Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak in strong support of President Biden's Build Back Better agenda.

Last November, the American people sent us to Washington to create more jobs, cut taxes, and lower costs for middle class families, and we are ready to deliver.

The Build Back Better agenda will lower healthcare costs for families across my district and across the country, cut taxes for more than 35 million working families, and expand high-quality home healthcare for millions of older Americans and Americans with disabilities.

As the President also returns from the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, we have an opportunity to pass a $550 billion investment in fighting climate change and transitioning to a green economy.

We simply do not have time to spare. The American people are counting on us. Let's get this done.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Continued State Flexibility To Assist Older Foster Youth Act.

Last month, I hosted a townhall with the National Foster Youth Institute for current and former foster youth across the country. Their stories of hardship broke my heart. I was not surprised, though, because these young people are among the most vulnerable in our society, often lacking the same social safety net that you or I could rely on in a crisis.

Surveys throughout the pandemic have shown foster youth face elevated financial, housing, and food insecurity; decreased educational and workforce participation; and increased isolation. This bill before us today extends crucial flexibilities for the Chafee Foster Care Program that we put in place last December, allowing States to better meet the needs of current and former foster youth.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the bill and help young people access this much-needed assistance.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I commend the chairman for his strong leadership on cybersecurity issues and in support of this act before us today.

This bill, the House companion of which I sponsored with Representatives Matsui, Katko, and Garbarino, would help address a serious issue that has not received the attention it deserves: the cyber threats targeting our Nation's schools.

The education of our children is clearly a critical function, yet the increasing frequency and severity of cyber threats targeting K-12 schools have jeopardized the education of students across America.

In the past 4 years, more than 1,000 educational organizations across the country have fallen victim to cybercriminals. More than 400 incidents have occurred in the past year alone. What is more, an increasing proportion of these incidents are ransomware attacks that are particularly debilitating to the operation of our schools.

Our students and educators have experienced more than enough disruption in the past year and a half. We cannot afford to let this issue continue to go unaddressed.

Many of our schools do not have the resources to counter the cyber threats that we face. Without assistance, this problem will continue to get worse, jeopardizing our students' privacy and ability to learn.

Fortunately, this Congress has already demonstrated a recognition of the government's need to provide cybersecurity assistance to entities that perform essential functions yet live below the cybersecurity poverty line, unable to defend themselves against the myriad threats they face.

It is why we took steps to invest $50 million in support for State and local government entities as part of the forthcoming reconciliation bill.

It is also why I fought to increase the budget of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency by more than $400 million earlier this year. I thank Chairwoman Roybal-Allard for her leadership, and I thank her team and the members of the Appropriations Committee, along with Chairman Thompson and his team and the members of the Homeland Security Committee.

It should also be the reason that we pass the K-12 Cybersecurity Act into law without delay.

This bill would direct the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to study the cybersecurity risks facing our elementary schools and secondary schools.

With a detailed understanding of the specific cybersecurity challenges facing our schools, including challenges raised by remote learning, CISA would then be required to develop cybersecurity recommendations and online training tools for educational officials at K-12 institutions. Our educators and administrators would be equipped with the knowledge they need to better defend themselves against cyber threats and keep our schools safe for our students.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Matsui for her tireless attention to this issue and Representatives Garbarino, Slotkin, and Clyde for joining us in advancing this legislation. I recognize the efforts of my colleagues in the Senate, Senator Peters and Senator Scott, who deftly shepherded this bill through their Chamber. Finally, I recognize my good friend, Chairman Bennie Thompson, for ensuring this bill received the consideration it deserves.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

Madam Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and could not vote on amendment 435 by Representative Torres for H.R. 4350. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 292.

