Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I strongly support the Langevin-Harper amendment. This bipartisan amendment removes from the bill its onerous and unjustified notice and cure provisions while leaving in place its potentially helpful educational and mediation-related provisions.

As I discussed extensively during general debate, the notice and cure provisions would have the effect of drastically weakening the ability of discrimination victims enforcing their rights in court.

Any law, including the ADA, is only effective to the extent that it is enforceable, and civil rights statutes, particularly, depend primarily on private rights of action for their enforcement. By weakening enforcement, H.R. 620's notice and cure provisions ultimately undermine the ADA's goal of integrating people with disabilities into the mainstream of American life.

For these reasons, I urge the House to adopt the Langevin-Harper amendment which cures most of the problems with this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment does not appear to make any substantive change to H.R. 620. Whether or not the amendment is adopted, it still would be the case under the bill that a businessowner who fails to make substantial progress in removing an access barrier would be subject to a lawsuit.

The amendment, however, does not address the fundamental concerns with H.R. 620's notice and cure provisions that I expressed in general debate, including the fact that the bill does not require a business to comply with the ADA, only to make ``substantial progress'' toward compliance within the bill's 180-day cure period.

While the amendment does not make the bill worse, it also does not make the bill better. Regrettably, therefore, I must oppose the amendment.

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

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

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I appreciate the intent behind this amendment to make the notice provision of H.R. 620 slightly less onerous, and I acknowledge that it does so by eliminating the requirement that an aggrieved person cite in his or her initial notice to a business the specific ADA provision being violated.

The amendment, however, still leaves in place the basic problem with the

bill, the basic problem with the notice and cure provision, and that is the notice and cure provision. Therefore, it does not alleviate any of the real concerns with the underlying bill.

Again, the basic notice and cure provisions of the bill turn on its head the normal practice of any civil rights statute in which the burden of compliance is on the actor, not on the victim. Here, we put the burden of compliance on the victim.

The debate has been as if people have not had 28 years to come into compliance, only to find out they are not in compliance when someone complains about it, some victim is victimized. That is just wrong. This goes in exactly the wrong direction.

Although this amendment would slightly alleviate the provision, it is putting lipstick on a pig. For this reason and in deference to the disability rights community, which opposes this amendment and the pre- suit notice and cure requirements, I must oppose the amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 4712, the so- called Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.

Despite what its supporters would have us believe, this legislation would do nothing to enhance protections or enhance the quality of care if an infant is born after an attempted abortion. What it would do, however, is directly interfere with the doctor's medical judgment and dictate a medical standard of care that may not be appropriate in all circumstances, which could, in fact, put infants' lives at greater risk.

Let me say at the outset of this debate very clearly, it has always been the law that healthcare providers cannot deliberately harm newborn infants and that they must exercise reasonable care in their treatment of such infants. The bill's implications that providers who provide abortions routinely act in a callous or criminal manner that would result in an infant's death or that a provider who performs an abortion somehow cannot be trusted to take adequate measures to save a living baby's life is insulting and untrue.

In opposing this bill. I do not oppose in any way proper medical treatment for newborn infants, whatever the circumstances of their birth, but determining the proper treatment is for medical professionals to decide, not politicians in Congress.

When I supported the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act in 2002, my reasoning and the reasoning of my pro-choice colleagues was simple: Killing an infant who is born alive either by an act of omission or commission is infanticide. It was, is, and always should be against the law, and we saw no harm in reaffirming that fact.

That law passed Congress with bipartisan support precisely because it was harmless, even if it was also useless, since it did not change the preexisting law in any way. The bill specifically just reiterated existing law in florid language and did nothing to interfere with a doctor's medical judgment or to cause needless harm.

Unfortunately, the bill before us today puts children's lives and health at risk. It requires doctors to immediately ensure transportation and admission of the infant to a hospital in all cases, with no regard as to whether doing so is in the best interest of the child's health and well-being.

This mandate effectively overrides the case-by-case exercise of professional medical judgment by healthcare providers and replaces it with a blanket rule enforceable with criminal penalties. Such a ham- fisted approach fails to consider the fact that, in many cases, it may be safer and more conducive for the infant's health to care for the infant where it was born rather than transporting it many miles away. But this bill assumes that Congress knows better, and it imposes a new obligation on providers that, rather than saving lives, could put infants at risk.

I am sure that such a result is not what the bill's supporters intend, but all too often, this is what happens when Members of Congress try to dictate a physician's exercise of professional medical judgment.

