobs is the core reason why I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the Congressional Black Caucus budget.

Well, this is an austerity plan and an inequality plan, this Republican budget. I want people to behold the plunder of suckling babes--the young, elderly, the infirm, women, communities of color--by $810 billion cuts in Medicaid and $135 billion in SNAP. It is not humorous to me. I want you to beware of the claims that we're going to grow our economy by ending 750,000 jobs, by pillaring Pell Grants, and cutting off educational opportunity to students.

This is not a balanced budget. This is a budget blunder which plunders us into double-dip recession. I'll tell you, Ben Bernanke, our Fed chair, warns against these kinds of severe austerity cuts. If you don't believe him, take the word of Plato. He said: In a state which is desirous of being saved from the greatest of plagues, there should exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty, nor, again, excessive wealth, for both are productive of great evil.

So we plunge poor people into poverty and give $245,000 tax breaks to the wealthiest. I think that qualifies for not only an austerity plan that can harm us, but it is the greatest inequality plan that this body has seen.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin).

I want to associate myself with all of the members from the distinguished Ways and Means Committee who have tried to explain to the majority authors of this bill that the waivers are narrowly offered and do not allow States to alter their work requirements.

These waivers would only be granted to those States who prove that they can quantitatively increase the number of their welfare beneficiaries who find and keep jobs. This waiver is in keeping with the Republican mantra of States' rights and allowing them to be flexible.

So we have heard a lot of hyperbole and exaggeration about what this does. And I think that really is in keeping with what we have heard about welfare reform since 1976, when Ronald Reagan trotted out the Welfare Queen, the woman who had 80 names, 30 addresses, and an annual income of $150,000 when you count Medicaid and food stamps, and who drove around in a Cadillac.

So it's difficult to get people to listen when, as social and political scientists have said, these stereotypes have been driven for decades by gender and racial stereotypes. And I think that's what we're dealing with here today, Mr. Levin.

We are not going to hear the level of levity that we need because I think that the low-wage workforce benefits tremendously by women, and particularly women of color, working for nothing. So the prospect of them getting customized labor training, in lieu of wiping down a table in a diner, is a little bit more than they can stand.

You know, if, in fact, we're going to have true welfare reform where we're going to lift people out of poverty, then this bill is not the direction we should be taking.

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

I would love to express my appreciation to my original cosponsors of this bill, chair emeritus, House Financial Service Committee Representative Spencer Bachus, for his support, and my other cosponsor and friend on the committee, Representative Hinojosa.

I believe that a community-based flood insurance option may eventually provide a cost-saving option for communities within the larger framework of the overall National Flood Insurance Program. The potential for savings and community empowerment certainly merits a study.

Now, as Mr. Luetkemeyer has indicated, this bipartisan bill has passed in various forms, the latest being in the 112th Congress, as H.R. 6186 last September, 364-11, so this is nothing new; and I would submit that we should support it here today.

This approach has merit because its potential lower rates are due to the streamlined underwriting, increased participation, the critical mass of citizens that are involved, and incentives for the community to mitigate future flood risk. There's also an option of providing lower- income households the use of vouchers to purchase flood insurance as part of the group.

An analogy for the concept applied is group or employee health insurance coverage versus individual coverage. We all understand that group coverage is less expensive than individual coverage due to many advantages of economies of scale.

Now, in this case, a community, rather than an individual, would be the policyholder. This brings me to another very important potential benefit of this approach, the increased incentives for communities to take preemptive action to mitigate future financial threats from floods in the community. Whereas an individual flood insurance holder has no incentive, nor means to build stronger levees or dikes, a community policyholder would have the means and incentives to take those kinds of precautions.

In theory, the homeowner would pay insurance, like a utility bill, on a monthly or quarterly basis, which also makes it easy to administer. This bill only asks FEMA to examine the costs and benefits of using this approach on an ongoing basis as an option for communities.

We need to continue to seek creative, market-based solutions to problems; and this study is the first good step toward new tools to strengthen the National Flood Insurance Program.

Seeing no other Democratic Members wishing to speak, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 1035; I yield back the balance of my time.