Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, after more than 32 years of dedicated service to the Department of the Navy's Office of General Counsel, Katharine Carney has decided to retire on April 1, 2013. Ms. Carney began her federal service in March 1981, as an Attorney-Advisor at the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Headquarters. Her duties included representing the Command's position on contract matters to Naval authorities, other Federal agencies, and the construction industry; drafting contract clauses and contracting officer final decisions; and advising on legal matters involving the Buy American statute, termination; for default, claims, protests, and source selection procedures.

From January 1984 to July 1987, Ms. Carney was the primary legal advisor on the London staff for the Commander in Chief, U.S. Naval Forces, Europe and other commands in the U.K. and Europe, advising on contracts, international agreements, real estate, ethics, fiscal and labor law. She was an attorney in the Naval Sea Systems Command shipbuilding section until May 1991, where she advised on contract and fiscal law matters from pre-award to contract close-out. She then became the Marine Corps Systems Command Deputy Counsel, supervising three other attorneys and two support staff, and serving as counsel to the Direct Reporting Program Manager for the Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle Program. In these roles, she advised on procurement, ethics, civilian personnel, Freedom of Information Act, and fiscal law matters.

In May 1993, Ms. Carney began her current position as an Associate Counsel in the Office of the Assistant General Counsel for Research, Development, and Acquisition (OAGC(RD&A)). As part of the Navy Senior Acquisition Executive's legal staff, she advises on procurement, ethics, and fiscal law matters. For her nearly twenty years at OAGC(RD&A), she has been the primary legal advisor on all Navy shipbuilding programs. Her duties have also included drafting Navy Secretariat policy and guidance to implement statutes; reviewing legislative proposals; and representing the Navy's legal position before governmental entities such as GAO, the Maritime Administration, the Office of Government Ethics, and Congress. Ms. Carney is a subject matter expert on Government ethics and standards of conduct laws, and serves as the Program Manager of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (RD&A) ethics program.

Ms. Carney has provided noteworthy service throughout her tenure. She has been firmly committed to a strong ethics program and ethical culture, serving for over two years with distinction as the OAGC(RD&A) representative on the Secretariat Executive Steering Group, implementing one of the Secretary of the Navy's Strategic Objectives. She has consistently placed an emphasis on cooperative efforts within the Navy and Federal agencies, leading to more efficient and consistent operations. Ms. Carney's exceptional cooperation and teamwork skills are not confined to her Federal colleagues--she has also established

effective working relationships throughout industry while working on highly complex, contentious legal issues. On many occasions, she used her relationships with industry counsel to resolve or even avoid sensitive ethics issues. Ms. Carney is widely known for her expertise on matters concerning the release of information to Congress, GAO, the Congressional Budget Office, and the Congressional Research Service. She has been instrumental in developing enhanced DON policy on communications with industry, an area where acquisition and ethics issues overlap.

Katharine has been a friend and mentor to both military and civilian personnel throughout her career. I thank her for her service to Navy OGC and our nation. I urge my colleagues to salute her for a job well done and wish her a happy and healthy retirement.

I thank the very distinguished gentlelady from California.

Thank you for heroically sharing with us the horrific experience that you went through in your very early adulthood. That, understandably, continues to shape your view of gun violence. Hopefully, others will share that view without having to go through such a horrific experience, but thank you particularly for putting a face on the tragedy at Newtown and on the gun violence that we have experienced all too often in this country.

I do think that the tragedy of 20 tiny, little children being blown to bits has changed the conversation and has changed the attitude of the American people, as evidenced by the 92 percent who understand that universal background checks are appropriate. In fact, more than three- quarters of NRA members believe that to be the case, despite what Mr. LaPierre's official position is. It would seem that, perhaps, he is more interested in representing the gun manufacturers than the members of the association.

I also learned today, as many of us did, that the chair of our Judiciary Committee, out of concern for the inconvenience that it may cause gun purchasers, has decided that the Judiciary Committee is not going to be considering universal background checks.

I yield to the gentlelady from California.

I thank the gentlelady.

I believe that California's laws are far more sane than the laws of many other States, particularly the laws of my own State of Virginia.

The situation we have today is that over 40 percent--almost half--of the guns purchased in this country don't have to go through a background check; 6.6 million firearm sales occurred at gun shows and through private arrangements that didn't have to go through a background check. That's not even fair to the retail sellers, who have to require the background check and comply with the law.

It's almost as though you have two security lines at an airport--one in which you're going to have to stand and have the machine go around and check for metal and so on and then another line that you can just walk through without being checked. So which line would criminals choose?