Members Recorded Pursuant to House Resolution 8, 117th Congress

Babin (Nehls)

Boyle, Brendan F. (Jeffries)

Carter (TX) (Calvert)

DeFazio (Brown)

DeSaulnier (Thompson (CA))

Escobar (Garcia (TX))

Frankel, Lois (Clark (MA))

Fulcher (Johnson (OH))

Grijalva (Garcia (IL))

Higgins (NY) (Tonko)

Issa (Calvert)

Johnson (TX) (Jeffries)

Kim (NJ) (Underwood)

Kirkpatrick (Levin (CA))

Latta (Walberg)

Lawson (FL) (Evans)

McEachin (Wexton)

McHenry (Banks)

Meeks (Jeffries)

Meng (Jeffries)

Morelle (Tonko)

Napolitano (Correa)

Norman (Timmons)

Payne (Wasserman Schultz)

Perlmutter (Neguse)

Porter (Wexton)

Reschenthaler (Meuser)

Rice (SC) (Timmons)

Rush (Underwood)

Ryan (Kildee)

Sewell (Cicilline)

Stanton (Levin (CA))

Stefanik (Miller-Meeks)

Strickland (Torres (NY))

Swalwell (Veasey)

Wagner (Walorski)

Wilson (FL) (Hayes)

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

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

Mr. Speaker, the United States attracts and develops some of the brightest minds in the world. They can fortify national security and boost economic competitiveness. Unfortunately, much of that talent leaves because there are few options to remain.

My amendment provides a pathway to citizenship for the best foreign talent to work in the U.S. in support of our National Security Innovation Base. Great power competition is a race for talent to maintain our military and technological superiority. We want the brightest minds in the world working for us, not the Chinese Communist Party.

The U.S. has less than 5 percent of world's population, so it is no surprise that many great scientific minds are born outside U.S. borders. So then how have we maintained our technological superiority over the last 70 years, by way of example?

Well, our world-class universities and innovative private sector attract future Nobel laureates in critical technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence. However, our constricted pathways to residency and citizenship drive this talent into the arms of our adversaries; so we face intense competition from other countries who offer large research grants and expedited citizenship to lure this talent away.

But it is not just potential adversaries. Some U.S. companies are setting up R&D facilities in Canada because their immigration policies more effectively attract highly-skilled workers.

Under this amendment, the Secretary of Defense will implement a competitive annual process to select scientists with technical expertise in critical technologies and recommend them for proper processing and vetting. It is in our national security interests not only to have these scientists working on research on our behalf, but also to prevent this talent from working for our adversaries.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren).

Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers so I am prepared to close. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, let me just say that when the Secretary of Defense deems it vital to the national security interests of the United States, this would give that authority to grant this special pathway to the Secretary to make that determination.

A special immigrant visa, by the way, to streamline the admission of applicants in the name of national security is not new. My amendment is modeled after a 1949 law granting the Director of the CIA the authority to obtain permanent residency for anyone deemed ``in the interest of national security or essential to the furtherance of national intelligence missions.''

Today, the Secretary of Defense has no mechanism for retaining top technical and scientific talent who are vital to national security.

Unsurprisingly, the Department of Defense explicitly endorses the amendment. So, again, my amendment is not new or groundbreaking to the immigration conversation. In fact, again, it provides the Secretary of Defense with the same authority that the Director of the CIA has enjoyed since 1949.

This authority is not challenged as a less strident or reckless method that our adversaries exploit because it does not circumvent the current immigration process. All the Secretary of Defense innovation referrals are subject to the same rigorous and extensive background checks that any other applicant receives. I am confident that they will properly vet these applicants as we will keep the best talent in the world working on our behalf.

I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment to ensure our continued military and technological superiority.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the en bloc package, which contains amendment No. 384 to create four critical technology security centers.

These centers would be created through competitive grants issued by the Department of Homeland Security to universities or federally funded research and development centers, including national laboratories.

Each center would have a different focus, with the first four covering network technology, network industrial control systems, open source software, and Federal critical software, respectively.

Each center would rigorously test the security of a set of technologies developed with input from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, the compromise of which would represent the highest level of risk to our critical infrastructure.

With respect to those specific technologies, centers would evaluate their overall security posture; develop new tools and capabilities for vulnerability discovery, management, and mitigation; and support the remediation of the vulnerabilities they find.