Perhaps if this bill had gone through regular order, we could have avoided this unfortunate situation, but there has never been a committee markup or a hearing on this bill. I would have welcomed the opportunity to hear from expert witnesses on best practices and standards of care for infants. Members could have offered amendments and perfected the bill to ensure that it achieves our common goal of providing the best, most medically appropriate care to infants and their mothers.

I am disappointed but not surprised that my colleagues rushed this bill to the floor when there is no evidence at all that doctors currently are failing to provide an appropriate level of care and a chorus of provider groups oppose the bill.

This is clearly an effort to have this vote coincide with the presence of many anti-choice demonstrators in Washington. Sadly, rather than protecting infants, my Republican colleagues are putting them at greater risk in the service of politics.

I cannot support H.R. 4712 because it mandates a particular course of treatment: immediate transport to a hospital, which may not be appropriate in

every case and may be medically dangerous in certain cases. It abandons the practice of considering the best medical interest of infants and their mothers.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject this ill-conceived legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Bera).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen), the ranking Democrat on the Constitution and Civil Justice Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), who is a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Bonamici).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Judy Chu), a former member of the Judiciary Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from California.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney).

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from New York.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. McEachin).

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Virginia.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Frankel).

Madam Speaker, may I inquire if the other side is ready to close?

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

Madam Speaker, I end this debate by reiterating the point I made at the beginning. This legislation would do nothing to enhance protections or the quality of healthcare if an infant is born after an attempted abortion.

The 2002 law reaffirmed that it has always been, and is now, against the law to intentionally kill or harm a newborn infant whatever the circumstances of its birth.

The other side has referred several times to the case of Dr. Gosnell. Dr. Gosnell is now in jail under a sentence of life imprisonment without parole, plus 30 years, convicted of first-degree murder without this bill, because it is already against the law not to give proper care or, God forbid, to murder a baby born alive.

The law already requires the highest standard of care for all newborns. This bill does nothing new to protect infants in any respect.

The bill, however, is not harmless. Rather, by demanding the immediate transportation of the newborn to a hospital, regardless of the medical or other circumstances, it would place the lives and health of some newborn infants at risk.

The bill directly interferes with a doctor's medical judgment and dictates a particular course of action that may be harmful to the newborn in the particular circumstances. That is why a coalition of 13 healthcare provider groups, joined by a coalition of 25 additional health, civil rights, and women's rights groups, strongly opposes this bill. As the providers note, the bill wrongly ``injects politicians into the patient-physician relationship, disregarding providers' training and clinical judgment and undermining their ability to determine the best course of action with their patients.''

Let me add one other thing. This bill does not interfere, in any way, with the rights secured by the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. That decision guarantees the right of a woman to choose an abortion if she wishes.

It does not, nor does any other law or any other provision, negate the command of the law that everyone respects that any newborn child, whatever the circumstances of its birth, must be cared for in the best possible medical way, and, of course, deliberately killing it would be first-degree murder.

This bill does not change this, but this bill does do harm by presenting risk to certain newborns by demanding their immediate transport to the hospital when it may be harmful to their health to do so.

We should listen to the healthcare professionals, we should respect their judgment, and the House must reject this seriously flawed bill.

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

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

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

I rise in strong opposition to the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017, which reauthorizes section 702 of FISA for 6 years without enacting adequate protections for our privacy.

Supporters of this measure want to convince us a new, incredibly narrow warrant provision actually constitutes reform. It does not. Our right to privacy does not begin when the Department of Justice has a fully formed criminal case against us, nor does it begin when prosecutors enter our emails and text messages into evidence against us in court.

The Constitution guarantees far more than this. Our right to privacy protects us when the government first makes its decision to search our private communications for information it might find useful. S. 139 falls well short of this basic guarantee. We, therefore, cannot--we must not--support this bill.

Make no mistake: S. 139 is not a compromise. The Judiciary Committee, the technology companies, civil society, and other critical stakeholders were shut out of this conversation long ago.

S. 139 does not include a meaningful warrant requirement. The rule in this bill does not apply to most searches of the section 702 database. It does not apply to a query for any information that ``could mitigate a threat,'' an exception that threatens to swallow the entire rule. As a result, S. 139 allows the FBI unfettered access to this information for purely domestic nonterrorism cases without a warrant.

What does that mean in the year of Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump? It means that absolutely nothing stops the Department of Justice from trolling the database for evidence that you use marijuana or failed to pay your taxes or may be in the country unlawfully or possess a firearm that you should not have. None of these cases have anything to do with the core purposes of section 702, and all of them should require a warrant based on individualized suspicion and probable cause.

