Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Forest County Potawatomi Community Foundation. The Forest County Potawatomi Community Foundation was created in 1999 founded on the Potawatomi belief ``to take what we need and give back what we can.''

A review of the history of the Forest County Potawatomi Tribe will help to understand their desire to give back to the community. The tribe was forcibly removed from its homeland, endured strained relationships with governments, and lived in hardship and poverty. They survived by relying upon their internal strength and sharing with each other.

Through its foundation, the Forest County Potawatomi Tribe now provides to others who are struggling in the community. I believe that despite of or rather because of these centuries' old struggles, the Forest County Potawatomi Community Foundation has emerged to reflect their tribal values and beliefs to return assistance to the communities where they live and work. The Forest County Potawatomi Community Foundation supports civic and community projects, such as public health care issues, education, economic development, and the arts. They have funded many different types of organizations ranging from large, well known associations to small grassroots organizations. The foundation meets with any organization that applies for a grant and, if funded, works in partnership with the group to ensure success. The foundation feels each agency it funds allows them to carry on the Potawatomi tradition of ``giving back what we can.''

Now celebrating their 20th Anniversary, the Forest County Potawatomi Community Foundation has delivered over $18 million dollars to more than 250 charities and nonprofit organizations throughout the Greater Milwaukee area. I am grateful for their empathetic spirit of giving.

Madam Speaker for these reasons, I am honored to pay tribute to the Forest County Potawatomi Community Foundation for their support, dedication and service to the people of my district and throughout Wisconsin.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to draw awareness to the unconscionable human tragedy that is still taking place in the Darfur region. It has been 5 years since the United States Congress declared genocide in Darfur, but thousands continue to perish.

Today I join activists in 34 countries who started fasting in April when eight organizations were kicked out of Darfur by the Sudanese President, leaving 1.1 million innocent civilians without basic access to food, water, and medicine.

From sunrise to sunset today, I will consume only water to demonstrate solidarity with the people of Darfur. It is an insignificant act relative to the magnitude of the tragedy unfolding there. But I join thousands in this simple act and hope that a critical mass will prick our global consciousness, keep us focused on the hundreds of thousands who have lost their lives.

I especially want to thank the Plymouth United Church of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, members of the Faith Darfur Coalition, who are joining me today.

My fast won't stop the tragedy unfolding in Darfur, but I hope it will carry me deeper into thought and to help me reflect on how to end this tragedy.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize a visionary, veteran, mentor, ambassador for the African American community, and grassroots activist. On September 12, 2009, at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) Ballroom, Reuben K. Harpole, Jr. will celebrate his 75th birthday being honored by grateful members of the community for 50 years of service.

Mr. Harpole was born in Milwaukee to parents Mardee Johnson Harpole and Mr. Reuben K. Harpole, Sr. After graduating from North Division High School, he earned his bachelor's degree in elementary education from UWM. He and his wife Mildred are long time members of All Saints Catholic Church. After his parents' divorce, Mr. Harpole and his three siblings were raised by his single parent mom and his maternal grandparents. Mr. Harpole was close to his Grandfather Johnson who ran numerous family businesses, all while working fulltime at a Milwaukee foundry.

Mr. Harpole worked for 31 years at UWM. When he retired in 1997 he was a Senior Outreach Specialist at UWM's Center for Urban Community Development. Since 1998, he has served as Special Advisor to the President of the Helen Bader Foundation. Mr. Harpole created and managed the Sankofa-Youth Development Program Area for 10 years, awarding more than $5.6 million in grant dollars to small grassroots- oriented youth organizations in Milwaukee's low-income neighborhoods. Mr. Harpole helped initiate Homework First, an educational enrichment program serving low income students in more than 40 Milwaukee Public Schools.

Mr. Harpole received numerous awards including: an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters in 2005 from UWM, as well as the St. Mark African Methodist Episcopal Church's 2006 Dr. Martin Luther King Award. He and his wife of 50 years, Mildred were recipients of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund's 2005 Community Service Award, the YMCA's 2004 Lincoln Gaines Award, and the 1993 Vatican II Awards. Mr. Harpole helped found numerous organizations benefitting the greater Milwaukee community. He continues to serve in a leadership role in various community groups including: the Community Brainstorming Breakfast Forum, Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Black School Educators, and the United Negro College Fund.

Madam Speaker, for these reasons, I am honored to pay tribute to Reuben K. Harpole, Jr. Mr. Harpole's contributions have greatly benefitted the citizens of the Fourth Congressional District.

