Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for this Special Order hour, which we have decided to devote to the life and career of an extraordinary former colleague, Ron Dellums, the giant who has fallen and whose death has deeply affected this body. We have invited Members who have reminiscences and appreciations to come forward and to participate in remembrance of the life of Ron Dellums.

I just have a few things to say. I never had the good fortune of serving with Congressman Dellums, but he was a very close friend of my family's, so, as a little boy, I grew up admiring him.

He was an incredibly warm and dynamic, charismatic and brilliant man who really exuded love of people wherever he went.

Among his many extraordinary achievements in public life, one of them was to bring into politics and government service our distinguished colleague Barbara Lee, who succeeded him in office and who will be taking over the Special Order hour after I say just a few words, but we should not understate the importance of that achievement.

Congresswoman Lee served as his chief of staff for many years; she will tell you that story. Then he backed her for the seat that he occupied, so she is the proud and worthy successor to Congressman Dellums.

But I wanted to say that, in a professional field where so many participants are known for putting their finger up to the wind and following simply what the pollsters or campaign donors are telling them to do, Ron Dellums was a diamond in the rough from day one. He always put his ideals and his values first, and he didn't waver from them, no matter how politically tough it became.

He was raised in a politically engaged environment. His father was a longshoreman who was deeply involved in the labor movement. His uncle, Cottrell Lawrence Dellums, was instrumental in helping A. Philip Randolph organize the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters before being elected president of that union in 1966.

Now, Ron, when he graduated from high school, enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and spent several years in the Marines before an honorable discharge.

He went on to college and to receive his master's in social work and became a psychiatric social worker in the California Department of Mental Hygiene.

He was elected to the Berkeley City Council in 1967 at the age of 32. He was deeply involved in the movement against the Vietnam war, which profoundly affected his political outlook and his development as a leader. He was elected to Congress in 1972.

I will allow my colleague to talk about the various legislative efforts they were involved in with Congressman Dellums, but I will say, when I was in college, he was a great hero to college students across the country and to anti-apartheid activists, not just across America, but across the world for his leadership for comprehensive sanctions against South Africa, the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, which was passed as a culmination of a movement that he organized that involved civil disobedience at the South African Embassy.

I was very proud to have played a tiny part in that as a college student, to have come and participated and submitted to arrest, along with thousands of other people who did that at that time in order to galvanize public opinion against American complicity and involvement with apartheid in South Africa.

But I would say that one other thing that always made such a powerful impression on me was that Congressman Dellums, like another great leader for peace, George McGovern, was himself a veteran, and he saw no conflict between the two. He was someone who proudly served in the Armed Forces of his country and nobly did so, but thought that it was equally noble to fight for peace and to make sure that our defense budget was one that was very closely tethered to the actual military and national security needs of the country, not one that is bloated and subject to waste and corruption and graft and embezzlement and kickbacks and so on.

That has been a historic struggle that goes back to the very beginning of our Republic. We want a military that actually serves the people, that serves the Republic, and is not an opportunity for other people to rip off the taxpayers.

He was very focused on making sure that our military budget was really targeted to the actual defense and security of the country, and that America was a force for human rights and security of all peoples and peace all over the world.

So he leaves an extraordinary and inspiring and difficult legacy for all of us to live up to.

I am very proud at this point to turn it over to Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who has become, in her years in office, also a great and famous leader for peace, human rights, and social justice.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the gentleman a couple of questions, but I want to preface my questions by saying I think that this is a terrible lost opportunity for serious, bipartisan legislation to address the problem of eminent domain abuse that has been taking place across the country and has been for several decades. I recommend to everybody a report of the Cato Institute by David Boaz, which summarizes what is taking place around the country.

One of the worst perpetrators of eminent domain abuse in the country is a business developer named Donald Trump. In the mid-1990s, he built the casino and the hotel in Atlantic City, but he wanted to evict a woman named Vera Coking, who was exactly in the same position as Mrs. Kelo would be in a decade later.

She had lived in this Victorian house at the end of the boardwalk in Atlantic City for several decades, but Donald Trump wanted to build a VIP limo parking lot to go with the existing hotel. He offered her some money and she said: No, thank you. My family has lived in this house for a long time. We want to stay here. Our kids go to school here.

He offered her a little bit more money and she said: No, it's not for sale. We are going to stay here.

So they created something called the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, controlled by, essentially, the Trump Corporation, but they got the city to do it, and they tried to force her out. Luckily, the Cato Institute and some libertarian lawyers defended her rights.

But the legislation that is being brought forward today by the Republicans now on a totally partisan basis would do nothing for people in the situation of Mrs. Coking or Mrs. Kelo, because it doesn't give them any rights to sue. All it says is we are going to cut off money to government agencies.

It would be like saying: Well, in a case like that, we will cut off money to every city and town in New Jersey, not just Atlantic City, but to Newark, New Jersey, and to Freehold, New Jersey. We are going to cut off money all over the State.

It has got nothing to do with the actual problem. It doesn't help the people who are actually suffering under the problem of eminent domain abuse.

If we want to help them, let's give them a Federal right of action; or, if all you can do is cut off Federal money, cut off the particular city that is involved, but not every city or county that is receiving money under a Federal program.