I agree with Chairman Goodlatte that section 702 should be reauthorized. I understand its importance to the intelligence agencies. But none of us should support this bill which pretends at reform while codifying some of the worst practices of the intelligence community in domestic crimes.

When we came to Congress, each of us took an oath to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States. I ask that each of my colleagues honor that oath today and that we work together to defeat this bill and to bring the right set of reforms to the floor without delay.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, many of us are opposing this bill and supporting the amendment because it is very different from the Judiciary Committee bill that we reported, which was a good bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from California (Mr. Ted Lieu).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the distinguished Democratic leader.

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

Mr. Speaker, any responsible effort to authorize section 702 must pass three tests:

It must include a meaningful warrant requirement;

It must end the ``abouts'' collection until Congress says otherwise; and

It must not restrict the government's ability to collect intelligence on valid targets operating outside of the United States.

The underlying bill does not include a meaningful warrant requirement, and it does not end ``abouts'' collection.

The Amash-Lofgren amendment, on the other hand, passes all three tests:

It includes a warrant agreement that comports with the Fourth Amendment;

It puts an end to ``abouts'' collection; and

It leaves the core functionality of section 702 perfectly intact. It would be harder to use this authority to spy on United States citizens, but the government's ability to gather intelligence on suspected terrorists and others overseas will not be affected.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to adopt this amendment and make a meaningful change to section 702.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the many sponsors of this amendment for their leadership in this important fight.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the extraordinary life and legacy of Marcus Goodman Raskin, who passed away on December 24, 2017 at the age of 83. He was a committed civil rights advocate, staunch antiwar activist, respected academic, and prolific author.

Born in Milwaukee on April 30, 1934, Mr. Raskin, whose father was a plumber and mother was a seamstress, was a musical prodigy and studied piano at the Julliard School. Nevertheless, he abandoned a musical career to study politics at the University of Chicago and graduated from the University's Law School. He later worked for Robert W. Kastenmeier, a highly respected liberal Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the State of Wisconsin. Thereafter, he joined the Kennedy Administration as an assistant to National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy.

Based on this experience, he went on to found, together with Richard J. Barnet, the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank studying nuclear disarmament, economic inequality, civil rights, and national security. With the advent of the Vietnam War, Mr. Raskin actively opposed the draft and aggressively urged resistance to the war, for which he became the target of law enforcement prosecutors. He played a significant role in facilitating the publication in The New York Times of the Pentagon Papers, a comprehensive classified study that exposed the faulty decision-making leading to the United States' entry into the Vietnam War. As a result of his antiwar activism, Mr. Raskin was added to President Richard M. Nixon's notorious ``enemies list'', along with such other luminaries as journalist Daniel Schorr, movie actor Paul Newman, and various Members of Congress.

Notwithstanding the loss of Mr. Raskin, we are fortunate that his son, Representative Jamie Raskin, a Representative from the State of Maryland, currently serves as Vice Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee. In addition, the Committee has benefitted from the outstanding service provided by Maggie Lopatin, his granddaughter, who was the administrative backbone of the Committee for six years.

Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to commend the life and inspiring achievements of Mr. Raskin and to offer my heartfelt condolences to his loving family.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act. This bill would not protect us from gun violence, but it would make us far less safe.

Under current law, each State makes its own determination about who may carry a concealed firearm in public, including deciding which other States' concealed carry permits to recognize. This bill would eviscerate the core public safety determinations that each State makes concerning the concealed carrying of guns in public based on the unique circumstances of each State and the desires of its citizens. In fact, the standards and requirements adopted in the States vary dramatically:

Thirty-one States and D.C. require gun safety training to carry concealed guns in public, and 21 of those States require live-fire training; 27 States and the District of Columbia prohibit individuals convicted of misdemeanor crimes of violence from concealed carry; 28 States and D.C. prohibit convicted stalkers from carrying concealed guns; 34 States and D.C. prohibit those under 21 years of age from carrying concealed guns. Many States prohibit gun possession and concealed carry by abusive dating partners, exceeding Federal protections against abusive spouses.

All of these States would have their carefully considered laws governing concealed carry overridden by this bill.

The obvious solution to the varying State laws is to continue to do what is currently done by many States, which is to choose which other State permits they will recognize. Some States, including my State of New York, have chosen not to recognize permits issued by any other State. Most States, however, have chosen to recognize permits from at least some other States, basing the choice on the strength and standards employed by the other States.

We should not disregard these determinations, which is what this bill would do. Instead, this bill would say that every State must honor the concealed carry permit of every other State. About 10 States don't have any requirements and issue a concealed carry permit upon request to anyone.

