Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the Republican tax proposal. Their plan will give more tax breaks for the richest 2 percent, providing $160,000 for the average millionaire--on top of the $1 million that they received over the last 9 years.

A hundred and sixty thousand dollars means different things to different people. For 464 Rhode Island veterans, it means access to employment and job training services; for 2,340 Rhode Island parents, it means immunizations for their children against Measles, Mumps, and the flu; and for Rhode Island's youth, it means 25 more students get a leg up through Head Start. But for millionaires, $160,000 simply represents the additional gift they receive under the Republican tax proposal.

A hundred and sixty thousand dollars is a lot of money, and it can go a long way towards improving the lives and opportunities of Rhode Islanders. While every program I mentioned is on the chopping block, Republicans seem complacent to mortgage our children and grandchildren's future to preserve these tax cuts for the wealthiest top two percent at a cost of $1 trillion. These are tax cuts we simply cannot afford. In fact, if we want to talk about responsible deficit reduction, this would be an excellent place to start.

Democrats and Republicans do agree on one thing;--the need to extend tax cuts for the middle class and small businesses, which is exactly what the Democratic proposal will do. Under the Democratic plan, every single taxpayer will receive a tax cut on income earned up to $200,000 if you are single, and $250,000 if you are married.

For our middle class families, this translates to an extra $2,200 in their pockets. And even high-income households will continue to receive a tax cut averaging more than $10,000 on their first $250,000 of income.

No one thinks raising taxes on the middle class is a good idea. Right now, my top priority is giving middle-class families and our small businesses the security and certainty they deserve by extending tax cuts they desperately need. This should be an issue where Republicans and Democrats can work together to do what is right for hard-working Americans.

I urge my colleagues to reject the Republican plan that continues down the same fiscally irresponsible path. Give our small businesses and working families the certainty they deserve, and support the Democratic plan to cut taxes for everyone and help move the economy forward.

I want to thank the gentleman for yielding.

I would like to thank Ranking Member Grijalva and Chairman Bishop and their staffs for working to bring this

bill to the committee and to the floor today. I would like to thank my good friend, Congressman Courtney of Connecticut, who has been an outstanding partner in this effort. I would also like to thank all of those back in Rhode Island who have worked to bring this bill to fruition, including the Wood-Pawcatuck Watershed Association, Save the Bay, The Nature Conservancy, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, and the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection.

Mr. Speaker, the Wood-Pawcatuck Watershed Protection Act proposes a study of segments of the Beaver, Chipuxet, Queen, Wood, and Pawcatuck Rivers in Rhode Island and Connecticut for potential addition to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. Rhode Island and Connecticut have long been outstanding stewards of these rivers, so I hope the passage and completion of this study will affirm what we who live near these rivers already know, which is that they possess outstanding recreational, natural, and historical qualities that make them worthy of the designation of ``Wild and Scenic Rivers.''

As a nation, we are privileged to have access to a diverse system of wilderness areas, not only in the remote expanses of our country but also close to home--in our backyard wilderness. The rivers of the Wood- Pawcatuck watershed are within a 45-minute drive for every Rhode Islander, easily accessible for family outings and school field trips. The people of Rhode Island and Connecticut have long enjoyed the recreational and scenic wealth of the Wood-Pawcatuck, and we are eager to share this natural treasure with the rest of New England and the Nation.

These rivers are not only an important part of our national heritage; they are a critical part of our economy, which relies on the health of our waters. The Wood-Pawcatuck watershed offers diverse destinations for tourism, which is a vital industry to Rhode Island and Connecticut, and these rivers offer exceptional trout fishing, canoeing, photography, and bird watching opportunities, with adjacent hiking and camping our for sportsmen. Accordingly, the study will not only review the special character of the river, but it will fully engage with local government, landowners, and businesses to recognize the existing commercial and recreational activities on or adjacent to the watershed.

With that, Mr. Speaker, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act offers the best guarantee that the Wood-Pawcatuck will be here for future generations to enjoy. The passage of this study is an important first step along that path. The rivers of the Wood-Pawcatuck watershed contain outstanding recreational, scenic, and natural heritage qualities that would be an excellent addition to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. I urge my colleagues to support the passage of this bill.

