Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I was going to talk about jobs, but I think in light of the last address on the other side of the aisle, I will talk a bit about foreign policy and specifically Egypt.

There is a quote in a play by Samuel Beckett. It's called ``Waiting for Godot.'' The quote, though, is applicable. It says something to the effect that, at this time, in this place, at this very moment in time, all mankind is us. And in many ways, Mr. Speaker, all mankind should be with the Egyptian people.

Now, it's quite true that the Egyptian people are not supportive of America's foreign policy, at least Washington's foreign policy, but they are certainly supportive of America's fundamental values. And, in fact, that's what motivates this revolution.

This protest was not started by the Muslim Brotherhood, who may, at most, be 20 percent of the Egyptian people and have forsworn violence, and, in fact, al Qaeda's second in command has issued any number of critical statements of the Brotherhood. That's not who is leading this. They may be jumping in now to take some advantage of it. But this was led by young, well-educated men and women very similar in motivation to those that led the American Revolution.

For the most part, these are folks much like the Google executive who yesterday explained that he could well lead a life of leisure. He was making a good income. His needs were being met. He had a nice apartment. But he didn't have his dignity. He didn't have his dignity when he can be arrested at any place at any time for any reason by the Egyptian Police. In fact, that's what happened. Only because he was speaking out on the street, he was arrested, blindfolded, held in captivity for 12 days, had no contact with his family. Now that he is released, he epitomizes who it is that is conducting this protest and why they are conducting it.

They want their dignity back. Sure, they would like to be able to stand tall

on an Arab street or on any street and be able to say ``I am an Egyptian'' without embarrassment. But most of all, they want their individual rights to vote in a free and fair election, to have a government that is not corrupt, that is responsive to their needs and desires but that, in fact, also looks out after the 36 million Egyptians who are living on less than $2 a day.

These young people care about all of the people of that country. And they understand that under a repressive dictatorship, no one is able to fulfill their potential. They may be well cared for, some of them, but as John Kennedy said in his first inaugural address: ``Unless we are prepared to address the needs of the many who are poor, we can't possibly protect the wealth of the few who are rich.'' They understand this.

It should also be said that in addition to upholding America's most fundamental values, they are empowered by American industry, by our creativity and innovation. It's Facebook. It's all the social networking. It's the Internet. It's Google. It's all of that technology that we have exported throughout the world. We should be proud of that. One was quoted as saying: The government can shut and lock all the doors on us, but they can't close the windows of the Internet.

This is a time when we should be excited, when we should be proud, and we should be on the side of the Egyptian people in Tahrir Square, Freedom Square.

I thank my very, very good friend from Massachusetts.

Madam Speaker, what troubles me with this debate, and I would particularly address myself to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, is that we took two votes yesterday. One was to provide coverage for ourselves; the next really to deny it to our constituents. That I find troubling, because we all have the right for guaranteed coverage regardless of preexisting conditions. We have a choice of easy-to- compare health insurance plans. We have coverage for early retirees. Women have equal premium coverage. We have access to affordable care; low-cost preventive service. All of these things for ourselves but then voted to deny it to our constituents. I find that troubling.

I appreciate the leadership of the gentleman from California.

So we have several dozen new Republican Members of this House, and as a result, the first thing we are going to do is to attempt to repeal health care.

Let me review what has happened. These new Members came into office, and they were all given the opportunity to sign up for health insurance coverage for their own families; and unless they had better coverage, most of them took that opportunity. But now in the very first legislative act of this new Congress, they are going to deny that opportunity for coverage for their own constituents.

So their children are covered--their spouses are covered--but what about the children of their constituents? What about their loved ones? What about their businesses? They have full employment now. But what about their constituents whose employers will not be able to provide coverage for their own constituents when they repeal this law? This law was modeled after the plan that Members of Congress have now and that our new colleagues were only too happy to sign up for.

I think this is the height of hypocrisy. Do unto others as you would do unto yourselves. Treat your constituents as you have treated yourselves.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, many Members on the Democratic side of the aisle, when we were considering health care reform, wanted a public option where the Federal Government would run it. It would ultimately save hundreds of billions of dollars more and, in fact, it would not be subject to the profit incentive of private insurance companies, but we decided ultimately not to do that.

What we did is to decide to model our health care reform after the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan, where private insurance firms provide the coverage; you sign up for it; you have competition. We have competition now nationally and within the States in this plan, but it's modeled after what we ourselves provided for ourselves as Members of Congress.