What this bill would do, in effect, is to say that if New York or Illinois have strict requirements for concealed carry, if someone comes in from a State that doesn't, they have to let that person have concealed carry in their State. In effect, it uses the power of the Federal Government to import the laws of one State and make them enforceable in the other State.

In addition, I am deeply disappointed that the version of this bill before us today includes the bipartisan Fix NICS Act, a measure that should be enacted as a stand-alone bill without delay, and that was reported as a separate bill by the Judiciary Committee.

That bill would take steps to address shortcomings with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or what we often call the

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), the ranking member of the Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) for a unanimous consent request.

(Ms. JACKSON Lee asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. Esty).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the Democratic whip.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutch).

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

(Mr. CICILLINE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley), the distinguished chairman of the Democratic Caucus.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. O'Rourke).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson), who is the chairman of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Demings).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Florida.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, this bill is advanced I am not sure in the name of what, but what it is going to do is make us less safe and to overrule all our States.

Under this bill, someone who lives in New York could go to another State--doesn't even have to go to another State; just apply to the other State, get a concealed carry permit from that State, never set foot in that State, and then use it in New York; thus, overriding New York's laws.

We have heard it said that this bill is necessary to protect the Second Amendment constitutional rights of gun owners. But the fact is, there is no Second Amendment constitutional right for concealed carry.

In the District of Columbia v. Heller case in which the Supreme Court said that the Second Amendment established a personal right, Justice Scalia's

opinion held that the Second Amendment was not unlimited, a variety of gun regulations were entirely consistent with the Constitution, and he said:

The majority of American courts to consider the question

have held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons

were lawful under the Second Amendment for State analogues.

So the Second Amendment argument is simply wrong or disingenuous.

But let me say also that we are living in an epidemic of gun violence. 33,000 Americans are killed every year, and 30,000 more every year. No other country approaches this. No country--other than those at war--in peacetime has more than 300 or 400, or even 100 or 72, and we have 33,000. It is not because of mental illness. It is because of the presence of large numbers of gun.

A 2017 Stanford University study found a direct correlation with the most permissive concealed carry laws and violent crime. General studies have shown a direct correlation of the presence of the number of guns and murder rates by guns.

So this is a bill that is a death sentence for many Americans. That is what this bill is. It is a death sentence without trial for many Americans by increasing the danger of guns by overruling States that fear and that we don't want concealed weapons on the New York City subway or the Chicago metro or other places of great concentrations of people.

But no, we, in our wisdom, are going to say the States with the least restrictive, perhaps most rural, maybe sensible restrictions for them, will impose those restrictions on other States.

It is wrong. It is a death sentence for many Americans. It ought not pass.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3731. This bill would raise the cap on overtime pay for Secret Service agents through next year.

These agents pursue the unique dual role of the Secret Service, which consists of protective and investigative functions. Secret Service agents are most commonly known for their role in protecting the President, Vice President, their families, and other dignitaries. Their duties, however, also involve rotations into units that investigate threats against our financial system, certain types of identity theft, and related cybercrimes.

This bill before us today is before us because the demands on these agents have increased significantly under the Trump administration. President Trump seems to travel to properties in Florida, New Jersey, and Virginia almost every weekend, and the number of individuals in the Trump administration under Secret Service protection has exceeded 40, in comparison to just over 30 under the Obama administration. Protective overtime hours for special agents are 15 to 20 percent higher than those during the last non-Presidential campaign year.

Because of the increased workload, many Secret Service personnel will hit the statutory pay cap this year, and next. This bill would raise the cap through calendar year 2018. This change is necessary to allow Secret Service agents to be compensated for the extraordinary rigors and time demands placed upon them as they work diligently to fulfill their critical mission. The adjustment is necessary for the retention of well-trained agents and the recruitment of new ones.

I also note that the bill would require GAO to conduct a study of the Secret Service's implementation of recommendations concerning training and personnel made 3 years ago by the Secret Service Mission Panel. Congress will benefit from receiving a progress report on this effort.

The various provisions of this bill will help make the Secret Service a more effective agency in pursuing its dual mission.

Mr. Speaker, I, therefore, support H.R. 3731 and ask that my colleagues do the same.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3317.

Unfortunately, this bill is needed to help protect young women and girls from the horrible practice of female genital mutilation. H.R. 3317 would increase the maximum penalty from 5 years to 15 years for female genital mutilation to appropriately punish those who commit this horrible crime.

