Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, while I supported today's continuing resolution in an effort to ensure that essential governmental operations are funded beyond March 27, there remain many questions about the application of the sequester.

One area that few Members of Congress or the administration are discussing is whether sequestration should apply to certain entities that Congress clearly intended to be legally independent of the federal government. Congress recognized the crucial importance of maintaining the objectivity of each of these entities and insulated them from the federal appropriations process in order to maintain their independence.

For example, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (``FASB''), the entity that establishes generally accepted accounting principles is a private entity that is explicitly not part of the Congressional appropriations process under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Indeed, that Act specifically states that FASB revenues are not to be considered ``public monies.''

Unfortunately, the Office of Management and Budget's sequestration order would require the private fee income on which FASB relies for its operations to be subject to the sequester. This is despite Congress' explicit intent in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to keep FASB independent.

More fundamentally, sequestration of these monies makes no sense. FASB's funding does not come from the federal government and is instead collected from accounting support fees allocated among public issuers. As a result, sequestration of FASB funding has no effect on reducing the federal deficit. It does, however, undermine FASB's independence and important role in setting accounting standards for U.S. public issuers.

Other entities similar to FASB are also being sequestered despite Congress' clear intent to keep them separate from the federal

budget process. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation are all entities subject to the sequester notwithstanding the fact that they collect fee income independent of the federal budget process.

Subjecting these entities to sequestration would seriously undermine the intent of Congress to keep them apart from the federal budget process as independent organizations. As we consider the effect of sequestration in the coming days and weeks, I urge my colleagues to support a legislative remedy that would ensure that entities like FASB are not subject to sequestration.

Mr. Speaker, on Sunday, January 20, we lost a cherished and dearly loved member of our community. Tracy Sugarman lit up the town of Westport, Connecticut, for 60 years with his ceaseless generosity, well-known sense of humor, and passion for social justice.

Mr. Sugarman served as a naval officer in World War II, leading troops up Normandy during the historic D-Day assault. His courage and fortitude in battle are emblematic of the heroism of the ``Greatest Generation.''

As an acclaimed illustrator and chronicler of the Civil Rights Movement, Mr. Sugarman bore witness to the many struggles faced by African Americans living in the Deep South. Mr. Sugarman's drawings helped bring to national attention the horrors of 1960's Mississippi, where black Americans faced threats of violence and death for registering to vote or attending a desegregated school.

Mr. Sugarman's sketches of major news events appeared in hundreds of magazines, books, and other media across the country. He brought his skilled and emotional work to the Saturday Evening Post, Forbes Magazine, Louis Armstrong record covers, and hundreds of children's books.

Mr. Sugarman's artwork is, by all counts, his greatest legacy: his drawings of the Civil Rights Movement are permanent archives in Mississippi and New York City. His painting, ``The Heroes of Nine- Eleven,'' is on permanent display in Washington, DC. His painting of the Space Shuttle Columbia is part of NASA's archives at Cape Kennedy. And his collection of art from World War II is in use by the Library of Congress' Veterans History Project.

Mr. Sugarman also wrote a number of books, many relating to his experiences in the South. ``Stranger at the Gate--A Summer in Mississippi'' details the Freedom Summer of 1964, during which more than 1,000 volunteers flooded rural Mississippi to register voters; ``We Had Sneakers, They Had Guns: the Kids Who Fought for Civil Rights in Mississippi'' recounts the civil rights work of white college students, many of whom were arrested and beaten.

Whether it was in writing or on canvas, Mr. Sugarman brought to his work artful introspection, keen awareness, and brutal honesty. His strong dedication to his fellow man--and particularly to his community here in Connecticut--will be sorely missed.

Mr. Speaker, it is with heavy heart that I rise today to pay tribute to a good friend and outstanding community leader, John Hammerslough.

His passing marks the end of an era in Weston, Connecticut and the loss of a dear friend to many across Connecticut.

John was a fixture in Weston's civic community for half a century, died on January 2 after a brief illness. He was 84 years old and had lived in Weston with his wife Nancy since 1959.

John understood the importance of serving the public and at one point or another he was a member of Weston's Board of Selectmen, the Board of Finance, the Police Commission, among other roles, and was active in local, state and national political campaigns. Along with his wife, he was named ``Democrat of the Year'' in 2009 by the Democratic Town Committee, and the town of Weston proclaimed May 11, 2009, as ``John and Nancy Hammerslough Day.''

John Hammerslough was a pioneer in the emerging field of computer- driven analysis of financial securities. His role as director of computer research at Shields & Co. was unusual enough at the time that The New York Times profiled him and ``his electronic computer'' in June 1967. The computer, the article noted, ``is no bigger than an office desk.''