It just doesn't seem to make sense.

This is a democracy. It would seem that we have some responsibility, regardless of our own views, to be responsive to the overwhelming opinion of the American people.

I'd like to share with my dear friend and colleague another interesting fact, and that is that auto deaths fell to 32,000 and that deaths from firearms, including suicides and accidents, are over 30,000. So they are roughly the same. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that by 2015 there will be significantly more deaths from firearms than deaths from motor vehicles. It has already occurred in Virginia. We had 875 reported firearm deaths in the last year compared to 728 motor vehicle deaths.

Now, with regard to motor vehicles, we have acted proactively in the form of seatbelt laws; we have improved safety standards for the manufacturers of the vehicles that are made in this country and for the vehicles that are sold in this country; we have harsher penalties for drunk driving, as well as having mandatory driver training classes. They've worked, and they've saved lives.

Why can't we do it with firearms? It seems wholly consistent with the appropriate way, the way that the American people want us to respond to a problem, and this is more than a problem. This is an extraordinary situation that demands action by this body.

So I would hope that regardless of the views of the chair of the Judiciary Committee, even of many of the Members, some of whom have an A rating from the NRA, that we would be responsive to the overwhelming majority of the American people, and even NRA members, and act responsibly.

In Virginia, we are one of the three States that are the principal source for trafficking of guns. Florida and Georgia are the other two. People go in oftentimes with straw purchasers, and they buy large quantities of guns. They put them in the trunk of their car and drive to a street corner in an urban area, and they sell them. And invariably they end up in criminal activity, oftentimes causing the deaths of people, many innocent people such as you observed earlier, Ms. Speier.

I want to thank the Congresswoman. She is a leader on this fight. It is a terribly important battle. We can't let it go. Time is not on our side. Time is on the side of the NRA. That's why invariably they have prevailed previously. We can't let that happen today. We can't let that happen now. The American people deserve more, and certainly the families of those very young victims at Newtown, Connecticut, deserve action on our part. I thank the gentlelady from California. You're a wonderful leader. Thank you for your courage and your leadership.

I thank my good friend from Colorado.

In 1729, an Irish satirist by the name of Jonathan Swift proposed a novel solution to child hunger and general poverty in Ireland. He recommended that Ireland's poor pull themselves up by their own bootstraps by selling their children as food to the rich. That would nourish the rich, earn the poor parents some much-needed cash, and solve the child hunger problem all at once. Some people took him seriously. Most realized the point that he was trying to make.

Today, the House majority has a somewhat similar kind of modest proposal, without Mr. Swift's sense of humor or irony. To ensure that our elderly are cared for, let's cut the pay of those responsible for their health. To make sure our food and drugs are safe, let's diminish the benefits of those whose job it is to screen for safety and unintended effects. To find a cure for cancer, let's punish the researcher who works daily to save millions of Americans from that disease. To care for our wounded veterans who are sent by this body to fight in foreign lands, let's make their caretakers find a second job.

Madam Speaker, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle may justify their vote today by boasting of freezing their own pay, but that was already accomplished in the fiscal cliff legislation. The bill before us today will freeze, for the third year in a row, every Federal employee's pay. It's an effort to denigrate our Federal workforce in the hope that the government becomes unresponsive, inefficient, and unworthy of our best and brightest. That's why I urge a strong ``no'' vote on H.R. 273. Enough is enough.

The AARP, the American Medical Association, the Episcopal Church, the Catholic Conference, the Conference of Mayors, Bob Barker, Oprah Winfrey, Tony Bennett, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Sara Lee Corporation, and hundreds of other individuals and organizations all have something in common: they're all targeted on NRA's Web site as holding anti-gun positions.

And what does the NRA consider to be anti-gun? For one, they say that the listed individuals and groups are opposed to the ``repeal of the Brady Act.'' It's not that they support expanding background checks to include all gun sales, which would seem to be reasonable; it's that they're opposed to the repeal of the current Brady Act which would end all background checks.

With over 30,000 Americans killed every year by guns, it seems that this is the time for swift and focused action to mitigate our Nation's gun violence epidemic. It's not time to be drawing up an enemies list of those who support reasonable gun safety measures. I'd suggest to some of my colleagues in the House: with enemies like these, perhaps it's time to rethink who your friends are.

It's nice to welcome the new ranking member of the full Appropriations Committee, Mrs. Lowey who, as good fortune would have it, also hails from New York and fully understands what's involved here.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That's what all the Members of this body should have in their minds today themselves. If they were in the situation of the States that were so severely impacted by Hurricane Sandy, how would they vote?