This is an important recommendation of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, and I thank my fellow Commissioner, Mr. Gallagher, for cosponsoring this amendment. I also thank Chairman Thompson for his support of the measure. I urge Members to support the en bloc package and the underlying bill.

Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of the National Defense Authorization Act. I commend Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Rogers

for their bipartisan cooperation in bringing the bill to the floor. I also want to thank Ranking Member Banks and former Ranking Member Stefanik for their bipartisan collaboration this year. I would also like to thank the members of the Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and Information Systems Subcommittee for their hard work, particularly Vice Chair Houlahan.

Thanks to the work of my subcommittee, this legislation harnesses cutting-edge technology to benefit our warfighters and our national security. This legislation includes a 36 percent increase in defense- wide basic and applied research and development and significant increases for historically Black colleges and universities.

This bill also includes many provisions recommended by the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, which I offered as a package of amendments during our committee markup. We are taking important steps in addressing the promises and challenges of this powerful technology, and I am thankful for the commission cochairs, Secretary Bob Work and Dr. Eric Schmidt, and members of that committee as well for their service.

The NDAA builds off the important work of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission by establishing the Joint Collaborative Environment at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, called CISA. This program, which will live at the newly established Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative, or JCDC, will facilitate public-private cooperation in analyzing cyber threats.

Beyond the CITI provisions, the NDAA fully funds the Virginia-class and Columbia-class submarine programs which are crucial to our deterrence posture against China. I am so proud to represent the Rhode Islanders who construct these amazing vessels and do their part in keeping us safe.

I am also proud of the reforms we made to the Uniform Code of Military Justice to address sexual assault and extremism and of our efforts to defend our military infrastructure against climate change. These achievements would not be possible, of course, without the work of my subcommittee staff: staff lead Michael Hermann; Bess Dopkeen, Troy Nienberg, and Josh Stiefel.

I also thank minority staff, Sarah Moxley. Our clerk, Caroline Kehrli, is departing the subcommittee, and her work has been incredibly invaluable. My legislative director, Caroline Goodson, and military fellow, Juliann Hitt, also made significant contributions to the bill.

Madam Speaker, Chairman Smith has, once again, done a masterful job leading us through this process, and I urge all of my colleagues to support the NDAA.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

For over 18 years, this discriminatory policy resulted in the discharge of thousands of brave, honorable, and capable servicemembers, solely due to their sexual orientation.

On December 22, 2010, the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act was signed into law, and the policy officially ended 10 years ago today.

As a longtime supporter of repeal, I was thrilled when years of advocacy and determination paid off in the victory for dignity and equality.

LGBTQ servicemembers are an integral part of our Nation's defense, and they deserve our eternal support and gratitude for the sacrifices they make every day to keep us safe.

Please join me in commemorating this historic day and in thanking all LGBTQ servicemembers and veterans for their service to our Nation.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. As Rhode Island's former secretary of state, I know the importance of access to the ballot box.

That is why I was devastated when the Supreme Court gutted one of our most momentous civil rights bills, opening the door to a litany of voter suppression laws.

Our dearly departed John Lewis was bloodied on the bridge at Selma while peacefully urging passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The scars he carried were not in vain, as decades of progress have shown us. But it is abundantly clear that we have not yet achieved equality of access. There are forces at work in this country trying to undo what we have so painstakingly earned.

That is why it is so important that we pass this bill to restore the Voting Rights Act and ensure that every American, regardless of race, can have his or her voice heard in our democracy.

Let's vote in favor of this bill and send a clear message that we want to protect every vote in America.

Madam Speaker, today it is an honor for me to pay tribute to the Office of Naval Research and its contributions to our Sea Services, the Nation, and the pursuit of scientific and technological discovery on the occasion of its seventy-fifth anniversary.