Now the majority of the Members of Congress, both Democratic and Republican, have this plan for themselves.

We just had a recommittal motion where we had the opportunity to say, if you vote against this plan for your constituents, then you ought to decline it for yourselves. A vast majority of Members took it for themselves but declined to provide it for their constituents.

That's hypocrisy, Mr. Speaker.

I thank my very good friend from Vermont for yielding to me, and I thank my colleagues for participating in this discussion.

There are so many things that are hard to understand with regard to what occurred today. One is that the new

Republican majority tells us that jobs is their first priority. This will generate about 4 million jobs around the country we're told--and we can identify where they occur. And so we won't create those jobs, particularly in the health care professions.

We are told that another high priority of course is to reduce the budget deficit. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office tells us that this will save more than $1 trillion through an emphasis on preventive care, by getting people out of the most expensive emergency care and into doctors' offices, and much more efficient delivery of care. But nevertheless, we won't save that money, and we won't create those jobs.

One of the fascinating things is that I'm told by many of my friends on the Republican side that they actually agree to eliminating the insurance companies' ability to deny people due to preexisting conditions, it's just that they're opposed to the individual mandate because it's unconstitutional. The fact is you can't have one without the other.

Imagine how our car insurance system would work. You have to have car insurance, but there's no mandate. So just wait until you get into a crash, then go to the hospital, go to your insurance company, they're going to have to pay it up. I guess they think that's the way the health insurance system would work--wait until you get sick, wait until you have an accident, go to your insurance company, get your insurance coverage, they'll pay for it. Obviously they won't pay for it because every insurance company would go out of business. And so if you had preexisting conditions without an individual mandate, then it's the Federal Government that would have to provide health care to everyone when they got sick or when they had an accident because certainly no private insurance company would ever think of putting themselves in that position. So you can't have one without the other. It doesn't make sense.

But to my very good friend from Vermont who gave us the opportunity to share a few comments tonight after this historic vote, the thing that troubles me the most that I can't get my mind around is that before we took that vote to repeal health care reform every single Republican Member of this Congress voted to say I want my Federal employees health benefits plan, I want my insurance coverage, and then they went ahead and every single one of them voted against providing the same sort of coverage to their constituents. That's what the recommittal was. I don't know how many of them read it--they're always complaining, well, we didn't have a chance to read it. Well, it was as simple as could be: If you're going to vote against providing health insurance for your constituents, then don't take it for yourself because it's basically the same plan. But every single one of them, old and new Members alike, voted to give themselves that very plan that they then turned around and voted against making available to their constituents. So this may have been one of the most hypocritical days in the history of the United States Congress.

I don't know how they explain it. I don't know how I would explain it if I had to go back home: Sorry about that, I took care of myself in one vote--the very first vote of this brand new Congress--and then I voted to do just the opposite for you in the very next vote. Boy, we're off to a very interesting start.

I thank my friend for giving us the opportunity to share that with the American people.

Madam Speaker, Gabby Giffords is a wonderful human being and a treasured colleague and friend. But this resolution, as important and appropriate as it is, stops short of any collective commitment to prevent this type of tragedy from happening again. It happened because of a combustible mix of: one, a highly charged, antigovernment political environment; two, easy access to weapons whose only purpose is to kill large numbers of human beings; and, three, mental illness.

Not too long ago, another mentally ill person used the same kind of weapon to kill 32 innocent people on the Virginia Tech campus. In response we passed legislation eventually that enabled States to provide the names of people that they judged were too mentally imbalanced to be buying guns and provide those names to the National Instant Criminal Background Check system. We authorized $250 million to enable them to do that. But since then, we have appropriated each year less than 10 percent of that amount. As a result, of the 2.6 million people that the States know should be disqualified from buying firearms, less than 20 percent are actually on that list and so disqualified. In fact, less than 4 percent of Arizonans who the State knows should be disqualified from purchasing firearms are actually on that list and unable to purchase those firearms.

So perhaps we could consider following up on this resolution with some concrete steps to prevent this from happening again. I know it is important to protect one's individual freedoms, but a little 9-year-old girl should also have the freedom to visit with her Congresswoman, secure in the knowledge that her Congress has the courage to take reasonable steps to protect her and our country from such senseless violence.

Horrible tragedies like that cited by the two previous speakers remind us that there are simply too many guns too readily available to too many children. It has got to stop.