The fact is that natural disasters are occurring with more frequency and with greater severity, so there is a very good chance that in nearly every congressional district in this country this may happen to you, and of course, when it does, property values will go way down. In fact, billions of dollars can be lost. They certainly were with Hurricane Sandy. So where does the municipality get the money to repair? Likewise with the State. The only place you can turn to is the Federal Government. That's why we are here. E pluribus unum. We're in this together.

This is not about the Northeast versus the rest of the country. One part of our body, if you will, our body of States, has been severely injured. We need to repair that damage. Now, within the Interior and Environment appropriations, there is money for safe drinking water and sewer treatment projects, things that have to be done. We have to provide that money. I think we have about $1.5 billion to do that. We should accept the Rogers-Frelinghuysen amendment. This bill is whole with that amendment. We should strongly support it. There is an amendment to take away Mr. Frelinghuysen's effort to allow a waiver on historic preservation. Well, yes, it should be done. These localities don't have that kind of money, and a lot of the revenue that has traditionally come into these economies has come from tourism. Many tourists come to see historic structures. They come to see the way that many parts of the Northeast were when we were building the foundation of this country. That money should be made available in whole with Federal dollars. Mr. Frelinghuysen's amendment is right on point. It needs to be included.

I do have a good speech written by Rick Healy. Thank you, Mr. Healy. We've got wonderful staff. But unfortunately I don't have any further time.

My colleagues, this is an opportunity to show what we are all about. Do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let's make this money available. Let the Northeast repair itself, heal itself, get their economy back on its feet, and start returning revenue to the Federal Government. The fact is that these Northeast States contribute more to the Federal Treasury than they get out of the Federal Treasury. So let's get this done in the national interest.

I want to recognize Chairman Rogers' leadership, the very good work that Mr. Frelinghuysen from New Jersey has done and, of course, the work of Mrs. Lowey.

This is a good bill. It's urgent that we pass it. Let's get this done. These negative amendments that try to take away money to make ideological points simply are out of order right now. Let's heal this wound. Let's let this economy in the Northeast get back on its feet, and we'll all be better off as a Nation.

I thank the very distinguished gentleman from New Jersey for his leadership overall on this bill, but particularly for thinking to waive the non-Federal match, and I'll explain why.

I'm sure the gentleman from Michigan's effort is well-intentioned, but many of the buildings damaged by Hurricane Sandy were historic structures, and their repair will be very expensive.

Now, your amendment would make it cost prohibitive, Mr. Benishek, to repair or rebuild these historic structures. The Interior Department has told us that if the Benishek amendment passes, the historic preservation funds will be almost impossible to spend in the 2-year timeframe.

The regular historic preservation matching requirement is 60 Federal/ 40 non-Federal. If there is a 60/40 match requirement for the States affected by Hurricane Sandy, the State Preservation Offices will not be able to meet the matching requirement.

These offices are already struggling financially, and have challenges meeting the match under normal circumstances. If they got the money without the waiver, the $50 million that we provide in this bill would sit in an administrative morass while we tried and then likely failed to spend it. So we would be funding nothing but Federal overhead for 2 years.

The language in the Frelinghuysen amendment, like the Senate bill, limits Historic Preservation Grant funding to those 10 States that received the Stafford Act Major Disaster declaration.

The density of historic structures in Sandy-impacted States is far higher and the damage far greater than any storm in recent memory. In New York State alone there were 51,587 structures on the National Historic Register that received a direct hit from Hurricane Sandy. These are structures of national significance. Likewise, in New Jersey and Connecticut.

These structures include such well-known sites as the South Street Seaport Museum and the Coney Island Historic District, as well as thousands of other structures, which while perhaps not being as well- known, are no less important.

So the fact is that many private homeowners, businesses, and communities, they take pride in their historic

structures. These historic structures bring tourists to their communities. They help generate economic revenue. We should not penalize them as they try to recover from this disaster by making them sacrifice the historic character of their homes, their businesses, and communities.

So I support Mr. Frelinghuysen's provision of waivers in his amendment for this special category of grants, and I ask my colleagues to vote against the Benishek amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim time in opposition to this amendment.

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

I oppose the Bishop amendment which, as he says, prohibits the Secretary of the Interior or the Secretary of Agriculture from using funds made available under this act from any land acquisition.