The Office of Naval Research was established by act of Congress on August 1, 1946, in the aftermath of World War II to ``plan, foster, and encourage scientific research in recognition of its paramount importance as related to the maintenance of future naval power, and the preservation of national security.'' A product of wartime necessities that brought together government and military planners, academia, and industry to help make science and technology an essential tool

for victory, the Office of Naval Research grew into a vital organization dedicated to the enduring warfighting requirements of the Navy and Marine Corps and the peacetime needs of the nation. The Office of Naval Research prioritizes building a close and essential relationship between the public good and the progress of science and technology. For seventy-five years this agency has maintained that relationship through war and peace. Much of our infrastructure for the public support of science and technology. from the National Science Foundation to DARPA to the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and Army Research Office, was built in the years after the war using the model pioneered by the Office of Naval Research.

In its early decades, the Office of Naval Research supported research in the burgeoning fields of computing and directed energy, leading to the development of one of the first digital computers, Project Whirlwind, as well as the creation of the maser and laser. Its projects took scientists to the upper atmosphere in some of the highest recorded balloon ascents and brought human beings to the very bottom or the ocean in the Challenger Deep. Office of Naval Research-supported engineers and scientists created the first autonomous robot, as well as the first autonomous undersea vehicle. The Office of Naval Research, Arctic Research Laboratory helped several generations of scientists understand polar environments better. Its support led to the development of atomic clocks; the key invention that made precision satellite navigation possible. Finally, and perhaps most of all, long- term support from the Office of Naval Research led to the postwar blossoming of the ocean sciences, leading to countless discoveries in acoustics, wave prediction, meteorology, marine mammal research, and climate studies. The invention of virtually every important sensor and undersea vehicle that made these discoveries possible owes a debt to the stewardship of the Office of Naval Research.

From aircraft to ships to weapons systems, nearly every platform in use by the Navy and Marine Corps today relies in some way on technology originally developed or enhanced by the Office of Naval Research's sponsorship. Medical advances such as QuikClot save the lives of Marines and Sailors. Portable energy technologies provide power to forces, vehicles, and sensors. Laser weapon systems defend ships at sea. Materials developed through Office of Naval Research efforts protect the hulls of ships from marine organisms as well as the blast effects of weapons, and allow jet engines to work hotter, longer, and more efficiently than ever before. Today, Office of Naval Research programs are advancing the fields of artificial intelligence, autonomy, networking, directed energy, warfighter performance, maritime awareness, and next-generation power for the Navy and Marine Corps of the future.

Madam Speaker, I am proud to honor the achievements of the Office of Naval Research, and I am certain the Members of the House will join me in recognizing the seventy-five years of scientific excellence this distinguished organization has provided--and seventy-five more that it will provide--to our Sailors and Marines and to the American people.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the en bloc which includes my amendment, #10, to increase funding for the Capitol Grounds account to prioritize the removal of accessibility barriers.

Madam Chair, the Capitol Complex was not built with accessibility in mind, and as the first quadriplegic to serve in Congress, I'm reminded of this every day.

For the past two decades, I've worked closely with the Architect of the Capitol to address these barriers, and I'm grateful for the progress we've made so far. Yet many physical barriers still remain, and we need to remove them proactively so that all Members of

Congress, our staff, and visitors from across the nation can navigate the Capitol with ease.

I thank Chairman Ryan and the Legislative Branch Subcommittee for including report language under the Capitol Grounds account directing the Architect of the Capitol to prioritize the removal of accessibility barriers.

Yet the reality is, proactively achieving this requires dedicated funding, which is what my amendment provides. l thank the Chair and Ranking Member for supporting it, and I urge my colleagues to support the en bloc and the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of my amendment to increase funding for the Adoption Opportunities Program in the fiscal year 2022 Labor-HHS appropriations act.

On any given day, 424,000 children are living in foster care in the United States, more than a quarter of whom are waiting to be adopted by a loving, supportive family.

Unfortunately, 20,000 young people age-out of foster care each year without a permanent family connection. How sad and tragic that is. That needs to change, and with the right support it can.

The Adoption Opportunities Program provides a unique funding stream for States, counties, Tribes, and private organizations to invest in evidence-based solutions to find families for these youth and provide them with the support they need to thrive.