FGM, female genital mutilation, is internationally recognized as a violation of the human rights of girls and young women. It is currently a crime in 26 States, including New York, in addition to the prohibition in the Federal criminal code.

Around the world, at least five girls are mutilated in this way every single hour. An estimated 100 million girls and 140 million women worldwide are living with the consequences of genital mutilation.

Despite the fact that female genital mutilation has been banned in the United States since 1996, people continue to engage in this abusive practice. Recently, the first prosecution

was initiated under the Federal statute. A doctor in Michigan was charged with performing female genital mutilation on two girls who had been brought across State lines for this purpose.

Those who commit these horrendous crimes should be held accountable for their actions. I support increasing the maximum penalty under Federal law from 5 to 15 years in order to reflect the severity of these injuries and their long-lasting consequences and, perhaps, to better deter these crimes. Therefore, I support this bill, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to remember a great champion of the people who passed away last week at the age of 79. Maurice Hinchey was, indeed, a great champion of the people, a great patriot, and a great leader.

I served with him in the State Assembly in New York for 16 years and here in the Congress for 20 years. He was perhaps one of the foremost environmentalists of his generation. He led the successful fight to get General Electric to clean up the PCBs in the Hudson River, to clean up that river and make it not quite drinkable yet, but make it environmentally safe.

He led every environmental battle. He is one of those people who made it easier to serve in Congress because you could always check and say, ``Did I do the right thing on an environmental vote,'' by looking to see how Maurice voted.

Maurice was a liberal in a conservative area, and everyone loved him because they knew what a wonderful man he was, and they knew how much he cared about his constituents and about the country. It didn't matter whether he was liberal or conservative. Everybody loved him. We all did, we all do, we regret his passing, and may he rest in peace.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act. This bill would take a number of steps to help protect the mental well-being of those who take extraordinary steps to protect all of us.

The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services at the Department of Justice reports that law enforcement has an occupational fatality rate three to five times higher than the national average for the working population. Officers respond to horrible situations that are dangerous, stressful, and sometimes life-threatening.

In addition to protecting law enforcement officers from the physical hazards associated with doing their daily jobs, we must also do more to protect them from the mental and emotional difficulties resulting from their work. That is why I support this bill, which would initiate several efforts to help the mental wellness of our law enforcement officers.

The bill calls for the collaboration of the Justice Department, the Defense Department, and the Department of Veterans Affairs to determine which mental health practices and services from the military agencies may be adopted to help civilian law enforcement.

The bill would expand the allowable uses of existing Justice Department grants to include establishment of

mental health and wellness programs within State, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies.

The bill would direct the Justice Department and the Department of Health and Human Services to develop educational materials for mental health providers about the culture of law enforcement agencies.

Finally, the bill would consider improvements to crisis hotlines to better serve those from law enforcement who seek to use them.

Although I am particularly proud of New York's finest, I am glad that this bill will help law enforcement officers in every jurisdiction across the country. Their service certainly deserves the assistance this legislation will provide. Therefore, I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill today.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank

him for organizing this Special Order on this terrible Republican tax scam.

This scam is a desperate, disgraceful attempt to line the pockets of the wealthiest Americans and corporations at the expense of the middle class.

And for what?

We are told the corporate and upper income tax cuts will result in more investment, in greater economic growth, which will yield more jobs and more revenue for the country and higher wages for the middle class, but that is bull.

They have run this scam twice before. Ronald Reagan passed similar upper class tax cuts and told us they would generate such economic growth that they would pay for themselves. George W. Bush pulled the same scheme.

What happened?

President Reagan's cuts sent the national debt--the national debt accumulated from George Washington through Jimmy Carter, which was a little less than $800 billion in 1980--from $800 billion to $4.3 trillion 12 years later, quintupled.

President Bush's tax cuts turned the projected 10-year, $5.65 trillion surplus--remember at the end of the Clinton administration, we were having surpluses, and the projected surplus over 10 years was $5.65 trillion. His tax cuts turned that, in 8 years, into $10.63 trillion debt.

It turned a $5.6 trillion surplus into a $10.6 trillion debt. So the argument that these kinds of tax cuts for the upper-income people and for corporations generate greater economic growth to generate more tax revenues has been tried twice, not to mention in Kansas, recently. It doesn't work.

There is nothing in this bill to argue that this tax scam will have a different impact on the economy than Reagan's or Bush's. In fact, this scam is so skewed toward the rich and corporations, it could actually be worse.

The bill would eliminate the alternative minimum tax. To put it in perspective, in 2005, the only year for which we have at least the summary pages of Donald Trump's tax returns, in that year, Donald Trump paid $38 million in taxes. Of that, $31 million was the alternative minimum tax.