Mr. Nadler made a point which I thought was really interesting, which is that this is a solution that doesn't address the problem. If we want to save people from getting evicted from their homes under the Kelo decision, which President Trump applauded and said he supports 100 percent, but if we want to save people from policies under the Kelo decision, shouldn't we give them rights rather than make some kind of Federal subsidy decision which is of constitutional question, in any event?

I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Reclaiming my time, rather than giving actual rights to people in the position of Mrs. Kelo or Mrs. Coking, who is going to be forced out of her house in Atlantic City, this, instead, places a very broad burden on the government and in such a way that it, I think, renders the whole legislation constitutionally suspect.

Mr. Speaker, don't we have constitutional decisions that say the government or Congress can't go so far as to punish an entire State government for something that one municipality does? Doesn't it seem like it is sort of going nuclear in order to get a mosquito?

I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Isn't that what the Medicaid decision was all about?

Doesn't it also say that we can't threaten to drive you out of the Medicaid program entirely because you refuse to accept one particular program that we want to impose upon you?

Not only is this legislation completely illusory in terms of not really helping people who have the problem, but it might just be struck down.

Mr. Speaker, how can you cut off the people of Newark, New Jersey, or Freehold, New Jersey, because of something that happens in Atlantic City, New Jersey? It doesn't even help the people in Atlantic City, New Jersey, who are facing the problem with the big real estate developer who has bought up all the political power to try to drive somebody out of their home.

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

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4100, the Foundation of the Federal Bar Association Charter Amendments Act of 2017, provides the Federal Bar Association, FBA, with the organizational flexibility it needs to fully meet its contemporary mission, and I support it.

The original 1954 charter created a framework that has effectively served FBA for the last six decades. During these years, the Foundation has strengthened Federal jurisprudence, advanced legal education, and promoted effective legal practice.

The organization's initiatives have also directly improved the lives of our people. For example, one of its community outreach programs, the Wills for Veterans Initiative, is a pro bono project where FBA chapters provide will drafting and signing services for veterans in their communities. I know a number of my constituents who participate have very much enjoyed working on this project. Another initiative establishes a mentorship program for law school students to work with experienced attorneys.

The current FBA charter must be amended to allow the organization greater flexibility of operation and growth. For example, the existing charter codifies strict membership and governance requirements that constrain member development and nimble governance of the organization. This rigidity presents serious challenges as the organization seeks to expand its critical charitable and educational initiatives.

H.R. 4100 makes technical fixes to the FBA charter that will give the FBA the needed flexibility. For instance, in the place of legislatively fixed membership criteria, it permits the FBA to proactively establish and update membership criteria through the bylaws process. Similar provisions authorize enhanced flexibility in the composition and duties of the members of the board of directors.

In general, this measure would enable the FBA to swiftly meet its organizational needs and overcome the challenges of the times.

I want to note, for the Record, that while the language of the bill's proposed nondiscrimination provision prohibits discrimination on the basis of, among other things, sex and sexual orientation, it does not explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity, as most of the new antidiscrimination legislation does.

While the prohibition on discrimination on the basis of sex already covers gender identity discrimination, the FBA's current diversity statement expressly states that the FBA should not exclude persons based on gender identity.

In light of this, and because it should be made clear that everyone is protected against invidious discrimination, I hope that when the Senate takes up our measure, it will explicitly clarify that this language includes protection against discrimination on the basis of gender identity. I know that Congressman Cicilline of Rhode Island wants to address this point as well.

I believe that H.R. 4100 will help the FBA to flourish for many decades to come. I strongly support this bill. I look forward to the FBA's continued positive involvement in our Nation's legal system, and I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Rhode Island.

Mr. Speaker, given that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has determined that title VII sex discrimination includes discrimination against people based on their gender identity, it seems somewhat petty and churlish to exclude those words from the language of this charter. I hope that this will be corrected when the legislation goes through. Otherwise, I consider this a very fine bill.

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

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

S. 2245, the Knowledgeable Innovators and Worthy Investors Act, or KIWI Act, is bipartisan legislation to allow citizens of New Zealand to participate, along with the people of more than 80 other countries, in the E-1 and E-2 visa programs for treaty traders and treaty investors, so long as New Zealand provides the same reciprocal treatment to citizens of the United States.

I favor this commonsense bill that will facilitate trade by making it easier for New Zealanders to invest here and will lead to the creation of new jobs in the United States.

The E-1 treaty trader program provides temporary visas to employees of firms engaged in substantial trade with our country. The E-2 treaty investor program provides temporary visas to foreign investors who make substantial investments in American enterprise.

These visas help increase trade with and direct investments in the U.S. More than 80 countries already participate in the programs, including almost all of our democratic allies and trading partners. Yet New Zealand, one our closest and dearest allies, is not on the list.

There are already many New Zealand companies in the U.S., just as there are many of our companies in New Zealand. In 2016, our two countries engaged in approximately $12 billion of bilateral trade in goods and services; and the U.S. is already the second most popular destination for New Zealand foreign investment, accounting for 17 percent of all foreign investment by New Zealanders in 2016, for a total of $3.2 billion dollars.