On a very different subject, though, Mr. Speaker, when Ronald Reagan ran for President, he said that any President who does not submit a balanced budget should be impeached. He never did balance a budget. In fact, the only times that our budget has been balanced was during the Clinton administration as a result of what is called PAYGO--that you don't increase spending without increasing a concomitant amount of revenue; and you don't cut taxes without immediately cutting the same amount of spending. That worked. We had three successive years of budget surpluses, and we passed on a $5.6 trillion projected surplus to the Bush administration.

Yet, as soon as the new Republican Congress came in at the beginning of the 21st century, they eliminated PAYGO. Two wars, two deep tax cuts and a massive expansion of Medicare were never paid for. As a result, we had a $9 trillion fiscal reversal. When the Democrats came back in, we reinstated it; but yesterday the new Republican Congress exempted $5 trillion from PAYGO--$4 trillion of unpaid-for tax cuts and $1.3 trillion of savings we could have gotten from health care reform.

It is the height of hypocrisy and deeply disappointing.

Madam Speaker, I thank my very good friend and extraordinary leader on the Judiciary Committee, Congressman Bobby

Scott. I appreciate your principle, Congressman Scott, and I am not surprised of your strong backing, nor am I of the fact that Carolyn Maloney and Chris Smith authored this.

This bill is clearly bipartisan. There is really no reason to oppose this and every reason for this entire Congress to get behind it.

You know, the horrible situation we're addressing could happen to anyone, really, anyone that has a family. We are talking about adolescent girls, girls who are growing up. Sometimes they have a challenging family environment, but oftentimes it is simply the challenge of being an adolescent, lots of emotional issues and all. So sometimes they will run away, trying to prove something to their parents or whatever.

Oftentimes they go to a shopping mall. The mall closes down. They are afraid to go back right away to their parents. A predator starts circling the mall, an older guy, somebody that suggests they will get them food or whatever, find them a place to stay, and they trust them.

Oftentimes that little girl is raped, given drugs, and then she's threatened that what has happened to her is going to be exposed to her parents or to her peers. She's scared to death, and so she's afraid to break away.

In every one of these sex trafficking cases, this is about a form of slavery where the victim wants to escape and has nowhere to go. Unfortunately, as much as the need is enormous, as Mrs. Maloney and Mr. Smith said, 100,000--maybe it's 300,000--of these young girls, we have only a hundred shelter beds. Far too few of them. Most municipalities, particularly today, don't have the money. But there's also a whole lot of zoning issues and political reaction, NIMBYism. A neighborhood will say, Well, this is very important, just not in my neighborhood. But there's another neighborhood, for sure.

But a hundred beds is all we've got. We're not going to get more unless the Federal Government takes the initiative, provides the funding. And this is tough. Initially, they have to put up a quarter of the cost. Then it's 40 percent. By the third year, they have to find 50 percent of the funding. And by the fourth year, when these girls are dependent upon the shelter, they have to find all other funding. So this is no handout. This is just a kick-start to get communities to do something that's terribly important.

I know Mr. Smith particularly knows all the sex trafficking that goes on around the world. We're appalled at Cambodia and Thailand and Russia and say, Well, how can this happen? And yet it's pervasive within our own society. We would rather look the other way, not knowing about it; but it's there. And we've got to do something about it.

This bill does something about it. It establishes a foundation. It will create model programs. And then what will happen is other communities realize the need. Some parents will start to speak up. And, most importantly, the victims will be empowered and secure enough to speak up themselves. They are leading this effort.

We have a shelter called Courtney's House. A young adolescent victim of sex trafficking, she named it after her daughter. It's her life's work now. We've got to do this. It's the right thing. No good reason to oppose it. And I appreciate the fact that it's bipartisan. This should be one of the last bills this Congress passes because, hopefully, it will be something we can all be very proud of.

Madam Speaker, I thank my great friend, Mr. Langevin, from Rhode Island.

Madam Speaker, no one has brought more passion to the floor of this Congress than Patrick Kennedy. Patrick has never hesitated to speak out for the poor and the powerless, those who faced mental and physical disabilities, those who needed someone on their side. The Kennedy family has always

been about bringing the marginalized out from the shadows. So the entire Kennedy clan should be so proud of this man, Patrick Kennedy, and this Nation should be as grateful for his presence in this Congress.

Let me emphasize, Madam Speaker, the fact that mental health parity would not have become law had it not been for Patrick Kennedy. That is a legacy for which this Nation should always be grateful. Patrick Kennedy's legacy will continue for generations to come. We can't thank him enough for his service to this Nation and this Congress.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act.