The Republicans want to eliminate the only tax that we actually know that Donald Trump has ever paid. His taxes would have been $5 million, not $38 million, if it weren't for the alternative minimum tax. Of course, he wants to eliminates it.

Republicans will repeal the estate tax, despite the fact that the estate tax is paid by only the wealthiest 5,000 estates in the country every year--two-thousandths of 1 percent.

Wealthy Americans would also see immediate personal benefits from cuts to corporate taxes. This bill immediately and permanently cuts the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent. It also cuts the rates for pass-through corporations from 39 to 25 percent.

Once again, Republicans claim this will help small businesses, but it simply isn't true. These pass-through corporations are extremely wealthy partnerships and private companies. If you need a good example, I have a great one just outside my district; it is called the Trump Organization, which is organized as a pass-through corporation.

Now, they tell us that middle-income businessmen will profit by this, but middle-income businessmen are not paying more than 25 percent to start with, so this will only benefit the rich, again.

But while billionaires and corporations will enjoy all these benefits, the Republican bill hands working families ticking time bombs. Unlike the corporate tax changes, which are permanent and indexed to inflation, every benefit in the Republican tax scam for the middle class sunsets after 5 years or is indexed to a slower rate of inflation.

Speaker Ryan brags about a family earning $59,000 a year getting a $1,500 break in their tax burden next year. Well, even in his example, by 2023, that family is right back where they started; and by 2027, they will be paying $500 more than they were this year.

This bill wipes out nearly every deduction and credit that helps working families make ends meet--the deduction of State and local income taxes, which hundreds of thousands of middle-income New Yorkers rely on each year.

When the income tax was first enacted to finance the Civil War, and when it was re-imposed to finance World War I--and we have had it since then--we have always had a deduction for State and local taxes. Why? Because you shouldn't be taxed on a tax. You shouldn't be taxed doubly. It is unfair. But now we will be.

The medical expense deduction, which families use to pay for everything from fertility treatments to nursing home care, this deduction says: If you are a middle-income family, and your out-of- pocket expenses, beyond your insurance, if you have insurance, beyond your Medicare, if you are a senior citizen, total more than 10 percent of your total gross income, you can deduct your medical expenses to the extent it exceeds 10 percent of your total gross income.

So it has got to be large. If your income is $75,000 a year, you can only deduct the medical expenses that exceed $7,500, not the first $7,500. This will be gone, too.

Now, if you have got parents in nursing homes, you depend on this. If you have got a child with cerebral palsy--God forbid--if you have got a kid with cancer, you depend on this, but it is going to be gone.

The student loan interest deduction will be gone. So people go to school, they go to college, they come out with these terrible, huge debts. They have to repay the student loans. At least they can deduct the interest on the student loans. Not anymore.

The adoption tax credit, child care spending accounts, even deductions for teachers who buy school supplies for their classrooms, all gone. And why? To pay for tax breaks for billionaires and corporations.

But, as has been pointed out, under this scam, corporations keep these deductions for their income. They keep the State and local tax deduction, but individuals don't.

How can Republicans claim this bill helps the average American when families are denied the deductions that corporations get to keep?

If this bill is so blatantly harmful to working families, why are my Republican colleagues so crazy about it?

Does it create jobs or give the economy a boost? No. As I said, we have tried that twice before with disastrous results. Kansas, Brownbackistan as they call it, after Governor Brownback tried that, with disastrous results, so that the Republican legislature had to increase taxes earlier this year, over the Governor's veto, to start getting out from 4-day school weeks.

Under this plan, Republicans would tax companies less when they produce goods overseas than when they produce them here in the U.S. It is a giant incentive to large corporations to send jobs overseas.

And if you ever doubted the Republicans were doing this at the bidding of corporate donors, well, just last week, Chairman Brady, of the Ways and Means Committee, tweaked an excise tax multinational corporations opposed and gave those corporations back $100 billion in revenue. No such change was made for working families.

Now, we know--we know from experience--that a few years from now the Republicans will use the $1.7 trillion deficit this scam creates to say: Oh, my God. Look at this massive deficit. We have to make terrible cuts to Social Security, to Medicare, to education, to infrastructure, not that we want to. We love Medicare. We love Social Security, but we have got to savage them in order to pay for these terrible deficits which we created.

That is what they are building in now. That is what this tax bill is designed to produce.

The Republicans are scamming America. They are offering a facade of lower taxes that most Americans will never see, in exchange for massive and permanent tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, and guaranteed cuts down the road, in fact, some of them right away, to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, infrastructure.