John Hammerslough was born in New York City in 1928, the son of Charles R. Hammerslough, a clothier and sometime theatrical producer, and the former Sylvia Rittenberg. He attended the Bronx School of Science and the Taft School, and graduated from Brown University.

After college, he entered the army and served in the Korean War, first as an infantryman and later as a public information officer. The experience spurred him in later years to speak out against American involvement in Vietnam and, more recently, against the invasion of Iraq.

Although Mr. Hammerslough was involved in the financial securities business for nearly half a century, he did not immediately go to work on Wall Street as a young man. Rather, his experience as a writer and audio producer for the army during the Korean War led him to join CBS as part of its fledgling television news operation.

After a stint in the news business, he returned to school to do post- graduate work in mathematics at New York University, which led him to Wall Street, where his specialty was the use of computer analysis for valuing securities. His group at Shields & Co. operated the first computer at a Wall Street firm dedicated solely to investment research. He continued to focus on computer-assisted financial research through the 1970s.

Of his work, Mr. Hammerslough told the New York Times in 1967: ``The computer is suggestive rather than dictatorial. It's loaded with technique, but it has no judgment. The machine, therefore, represents an extension of our intelligence.''

Since the early 1980s, Mr. Hammerslough worked as a financial expert in litigation support, providing advice and testimony in more than 1,000 matters involving securities and alleged violations of securities law.

A devoted Westonite, he was a familiar figure not only at Town Hall but also at the town center, where he could be seen most mornings drinking coffee with friends and talking politics and sports, at holiday parades and celebrations, where he sold ice cream and handed out buttons for the Democratic Party, and along the roads near his home, where he enjoyed walking his beloved dog.

I join all of his friends and colleagues in extending my deepest sympathies to John's wife Nancy, his son, Charles, daughter, Jane, and four grandchildren Phin, Alex, Zach and Shira.

I remember two things of that horrible night that Sandy hit my community in Fairfield County, Connecticut. Of course, I remember the devastation and the damage that we have so detailed this morning in this Chamber. But I remember something else: the response of the people who stood up and said, I will help. The firefighters of Old Greenwich, the Red Cross in Bridgeport, the churches that opened to serve soup and to keep people warm, schools that were opened to address the fact that people didn't have homes.

Mr. Speaker, let me tell you about Lieutenant Russ Neary of the Easton Fire Department, who left his wife and two daughters behind that night to go serve the people of Easton. I attended his funeral several days later because he was killed that night doing what is best about all of us, which is that we stand up and we say we will help in times of crisis.

Every charitable instinct, every dignified thing, everything that is noble about what those people did that night is denied by the decision of the Republican leadership to not bring up Sandy today and to leave desperate and vulnerable people hanging.

Mr. Speaker, reverse your decision now, and let's do the right thing by our people.

Madam Speaker, I joined my colleagues in the Connecticut delegation in Newtown last Sunday night. We will never forget that vigil--the despondency, the anger, the hopelessness. But over time, that emotion turns into the imperative that we act as public officials to make sure that this never happens again.

We have so much to do in a Nation awash in guns, and not just guns, but guns that are designed for the explicit purpose to do nothing but to kill lots of people quickly, in a Nation that celebrates violence as a solution and as entertainment, in a Nation that does not do enough to address the needs of its mentally disturbed.

One thing we should do right away, though, is put to rest forever the pernicious fantasy that more people carrying arms will make us safer. That's not backed by fact. It's not backed by data. It's not backed by history. It is a testosterone-laden fantasy. A gun in the home is 22 times more likely to be used in a suicide or a murder or violent assault than it is likely to be used in self-defense.

The RAND Corporation studies show that police officers trained in a situation of an exchange of gunfire hit their intended target less than two in 10 times--trained police officers. Ladies and gentlemen, more guns do not make for a safer America.

I'd like to begin by thanking my friend and colleague from Connecticut, Congressman Murphy, not just for introducing this legislation, but for his strength of spirit as he has comforted some people who have lived through something that none of us would ever want to live through.

As Congressman Murphy noted, Noah Pozner, a 6-year-old boy, was buried today, as was Jack Pinto, another 6-year-old boy. I looked at the photographs of the parents at those funerals and tried to imagine the bottomless grief, the anger, the questions they must have. Of course, that's impossible. At the very front of those questions is the question of, ``Why?'' That is something that we'll all struggle with individually, reverting probably only imperfectly onto the tenets of our faith as we consider how this supposedly benevolent God could allow this sort of slaughter of innocents to happen. We won't answer that question.

Last night, with the President and my family, by which I mean my colleagues from Connecticut, as we listened to the President and listened to the sighs and the gasps of the families in the community of Newtown, it's clear there's no answer to that question of ``Why?'' A line of poetry kept running through my head. Thomas Hardy, in one of his poems, asked:

How arrives it joy lies slain, And why unblooms the best

hope ever sown?