Mr. Chair, as Congress continues to address proposals intended to decrease the poverty gap and increase access to higher education for low-income and first generation college students, as well as at-risk youth, I strongly encourage a significant funding boost for Federal TRIO programs. TRIO has offered effective supportive services with proven results for hundreds of thousands of students across the country. However, these local programs work on a shoestring budget that forces them to turn away thousands of eligible students every year.

I applaud the increase that TRIO received in the FY 2010 House Labor- HHS-Education Appropriations bill, but it is nowhere near enough to address the need. I offered an amendment to increase funding by an additional $5 million, offset by a new and unproven grant program that aims to accomplish exactly the same goals that the proven TRIO program is already working towards. I fully support innovation, but not at the expense of meeting the needs of students now.

TRIO is a proven program currently serving nearly 850,000 at-risk students ranging from middle school to college students nearing graduation.

TRIO provides the academic and personal support that young, low- income, and at-risk students need to help take advantage of the opportunities afforded to them.

TRIO students who have participated in pre-college programs have a higher matriculation rate than other low-income students. In 2005, 77.3% of all students who participated in Upward Bound programs immediately went to college the following fall and 86.5% of students who participated in Upward Bound-Math Science went directly to college. Similarly, 73% of Talent Search participants enrolled in college the fall following high school graduation. These figures stand in sharp contrast to the immediate college enrollment rate of all low-income high school students--only 41%.

Several data sources illustrate the success of TRIO by showing that students who participate in TRIO Student Support Services (SSS), with Pell Grant funding, are almost 10% more likely to attain a bachelor's degree than those who solely received Pell Grants without SSS participation.

51% percent of campuses that enroll over 1,000 Pell recipients host SSS programs. Yet, the average size of an SSS grant only allows a typical program to serve a portion (25.11%) of eligible students. Many others--students for whom consistent supportive services could mean the difference between a college degree and dropping out--do not receive the support they need.

TRIO has not received a significant increase since FY 2006. According to the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Education 2009, current TRIO funding levels are only sufficient to serve 11% of the students who are eligible for help.

Students from the bottom income quartile ($38,660 or under per family) have a 25% chance at completing a college degree once they begin. In contrast, students from the top quartile ($105,800 or over per family) have a 95% chance of completing a college degree. As such, services offered by the TRIO programs become all the more critical to ensure that such students have the opportunity to become economically viable and independent members of our post-industrial, global society.

The High School Graduation Initiative is an untested program that received $50 million dollars in the Department of Education Appropriations Act of 2010. It aims for the same goals as TRIO, yet it is unproven. My amendment would have drawn $5 million from this fund to put towards TRIO. It is not enough to ensure that this effective program can reach all eligible students, but it is a start.

You've heard the commercial: Don't support government health care.

So the question that you need to ask yourself then is, Do I feel lucky? Do I feel lucky that I won't be one of the 14,000 people a day who lose their jobs and can't afford health insurance, that I won't have such a high deductible that I avoid preventive care and end up with end-stage cancer because I didn't go to the doctor. Well, am I lucky?

Do I feel lucky that Junior won't break a bone and I end up in the emergency room with a $5,000 bill? Do I feel lucky that I won't go bankrupt from my health care problems? Do I feel lucky that I won't have some preexisting condition that prevents me from getting a new job? Do I feel lucky that my health care premium won't grow three times faster than my salary?

The American economy is in the intensive care unit. The disease is the high cost of health care, and the medicine is health care reform.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I rise today to offer my amendment which would prohibit the use of funds in this bill for the processing of enhanced use leases at the original National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers or Soldiers' Homes established before 1868.

My amendment would protect these soldiers' homes established before 1868, these historic Civil War-era buildings or the campuses on which they reside, from diversion from veteran activities to commercial purposes and it would retain these national treasures for future generations of veterans, their families, and an interested public.

The concept of a National Asylum for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers was first established by congressional legislation and approved by President Abraham Lincoln on March 3, 1865. The National Asylum was established for officers and men of the volunteer forces of the United States who had been totally disabled by wounds received or sickness contracted while in the line of duty during the Civil War. In all, 11 national soldiers' homes across the country were opened and eventually integrated into the newly established Veterans Administration in 1930. These old homes reflect how the Forefathers chose to care for and honor the soldiers who fought to keep the country united as one Nation. Their creation changed the Nation's attitude toward the care of soldiers after battle.