I do not accept that deal, and the American people shouldn't have to either. We can find bipartisan common ground that allows us to support working families, create jobs, and see every American pay their fair share.

American corporations, huge corporations, have $2.4 trillion stashed

abroad, which they don't pay taxes on until they bring it home. We don't have to allow that. We can make them pay taxes on it right away, whether they bring the money home or not.

Why should we encourage them to keep the money abroad, to create jobs abroad, by telling them they don't pay taxes if the money is abroad?

And the Republican bill just makes that worse. This Republican tax scam is not a fair plan. It is not a plan to increase the economy. It is not a plan for economic growth. It is not a plan for fairness to the middle class.

Let me just say one other thing. A number of years ago, while we were told--I have seen ads--we were told by the Republican leaders that the economic growth from this bill will produce huge gains for the average family. Never mind the tax cut that the average family will or won't get.

Because of the economic growth from this tax plan, wages will go up, and the average person will get $1,500 or $1,800 or $2,000, depending who you are listening to, in extra wages.

Well, a number of years ago, we were told the same thing about a bankruptcy bill. This bankruptcy bill that the big banks pushed and all the Republicans pushed, we were told that if we passed this bill, the banks would save so much money from certain deadbeats that the average American would save $400 a year in lower interest rates.

I offered an amendment to say: Fine, mandate that the interest rates be lowered. And, of course, the Republicans voted that down.

Well, we passed that bill. We passed that bill 12 years ago. Have you seen the interest rates go down? The interest rates are still sky high. The banks raked in the money, hand over foot. The lobbyists did very well. The Republicans collected the campaign contributions. The American people did not benefit.

Same thing here. There will be no increase in economic growth as a result of this bill. There will be no increase in benefits. There will simply be a huge sucking sound as the money is taken from the middle class and low-income people and given to the superrich.

This bill is disgusting. It ought to be rejected.

I do have one more point to make, and the gentleman reminded me of it.

In 2004, when we had the repatriation, we told the big corporations they could bring all the offshore money home and pay only a fractional tax on it; they were going to create jobs and so forth. And what happened? They didn't create jobs. They had buybacks. They enriched their executives. They didn't create jobs.

The fundamental problem with this analysis is not that corporations don't have enough money to invest, and, therefore, if you give them lower taxes they will have more money to invest; they have plenty of money to invest. They don't see the investment opportunities, and that is a different problem. There is plenty of money to invest. They are rolling in cash. There is not a dearth of investment opportunity. There is not a dearth of investment cash.

So if you give them more cash, they will pay their CEOs higher. They will put more money into stock buybacks. The shareholders may benefit, but they won't hire more workers. The economy won't benefit; and we will be taking money away from the middle class and lower-income people, and we will be taking money away from the governments, local governments, that have to spend the money on schools, housing, health, roads and bridges, and so forth to build up this country.

Mr. Speaker, the Republicans are scamming America. They are offering a facade of lowered taxes that you probably will never see in exchange for massive and permanent tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and corporations.

And for what?

We are told the corporate and upper income tax cuts will result in more investment and greater economic growth, which will yield more jobs and more revenue for the country and higher wages for the middle class.

But this is bunk. They have run this scam twice before. Reagan passed similar upper class tax cuts and told us the tax cuts would generate such economic growth that they would pay for themselves.

What happened?

The national debt--accumulated from George Washington through Jimmy Carter--went from $800 billion in 1980 to $4.3 trillion 12 years later, and growth was less than under President Clinton.

George Bush's tax cut turned an anticipated 10-year $5.65 trillion surplus into a $10.63 trillion debt in 8 years.

And 3 or 4 years from now, Republicans will use the $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion deficit this scam will create to say: Look at this massive deficit. We have to make savage cuts to Social Security, Medicare, education, and infrastructure.

That is what they are building in now. The Republicans are scamming America, and we must reject this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 469, the newly renamed Congressional Article I Power Strengthening Act.

This bill stitches together three unrelated bills, each one problematic in its own way.

Title III of the bill, the Article I Amicus and Intervention Act, would permit as a right the House to intervene as a party where an amicus in a lawsuit with the Department of Justice declines to defend the constitutionality of a law or regulation.

While this proposal may have some merit, it was introduced only last week. It was the subject of no hearing. It has had no markup. We simply do not know the full implications of the measure. If it is a worthy proposal, we should take the time to consider it in committee before moving forward.