This legislation provides minors who were brought to the U.S. as children a path to legal status, and eventually citizenship. To qualify for conditional status for five years. an individual must be 29 years old or younger, have lived in the U.S. for 5 years prior to enactment, graduate from an American high school, and meet numerous other requirements. After five years, an individual may apply for an additional five years of conditional status only if they have completed at least two years of post-secondary education or served two years in the U.S. Armed Forces. Following this second five year period, a person that has continued to meet the conditions of this bill would be able to file for legal permanent status. Only, after three years in this status, 13 years total. would a person be eligible to apply for citizenship.

Contrary to the rhetoric on the other side, the DREAM Act is anything but amnesty. Instead, this bill is a bipartisan acknowledgement that a significant number of children currently live in this country with no legal status and no avenue to gain legal status. Without this legislation. we are essentially telling individuals who have grown up here, assimilated to our culture, and obtained a high school education that the only home for them is in another country. That is both wrong and counterproductive.

Those that would be eligible under this legislation are motivated, smart young people who want nothing more than to utilize their skills and education here in America by going to college or serving in the Armed Forces. Not only is the passage of this bill the right thing to do, but it would be foolish for a country whose economic prosperity depends upon an educated workforce to let these young people take their talents abroad.

The DREAM Act provides young people who have done nothing wrong the opportunity to come out of the shadows, build a life in America, and contribute to the prosperity of our nation.

I encourage my colleagues to join me in voting for this important legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this legislation to repeal the discriminatory ``Don't Ask, Don't Tell'' Policy.

Enacted in 1993, DADT was billed as a compromise that would allow gay and lesbian Americans to serve their country in the Armed Forces without harming military effectiveness or violating privacy rights. After over 15 years of experience, it is clear this policy is a failure.

Over 14,000 service members have been discharged under DADT, including more than 800 mission-critical troops and dozens of Arabic and Farsi linguists. A Government Accountability Office report and independent studies have estimated the cost of this policy, in lost recruitment and training costs, at over $350 million. Yet, from 2003- 2007, the military lowered medical, conduct, and education standards significantly in order to meet recruitment goals. Serious misdemeanors and felony conviction waivers increased from 5,000 to over 10,000, including 3 soldiers who had been convicted of manslaughter, 11 convicted of arson, 142 convicted of burglary, and 7 convicted of rape or sexual assault. Discharging qualified gay soldiers while simultaneously lowering the enlistment standards for others weakens our military.

DADT also offends the values of our country, discriminating against some individuals based upon an innate characteristic that has no bearing on the ability to serve honorably in the military. Currently, 24 other nations allow openly gay service, including Australia, Israel, Great Britain and Canada. Numerous studies have found no adverse effect on enrollment or retention in any of these countries. On the

other hand, nations like Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran all ban gay service. I believe the interests of the U.S. are best served by following the lead of other democratic nations, our allies, rather than the policies of the most oppressive regimes in the world.

Study after study has shown that open service does not affect military readiness or unit cohesion. In the recently released Department of Defense review, 70 percent of service members responded that repeal would not have a negative effect on the military. Of those who had actually served alongside someone who they thought to be gay. 92 percent of respondents said that it did not have an impact on unit cohesion. Repeal is also strongly supported by the American public, with a recent Washington Post poll showing 77 percent of the public supports open military service. It is clear our Nation and our military is ready for this change.

The most urgent reason for repeal, however, is that DADT places honorable young men and women in the decidedly dishonorable position of lying about who they are in order to serve. It is unconscionable that we would continue to make the lives of soldiers, many of whom face daily threats to their lives, more difficult by placing upon them the burden of lying about their sexual orientation.

Earlier this year, I read into the Congressional Record an email from a current service member who happens to be gay. He shared how he and his partner of 10 years managed the stress and hardship that comes with 3 deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite their shared sacrifices, his partner receives no official support from the military. would not be the first to be informed of his death, and cannot make emergency decisions. While serving in active duty, he was aware of several other soldiers who were gay. In one case, he didn't know a friend was gay until after he died of wounds from an IED and received a letter from the deceased soldier's partner expressing how much he had loved the Army and the sense of family he felt among his fellow soldiers. These are the real victims of DADT.

No one should have to lie in order to serve, but that is what current policy requires for the estimated 65,000 gay and lesbian Americans currently in the military. The time for debate, and procrastination, and procedural stalling tactics is over. The choice today is clear: continue to stand beside a harmful and discriminatory policy that the American public and our Nation's military leaders do not support or vote to repeal it.