Built in 1867, the Milwaukee Soldiers' Home, located in my district in the Fourth Congressional District of Wisconsin, was one of the three original soldiers' homes; the other two are located in Maine and Ohio.

In late 2005, I learned that the VA and the city of Milwaukee were aggressively pursuing an enhanced use lease proposal that included the possible commercial development of several 19th century soldiers' homes buildings located on the Milwaukee VA grounds, much to the dismay and against the wishes of the Milwaukee veterans community, who wanted to protect these historic buildings for veterans purposes.

The Allied Council of Veterans and their membership approached my office with their concerns and they alerted me to the potential outcomes of the proposal and reported that they had had no input in the ongoing lease discussions.

Currently, the Milwaukee Soldiers' Home is on the National Park Service list to be designated for a place on its National Register of Historic Places. This will give the veterans an even stronger voice against any attempts to lease out for commercial purposes these historic buildings.

I urge my colleagues, on a bipartisan basis, to join me in standing with veterans to protect these historic soldiers' homes grounds for veterans' uses by voting ``yes'' on my amendment.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

I want to thank the gentleman for yielding.

I rise today in strong support of the rule for the Fiscal Year 2010 State Department and Foreign Operations appropriations bill, H.R. 3081. I sincerely want to thank the chairwoman, Nita Lowey, and her staff for their diligent work on this appropriations bill and for their efforts and their help in securing an additional $10 million for maternal health in the manager's amendment.

I sincerely thank the gentlelady for her support and for her work and for addressing one of the most serious issues facing women on this planet. The need to act to address the global maternal mortality rate and to save

mothers' lives is very clear, and the time to act is now.

The recent words of the First Lady of Sierra Leone are haunting, but all too true for too many women in the world and their families and their communities. She stated, ``We know too well that a pregnant woman in Kigali or Freetown has one foot in the grave,'' which is why many ``say goodbye to our mothers and sisters as they go into labor.''

Mr. Speaker, pregnancy is a time when we should be welcoming life into the world, not saying goodbye. For every woman's death we fail to prevent by boosting investments in critical maternal health programs, we fail newborns who now face an increased risk of dying themselves. We fail the family, including children pulled from schools to support their families and pick up the duties of the now deceased mother, and we fail those communities by undermining economic development and poverty reduction efforts in the wider community.

This investment into maternal health will save lives. We can and must continue to do what we can to reduce the needless suffering of millions of women around the world from childbirth and pregnancy-related complications. Too much is at stake if we fail to deliver for these woman.

I thank the gentlewoman.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to engage in a colloquy with the chairwoman of the subcommittee. I commend her efforts to expand the Child and Adult Care Food Program in this bill by increasing the total number of States authorized to serve supper through the At-Risk Afterschool Care program.

According to the Food Research Action Center, the average daily participation of children in Wisconsin in the Child and Adult Care Food Program is over 63,000 kids. There is a great deal of need in my State and across the Nation to ensure that young people have the opportunity to have three nutritious meals a day.

I would love to work with the gentlewoman and my colleague, Senator Kohl in the Senate, to authorize Wisconsin to serve suppers in Wisconsin through the Child and Adult Care Food Program.

With the increasing price of food and overall food insecurity among families and communities in today's economy, I welcome the opportunity to work to improve and expand the program.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Mr. Kevin Shafer, Executive Director of the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD), on being named the new President of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, NACWA. MMSD provides sewage treatment services and maintains watercourses for 28 municipalities, including nearly all of Milwaukee County and portions of four surrounding counties, serving a population of about 1 million.

Mr. Shafer joined MMSD in 1988, as the Director of Technical Services and four years later became MMSD's Executive Director. Before joining MMSD, Mr. Shafer spent six years with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and nine years with a private engineering firm serving as area manager of the Milwaukee office.

Mr. Shafer has formulated numerous innovative MMSD programs including the Sweetwater Trust, a broad stakeholder group to enlist regional cooperation to protect the watersheds of the five-county Milwaukee metropolitan area through both structural and non-structural means. Further, under his direction, MMSD has invested in permanently protecting waterways from flooding and stormwater pollution runoff, by providing conservation easements to nearly 2,000 acres of undeveloped land. This program, called Greenseams, is a national model for green infrastructure in water pollution control. Mr. Shafer's innovation for both the environment and the economy is exhibited through a project to construct a landfill gas pipeline allowing MMSD to use a renewable source of methane gas in its treatment plant operations, while saving customers an estimated $148 million over 20 years.