Again, I want to thank the members of the committee, especially the chair and the ranking member, for bringing the bill to the floor, and I thank Mr. Hastings and also Mr. Sablan for their assistance with this as well.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the 20th anniversary of the Leadership Alliance. Founded in 1992 by Brown University in my home State of Rhode Island, the Leadership Alliance is a national academic consortium of leading research universities and minority- serving institutions with the mission to develop underrepresented students into outstanding leaders and role models in academia, business, and public service.

Through an organized program of research, networking, and mentorship at critical transitions along the entire academic training pathway, the Leadership Alliance prepares young scientists and scholars from underrepresented and underserved populations for graduate training and professional apprenticeships. Leadership Alliance faculty mentors provide high quality, cutting-edge research experiences in all academic disciplines at the Nation's most competitive graduate training institutions and share insights into the nature of academic careers.

During difficult economic times, it is important to educate and train young people to become active participants in the workforce. In particular, I believe we must build on programs in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM fields. If we do not engage future generations to excel in these fields, it will hurt our Nation's ability to innovate, and hurt our employers' ability to fill 21st century jobs. It is through their creativity and talent that we will strengthen our economy and competitiveness.

In the 20 years since its establishment, the Leadership Alliance has proven that investing in our students yields immeasurable returns. Brown University has mentored 386 Leadership Alliance participants, of whom 35 percent have received a graduate level degree. Notably, over half of the Leadership Alliance doctoral degree recipients are in the STEM disciplines.

Opportunities through the Leadership Alliance and other programs, such as the Community College to Career Fund, offer students of all gender, racial, and economic backgrounds to get involved, and ultimately, to succeed. As co-chair of the Career and Technical Education Caucus, I am always searching for ways to excite and entice these young students to develop their potential and share their knowledge. When we invest in their successes, we invest in our economic future.

I am pleased today to congratulate the Leadership Alliance and Brown University for 20 years of mentoring a diverse, competitive research and scholarly workforce, and I look forward to following their successes over the next 20 years.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I rise to engage in a colloquy with my colleagues and good friends, a member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, Mr. Frelinghuysen, and the ranking member of the subcommittee, Mr. Dicks.

First of all, I'd like to thank the chairman and the ranking member for their hard work on this very important legislation. Their efforts to strengthen our national defense and support our men and women in uniform have been tireless, and they truly should be commended. Moreover, I'm very pleased that they make key investments in areas of great interest and concern to me, the first of which is the Virginia class submarine, as well as cybersecurity.

I believe that our technological edge is critical to ensuring that our warfighters not only can do what we ask them to do in the future, but can do so as safely and efficiently as possible. In addition to the Virginia class submarine and cybersecurity, no family of technologies shows as much promise to this end as directed-energy weapons.

With that, I would yield to the gentleman.

In this vein, I'd like to talk about the decades of investment that this Congress and the Department of Defense have made into directed-energy weapons research. More specifically, I'd like to direct them to a recent report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment that clearly showed many directed-energy technologies have actually matured to the point that cultural factors, not technological maturity, are the most significant barriers to operational deployment.

To this end, I offered an amendment to this year's National Defense Authorization Act that would require a report detailing how we can accelerate the deployment of the most promising directed-energy initiatives; and I recognize the commitment that this bill before us today continues in terms of investing in directed-energy weapons technology, and I would encourage the committee to support these efforts in future appropriations measures.

With that, I yield to the gentleman.

I yield to the gentleman.

I thank the chairman for his and the ranking member's commitment, and I certainly look forward to working to realize the potential of directed-energy weapons and to harvest the Nation's past investments in this family of technologies.

With that, I yield to the chairman.

I thank the ranking member and the chairman, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Amendment Offered by Mr. Engel

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

Mr. Chairman, my amendment proposes to add $15 million to the RDT&E in the Defense Health Program for the purpose of augmenting the Spinal Cord Injury Research Program within the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program.

Spinal cord injuries are a serious combat-related condition affecting many of our servicemen and -women. In response, Congress established the Spinal Cord Injury Research Program in 2009 to support research into regenerating and repairing damaged spinal cords and improving rehabilitative therapies.