Bringing New Zealand into the E-1 and E-2 programs will increase trade and bilateral investment flows, helping both of our countries accelerate economic growth and job creation.

While so much of our foreign policy is consumed today with dangerous and counterproductive trade wars against our allies, which is harmful to our farmers, especially our soybean, corn, and livestock farmers, I am glad that this bill will actually strengthen ties with one of America's closest and most steadfast allies.

Congratulations are in order for Senator Hirono, who championed this bill in the Senate, where it passed last month by unanimous consent. I also congratulate my Judiciary colleague, Darrell Issa, who authored the companion bill in the House. They both deserve credit for identifying this deficiency in our immigration laws and working across the aisle to craft a smart solution that has gained broad support in the body for adoption. Our country will be more prosperous and so, presumably, will be New Zealand as a result of their efforts.

I also want to thank Chairman Goodlatte and Chairwoman Ileana Ros- Lehtinen of the Foreign Affairs Committee for their support and work on behalf of this important legislation.

I urge my colleagues to support S. 2245, the KIWI Act.

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

Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, the President put the ``hel'' and the ``sink'' back in ``Helsinki'' because our Republic is sinking under the weight of his radical actions in capitulating to Vladimir Putin in the eyes of the world.

Now, some of my colleagues have called this appeasement. I want to correct that. Appeasement is a misguided policy where you give concessions in order to try to make peace and stability with a dangerous, aggressive foreign power.

This was not appeasement. This was simple surrender. The President wasn't trying to make peace with a hostile power. He was trying to capitulate and have us go over to the other side of the hostile power.

The President has sided with authoritarianism, with every kleptocrat, dictator, despot, and tyrant on the planet Earth today.

We the people of the United States and we in Congress have a responsibility now to defend American constitutional democracy. We must invest in our elections and fortify our elections so we can begin to restore the principles we have lost under the terrible leadership of Donald Trump.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to make in order the Quigley amendment to restore funds indispensable to prevent Russian interference in American elections in 2018.

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask Mr. McGovern a question so we can get some clarity on where we are right now.

As I understand it, one position is that the State election systems are fine, they don't need any infusion of Federal help. And then there is another position, which you are advancing, which is that we need to put in hundreds of millions of dollars in order to secure the elections to prevent a repeat of the cyber sabotage and the cyber invasion that we experienced in 2016. And yet we are not getting a chance to vote on that. Is that right?

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Well, why can we not vote on that? The American people are demanding that we defend our elections against foreign attack. Why can we not even vote on that in the House of Representatives?

I just saw dozens of our colleagues ask unanimous consent that they reconsider that position so the American people can have a hearing on whether or not we are going to have real elections in 2018. Have you been able to discuss it with the other side about whether they would be willing to entertain another unanimous consent motion so we can actually have a debate on this?

I thank the gentleman for his leadership on this, but this is a point of national emergency right now. This is our democracy, this is our Constitution that is at stake. And as I understand it, every State of the Union wants election infusion funding coming from the Federal Government and needs it in order to fortify against cyber attack.

In my State, in Maryland, we just were able to determine that a private vendor that is one of the lead contractors in our election system has Russian ties and is being controlled by someone very close to Vladimir Putin. So we need an infusion of Federal help to fortify our election.

So please continue and do whatever you can with the Republicans just to allow us a vote on the floor.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 717, the Pro bono Work to Empower and Represent Act of 2018, or the POWER Act as, as amended.

It seeks to promote pro bono legal services as a way to empower survivors of domestic violence. We all know that domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking affect the people of every single one of our communities in profound ways.

Alas, the demand for legal services to assist victims who find themselves in a domestic violence situation far exceeds the availability of free or low-cost legal services, and yet research consistently shows, as the chairman of the Judiciary Committee just pointed out, that if you have got a lawyer, then you are significantly better equipped to prevent future domestic violence than if you don't have a lawyer. In fact, those victims who have a lawyer are three times more likely to be able to prevent future violence than those who are without a lawyer.

So this measure is consistent with the spirit and the goals of the legal profession. The American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct encourage attorneys to bridge the gap in representation by providing free legal services to people who are unable to pay them, and this is an especially

vulnerable and often destitute population.

One bar jurisdiction that has stepped up in a very profound way to meet this professional standard and challenge is the District of Columbia Bar which has an extraordinary and successful project created by Karen Barker Marcou and Kathleen Buhle Biden which is called the DC Volunteer Lawyers Project. They just celebrated their 10th anniversary. They have 2,100 lawyers who have signed up pro bono to offer their assistance to victims of domestic violence, stalking, date rape, and so on.

They serve more than 1,000 clients every single year. They were just given an award by the D.C. Bar for the work that they have put together solely through the volunteer efforts of lawyers in the District of Columbia Bar.

So this legislation would modestly and simply direct the chief judge in each Federal judicial district to organize at least one public event annually for the next 4 years to promote pro bono legal services to victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking in the districts in which the court serves its jurisdiction.

In the case of districts containing an Indian Tribe or Tribal organization, chief judges in partnership with the Tribes would have to lead at least one public event promoting such pro bono legal services during each 2-year period.