From adoptive family recruitment to post-adoption services and caseworker training, these programs help foster youth build permanent family connections.

Now is the time, Mr. Speaker, to invest in solutions to improve permanent placements for foster youth. I thank Chairwoman DeLauro and the committee for supporting this amendment and for her tremendous leadership in crafting this year's appropriations bills.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the en bloc package and the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the en bloc package which includes my amendment, Langevin No. 129, to the Financial Services and General Government Division.

I would like to begin by thanking Chairman Quigley of that subcommittee for his support of the amendment and my good friend and fellow Cyberspace Solarium Commissioner, Congressman Mike Gallagher, for cosponsoring the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, this is a simple amendment. It increases funding for the Office of the National Cyber Director to $25 million, the full amount recommended by the Cyberspace Solarium Commission which was created in last year's NDAA. Its charge was to create an overarching strategy to better protect the United States against cyberattacks of significant consequence.

Creating the position of the National Cyber Director has been a passion of mine for more than a decade. It finally happened last year, and I have long argued that we need a head coach to coordinate all of the various cyber players in the Federal Government, and the NCD does just that.

Chris Inglis, who started earlier this month, is the Nation's first Senate-confirmed National Cyber Director, and he is exactly the right person to ensure that we effectively implement a national cyber strategy to protect us from the ever-growing threats that we face in cyberspace.

But, Mr. Speaker, he can't do his job without an office to support him. So this amendment will ensure that Director Inglis has the staff he needs to fulfill his statutory obligations to review agency cyber budgets, lead the development of cybersecurity policy, and coordinate incident response.

So I appreciate, again, the support of Chairman Quigley and the overall Appropriations Committee led by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro.

Mr. Speaker, this is an important amendment, and I urge my colleagues to support the amendments en bloc and the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of S. 2382. As the author of the National Cyber Director Act, I commend Senators Portman and Peters for offering this important legislation to clarify the authorities of this new office.

I said it before and I will say it again: Cybersecurity is the national and economic security challenge of the 21st century. For 30 years we have been increasing the number of connected devices, processes, and services connected to the internet at an exponential rate. We can now instantly communicate with people half a world away and use data repositories to drive advances in medicine, clean energy, and commerce. With this connectivity comes vulnerability.

For these three decades, the United States has struggled to develop a coherent cybersecurity strategy and to implement it to better protect the country and cyberspace. While we have seen the results of this failure in breaches ranging from the devastating, the tens of billions of dollars in damage caused by, for example, NotPetya, to the mundane, as companies fend off daily cyber probes.

Just in the last half century we have witnessed the Russian Government target us through ransomware attacks through SolarWinds; the Chinese Government break into instances of the Microsoft Exchange Server, and criminals wreak havoc on the Colonial Pipeline, JBS, and customers of Kaseya through ransomware attacks, so we are not where we need to be.

Congress recognized this fact in 2018 when it created the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, a distinguished body that I had the privilege of being appointed to by Speaker Pelosi. Through a year of deliberation, we developed a strategy of layered cyber deterrence, and had more than 80 recommendations to make that strategy a reality. Those recommendations run the gamut from changes to our military to regulations on private companies. But underlying all of them is the recognition that the U.S. Government itself is still not organized for success.

Now enter the National Cyber Director. This key recommendation called for a Senate-confirmed leader within the Executive Office of the President with the policy and budgetary authority to develop a national strategy, oversee its implementation, and coordinate response to significant cyber incidents.

With the help of Congressman Gallagher, the Solarium Commission's co- chair, and through the leadership of Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney and her staff, my National Cyber Director Act made it into last year's NDAA. Earlier this month, the President had appointed and the Senate confirmed our inaugural National Cyber Director, my fellow Solarium Commission member, Chris Inglis, to take office as the first Director.

Chris' confirmation represents nothing less than a sea change in how the government will coordinate cyberspace policy. Once this office is fully staffed up, there will be a well of expertise within the White House to ensure that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, sector risk management agencies, the United States Cyber

Command, the intelligence community, and all of the other disparate elements of the government are working in concert to improve our cybersecurity. However, the Office of the National Cyber Director is very much a startup at the moment.