More than 30 years ago, when I was first injured with a spinal cord injury, I was told that I'd never walk again and that you just can't repair the spinal cord. Well, now, some 30 years later, we know that that is not accurate. In fact, it is no longer a question of if we can repair spinal cords, but when. This offers great hope to our men and women in uniform who have been the victims of a spinal cord injury in combat. In fact, recent research promises to make the repair of spinal cord injuries a reachable goal in the very near future.

In one study released earlier this year, in fact, rats with severe spinal injuries were able, following a groundbreaking new treatment, to walk, run, and even climb stairs. Scientists in charge of the trial said a similar approach could be used on human patients with spinal injuries, with a clinical trial possible within 1 or 2 years.

This and other research provides real hope to our military servicemembers and veterans who have suffered severe nervous system damage while defending our freedom, as well as the 1.275 million Americans estimated to be paralyzed as a result of a spinal cord injury. But without sufficient funding, these therapies will not be able to undergo further development or clinical trials.

The research is real and shows incredible promise. There is a genuine and exciting possibility that we can soon repair these debilitating injuries that affect so many. I believe that we must make sure that momentum is not lost and that the benefit of decades of research into spinal cord injuries is realized.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank my good friends, Chairman Young and Ranking Member Dicks, and the committee staff for working very closely with me on crafting this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Offered By: Mr. Langevin

Amendment No. 6: Page 9, line 6, after the dollar amount,

insert ``(reduced by $15,000,000)''.

Page 35, line 15, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $15,000,000)''.

Page 35, line 23, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $15,000,000)''.

Madam Speaker, a rare thing has happened today. Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate have reached a compromise for the greater good of the American people. Today we will vote on three critical measures: a long-term transportation extension, a long-term flood insurance extension, and a one-year continuation of current rates for need-based student loans.

Each of these is of critical importance to our nation's economic recovery. This legislation will create or save more than 2 million jobs, including approximately 9,000 in Rhode Island, by authorizing highway and transit programs through 2014.

Unfortunately, in order to secure an agreement, the conferees included some provisions in this bill with which I disagree. I am disappointed that the legislation threatens critical environmental funding and protections and fails to expand funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which provides matching grants for our state to acquire land and water for the benefit of all Rhode Islanders. I will work to restore these resources in the future, but on balance this is a good agreement that will benefit communities and workers across our state.

I am also pleased that this measure prevents the Stafford loan interest rate from doubling to 6.8 percent on July 1 for 7 million college students, saving them $1,000 over the life of their loans. However, I am concerned that the bill cuts the student loan program by limiting the amount of time a student qualifies for a loan to 150 percent of the program's length and eliminates the six-month interest subsidy grace period after a student has graduated. Too many students-- especially those from low-income families--face unnecessary barriers to pursuing a college degree, and it is our responsibility to empower them by investing in their education.

Thousands of jobs in Rhode Island have been on hold, waiting for Congress to act This delay was needless, and this legislation is long overdue. Nowhere is our nation's fragile recovery more apparent than in my home state of Rhode Island, with an unemployment rate of 11 percent. I applaud the Conferees for their tireless efforts to craft this compromise, which will bring loan relief to our students, provide flood insurance to our homeowners, and allow our states and cities to move forward on the path to rebuilding our roads, our communities, and our economy.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, another summer building season is well under way without a long-term transportation bill; and we are, quite frankly, down to the wire on the current funding authorization, which expires next Sunday. Yet here we are debating the addition of even more non-transportation- related measures.

Congressman McKinley's motion to instruct on coal ash is another example of delay. The transportation conferees ought to be urgently completing their work on a long-term authorization, not being saddled with extraneous requirements which pose a threat to public health. With thousands of jobs on hold until Congress acts, this delay is unconscionable.

Our State Departments of Transportation gave us early warning that if Congress did not act on a long-term transportation bill by March 31 the summer building season would be compromised. The Senate recognized this concern, and it sent to the House bipartisan legislation known as MAP 21, which is a bill that passed the Senate with the strong bipartisan support of 74 Senators. Then, as we saw the March 31 deadline come and go, House leadership refused to take up the bipartisan Senate bill, knowing full well that carrying an extension through the summer building season would cost jobs. And it has.