People who have experienced and survived these types of violence deserve and will benefit from all the information and assistance that can be provided in such public events. Too often survivors simply don't know what resources are out there and are available to help them. S. 717 will help survivors of domestic violence vindicate their rights and protect themselves from future assaults which are still a scourge on the land.

I support this legislation. Obviously, there is a lot more we can do. Congress should work to allocate resources to the recruitment, training, and placement of pro bono attorneys through the myriad of already existing bar association programs like the one in the District of Columbia.

Of course, Congress should work to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act which provides an indispensable array of programs that help address domestic violence and sexual assault. We should not let the authorization for these important protections lapse.

All of these efforts are important, and the measure before us today will support a comprehensive response to these types of crimes. I support this bill, and I commend my colleague, Representative Joe Kennedy, for his leadership in authoring the House companion to the Senate bill.

I want to thank the chairman for his leadership, and I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for this legislation so we may bring it one step closer to enactment.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy), who is my friend and colleague. Representative Joe Kennedy is not only a distinguished champion of the rights of women and a foe of domestic violence, but he is a former prosecutor who spent a lot of time in Massachusetts prosecuting domestic violence cases.

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

Domestic violence is a reign of terror for people who are caught up in it. Historically, of course, domestic violence was bolstered by a compliant or indifferent, sexist criminal justice system and laws that were inadequate to the task.

Even today, in many parts of the world, from Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia to India, women are still subject to domestic violence and to indifferent and hostile treatment from their legal systems. But in America, we have advanced far beyond that. Still, there is a lot more we can do to address the problems of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.

One thing we know we can do is to get lawyers for women when they have been attacked. The information and the assistance that they will get from the lawyers will help them get out of a desperate situation.

The information and assistance that we provide under this legislation in public events will indeed advance the power of survivors to get out of domestic violence, dating violence, or a stalking reign of terror.

We support enactment of this legislation as well as the additional efforts we have mentioned to provide counsel for survivors, to promote their ability to access the resources of our criminal justice system.

We look forward to working with Chairman Goodlatte and other colleagues on the other side of the aisle for rapid passage of this important, bipartisan measure and further legislative efforts that will strengthen the position of people who are victims of domestic violence.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of my amendment, which is offered in conjunction with the primary sponsor of H.R. 50, Representative Virginia Foxx, who I know has worked very hard on this legislation. I am glad that Ms. Foxx has embraced the amendment because it does improve the legislation.

The amendment would require the website post within 5 days of any consultations that an agency has with non-Federal parties during the development of regulatory proposals containing a significant Federal unfunded mandate, as well as the website posting of any comments submitted by non-Federal parties on such proposals within 5 days of their submission.

I am delighted that we have converged around this question of transparency in the regulatory process. Public rules should serve the public, so the public should know what the ingredients are, what the discussions are that are going into the preparation and the development of public regulations.

This is a consensus amendment, which is all about sunlight and scrutiny.

The idea of agency interaction with interested parties on Federal mandates is a good one. In this case, I only wish that the bill required far broader and more inclusive consultation.

As it stands in the legislation, early consultation is only required with affected ``parties within the private sector including small businesses'' and ``State, local, and Tribal governments,'' which are already covered under the Unfunded Mandate Reform Act.

The bill still operates in a slanted way. It does not require early consultations with representatives of other affected parties, like veterans, farmers, law enforcement officers, community associations, religious groups, and so on.

I have told the sponsor that I think it is a mistake to keep it this narrow, and I only wish the Rules Committee had, in its wisdom, accepted my second amendment so we could address that shortcoming. But having said that, I appreciate the strong incorporation of the language on transparency and disclosure, and I wish that, at least in the future, that we can be more flexible about placing all affected regulatory parties on the same plane.

I thank Representative Foxx for her support on this amendment, and I ask that all of my colleagues support it.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

Mr. Chairman, I thank Mr. Connolly for those remarks. I agree with that. I think there was an opportunity here where we could have gotten the whole committee together, but the bill does remain way too narrow in terms of addressing just part of the affected regulatory community and not the rest of it, and there is no reason to do it like that.

Mr. Chairman, I am glad that we have an amendment on transparency in the process that takes place, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I represent the Eighth Congressional District in Maryland, and I want to give you a tale of two of my constituents.

One is Merrick Garland of Bethesda, the chief judge of the D.C. Court of Appeals, who was nominated to the Supreme Court in March of 2016. A celebrated judge who had more judicial experience under his belt than anyone ever nominated to the Supreme Court before, a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Judge Garland was often described as the most qualified person ever nominated to the Court.

But Senator McConnell and the GOP in the Senate vowed they would have no hearings, no action, and no vote on his nomination because there was an election coming up in 9 months and the people should be heard. This was unprecedented, but, fair enough, if that is the new standard.

Now, I have another constituent, Brett Kavanaugh of Chevy Chase, who serves on the exact same court as Judge Garland does and who has been nominated to the Supreme Court only 4 months before a national election. He is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School. But the Senate now says that they are going to speed through hearings and a vote on Judge Kavanaugh's nomination.

Why? Is he better qualified?

Not even Judge Kavanaugh would say that.

Why is it?

We have one-party control of the House, the Senate, the White House, and the Supreme Court. This is nothing but a power play here in Washington. They are doing it simply because they can do it, and it is wrong.