There is no attempt by the Secretary of the Interior or the Secretary of Agriculture to use the funds made available under the bill for any kind of Federal land grab. However, there are instances when land acquisition can be part of a cost-effective solution to repairing the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy. For example, we have Interior and Agriculture facilities in low-lying areas that were destroyed by the hurricane. If either Department wants to move any of those facilities to higher ground to protect them from future hurricanes and that higher ground is not owned by the Federal Government, then the Bishop amendment prohibits the Secretaries from buying that land. So we go through the whole thing all over again. They make an assessment. If they realize that this building isn't going to withstand another hurricane, they should be able to move it to land where it's more appropriate; but you couldn't do it if you have the Bishop amendment.

We also had tidal wetlands that were destroyed that included private lands. Under the Bishop amendment, these private lands could not be acquired as part of a comprehensive effort to restore these wetlands to their natural condition. The private landowners need us to do that. They can't restore them, but the wetlands need to be restored. So this simply gives the two Departments the ability to act in a rational manner to restore the shoreline.

The Bishop amendment is a solution in search of a problem. So I would urge

my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I know Mr. Bishop has been involved in the legislative process long enough to know that process and regular order can be one of the most facile ways of preventing anything from getting done. I will not challenge him now to tell us how many things have been held up that thought they could get through regular order in a reasonable period of time.

We have an emergency here. This is urgent, to repair these seashores. The fact is that the National Parks and the National Seashores and the National Wildlife Refuges are great assets to our communities. Not only do they attract tourism; they increase property values, and they enhance our quality of life.

And now it's clear that public lands and natural systems that they protect buffered built up areas from the impact of storms. They play a very important role, so we need to restore them; and restoration of these public resources will require a specific targeted strategy.

A prohibition on land acquisition may very well frustrate the ability to bring back the public value of existing park and refuge lands and to meet other community needs. Where new access points are needed, which is often-times going to be the case, where small purchases are the best or only means to reestablish the lost value of damaged habitat, this amendment would preclude the purchase of even a single acre that would be needed to reestablish public use and resource integrity.

This ties the hands of the professionals who know best how to restore the seashore. This is not a Federal land grant, but they need the tools to be able to make small purchases. We're not talking about a lot of money; we're not talking about a lot of land.

There will be times when you need to buy a small piece of privately owned land to get access to a seashore. There will be times when you need to move it to a more appropriate area. They're not going to be able to spend a lot of money. There isn't a lot of money to do that with.

The fact is that this, I think, is a deliberate effort to frustrate the ability of people who have a vision of what the seashore can be once we restore it to its natural habitat. It seems to me that should be a national objective, to let this area repair and heal. Taking away this tool is going to frustrate that objective.

I would strongly urge a ``no'' vote on the Bishop amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, the deal that Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell was able to get his colleagues to pass last night is a bad deal for America and a worse deal for our children's future. It's the largest increase in public debt that this body will have ever passed-- more than $5 trillion from today's current law.

Our deficit this year alone is likely to be about $1.3 trillion. This would reduce it down to $1.24 trillion with $60 billion of new revenues that it gains. Most importantly, it sets up three more fiscal cliffs over the next 3 months when appropriations spending expires on March 27, when the debt ceiling has to be increased at the end of February, and when the sequester has to be dealt with at the very same time.

So all we've done is to stumble forward into an even less predictable situation with far fewer resources to invest in our Nation and our children's future.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my very good friend who has been tireless in representing not just the interests of his constituency but of this great country.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, and it may seem petty, but if it were done by the other side, it would be a big deal. This bill was dropped at about 20 past 12 today and then it was brought up. Now, in less than an hour, we drop a bill and we bring it to the floor? That's not the way to do business. The caucuses are involved in other things. The whole Democratic Caucus is talking to the Vice President, and here we are about to do something of real consequence, not just for Federal employees and the Members of Congress, but for the country.

First of all, as my very good friends, Mr. Lynch and Mr. Connolly, have pointed out, Federal employees have contributed now over $100 billion toward deficit reduction. They have had their pay frozen for 2 years. This will be a third year. New hires are going to have to contribute four times as much into their pension as they would have to today. So they're really being made a scapegoat. And we're doing this at a time when we're trying to compete in a global economy.

Now, what happens is we send a message to Federal employees that if you can get out, get out. We don't really appreciate what you're doing for the public sector. Get into the private sector. Most of you can make two or three times what you're making in the public sector. So this is a good time to go, because otherwise your family is going to have to suffer and you're not going to be able to achieve the kind of quality of life that your talents, experience, and skills would merit, and we're going to continue doing this to you individually and collectively.