Nowhere is our Nation's fragile recovery more apparent than in my home State of Rhode Island, which currently has an unemployment rate of 11 percent. According to RIDOT, millions of dollars in projects have already been delayed, including a $6.4 million project to carry I-95 over Ten Rod Road in Exeter; a $1.5 million project to provide traffic improvements on I-295

ramps along the borders of Cranston and Johnston; a $3.5 million project to resurface State Street to Broad Street and Main Street to route 1A in Westerly, Rhode Island. These projects not only improve the infrastructure upon which our businesses and residents rely, but they mean real jobs, desperately needed jobs, for Rhode Islanders.

MAP 21 will help rebuild America's economy so it is on a stronger, more sustainable foundation. It will provide the financing for critical highway and transit projects and support almost 2 million jobs, 9,000 of them in my home State of Rhode Island.

The 90-day extension, Mr. Speaker, is almost up. It was reluctantly passed back in March with the promise of a long-term measure to follow, a bill which has yet to materialize. We must let the conferees finish their work, and we must let the EPA continue to do its job of protecting the public from the risks of coal ash, which include cancer, neurological disorders, birth defects, and asthma.

I urge my colleagues to vote against this industry-driven motion and to vote for moving forward on the path to rebuilding our roads, our communities, and our economy by bringing the American people a long- term transportation bill.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I'd first like to thank Chairman Aderholt for his hard work. His efforts to support and strengthen cybersecurity activities within the Department of Homeland Security have been commendable, and I want to thank him and his staff, as well as Mr. Price and his staff, for crafting this important piece of legislation.

There can be no doubt of the importance of ensuring DHS has the resources it needs to execute its role in protecting against cyberthreats, and key to this is attracting and retaining a robust and skilled cyber workforce.

DHS has been delegated numerous critical responsibilities in securing Federal networks through Federal statute and OMB memorandum. These include operating the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team, or US CERT, and overseeing the Trusted Internet Connection initiative. DHS also has prime responsibility within the executive branch for the operational aspects of Federal agency cybersecurity with respect to the information systems that fall under the Federal Information Security Management Act.

While I applaud the chairman for delivering on the need to strengthen America's homeland security efforts in the face of reduced Federal spending, I would ask him if he gave consideration to the hiring, development, and retention of our top-tier cybersecurity talent charged with performing the aforementioned critical duties. An organization such as the Department of Homeland Security absolutely must be able to attract and keep these highly skilled and highly valued individuals in order to defend Federal networks and inform better policy.

Will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman. In that spirit, I would like to encourage the gentleman to work together with Mr. Price on efforts to determine and address potential DHS cyber workforce challenges. Specifically, I believe it would be a great value to have DHS study a report on its efforts, challenges, and recommendations to address cyber workforce requirements at the agency.

Given their critically important roles with regard to Federal cybersecurity, I believe we absolutely must make sure that DHS can attract and, equally as important, retain the best and the brightest to defend our networks.

I thank the chairman. I certainly look forward to working with my good friend to ensure that our Federal Government is properly addressing these critically important cybersecurity and cyberworkforce challenges. It's a very important issue, and I thank the chairman for all of his hard work and also thank Ranking Member Price for his outstanding work on this important bill.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud today to participate in the Foster Youth Shadow Day Program in honor of National Foster Youth Month. Many of my colleagues today have been paired with a foster youth to give them a firsthand glimpse of life in and around the Capitol. It is our goal to encourage them to nurture their innate talents, develop their leadership qualities, and even explore potential careers here in Washington. I would like to thank all of the cochairs of the Congressional Caucus of Foster Youth, of which I am proud to be a member, for planning this important event today.

I am also pleased to be paired with Dee Saint-Franc, a young woman who shows us all what determination and perseverance truly look like. Coming from a family that took in foster children, one of my priorities in Congress has been to ensure that this population has every opportunity to access and achieve success. Drawing on her personal experiences and leadership abilities, Dee has emerged as a strong advocate on this issue.

I have had the privilege of working with Dee on issues affecting youth in the foster care system, and I have deep respect for her commitment, courage, and capabilities. Among her many accomplishments, she has demonstrated tremendous passion and skill through her role as board cochair of The Voice and as Rhode Island's delegate to the New England Youth Coalition. She attained an associate's degree in business management from Johnson & Wales University, and works for the Rhode Island Foster Parents Association.