We should have one standard that governs nominations from both parties.

Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Judiciary Committee and a professor of constitutional law, I rise against this uncommonly silly and unprecedented so-called resolution of insistence.

We have already received hundreds of thousands of documents from the Department of Justice, and yet now they want to subpoena information relating directly to an ongoing criminal and counterintelligence investigation which the majority knows full well the Department of Justice cannot and will not release to us.

And why are they doing it? Well, presumably it is all to manufacture a constitutional crisis so somebody can get fired over there, so they can impeach Rosenstein, as they are talking in the Judiciary Committee, so they can sack the Attorney General, so they can get rid of Mueller, or whatever.

Do your jobs. Look what is going on in America. We have got more than 2,000 kids who are separated from their families by the policy of this administration. Their parents don't know where they are. Let's do our job. Let's reunify those kids with their parents.

We saw the Parkland massacre. We saw the Las Vegas massacre. We saw the massacre in San Bernardino County. We have not had one hearing on a universal criminal and mental background check that is desired by 97 percent of the American people--not one hearing. Instead, we are caught up in this nonsense because they can't get over Hillary Clinton's emails.

Enough. Get over it. Do your jobs.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Arizona says there is a loose fence in America. There is a loose fence. Fifteen U.S. intelligence agencies told us in January of 2017 that Russian agents had engaged in active- measure campaigns to undermine the American election. They had a propaganda campaign to put poison on the internet through Facebook and through other social media. They directly conducted a campaign of cyber espionage and sabotage against the Democratic National Committee, and they tried to break in to our election systems in more than 20 States. And what have they done with the loose fence? Nothing. They have helped to open the gates.

That is what we should be talking about today, not this ludicrous, absurd resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have my name removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 2069.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed to it.

Mr. Chairman, I thank Mr. Griffith for his succinct and excellent summary of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Griffith-Raskin-Jackson Lee amendment. I want to thank Chairman Goodlatte for his excellent work on this with his professional staff. It is an important consensus amendment, and I also want to specifically mention the hard work of DEA detailee Tony Angeli. I also want to salute our partners at the National Institute on Drug Addiction and the National Institutes of Health, which is headquartered in my district.

This amendment will do a lot to aid NIH scientists and allied researchers across the country who are presently working on the science of addiction and advancing medical efforts to treat and to prevent it.

This amendment constitutes a significant improvement in the text of the bill. With the amendment, researchers will not have to immediately cease their work while they wait to clear licensing hurdles if a substance is placed on schedule A.

The amendment creates a two-tiered system for researchers: one section for those who have a schedule I or schedule II license and one for those who have a schedule III through V license.

Researchers with schedule I or II licenses can continue working with any substance placed on schedule A without cessation of that work while an application for schedule A licensure is pending. This includes work with synthetic cannabinoids and opioids, which is obviously essential to our making progress in the field.

Researchers with schedules III, IV, and V licenses can continue working with substances that are temporarily placed on schedule A while an application for licensure is pending. However, the researchers will only be able to work with substances placed on schedule A whose similarity and chemical structure and actual or predicted effect is derivative of a substance presently on schedule III through V.

Schedule III licensees can work with analogues of schedules III through V. Schedule IV licensees can work with analogues of schedules IV and V and so on.

Lastly, as a safeguard, the research exemptions provided for in this amendment do not apply to licensed practitioners such as physicians, pharmacists, and hospitals whose involvement with research is only as a coincidental activity to their primary work.

This amendment refines and strengthens the research component of the underlying legislation and is not opposed by stakeholders in the research field. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Chairman, I thank Ms. Jackson Lee, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include any extraneous material that they would bring on the subject of this Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to take this hour with several of my distinguished colleagues to talk about a matter of moral, social, political, and economic urgency to the American people, which is the vast group of Americans who are living in poverty today.

We are observing the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's Poor People's March on Washington, the Poor People's Campaign, which he was organizing and starting work on shortly before his assassination. The Poor People's March on Washington took place even after the death of Dr. King.

Today, there is a new Poor People's Campaign, a national call for moral revival that has been working for the last 2 years, reaching out to communities across the country, working in more than 35 States across America in order to put in the very forefront of the public consciousness the fact that tens of millions of our fellow citizens simply don't have enough money to meet the basic needs of life.

The Poor People's Campaign has met with tens of thousands of Americans and witnessed the courage and strength of a lot of poor people across the country, and they have gathered testimony from hundreds of individual Americans. A number of the testimonials will be read this evening by Members of Congress in this Special Order.

The testimony we are going to read powerfully reinforces the empirical assessment conducted by the Poor People's Campaign and the Institute for Policy Studies about the effect of systemic poverty, racism, ecological devastation, and militarism in the country. ``The Souls of Poor Folk'' report reveals how the evils of these interrelated problems are persistent, pervasive, and perpetuated by a distorted moral narrative that must be challenged today.

We believe that, when Americans across the country see the faces and the facts that are represented in this testimony and by this report, America will be moved deeply to change things. When confronted with the undeniable truth of the indignity and the cruelty of poor circumstances that so many of our fellow Americans are living under, we believe that millions more Americans will join the ranks of those who are determined to see an end to poverty in our lifetime.