I encourage my colleagues to do the right thing--support this legislation, and finally put an end to the era of ``Don't Ask, Don't Tell.''

Mr. Speaker, let me say to the chairperson of the Rules Committee what a terrific job she is doing. And of course I would urge us all to vote for the rule, but I don't think we should vote for this tax cut.

The idea is that we will kick all the tax cuts down the road for another 2 years.

Have you ever seen anybody kicking a can? They never bend over and pick it up and drop it in the trash can. They just keep kicking it. And that's what we're going to do.

We knew back in 2001 and 2003, when we were told these tax cuts are going to expire in 2011, that they weren't really going to expire. And they're not going to expire either in an election year. Our President isn't going to run in 2012 on a platform that he's going to raise your taxes.

And with regard to Social Security, do we really think that next year we're going to increase payroll taxes by fifty percent from 4 percent to 6\1/4\ percent? We're not going to do that. And so what's really going to happen is that we're going to take money out the general revenue fund to keep Social Security solvent.

So what we're talking about is not $900 billion. It's really about $4 trillion more of lost revenue. That's what we're committing ourselves to over the next several years.

And yet, back in 2001, President Bush inherited a surplus. The discipline of PAYGO had created 3 straight years of surpluses. Imagine. Think about that, because it's not going to happen again in our lifetimes or the lifetimes of our children or grandchildren after this vote is taken tonight. But we had a projected surplus of $5.6 trillion at the end of the Clinton Administration. In fact, at the end of 2010, we were going to have our debt paid off. Instead of having $12 trillion plus of debt, we would have paid off all our indebtedness. And we would have fulfilled our responsibility to our children and grandchildren's generation. This doesn't.

This is the wrong thing to do. It's the easy thing to do. Everybody loves a tax cut. You know, let's be Santa Claus. Let's give something to everyone. In fact, there are 81 provisions in this tax bill. Most of us have no idea what they actually do. But look through it; 81 different deductions and exemptions and giveaways and accessions to lobbyists and so on. That's not what we ought to be doing at Christmastime.

We ought, when we sit with our children and our grandchildren on our laps, we ought to be proud that we have secured a better standard of living for each of them, that we have looked into the future, and done the right thing.

The Native Americans who originally lived in this land, they used to make decisions based on how they would affect the seventh generation to come. We can't even look 7 years ahead.

We ought to vote ``no'' on this tax bill because it's irresponsible. So I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the bill itself but ``yes'' on the rule.

I want to thank my friends and colleagues, Mr. Klein from Florida and Mr. Smith from New Jersey. I appreciate their support of this.

This is an important resolution. What the National Council of International Visitors sponsors day in and day out has a long-term impact that cannot be overstated within our country or around the globe.

The National Council of International Visitors, Madam Speaker, is a nonprofit membership association currently marking 50 years of leadership in citizen diplomacy. It embodies the concept that individual citizens have the right and the responsibility to help shape U.S. foreign relations, in their words, ``one handshake at a time.''

NCIV's nationwide network consists of 92 community organizations as well as program agencies, associate members and individuals. Each year, the aggregate efforts of NCIV members involve more than 80,000 volunteers across the country.

With leadership and training provided by NCIV, its member organizations design and implement professional programs, provide cultural activities, and offer the actual experience of living within an American family and an American community for foreign leaders and specialists participating in the U.S. Department of State's International Visitor Leadership Program and other exchange programs.

For the last 50 years, NCIV has built a network of citizen diplomats committed to bridging international culture gaps and building mutually beneficial relationships through international exchanges. More than 285--although Mr. Klein said 286, so apparently in the last few days another person who was involved with this program has been elected around the world as a world leader, but regardless of the number, we know it is very substantial, the number of people who lead other countries but have an understanding of who we are as a Nation, our values and beliefs as a result of NCIV's efforts.

More than 1,700 cabinet-level ministers--and so many other distinguished world leaders that you can't even count them--have benefited from firsthand exposure to the United States through the International Visitor Leadership Program and the NCIV network.

With its commitment to building long-term personal relationships, NCIV will continue to be an asset for American public diplomacy and indeed for national security efforts as it moves into its second half century.

Some examples that I think bear citing: Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, participated in this program. Anwar Sadat, who was so instrumental in bringing peace between Israel and Egypt, participated in this program; Felipe Calderon, President of Mexico; Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France; Kim Dae-Jung, who was the former President of South Korea; Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India; Abdullah Gul, President of Turkey; Morgan Tsvangirai, Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.