Mr. Shafer is an active leader on behalf of municipal wastewater agencies at the national level, helping to formulate sound federal water resource policies and legislation. He has served on the Board of Directors of NACWA since 2003, participating on numerous committees including the Clean Water Funding Workgroup and the Executive Committee of the Board. He has appeared before Congress on behalf of NACWA.

Mr. Shafer is an exceptional leader and a public steward of water resources. He has devoted his engineering career to the protection of these environmental resources for current and future water users.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues of the 111th Congress to join me in congratulating Kevin Shafer on becoming the President of NACWA. Under his leadership, I have no doubt that NACWA will continue to lead the advocacy effort for national policies to protect and preserve the Nation's water resources for future generations.

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

Mr. Chairman, my amendment increases funding for a critical program, the Violence Against Women Act Legal Assistance Program by $4 million.

I would like to thank Representative Poe for his diligent work on this amendment. And I also want to thank Representative Mollohan for his commitment on this issue as well.

You know, we all make lawyer jokes, but to the women who face domestic violence and need legal representation to successfully flee their abusers, obtain orders of protection, and retain custody of their children, the lack of legal representation is definitely not a laughing matter.

Nearly 70 percent of the women who bravely take their abusers to court do so without legal representation. And too often, having an attorney present is the deciding factor in obtaining that lifesaving personal protection order or getting custody of your kids or receiving transitional housing.

It's a sad day when a family is forced to stay with their abuser because they don't know how to navigate through the court system.

Earlier this week, Mr. Chairman, I heard from Chris in Wisconsin, whose husband sent her to the emergency room a dozen times, broke her foot, held a gun to her head, and threatened to poison her four children before she was able to escape with the help of legal assistance after 5 long years of torture.

I also heard from Danielle of Madison, Wisconsin, who obtained a divorce from her wealthy attorney husband who repeatedly beat and stabbed her, but was left battling her husband's expensive attorney for custody 2 years after the divorce. Her effort to study the Wisconsin statutes and defend herself in court drew ridicule and rebuke from the judge. These are just a couple of examples.

I would like to yield to Mr. Mollohan.

Well, thank you so much. I just want to mention again what an amazing partner Mr. Poe has been with this initiative. Indeed, this is not a partisan issue.

Mr. Poe mentioned that these funds will be drawn from the Department of Commerce's salaries and expenses, of which they're provided $60 million. That's $7 million over last year's funding. Of course, legal assistance programs have steadily declined since 2003, and only about a third of women who appear in court, the applicants who actually apply for this legal funding, actually receive funding. So this is really critical funding and support to help these women leave their abusers.

For every Danielle and Chris who are able to free themselves of their abusers, there are four other women out there who are still being silenced because they don't have access to adequate legal representation. This $4 million is very appreciated. It's not enough, but it's a great start. The legal assistance program is one of the most effective tools to ensure that battered women and children have a voice in our justice system. I urge support for this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Offered By: Ms. Moore of Wisconsin

Amendment No. 3: In title I, in the paragraph entitled

``Salaries and Expenses'' immediately following the heading

``Departmental Management'' insert ``(reduced by

$4,000,000)'' after ``$60,000,000''.

Page 42, line 7, after ``$400,000,000'' insert ``(increased

by $4,000,000)''.

In title II, in the paragraph entitled ``Violence Against

Women Prevention and Prosecution Programs'' under the heading

``State and Local Law Enforcment Activities Office on

Violence Against Women'' in the numbered item in the second

proviso relating to legal assistance for victims as

authorized by section 1201 of the 2000 Act, insert

``(increased by $4,000,000)'' after ``$37,000,000''.

Offered By: Ms. Moore of Wisconsin

Amendment No. 4: In title I, in the paragraph entitled

``Salaries and Expenses'' immediately following the heading

``Departmental Management'' insert ``(reduced by

$8,000,000'') after ``$60,000,000''.

Page 42, line 7, after ``$400,000,000'' insert ``(increased

by $8,000,000'').

In title II, in the paragraph entitled ``Violence Against

Women Prevention and Prosecution Programs'' under the heading

``State and Local Law Enforcment Activities Office on

Violence Against Women'' in the numbered item in the second

proviso relating to legal assistance for victims as

authorized by section 1201 of the 2000 Act, insert

``(increased by $8,000,000)'' after ``$37,000,000''.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairman Berman for working with me so closely to include provisions in H.R. 1886 to ensure that the empowerment, protection and human rights of women are an important purpose for our aid to Pakistan and to help address the high rate of maternal mortality in Pakistan.