I am joined by a number of my colleagues this evening who will come up

and read some of the testimonials as well as give thoughts of their own. I will be interspersing some commentary of my own as I bring up my colleagues. I am beginning first with my colleague Gwen Moore from Wisconsin.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore), who is a great leader for the people of Wisconsin and a terrific spokesperson for poor people across the country.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. Moore for that powerful testimony.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), my colleague.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. Jayapal for her eloquent statement and thank her for her leadership here in Congress.

One of the shocking findings of the Poor People's Campaign is that there are nearly 140 million Americans, more than 43 percent of people in our country who are either legally poor, living below the poverty line, or low income in the United States, which is the world's richest Nation, and we are at the richest moment in our history today.

And yet, we still have 140 million people who simply don't have enough money to meet the basic expenses of existence. This should not be a matter of partisan politics. It should be a matter of concern to everybody on both sides of the aisle and across the political spectrum.

Here is President Dwight Eisenhower speaking in April of 1953. On April 16, 1953, he said:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every

rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from

those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are

not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its

scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern

bomber, President Eisenhower said, is this: a modern brick

school in more than 30 cities, 2 electric power plants, 2

hospitals, a half million bushels of wheat, 8,000 new homes.

And he said:

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense, this

cloud of threatening war that is paid for by the treasure of

our people.

So we are appealing to people across the political spectrum at this time of roaring stock market and trumpeted claims of great wealth and bounty in the society to look at the costs of social and economic inequality; that is, what it is like looking, not from the top down, but from the bottom up at the situation with wealth in America.

I am delighted now to yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Khanna), my distinguished colleague, who has been a great champion of putting the question of poverty and economic inequality at the forefront of our discussions here.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Khanna so much for his very moving statement that he made.

I yield now to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), my colleague, who has been a terrific champion for economic equity and social justice in our country. I am delighted to yield to her now.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Jackson Lee for her eloquent words.

There is a distinction between misfortune and injustice. I know this because I am somebody who is a cancer survivor. If you wake up one day and a doctor tells you that you are suffering from stage III colon cancer, and you have not one but two jobs that you love, and constituents that you love, and work that you are engaged with, and a great family, and you are told that you have this terrible diagnosis, it can happen to anybody, and that is a misfortune in life. It happens to people in every State, in every city, and in every country all over the world every day.

But, if you get a diagnosis like that and you can't get healthcare because you are too poor, or because you lost your job, or because, as it used to be, you loved the wrong person, that is not just a misfortune in life, that is an injustice because we can do something about that. We know how to organize society in such a way that everybody gets healthcare, that everybody gets the attention they need in the event of a catastrophic diagnosis like that.

Life is hard enough with all of the sicknesses, the illnesses, the misfortunes, and the accidents that we don't need to compound the misfortunes of life with governmentally imposed injustice on people. The role of government has to be to liberate people from injustice and to alleviate the misfortunes of life.

But now we have, here in Washington, a whole new public philosophy, which is government is a moneymaking operation for the President, and the President's friends, and the President's business associates, and the people who surround him. That is the new royalist vision of government that we have in America. It is a betrayal of the original conception, which is that government would be an instrument of the common good of advancing the public interest of everybody in the country, not just the people who happen to use their wealth and their power to get into public office.

Now, if you are poor in America today, you have a lot of problems. You have problems with healthcare. We know that health crises remain the single dominant cause of personal bankruptcy, not business bankruptcy, the kind that the President of the United States filed for five different times. Business bankruptcy is not caused by a sickness or an illness. Donald Trump was perfectly covered in healthcare while his businesses went bankrupt and he got covered. But we have millions of Americans who have been forced into bankruptcy because someone got sick and we didn't have a national health insurance policy to take care of them and they didn't have the private health insurance that they needed.

As Congresswoman Jayapal told us, two-thirds of Americans don't have $1,000 to deal with a personal crisis, whether it is a healthcare crisis or something else. They don't have $1,000 to deal with it. And we know that for a serious kind of diagnosis, the bills can run in the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Education is affected by poverty. It affects where you can live, what kind of schools your kids go to, and, if you have to move a lot the way that a lot of poor people do, it is disruptive of the continuity that the educators tell us is necessary for young people to make progress in school, if you are constantly being uprooted and shifted to another school or you have to deal with the various crises and agonies that attend to homelessness.

Well, what about voting? Well, here is someone who provided some testimony about voting, from Kansas City, Missouri. Her name is Latifah Trezvant, with Stand Up Kansas City. She writes this:

My name is Latifah Trezvant, and I work at Burger King,

where I make $9.50 an hour. I am a leader with Stand Up

Kansas City. As a low wage worker in America, I deal with a

lot. I don't have paid sick leave, and I don't make enough

money to afford all my basic needs, like a stable place to

live. And now, Missouri lawmakers want to make it harder for

people like me to vote.

Earlier this year, we weren't able to afford our rent and

had to move out on a moment's notice. In the rush to pack up

all my stuff and find some place where I can lay my head, I

lost my ID. So I had to get a new State-issued ID. Should be

pretty simple, right?