Dee came under the care of the Department of Children, Youth and Families at the age of 7 years old. She lived in group homes and with foster families, and, unfortunately, at some point along the way became a victim of identity theft. This issue of identity theft came to my attention a few years ago, and Dee's personal story, as well as the stories of numerous other foster youth brave enough to step forward, was crucial in passing legislation to deal with this problem.

I'm pleased to report that last year President Obama signed into law the Child and Family Services Improvement and Innovation Act, which contained a provision I authored to address identity theft in the foster care system. The measure requires States to provide foster youth ages 16 and older with a free copy of any consumer credit report pertaining to them while under State care, and to fix any problems if they are found so that when the child leaves State care, they do so with their identity and their credit intact. While this law would have protected Dee and others like her, she has nevertheless persevered and has done remarkable work with her peers in Rhode Island.

Moving forward, Congress needs to do its part to further support Dee's efforts to level the playing field for foster youth. I'm proud to support bipartisan legislation being introduced by caucus Members today to remove obstacles to ensuring that foster youth get the education that they deserve. We can all take simple steps to help them apply for State benefits and financial aid they need when they age out of the system, and I have introduced legislation for that very purpose.

Now at the age of 22, I am pleased to report that Dee is attending Rhode Island College, my alma mater, to pursue a bachelor's degree in social work. I'm also proud that Dee is working to give something back to her community, and wants to focus her academic career in the area for which she is uniquely qualified. She is a role model for her daughter and for all of us here today. And perhaps, Mr. Speaker, one day she will be down speaking on the House floor herself in the not- too-distant future. I thank everyone for their support of Foster Care Awareness Month.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I thank both Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Ruppersberger for their outstanding work on this very important legislation and so many aspects contained in it.

Last September, I proudly spoke in support of the fiscal year 2012 Intelligence authorization bill because it addressed critical cybersecurity needs as well as many issues of great importance, not just to me but to our country and to the men and women of our intelligence services. I was pleased to be a part of a bipartisan effort within the Intelligence Committee to craft that legislation and gratified by the overwhelming bipartisan support that it garnered.

Earlier this year, the House considered the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, which also received bipartisan support and, in my opinion, is a critical first step to confront the serious challenges our Nation faces in the realm of cybersecurity.

Now, I continue to advocate for action on CISPA and on the comprehensive cybersecurity legislation that will ultimately be necessary to address this issue, but today I'm proud to support H.R. 5743, the fiscal year 2013 Intelligence authorization bill because it builds on these earlier efforts to give the U.S. intelligence community the tools and funding it needs to meet the challenges of the future. Just as importantly, it supports the men and women of the intelligence community who enable those investments and keep our Nation secure.

The National Counterintelligence Executive recently warned that China and Russia are conducting sophisticated cyberespionage against the U.S., in addition to more traditional espionage operations. They and other countries seek to undermine our military, technological, and innovative edge by exploiting our vulnerabilities in the cyber realm, in particular, our critical infrastructure. This situation presents a pervasive threat to U.S. economic security, and I'm very sad to say that they're having success.

The estimates on the losses to U.S. industry and government from economic espionage range from $2 billion to over $400 billion a year. Now, this massive spread only emphasizes that we don't yet have the information we need to fully understand and combat this threat.

The National Counterintelligence Executive cautions that the intelligence community can't entirely prevent cybertheft of national and industrial secrets, but the community can minimize the hostile activity and mitigate the effects. Those efforts will be more successful if the agencies collaborate, build public-private partnerships, and improve intelligence collection and analysis of the cyberthreat to our country.

The FY 2013 bill responds by giving the intelligence agencies the resources they need to develop a strong, unified effort to counter China, Russia, and other actors that might threaten our economic security or technological edge. The bill also does a lot to protect our supply chain, which is another area of vulnerability.

This is a good bill, it's an important bill, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Chair, I rise in support of the Grimm Amendment to H.R. 5854, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act. This amendment strikes a provision in the underlying bill that would prevent Federal Government agencies, including the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs, from requiring the use of project labor agreements.

A project labor agreement (PLA) is a pre-hire agreement that establishes the terms and conditions of employment during a construction project. Any contractor--union or non-union--can work on projects under a PLA, as long as they abide by the wages, benefits and other terms of employment negotiated in the agreement. They have been used in all 50 states and the District of Columbia on both private and public projects.