We won't answer that question, but that question and its unanswerability will transform itself into a burden that we all will and must bear. By ``we all,'' I mean every citizen of this country, but particularly those of us who are entrusted by our constituents with one thing, which is to make sure that this does not happen again. And I don't think there's any risk at all that we can't do that.

In a country awash in guns--and not just guns for the hunter or the person who wishes to protect him- or herself, but guns that were designed with the explicit purpose of killing as many people as rapidly as possible; not in a country that has raised violence to a secular religion, to a pastime, to a hobby, to a solution to our problems; and not in a country that seems to have forgotten that it's not just our close families, it's not just the small Connecticut delegation that is a family, but that we are a national family and that we have obligations of responsibility one to each other--there's a clear answer to that ancient biblical question, ``Am I my brother's keeper?'' And that answer is, ``Yes.''

So I don't think there's any risk that we can't act, but I think that there is a profound risk that, just as after Aurora, just as after Oregon, just as after Columbine, we won't act. And that's not good enough.

I'll tell you how I'm going to challenge myself. I'm going to imagine Noah and Jack, 6-year-olds who nobody really knew. I didn't know them. Their parents didn't really know them--didn't know where they'd go to college, what they'd grow up to be, who they'd take to a prom. I'm going to imagine them standing right here--and that's not hard for me, with a 10-year-old and a 13-year-old at home--looking up and asking, ``Will you do it?''

Mr. Speaker, you can't walk two steps in this Capitol without getting into a discussion these days about the fiscal cliff. The fiscal cliff is comprised of a lot of very serious issues, but it is a metaphor. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of my constituents and hundreds of thousands of people in the States of Connecticut, New Jersey and New York are suffering as a result of a natural disaster which was anything but a metaphor. Hurricane Sandy devastated communities across those three States.

Traditionally, when our constituents were homeless, when they were hungry, when they were standing amidst the wreckage of their homes, they looked to this body for help and this body always said, yes, we will help. As we speak, there is a bill in the Senate that would provide that assistance to so many distressed constituents, Republican and Democrat, rural and urban. When that bill gets to this House, I urge my colleagues to remember that whether it was Hurricane Katrina or Andrew or the earthquakes of the west coast, we have always set aside considerations of the budget, or offsets, or whatnot, to do the decent and moral thing and help our constituents.

Let's do it again.

Mr. Speaker, recently I was asked by a resident of Connecticut's Fourth Congressional District to enter into the Record a letter from Ambassador Joseph Verner Reed to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on the occasion of her Jubilee.

Greenwich, CT,

June 12, 2012.

Your Majesty, Congratulations on Your Diamond Jubilee!

I put pen to paper to send You these few lines. We watched

every frame of the Jubilee--every `moving part' was superb.

You looked so elegant as did Prince Philip. And, The `Young'

have won the hearts of millions!

I salute You for the magnificent job You have done and

accomplished over the many decades of Your Reign. Your wisdom

is these changing times is admirable,

Both Mrs. Reed and I have the most wonderful memories of

Your State Visit to the US of A (May, 1991) when I served a

Chief of Protocol of The White House. We were thrilled to be

Your traveling hosts to Florida and Texas. Your Team was `the

best' led by Lord Airlie.

It was yours truly who was responsible for the `protocol

gaffe' of `The Talking Hat' at the Welcome Ceremony on the

South Lawn.

Wherever I go on Mission for the United Nations to the

nations of the Commonwealth I can start up a warm

conversation with the history of ``The Talking Hat'.

You said it all when You kindly asked me to join You on the

Britannia in Cyprus during a Commonwealth meeting--When I

arrived You pointed at me and said' ``You should have `The

Talking Hat' on your tombstone''!

We hope and pray that the Duke of Edinburgh regains full

health,

With respect, admiration and every good wish.

Long May You Reign!

Joseph Verner Reed.

Madam Speaker, I rise this morning not to advocate a Democratic position nor to refute a Republican idea. Instead, I rise to highlight a fundamental threat to our ability to have that important debate. I refer, of course, to the hundreds of millions--indeed, billions--of dollars that will influence who comprises this otherwise democratic body, which may very well determine who occupies the Presidency next.

In each of our hearts, those of us in this Chamber called to represent people know that that cannot possibly be right. That is why I will cosponsor two possible constitutional amendments to reverse the damage of Citizens United--H.J. Res. 111 and H.J. Res. 78.

This should not be partisan. Today, it looks like the dollars are behind the Republicans; but tomorrow, that may be different. So let's join, let's stand together for our democracy and back a constitutional amendment to make our democracy about people, not about dollars.

Madam Speaker, I live in the Village of Cos Cob, Connecticut, where years ago a major bridge spanning the Mianus Harbor on Route 95 fell into the Mianus Harbor, killing a number of people, devastating the quality of life in the area, and hurting businesses up and down the coastline.