That's not the way to run a government. We pass all these laws, we pass appropriation bills, and then it's the executive branch's responsibility to carry them out. How do we think we can pass these laws and then expect people to carry these laws out with efficiency and effectiveness when we take $100 billion out of their compensation? What kind of a message does that send to the people who serve us directly and all of the American people's interests in terms of their ultimate mission? It sends all the wrong message.

Now, I know people don't care much about the procedural issue, but, boy, what a precedent to set.

Yes, I yield to the gentleman.

I trust the gentleman will yield me the 30 seconds that he took to explain that.

I thank the chairman.

The point is: you drop it on New Year's Eve. I'm not sure if that isn't a distinction without a difference, really. There's been no time to review this. Nobody's focused on this.

I would hope the gentleman who chairs Oversight and Government Reform would recognize, as Mr. Connolly and Mr. Lynch have recognized, that there are some very serious risks in going forward with this. I don't think that the way to solve our deficit situation is to cut off our nose to spite our face, and that's really what we are doing here. This is not fair to the Federal workforce, it's not fair to the country, and it should not be passed today.

Mr. Speaker, tonight we will pass 83 provisions that remove Federal revenue, totaling $3.9 trillion, all of it deficit financed. Now, we will add $64 billion more this year to reducing the deficit. So if we have a $1.3 trillion annual deficit this year, it will bring it down to $1.24 trillion.

Now, many of us feel--certainly on this side--that the deficit doesn't matter, but it does matter because we have another deficit: a deficit in investment in the education of our children, an investment in the training and skills of

our workforce and the fiscal infrastructure of our country. We will have none of those resources to make that investment after we make this vote tonight.

The problem is we set up three more fiscal cliffs. We're going to have to deal with the debt ceiling, we're going to have to deal with the continuing resolution expiration, and we're going to have to deal with the sequester. All that's left is spending cuts.

So the only question we have to ask ourselves is, what programs do we cut and how deep do we cut them? We're going to look back on this night and regret it, notwithstanding the fact that 95 percent of us apparently will vote for it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today, first of all, to express my deepest condolences to the families and friends of those killed in last week's tragic elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

But this incomprehensible act of violence should compel us to address the larger context. It is a fact that over 10,000 Americans are murdered by gun violence each year. No other civilized nation on the planet experiences anything like this annual gun slaughter, but we have 5 percent of the population and own 50 percent of the world's guns.

Now, the needed reforms are not radical. Many, including closing the gun show loophole and requiring gun owners to report to police lost or stolen guns, are even supported by the vast majority of NRA members. It would be far too simplistic and self-serving, though, to lay the blame for this inaction on the most commonsense measures entirely at the feet of the NRA, which we're inclined to do because the truth is that we, as the representatives of the people, are the ones who are ultimately responsible for doing nothing to protect our constituents.

The fact is that if we don't take action now, we're all complicit in the next massacre of innocents.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) as the largest association dedicated to the training and development profession, recognizing them for their annual Employee Learning Week, held December 3rd through the 7th, 2012.

Members of ASTD come from more than 100 countries and connect locally in 120 U.S. chapters with 16 international partners. They work in thousands of organizations of all sizes, in government, as independent consultants, and as suppliers.

Established in 1943, ASTD is a leader in the training and development field. As businesses seek competitive advantages and growth, learning and development professionals make sure an organization's best asset, its employees, have the skills they need to help achieve business growth. ASTD serves this important community of professionals with research and resources.

To further these goals, ASTD has declared December 3rd through December 7th, 2012, as ``Employee Learning Week'' and designated time for organizations to recognize the strategic value of employee learning. I applaud ASTD and its members for their dedication to developing knowledgeable and skilled employees during Employee Learning Week.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting policies that commit to maintaining a highly skilled workforce.

Mr. Speaker, the consequences of jumping off this so- called ``fiscal cliff'' are serious but avoidable if the sacrifice is shared. My concern is that the domestic discretionary accounts don't seem to have a seat at the negotiating table. If you don't have a seat at the table, you're far more likely to be on the menu.

Domestic discretionary funding is already projected to fall to historically low levels at less than 3 percent of GDP. This is less than what existed during the Eisenhower administration when our population was much smaller and much younger. These are the programs that are the most critical to the future of our country. They fund our roads and rails and ports, they support the most important scientific research in health and technology and are necessary to educate, feed, and house our most vulnerable children and families. Yet they are the ones most likely to be targeted for budget savings. If we allow that to happen, we'll condemn 16 million children to living their lives on the margins of our economy rather than providing them with the means necessary to escape the cycle of poverty as adults.