I go to the DMV office, and I am already knowing that I had

to have proof of address. As I walk to the window, I tell the

lady I need a new ID. She asked for my proof of address and I

show her my debit card statement. Immediately, she tells me,

``There is nothing I can do for you.'' And she gives me a

piece of paper of the things I needed to use:

A utility bill--I don't have that because I am homeless and

I stay with a friend.

A paycheck--I don't have a paycheck because I had to leave

my last job when I couldn't afford reliable transportation so

I could get to work.

A government check--I don't have that.

A mortgage statement--well, I sure don't have that because

I am a low-wage worker and I can't even afford rent, let

alone a mortgage statement.

Property tax--no.

A housing rental contract--well, I am homeless, so no.

A bank statement--I don't have a bank account. I don't have

enough money to open up a bank account and deal with all

those fees and penalties.

Okay, so here, I am looking at this long list that I do not

have. I am so upset. I am standing in line looking at this

paper with tears running down my face.

But there is one more way I can prove that I am a Missouri

resident: a voter registration card. Okay, I actually have

that because I plan on voting this year, for the first time

in my life, so I had to register back in March. So I go into

the election board and get a voter form to take back to the

DMV. Two days later, I finally get my ID.

There are so many people in my shoes: unpaid workers living

in poverty, our elderly people, people who don't have a

State-issued ID. For us, it can be really hard, or even

impossible, to get an ID.

If Missouri passes amendment 6--which is an attempt to

restrict who could actually register to vote--over 220,000

people may lose their right to vote in our State. The people

who would be disenfranchised would be mostly elderly,

students, and low-wage workers like myself. Please make sure

that all people in our country have the right to vote. Fight

for America to be a country of freedom, justice, and equal

rights for everyone.

There is one more. Because my grandfather used to say to us, you know, it is very expensive to be poor, and a lot of these statements that I read dealt with the way that people are essentially charged or taxed for being poor. So here is one that comes from Kentucky.

My name is Mary Love, and I have testified in Frankfort,

Kentucky, and other places about the payday lending trap.

Fourteen years ago, when I was making a pretty good salary, I

came up short one month when the rent was due. I saw an ad

for a payday lender and I thought, ``This will be a good way

to cover the rent until I get to payday.'' So I applied for

their $200 loan. I gave them a check for $230, and I walked

away with the cash that I needed.

When payday came around, I went into their office and gave

them $230 in cash, and I got my check back. But I wanted to

pay off a few more bills, so I wrote them another check that

same day for $400 plus $60 interest, and I walked away with

$400 cash. Next payday, I did the same thing, and the next

and the next and on and on for 2 years.

Because I was paying them an exorbitant amount of

interest--$60 every 2 weeks--I could never catch up. Someone

told me that I paid over $1,400 in interest over 2 years, but

I sat down with my computer and recalculated that, and I

ended up paying them almost $2,880 in interest charges over 2

years.

Payday lending as advertised is a one-time solution for

emergency financial needs, but all too often the story

doesn't end there. Many people like me get loan after loan

and end up paying an exorbitant amount of interest. I was

finally able to pay all my outstanding debts, but it took me

over 2 years to do it.

The payday loan industry is making millions every year by

charging exorbitant interest rates and driving consumers

deeper into debt. I believe the Bible has something to say

about folks engaged in usury. It is past time that

politicians stopped letting them engage in this criminal

practice.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to yield back to my friend, Ms. Jayapal, who has come back with further testimony to read.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. Jayapal for participating in the Special Order.

What does climate change have to do with poverty? Well, today we face accelerating extreme weather events, such as intensifying hurricanes that displaced and impoverished hundreds of thousands of citizens in Louisiana, Mississippi, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, New Jersey.

Here is another way that climate change affects people in poverty: through healthcare events that take them out of the workforce.

Here is the testimony from Liz Betty-Owens from Vermont. She writes:

I am 26, a home care provider and a bartender. Just over a

year ago, I was diagnosed with Lyme disease and began a

lifelong battle with not only this crippling disease but also

the healthcare industry and my struggle to access the

healthcare I need.

At 25, I was incredibly ill, attempting to continue my work

as a healthcare provider and making all of my healthcare

decisions not based on a doctor's recommendation, but based

on what my health insurance at the time would cover and what

I could afford with my meager out-of-pocket expenses. I

realized that BlueCross BlueShield of Vermont had more power

over my health and wellbeing than me or my doctor.

I accumulated several thousand dollars of debt, and then,

in April, I was booted off my mom's insurance plan because I

turned 26. I began the 3-month process of registering for my

State's Medicare. I was unable to go to the doctor for months

while I was still showing symptoms and recovering from

initial treatment. I was held up in the process of trying to

prove I made such a small yearly income that I was in fact

eligible for the State's Green Mountain health plan. And

ever since I was finally accepted, I have had to try and

tread a careful line making sure I don't make too much

money and get booted off the State plan, risking fines

from lack of health insurance and, yet again, not having

access to the care that I need as I fight this

debilitating disease.