It fell into Mianus Harbor because we failed to invest in our transportation infrastructure. We failed to do something that we all understand is critical to our economy and just plain good sense.

On June 30, thousands of projects--like keeping the Mianus Harbor Bridge intact--will come to a halt because this House will not approve a reauthorization of the transportation bill. That's bad economics. It's bad for jobs, and it's bad for safety.

What do we do? Seventy-four Senators, lots of Republicans, and lots of Democrats, passed a 2-year bill that would keep the funding going and preserve or save or create 2 million jobs. But not in this House. No. In this House we've got to get the President to approve Keystone. We should do that, but let's do it separately and invest in jobs and our infrastructure.

Madam Speaker, today, this House takes up the cynically named Domestic Energy and Jobs Act, which is the latest Republican installment in their mad dash to allow polluters to dump garbage and poison into our air and water.

If I had more time I would point out that this bill would gut the Clean Air Act, which was signed into law in the early 1970s by a Republican President before that party abandoned the value that we should be stewards of our environment. I would talk about my daughter, who suffers from asthma. That asthma, and the asthma of millions of other young people, will get worse if this bill becomes law.

I would point out that the idea that this is about jobs is baloney. And I would cite the Bureau of Labor Statistics studies in 2010 that said that one-third of 1 percent of jobs and layoffs were because of government regulation.

Instead, I have a question. What happened to personal responsibility? What happened to the idea that we clean up our own mess?

Madam Speaker, why are we asking the entire American public to pay the cost of polluting our air and water? That, I don't understand.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to note that this week U.S. Navy Technician Joseph William Aubin, a young man of Bridgeport, Connecticut, had his name added to the Vietnam Memorial Wall just down the way here 46 years after he died on a flight from the Philippines to Vietnam. This was a solemn and happy occasion as we recognized one in a long line of millions of men and women who have sacrificed for us and for our country.

But there's a lesson in this event. There will come a moment, undoubtedly, when the young men and women that are returning from Afghanistan and Iraq seem as lost in the midst of time as Joseph William Aubin does today. So this is really about us, and it's always been about us.

It's about them working for our safety, our liberty, and our values. And it is about us to make sure that we, as people, don't succumb to the fact that we drift, that memory fades, and that urgency is unsharpened. It is about us to make sure that 20 years from now we remember Joseph William Aubin and those like him who sacrificed.

Mr. Speaker, like so many of us, I am back from 10 days in my district and the constant question of: Why can't Congress come together to get some things done?

I was thinking about that because the Republican majority says we passed the Violence Against Women Act. We passed an extension of the lower student interest rate bill. But when you look at those bills, you really have to scratch your head. The Violence Against Women Act that they passed was opposed by not dozens but by hundreds of women's organizations. Let me say that again: the Violence Against Women Act was opposed by women's organizations from one coast to the other.

I say all of this not to strike partisan points, but because on July 1, student loan interest rates double, putting $1,000 of additional cost on each and every student in this country. The Republicans said let's pay for that by removing preventive health care. To my mind, health care and education are what create jobs. It is time for this institution to act intelligently and help the true job creators in this country.

Mr. Speaker, I have watched saddened as this House led by the Republican majority has fought to gut those things that made and that will make this country great.

I'm reading a history of the U.S. House of Representatives right now, and early in that history, this body--when this Nation was barely yet born--pulled together the resources to build the Erie Canal, coming together to do great things that benefited the Nation. The list of those things goes on and on: the Louisiana Purchase, public education, land grant colleges, the GI Bill. I could go on for a very long time.

Today, the Republican majority says to transportation and infrastructure, which are key to our businesses, they say kill it; to medical research, kill it; to education, kill it. Mr. Speaker, that instinct is utterly inconsistent with who we have always been as a country and why we are great and powerful and ultimately economically prosperous. It

is not stewardship. It is not governance. It is barbarism.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on Workers' Memorial Day because 25 years ago in Bridgeport, Connecticut at L'Ambience Plaza, 28 construction workers lost their lives building a building using the controversial lift-slab construction technique, which even at the time was subject to controversy and is now subject to very significant regulation. This sad accident could easily have been avoided, but because the proper safety regulations were not in place, 28 men did not go home that day. When I attended a ceremony earlier this week to commemorate L'Ambience, I met with some of the families. The men were husbands, fathers, brothers, and neighbors.

Day in and day in out in this Chamber we hear about job-killing regulations from the other side. And yes, we must make sure that our regulations are finally balanced, but it has become religious in this Chamber that all regulations, whether they are there to preserve the lives of construction workers or to keep children from dying of asthma, are ``job-killing regulations.'' If this stays this ideological and this religious, we will see more killing of the real kind.