A Nation such as ours cannot meet the challenges of the 21st century without making the necessary investments in our human and our physical infrastructure and in cutting-edge basic research in health and technology. We shouldn't further diminish our future in order to get ourselves through this artificially created budget crisis.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call attention to the Hudson River School of Painting. The Hudson River School is the first American art movement. Begun in the early 1800s, the movement comprised three themes of American life at the time--discovery, exploration, and settlement. The style originally focused on landscape paintings of the Hudson River Valley and surrounding areas, before expanding to the nearby Catskill, Adirondack, and White Mountain ranges, eventually including locales far outside this narrow slice of upstate New York.

One of the Hudson River School's leading painters, Sanford Robinson Gifford, served in the New York State National Guard's Seventh Regiment during the Civil War. Mustered into service in defense of the Union, the Seventh Regiment's stay while in Virginia inspired Gifford to paint several scenes of the enlisted life. One of these paintings, ``Bivouac of the Seventh Regiment, Arlington Heights, Virginia,'' captures a scene at the heart of Virginia's 8th Congressional District.

The legacy of the Hudson River School, however, is much greater than the paintings hanging on museum and gallery walls across the nation. These paintings, depicting historical landscapes across our country, captured the hearts of the American people. The majestic landscapes, seen by millions of Americans, fueled an interest in the conservation movement as the public demanded that many of the sites depicted by the Hudson River School be preserved for future generations. This conservation movement quickly led to the establishment of the first national park in 1872, giving rise to the creation of the National Park Service in 1916. Hundreds of millions of visitors travel, explore, and enjoy these parks every year.

Adding to the legacy of the Hudson River School is New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. This landmark cultural institution was established with the help of artists from the Hudson River School of Painting, including Mr. Gifford. In addition to donating time, funds, and some paintings, these Hudson River School artists served as trustees and committee members.

Mr. Speaker, the impact of the Hudson River School is much greater than simply beautiful paintings of the mountainous river valley in New York. Its legacy can be found in our National Park system, our commitment to conservation and in our museums and cultural institutions enjoyed and appreciated by Americans all over the country.

I thank my friend from Michigan. I thank him for his very genuine concern over the jobs and labor rights for American workers and for his support of this legislation.

Madam Speaker, today, countries all over the world are enjoying preferential treatment versus the United States with Russia. They have better intellect property protections; they have lower tariff barriers; they have other open-market concessions. And many of them are our allies, but all of them are our competitors.

Now, clearly, parts of Russia's economy is little better than a kleptocracy--with serious violations of human and political rights. Yet the

Jackson-Vanik bill is in place today. This would repeal it, which needs to be done, and it would impose the Magnitsky bill, which would support human rights and political rights in Russia. I should share with my colleagues that Charlie Vanik, after he retired, became a constituent of mine. He wrote a letter to me, saying that the time for the Jackson- Vanik bill has passed and that, in fact, in many areas it's counterproductive.

We are doing the right thing--the right thing for America's workers and the right thing for America's economy in supporting this legislation today.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to call my colleagues' attention to an eloquent op-ed article by First Lady Laura Bush, published in the Washington Post this week following the horrific attack by Taliban gunmen on a 14-year-old girl, Malala Yousafzai. Mrs. Bush writes: ``Malala inspires us because she had the courage to defy the totalitarian mind-set others would have imposed on her. . .[she] refused to look the other way. We owe it to her courage and sacrifice to do the same.''

We are all horrified by the news of the savage attack on Malala. Taliban gunmen hunted her down as she returned home from school in the Swat Valley town of Mingora, Pakistan. The Taliban attackers also wounded two other schoolgirls riding on the bus with her.

This was a tragedy that could easily have been foretold. Malala was perhaps the most famous 14-year-old girl in the world, and for

good reason. An activist since age 11, she had forcefully advocated for the cause of girls' education through a BBC blog, and she is a nominee for the International Childrens' Peace Prize. All she wanted to do was attend school like her brothers, in the hopes of becoming a doctor. But the Taliban announced their intention to kill her for her beliefs.

We can honor Malala by recommitting ourselves to invest in the development of girls all over the world. It is painfully ironic that, as Malala fights for her life this week, the world marks the first ever International Day of the Girl Child, designated by resolution of the United Nations General Assembly in 2011. Today, as we pray for Malala's survival and full recovery, our hopes must go beyond the Swat Valley and beyond the tribal totalitarianism of the Taliban.

The U.S. Agency for International Development points out that of the 850 million girls in the world, some 62 million do not attend school. This has devastating effects, not only on these girls and their families but on the generations that succeed them.