In February 2009, President Obama signed an Executive Order that encourages Federal agencies to consider requiring the use of PLAs on large-scale construction projects of $25 million or more. The order states that agencies are not required to use PLAs.

In its current form, H.R. 5854 would strike these regulations, and instead discourage commonsense labor agreements on large-scale construction projects. The Grimm Amendment would allow agencies to require project labor agreements when they determine that it is in their interest to do so, which would follow the path of private businesses.

Successful corporations use PLAs to ensure high-quality, on-time work through good jobs with meaningful training programs for local workers. Boeing, Disney, Harvard University, and Toyota are among the large number of private entities that use PLAs. If the agreements make sense for these successful organizations, why would we compromise Federal agencies' ability to use them, especially when we are looking to reduce government spending?

Mr. Chair, the priority of Congress should not only be to create jobs, but to raise the living standards of the middle class and working families across America. I urge my colleagues to vote for the Grimm Amendment.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall vote Nos. 294 and 295, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on both votes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to remember and support the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.

It is first worth highlighting the history at work in this tragic situation. Historically, the majority of the population in Nagorno- Karabakh has been Armenian, and the people have always had close ethnic, religious, and familial ties with Armenia. However, in 1921, Joseph Stalin, then the commissar for nationality affairs in the Transcaucasia Bureau of the Communist Party, declared Nagorno-Karabakh to be an autonomous region controlled by Azerbaijan as part of his strategy to divide and rule.

In 1987, as the Soviet Union teetered on the edge of dissolution, the Karabakh Armenians petitioned for the inclusion of Nagorno-Karabakh in the state of Armenia. In 1991, they petitioned for independent state status. Sadly, the situation remains unresolved.

After the Soviet Union dissolved, Armenians in Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh endured great hardship, including horrific violence in Sumgait (February 1998), in Kirovabad (November 1988) and in Baku (January 1990). These pogroms were only part of a pattern of anti- Armenian activities occurring throughout Azerbaijan, and thousands of people lost their lives and hundreds of thousands of Armenians were displaced as a result. Such targeted violence is as deplorable today as it was two decades ago--yet, tragically, the region is no closer to peace. A cease-fire agreement, brokered in 1994, remains in place, but continued incendiary actions and statements threaten to destabilize peace talks. In January 2008, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev warned Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh, ``We are reinforcing our army because we must be ready to free our lands . . . at any moment and by any means.'' Such rhetoric can only be poison to the peace process.

U.S. policy toward the South Caucasus states has included promoting the resolution of the conflict surrounding the independent Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. It is more important than ever that the United States maintain a principled stand for peace in this region, show that democracy can be born from conflict, and support Nagorno-Karabakh. It is my sincerest hope that Nagorno-Karabakh's right to self- determination can be affirmed without further loss of life.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I appreciate the gentleman from Ohio and the gentleman from Michigan for offering this amendment; but unfortunately I must rise in opposition.

I certainly share their concerns, and I know of their good intentions; and I certainly share the authors' concerns over civilian casualties, and certainly even one civilian death is too many.

Mr. Chair, we should not jeopardize our men and women in uniform by hamstringing their ability to engage when threatened or returning fire. Certainly the Predators are incredibly powerful tools, and they need to be used judiciously and appropriately. I believe that they are only when necessary. The language here as it is written would threaten many of the most urgent uses of remotely powered aircraft. For example, if our troops are under fire from an unknown assailant or if an insurgent is placing a bomb, this language, as I read it, would prohibit targeting that individual.

Mr. Chairman, patterns of behavior are certainly appropriate indicators and are vetted strenuously. John Brennan at the White House has indicated and stated publicly that the drone-strike policy was rooted in adherence to law, and indeed the authorization for use of military force provides the President with the authority to ``use all necessary and appropriate force.''

I appreciate the gentleman yielding.

There are strict policies for how these tools can be used: there has to be a significant threat to the United States; action could mitigate or prevent an actual threat from materializing; capture is not feasible or could put U.S. servicemen and -women in undue harm; and collateral damage and harm to civilians is minimal. This strict criteria is what can be used, and I think they are the tools that we need to preserve.