Title II of the legislation, the Judgment Fund Transparency Act, would require additional reporting about the funds paid out of the Treasury Department's Judgment Fund by the United States Government to resolve legal claims against it. This legislation raises significant privacy concerns. It would require publishing sensitive, personally identifying information about individual claimants who are the victims of government misconduct, such as medical malpractice, racial discrimination, or sexual harassment.

Our laws should carefully balance the need for public disclosure of government spending with the need to protect the personal privacy of individual citizens. This bill upsets that balance.

By far, the most concerning aspect of this legislation is Title I, the Sunshine for Regulations and Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act.

This provision also poses as a transparency measure, but its real aim is to disrupt and delay the process for issuing rules that protect public health and safety.

Congress frequently sets a statutory deadline for an agency to complete a rulemaking, but the agency sometimes misses that deadline. Under current law, private parties can sue the agency to meet its statutory obligations. Since there is little dispute that the agency has failed to do its duty, these lawsuits often end up settling, with the agency agreeing to a new schedule in which to complete the required rulemaking. That is perfectly reasonable.

However, the Republican majority and the businesses that are the subject of such regulation believe these lawsuits have some nefarious purpose. They have concocted an imagined vast conspiracy by which private parties collude with the government to file a lawsuit, and the government happily either settles or enters into a consent decree, supposedly allowing it to impose obligations or rules beyond what it could otherwise do.

Unfortunately for supporters of this bill, there is no evidence of such a conspiracy and no evidence, in fact, of any problem. To solve this nonexistent problem, this bill adds numerous procedural requirements before a settlement or consent degree can be entered into.

The effect of these requirements would be to make any settlements or consent decrees more difficult and more time-consuming to enter into, with the predictable result that agencies will not even bother to enter into them at all.

Most troubling, the bill would create a special and more permissive rule for virtually any party to involve itself in the case as an intervener. These interveners would do their best to ruin, block, or delay any settlement, including during what should be private negotiations.

That, of course, is the true purpose of this bill. They seek to tie government agencies up in years of litigation so that they are unable to issue rules protecting public health and safety. The real conspiracy here is the Republican plot to destroy the regulatory state. With one hand, we defund the agencies; and with the other hand, we build all sorts of hurdles in the regulatory process so that the agencies have no ability to complete their work.

It is a shameful effort that may save big businesses some money and regulatory compliance, but it will cost our citizens their health, their safety, and possibly their lives.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to oppose this terrible legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 732. This misguided legislation would restrict the government's flexibility to resolve lawsuits against corporate wrongdoers and would make it harder to provide a remedy to all those who are harmed by the company's malfeasance.

Under well-established law, when settling claims with some corporate defendants, the Department of Justice may seek to include among the terms a contribution by the defendant to a third-party organization. Because it is often difficult to identify each individual who was harmed by the company's actions, particularly those who suffered the secondary effects of such wrongdoing, these third-party payments are intended to address the generalized harms caused by corporate bad actors. But this bill would prohibit any payment to a party that is not for restitution or to remedy a harm that is ``directly and proximately'' caused by the defendant. Such restrictions will needlessly hamper the Department of Justice's ability to efficiently resolve claims and to provide relief to all those injured by a defendant's actions.

For example, in the wake of the financial crisis, the Department of Justice, under Attorney General Holder, sued several large banks whose egregious misconduct destabilized the housing market and threw millions of people out of their homes, with millions more placed on the brink of foreclosure, all while the banks reaped massive profits. The banks agreed to resolve these claims by paying record-setting fines to the government in recognition of the tremendous damage they had caused.

Some of these voluntary agreements also included payments to housing counseling agencies and legal aid organizations responsible for assisting homeowners devastated by the foreclosure crisis that those banks helped create. The Republican majority sneers at these nationally recognized community organizations, however, and dismisses them as nothing more than activist groups. Republicans are so concerned that funds were going to organizations that help level the playing field between corporations and individuals that they drafted this legislation to prohibit the government from entering into a settlement that provides for any third-party payments.

Homeowners and communities across the country are still struggling with the aftermath of the foreclosure crisis, and the third-party payments negotiated by the Obama administration have been vital in helping both the direct victims and all those who suffered the collateral consequences of the banks' misconduct.

Attorney General Sessions recently announced that his Justice Department will not include such terms in the settlements it negotiates. But supporters of this bill insist that we must tie the hands of future administrations as well, weakening their ability to efficiently resolve claims and preventing them from using this tool to seek relief for the victims of corporate misdeeds.

This unnecessary and irresponsible legislation is yet another attempt by the Republican majority to favor wealthy corporations over individuals, and I urge my colleagues to oppose it.