One in seven girls in the developing world marries before the age of 15. This leads to early pregnancy, and a host of risks to her life and health. But, with at least 7 years of basic education, young women tend to marry up to 4 years later, and they have 2.2 fewer children. USAID points out that with each extra year of basic education, a young woman earns 10 to 20 percent more in income. And women tend to spend a greater proportion of the finances under their control for the benefit of their family than men.

The Pakistani people value education, as we well know from our own admiration for the Pakistani Americans who so enrich our society. It is encouraging that the Pakistani people and government have rallied in support of Malala. The government has committed itself to bringing her attackers to justice, and spontaneous demonstrations of support for her and for the cause of basic education for girls have sprung up throughout the country.

Malala's hope was to become a doctor. But in the New York Times video posted this week after the attack, we learn from Malala's family that she was also thinking of becoming a politician, so that--in the words of her father Ziauddin Yousafzai--she could help create a society where a girl could easily achieve a doctoral degree, or any other academic goal.

That should be our focus as we work with the Pakistani people to create that society, and destroy the mind-set that says women and girls must remain subjected to domination by men.

[From the Washington Post, Oct. 11, 2012]

Why Malala Inspires Us

(By Laura Bush)

On Tuesday afternoon, Malala Yousafzai was a 14-year-old

girl riding home on a school bus. Now, after a masked gunman

apparently boarded her bus, asked for her by name and shot

her in the head and neck, she is fighting for her life.

Malala was targeted by the Pakistani Taliban because for the

past three years she has spoken out for the rights of all

girls to become educated. After this despicable shooting, a

Taliban spokesman said that his organization considers

Malala's crusade for education rights an ``obscenity'' and

accused her of ``propagating'' Western culture. If she

survives, the group promises to try again to kill her.

Eleven years ago, America awoke to the barbaric mind-set of

the Taliban. Its regime in Afghanistan was dedicated in part

to the brutal repression and abject subjugation of women.

Women were not allowed to work or attend school. Taliban

religious police patrolled the streets, beating women who

might venture out alone, who were not dressed ``properly'' or

who dared to laugh out loud. Women could not wear shoes that

made too much noise, and their fingernails were ripped out

for the ``crime'' of wearing nail polish.

Today, the Taliban has been pushed back, but it still

operates in parts of Afghanistan and in the northern and

western regions of Pakistan along the Afghan border. The city

where Malala was shot, Mingora, is in Pakistan's Swat

province, which has been on the front lines of the battle

against Taliban extremists. In 2007, the Taliban gained

control of Swat, only to be largely pushed out in the summer

of 2009 by a Pakistani military offensive. During its time in

power, the Taliban closed and destroyed girls' schools,

leaving behind little more than piles of rubble; enforced its

own interpretation of sharia law; and banned the playing of

music in cars.

At age 11, to protest what was happening in her homeland,

Malala began to write about her experiences, producing a blog

for the BBC's Urdu-language service. She described wearing

plain clothes, not uniforms, so that no one would know she

was attending school and wrote about how she and other girls

``hid our books under our shawls.'' Nonetheless, after the

Taliban forced the closure of her school, Malala had no

choice but to stay home and suspend her education. In another

blog entry, she wrote: ``Five more schools have been

destroyed, one of them was near my house. I am quite

surprised, because these schools were closed so why did they

also need to be destroyed?'' A few weeks later she wrote, ``I

am sad watching my uniform, school bag and geometry box'' and

``hurt'' because her brothers could go to school while she

could not.

Malala had dreamed of becoming a doctor, but recently she

became interested in politics and speaking out for the rights

of children. In 2011, Malala was a nominee for the

International Children's Peace Prize, which lauded her

bravery in standing up for girls' educational rights amid

rising fundamentalism at a time when few adults would do the

same. Last year, she was awarded Pakistan's first National

Youth Peace Prize. These are the accomplishments of the young

girl who so terrified the Taliban.

Condemnations of the attempt on Malala's life have been

swift and powerful. The U.S. government called it

``barbaric'' and ``cowardly.'' Pakistan's prime minister

said, ``Malala is like my daughter, and yours too. If that

mind-set prevails, then whose daughter would be safe?''And

the Pakistani army's chief general said that the Taliban has

``failed to grasp that she is not only an individual, but an

icon of courage.''

Speaking out after an atrocious act, however, isn't enough.