It is devastating to experience the exhausting and harmful

approach of a healthcare system controlled by insurance

companies, Big Pharma, and hospital monstrosities that care

more about the bottom line than the needs of healthcare

workers and patients, rather than living in a society where

everyone can get the care they need and have it be solely

based on decisions between the individual and the doctor. It

is exhausting to know that I am already struggling with this

at the age of 26 and that I live in a rapidly aging State

where an entire generation will have to fight to get the care

they need. And home care providers like myself will be caught

in the crossfire of providing care services with working

people who are not allowed the resources to compensate for

the care that they actually need.

It is also terrifying being diagnosed with Lyme disease,

which is transmitted by a tick bug that is infected by a

bacterium. As weather patterns continue to hit new extremes

because of climate change and the northeast continues to

warm, the number of infected tick bugs is only expected to

grow. The people at the greatest risk are those of us who

work outdoors growing food or working on farms, maintaining

State and Federal lands, and our heightened risk to this

disease is made even more terrifying by the continued threat

of our already limited access to healthcare.

We need universal healthcare as a human right and a public

good, and not a commodity to buy and sell. We need this Poor

People's Campaign to unite the poor and dispossessed, and

indict the immoral status quo that produces poverty and is

ravaging our communities.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a distinguished constituent, Jacob Stillman, Solicitor for the Securities and Exchange Commission, who has retired after more than 55 years of devoted and exemplary public service with the Commission. Mr. Stillman joined the SEC as a staff attorney in the Office of the General Counsel in 1962, became an Associate General Counsel in 1978, and served as Solicitor from 1999 until becoming Senior Advisor to the Solicitor in 2017. As the Commission's chief appellate lawyer, he advised the Commission on important legal issues of the day and greatly influenced the development of securities doctrine in the federal courts of appeals and the Supreme Court.

His keen legal mind and powerfully lucid legal analysis played a key role in advancing the Commission's mission of protecting both investors and the integrity of the capital markets. During his years of service, Mr. Stillman was deeply involved in articulating and defending the legal foundations underpinning the Commission's authority to regulate insider trading. He also worked zealously on behalf of investors, persuading the courts to accept the Commission's position that the securities laws provided investors certain private rights of action. And he was instrumental in the Commission's successful effort to convince the Supreme Court to accept the fraud-on-the-market theory of investor reliance, a theory that reduced hazards in the market and greatly enhanced defrauded investors' ability to recover unfair losses.

Mr. Stillman graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1958 and began his legal career as a clerk to the Honorable Harry E. Kalodner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He also served as an officer in the Judge Advocate General's Corps of the U.S. Army before joining the Commission. He has over the years received numerous honors, including the Federal Bar Association's 48thAnnual Justice Tom C. Clark Award for Outstanding Government Attorney, the Philip A. Loomis Award from the Securities Law Section of the Federal Bar Association, and the Distinguished Service Award from the Commission itself. Most recently, he was honored with the William O. Douglas Award, granted by the Association of Securities and Exchange Commission Alumni.

These many awards illustrate how highly-regarded Mr. Stillman is by the bar and by his Commission colleagues. At the peak of his career, he served as the investor's advocate and will always be remembered for his diligent and creative work. I thank Mr. Stillman for his service to the SEC, investors, and the American people.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 613, the Lieutenant Osvaldo Albarati Correctional Officer Self-Protection Act of 2017. I support this bipartisan and commonsense bill to facilitate the ability of Federal Bureau of Prisons correctional officers to carry personal firearms for protection as they commute to and from their jobs.

This bill would allow the Bureau's correctional officers to protect themselves without jeopardizing the safety and the security of the facilities in which they work.

Currently, Bureau of Prisons correctional officers are authorized to carry concealed firearms for self-protection while off duty under the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act, and this bill doesn't alter that existing privilege.

Instead, because there is no mechanism today to allow these correctional officers to store firearms that they might carry during their commutes to and from work, they are precluded from bringing their personal firearms onto the premises of these facilities and are therefore, in effect, precluded from carrying firearms for personal protection as they travel to and from the workplace.

To address this problem, H.R. 613 requires the Bureau of Prisons to allow properly qualified correctional officers to bring their firearms onto the premises of Bureau facilities in a manner that minimizes possible security and safety risks.

The Bureau would be required to either provide correctional officers with a secure storage area for their firearms located outside the secure perimeter of the prison or allow the officers to store their firearms in vehicle lockboxes approved by the Bureau.

Without question, correctional officers perform an essential and, indeed, an indispensable function within our criminal justice system, and we depend on them to keep all of our facilities safe, secure, and efficiently run for everyone. For some correctional officers, the inability to carry a firearm to and from work could leave them vulnerable to someone attempting to do them harm.

This bill is named, as my distinguished colleague from Virginia said, in honor of Lieutenant Osvaldo Albarati, a Bureau officer who was ambushed and murdered as he drove home from his job at a Bureau detention center. Lieutenant Albarati was specifically targeted for the work he was doing at the institution.

We hope this legislation will prevent any future lethal attack on our officers. Accordingly, I would commend Mr. Goodlatte and others, the sponsor of the bill, for bringing this important measure forward, and I encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, as we recognize our hardworking law enforcement officers across America this week and honor those, like Lieutenant Albarati, who have given their lives to keep the rest of us safe, I am very proud to reiterate my support for the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), the ranking member of the Criminal Justice Subcommittee, to control.