As Secretary of State Clinton noted earlier this year, the status of women and girls is a key indicator of whether or not progress is even possible in a society. We simply can't solve the global problems confronting us--from the worldwide financial crisis to the risk of climate change, chronic hunger, disease, poverty--when the energies and talents of hundreds of millions of people, half the world's population is left behind.

According to the World Health Organization, maternal mortality is an indicator of disparity and inequity between men and women and reflects a woman's so-called place in society and their ultimate access to social health, nutritional services and to economic opportunities. In this case, Pakistan's maternal mortality rate speaks of the great challenges facing Pakistani women.

Over 400 women die per 100,000 live births in Pakistan, and, for comparison, that is compared to 11 per 100,000 in the United States.

It is the aim of my amendment to make clear that the U.S. aid authorized in this bill addresses this challenge. We need to make it unmistakably clear, Mr. Speaker, that addressing that nation's high child and maternal mortality rates is a key part of our assistance to Pakistan. We know that these interventions will save these women's lives and ultimately save the nation.

Again, I thank the chairman for his support.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk and I request its immediate consideration.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to urge a ``yes'' vote on my amendment to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act. This is a time of unprecedented change in our outreach efforts to our global neighbors, and this authorization will help guide that path for the upcoming year and, therefore, I would like to really thank the committee for their hard work. And I would also like to thank my very good friend, Congresswoman Maloney of New York, for being a leader and steadfast advocate for the women of Afghanistan.

It is just so difficult to express the hurdles that face Afghan women and girls. There are just few words to describe the abhorrent conditions that assault these women and girls on a daily basis, and there are few experiences in our own lives that compare to their constant struggle for survival and freedom.

Afghanistan has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world. One in eight Afghan women die due to pregnancy-related complications every year. That's one woman every 30 minutes.

After years of brutal Taliban rule that allowed few rights for women, approximately 90 percent of their female population is illiterate.

There are over 50,000 widows in the country, many of whom lack substantive means to support themselves or their female children, who lack access to health care, to education, to employment, to shelter, and on and on and on.

The United States and international aid organizations have provided billions of dollars to rebuild the country and to promote the basic and fundamental human rights of the Afghan people.

More importantly, though, we have asked our own people to sacrifice our sons and daughters, our citizens, for this cause. Our brave men and women serving in Afghanistan are there to protect the American people, but they are also there to reach out to the people in this war-torn country. And that is why, Mr. Chairman, I have offered this particular amendment.

Earlier this year the Afghan Government moved a measure that would severely suppress the rights of this country's Shiite women and girls. This measure would further restrict their free mobility and actually legalizes marital rape. It does not condemn the marrying of minors and, instead, it appears to promote it.

This legislation ties a woman's legal financial stability and well- being to a man, and demands that a woman submit sexually to her husband in order to be privy to any sort of protection.

I see proposals like this in-depth reporting on multiple news media outlets highlighting the struggles that single women, girls, widows, married women face in Afghanistan.

Now, I understand that there are cultural differences, and I understand that culture and society in the Middle East will never look like that in the United States.

I yield myself 30 more seconds.

But I also understand what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks of when she says that a woman's rights are

human rights. And I understand that these actions prevent a nation from moving beyond an era still wounded by the scars and the fears of years of repressive Taliban rule.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I would now like to yield the balance of our time to the gentlelady from Illinois, who is the co- Chair of the Women's Caucus, Ms. Schakowsky.

Mr. Speaker, I am so pleased that Senate bill S. 896 included the first major reauthorization of the McKinney-Vento homelessness bill. I have worked diligently on this bill with Representative Waters for over a year, particularly on provisions that would expand the definition of homelessness and give agencies more flexibility so that they could assist folks who are at risk of becoming homeless within 14 days.

I want to thank Congresswoman Waters, Congressman Frank for their leadership, also to thank Representative Biggert, Representative Jeff Davis and Representative Andre Carson.

Too many families in today's recession are just one paycheck away from making their rent, and we have seen hundreds of thousands of foreclosures, many more expected this year. These families are also at grave risk of becoming homeless.

This provision also will serve victims of domestic violence trying to flee their abusers. It will allow families to seek emergency shelter due to the imminent loss of their housing. It gives local homeless agencies greater resources and flexibility.