It is also worth noting that nearly the entire international visitor leadership program in the State Department spends its budget here in communities throughout the United States, and that by implanting its programs in those communities, the IVLP is also important for generating economic development and cultivating a globally literate workforce in our U.S. communities. Nothing is more instructive than having a foreign visitor actually live in an American home to understand our culture, our values, and our beliefs.

Lastly, Madam Speaker, it is clear that in contributing to the quality of our international engagement, the International Visitor Leadership Program is an investment in our national security. It is imperative to continue rebuilding the image of the United States abroad and to build stronger long-term personal relationships between foreign leaders and U.S. decision makers, by connecting them with people who simply represent what America is all about day in and day out. In fact, the Organization of American Ambassadors ranks the International Visitor Leadership Program as the most important among all 63 U.S. diplomacy programs.

In closing, as well as Mr. Smith and his staff, I want to thank Chairman Howard Berman and his staff, Katherine Brown for their efforts in highlighting the important work of citizen diplomats, and the NCIV, and obviously Mr. Klein and his staff. I also want to give a shout out to the National Council of International Visitors, especially Sherry Mueller and her staff, Chris Bassett and Ed Thompson, who worked so hard with my staff on this resolution; Tom Gittens, the former head of Sister Cities International, for his leadership in promoting the National Council of International Visitors. Shai Tamara and Tom Garofalo of my staff, who is here as well and has steered this through the Congress.

I hope and trust we will get unanimous support for this and let the International Council of International Visitors know that we do appreciate all their efforts on behalf of our country.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the work of the U.S. Environmental Protection as it celebrates its fortieth anniversary.

EPA was established December 2, eight months after the nationally- celebrated Earth Day. EPA's work has been much in the forefront in recent years, particularly related to its work to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. There are some that disagree with EPA's approaches, believing that they cause increased costs to industry and hurt the economy. Yet we have all benefitted from its results. No one can dispute that EPA's efforts have provided a cleaner, healthier environment for the American people.

Congress has given EPA much to work with, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Superfund Law. Oil Pollution Act, and other laws. The agency has done its best to meet stringent congressional mandates through strong scientific and medical-based research, working with states, industry and the public, encouraging voluntary actions and taking aggressive enforcement actions when needed.

Sadly, some of my colleagues are now criticizing the agency for following the law and discussing ways to prevent the agency from doing its job. Under the Clean Air Act, Congress directed EPA to regulate air pollutants on health-based standards. I urge my colleagues that refrain from this criticism and think twice before weakening regulations that protect our health.

There is a strong record of achievement. Let me list some of EPA's many accomplishments in these forty years:

Removing lead from gasoline

Reducing acid rain

Establishing vehicle efficiency and emissions control standards

Controlling toxic substances management and disposal

Banning widespread use of pesticides such as DDT

Promoting recycling of potential waste

Achieving cleaner drinking water

Making information on environmental concerns available to the public

Revitalizing communities with Brownfield grants

In addition, EPA is called upon to respond to natural and man-made disasters. In the last ten years, EPA assisted in the World Trade Center response in 2001; performed several cleanups of anthrax, including the Hart Senate Office Building, in 2001; cleaned up following Hurricane Katrina in 2005; retrieved Columbia Shuttle debris in 2003; responded to the collapse of the TVA dam in Kentucky in 2008; and provided support to the BP oil spill response in 2010.

For four decades, EPA has confronted environmental challenges, fostered innovations, and cleaned up pollution in the places where people live, work, play and learn. Anyone who travels outside this country to areas without strong environmental protections can attest to the benefits to our well being from reducing pollution. Over the past forty years, it is undisputed that EPA has improved our environment and the health of all Americans.

Madam Speaker, I can understand why President Obama has chosen to freeze Federal pay for the next 2 years. From a political standpoint, it preempts what the Republicans would have tried to do next year, anyway, and it responds to an antigovernment attitude that was most profoundly reflected in this month's congressional elections.

From a policy standpoint, though, it is, as they say, penny wise and pound foolish. The Federal Government has been subjected to a brain drain over the last decade, where the best and brightest folks in procurement, research and development, information technology, program management, budget and accounting and a host of other essential skill sets have gone over to the private sector for more pay and, in many cases, better working conditions.

Most of the Federal civil service is eligible for retirement within the next few years. This move, which saves very little money, sends a signal individually and collectively to accelerate that decision, thereby potentially leaving our economy and our society in a weaker position to compete globally and to prosper domestically.