While we will be voting on a full budget for this office later this week, including, I hope, an amendment to provide the full $25 million yearlong appropriation recommended by the Solarium Commission, we can't wait until the full fiscal year 2022 budget is passed to get Director Inglis on his feet and up and running.

After all, our adversaries certainly aren't constrained by our budgetary calendar. In drafting the bill, we anticipated that the NCD might need to call upon the personnel, facilities, or services of Federal departments and agencies, with their permission, of course. However, there seems to be some ambiguity within the White House about whether this includes the ability of the Office to accept the services of nonreimbursable detailees.

While I think the language and the congressional intent of the original statute are quite clear, this bill should clear up any misunderstanding once and for all by explicitly authorizing nonreimbursable detailees. This legislation will help Director Inglis get a staff vanguard in place and ensure he and his successors can take advantage of the expertise resident at the various agencies that contribute to our success in cyberspace.

Mr. Speaker, let me again thank Senators Portman and Peters and Chairwoman Maloney for moving so quickly to address this urgent issue. Congress has already shown tremendous support for this Office, and I think the speed at which this bill moves is a testament to our commitment to its success.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support S. 2382.

Madam Speaker, this morning, I had the privilege of joining President Biden at the White House to celebrate the 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

This landmark civil rights law has drastically improved the lives of people with disabilities across our Nation, including mine.

In 1980, an accidental gunshot left me paralyzed, and for 10 years, I experienced firsthand the adversity that the disability community faced before the ADA.

Since its enactment, this law has helped break down barriers and stamp out discrimination. It has opened doors to new opportunities for people with disabilities and allowed members of our community to reach previously unattainable places in society.

In fact, I can say with confidence that without the ADA, I would not be a Member of Congress proudly representing the people of Rhode Island.

Madam Speaker, though we have made tremendous progress with the ADA, we can't stop fighting yet. I will continue working closely with advocates and lawmakers like my dear friend, our Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, to advance meaningful legislation to support and protect the rights of people with disabilities.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise in support of the INVEST in America Act, which will help rebuild America's infrastructure. I especially rise today in strong support of my amendment and other disability provisions in the INVEST in America Act.

It has been more than three decades since the ADA became law. Yet, people

with disabilities still face substantial barriers to transportation. The INVEST in America Act includes provisions from the Disability Access to Transportation Act, a bill I authored to break down barriers in transportation for people with disabilities.

These provisions, among other things, include establishing a one-stop paratransit pilot program so that riders can schedule an intermediate stop during their trips, reauthorizing and increasing funding for section 5310 mobility grants, and streamlining the reporting process for accessibility complaints.

The bill will also require the Department of Transportation to adopt the U.S. Access Board's proposed ``Public Rights-of-Way Accessibility Guidelines'' as enforceable standards, and my amendment will require the Department of Justice to follow suit.

Mr. Speaker, this amendment and the INVEST in America Act will help make our Nation more accessible for Americans with disabilities. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this amendment, and I thank the chairman for his leadership on this outstanding bill.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak in strong support of the INVEST Act, which contains nearly $19 million in funding for three infrastructure projects in Rhode Island's Second District.

This legislation will improve roads in Westerly and Charlestown to increase accessibility along the Scenic Highway, repair roads in Cranston to smooth the commute for Rhode Islanders traveling across the State, and connect a key stretch of the East Coast Greenway in Coventry to boost tourism, create jobs, and spur economic development.

Madam Speaker, Rhode Island's roads and bridges desperately need repair. According to the White House, 148 bridges and over 860 miles of highway are in poor condition in Rhode Island, earning our State the grade of C-minus on our infrastructure report card.

Investing in our aging infrastructure will create good-paying jobs and make our roads safer and less congested. That is true of Rhode Island and every State across the country.

Supporting the INVEST Act and the important projects within it is a no-brainer.

As my New England Patriots always say: Do your job.

To my colleagues, let's do our job so Americans can get on with theirs.