Malala inspires us because she had the courage to defy the

totalitarian mind-set others would have imposed on her. Her

life represents a brighter future for Pakistan and the

region. We must speak up before these acts occur, work to

ensure that they do not happen again, and keep our courage to

continue to resist the ongoing cruelty and barbarism of the

Taliban. Malala Yousafzai refused to look the other way, We

owe it to her courage and sacrifice to do the same.

Malala is the same age as another writer, a diarist, who

inspired many around the world. From her hiding place in

Amsterdam, Anne Frank wrote, ``How wonderful it is that

nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve

the world.'' Today, for Malala and the many girls like her,

we need not and cannot wait. We must improve their world.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the Coal Miner Employment and Domestic Energy Infrastructure Protection Act.

Here on the last days of the 112th Session of Congress, we are wasting time debating a bill, whose constituents parts have already been approved by this body.

We've already spent considerable House time debating all five titles of this bill.

And all five titles were rejected by the Senate and have received a veto threat from the President.

Over the past 19 months this body has cast more than 300 votes against the environment.

Just as repeating a falsehood doesn't make it true, passing a bill in the House twice in the same session won't make it a law.

When the history of this Congress is written, it will be known as the least productive Congress in a century, eclipsing even the infamous ``Do Nothing'' Congress that President Harry Truman confronted more than 50 years ago.

Rather than advance policies that would promote employment, help drought stricken farmers, even address the long-term solvency of Medicare, this House remains stuck on vilifying the Environmental Protection Agency and taking issue with its obligations under the law to protect the public's health.

This week's announcement by Alpha Natural Resources that it plans to lay-off miners and scale back coal production by 16 million tons annually may fuel the argument that EPA is somehow responsible, but even Kevin Crutchfield, the company's chief executive officer, acknowledged that the principle cause was ``the result a difficult market in which power plants are switching to abundant, less expensive natural gas.''

If natural gas is cheaper to burn than coal, then where is the legislation to ban its use?

How about a war on natural gas?

For decades the coal industry and utilities have been exempted from Clean Air Act regulations.

It took court orders for previous administrations' inactions and the current administration commitment to protecting the public's health that led to today's regulatory climate.

And, while hundreds of miners may lose their jobs because of cheaper natural gas and new Clean Air and Clean Water Act regulations, tens of thousands of Americans, this bill so callously disregards, will be saved from premature deaths, asthma attacks, emergency room visits and missed work and school days each year.

I will vote to protect the lives of thousands of Americans over the few hundred who might lose their jobs.

If the majority truly cares about the fate of these miners, then support a jobs bill that will allow them to rebuild America's infrastructure.

This bill is wrong.

It advances narrow, profit-based interests over the interests of everyday Americans.

It presumes that a cleaner, healthier air and water must be subservient to the interests of keeping this nation's dirtiest power plants and the most environmentally destructive mining techniques free from regulation.

My colleagues, it's a distorted set of priorities advanced by just a fraction of CEOs in the utility and mining industries who refuse to clean up their operations.

We can have cleaner air and more jobs.

And history provides us with proof it is possible.

It's already happened, and I credit George Herbert Walker Bush with having the courage and foresight to put his signature on the Clean Air Act of 1990.

He would be vilified by the current House majority if he signed that bill today.

It's a sad commentary to see so many in this chamber beholden to an industry that prefers to invest in the political process rather than in saving lives by reducing its life-damaging practices.

Few of my colleagues may realize that the coal consuming industries that have underwritten this assault on EPA had an opportunity to collaborate with the Obama administration on a regulatory framework.

They were invited early on during the first year of the Obama administration to sit down and craft a compliance option.

The administration had hoped to craft a deal similar to the historic deal it made with the nation's auto industry on fuel efficiency and tailpipe emissions.

A National Journal article by Coral Davenport in the September 22, 2011 issue referenced this meeting.

But unlike the auto industry, the coal consuming industries refused to negotiate.

Instead, and let me quote from the article, they:

``banded together with the Republican Party to strategize,

and the 2010 midterm elections offered the perfect

battleground. The companies invested heavily in campaigns to

elect tea party candidates crusading against the role of Big

Government. Industry groups (like the U.S. Chamber of

Commerce), tea party groups with deep ties to polluters (like

Americans for Prosperity), and so-called super PACs (like

Karl Rove's American Crossroads) spent record amounts to help

elect the new House Republican majority.

My colleagues, this bill presents a false choice, peddled by an industry that refuses to clean up its act.

This bill serves the interest of no one but a few CEOs who refuse to accept responsibility to the harm their operations have imposed on the rest of us.

It needs to be defeated.

I implore my colleagues to vote ``no.''