Floor Statements

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

Mr. Chairman, two of our central responsibilities as Members of Congress are to support a strong national infrastructure and to ensure that every American has a place to call home. The funding levels provided in this legislation will make it impossible to fulfill either of those responsibilities.

There can be no question that we must put people back to work and bring our crumbling, outdated infrastructure into the 21st century. At the funding levels provided in this bill, few of those goals can be accomplished.

The bill cuts the FTA's Capital Investment Grant Program, more commonly known as New Starts, by $252 million. It includes a $500 million cut to the TIGER grant program, funding it $1.15 billion below the President's request, and it cuts $200 million from Amtrak's capital funding, while providing no funding for high-speed rail.

Beyond simply cutting critical funding, the bill places restrictions on the use of TIGER grants and high-speed rail, and it exempts three States--Wisconsin, Mississippi, and Idaho--from truck size and weight limits on Federal highways.

Congress should not preempt the comprehensive study currently being conducted by USDOT, required as part of MAP-21, the last legislation we enacted on the subject, by enacting piecemeal riders on appropriations bills.

The devastating impacts these cuts will have on our economy will only be exacerbated by the cuts to vital housing programs for hardworking families.

The HOME Investment Partnership Program is funded at its lowest level since its creation in 1992, and the Public Housing Capital Fund falls below its sequestered funding level, adding at least $1 billion to the backlog of capital needs, but perhaps most startling is the failure of this legislation to provide enough funding for every low-income senior and hardworking family to access affordable and secure housing through HUD's tenant-based rental assistance program, or section 8.

My amendment finally provides enough funding for HUD to renew every section 8 voucher, including the 70,000 vouchers lost under sequestration, and to support robust staffing at public housing agencies around the country.

Rental assistance helps 2.1 million very low-income households rent modest homes in the private market at an affordable cost. Households who use Section 8 have incomes well below the Federal poverty line, and nearly every household using a section 8 voucher includes children, seniors, or people with disabilities.

Research consistently demonstrates that this program reduces poverty, housing instability, and homelessness, and helps families live in safe, healthy communities.

Despite the success, only about one in four eligible low-income families receives Federal rental assistance. Long waiting lists remain in nearly every community, even as the number of poor families who pay more than half their monthly income for housing costs has risen 28 percent since 2007. These long wait lists are exacerbated by a lack of administrative funding for public housing agencies.

In the past, Congress consistently provided the necessary funds to ensure that no one receiving a Section 8 voucher loses access to affordable, decent, and stable housing year to year, but sequestration has had a devastating impact on section 8.

With inadequate funding for voucher renewals and extreme cuts to administrative fees, State and local housing agencies assisted an estimated 70,000 fewer families at the end of 2013 compared to a year earlier.

The increased funding that Congress provided through the FY14 budget agreement restored less than half of those vouchers, leaving 40,000 very low-income families with no access to affordable housing. This bill does nothing to help those families.

My amendment will ensure that public housing agencies can renew every current voucher and restore those lost under sequestration. The amendment funds Section 8 voucher renewals at the President's request of $18 billion and provides an additional $320 million to provide vouchers to the 40,000 families who lost access due to Congress' inability to address sequestration.

Of course, this additional funding would go a long way to ensuring that every family who qualifies for rental assistance finds a home. However, at the funding levels for administrative fees in this legislation, it would be impossible for public housing agencies to hire and maintain enough staff to process and renew vouchers.

We cannot continue to undermine our hardworking public housing agencies by failing to provide them enough money to function; yet, once again, this bill woefully underfunds administrative fees for public housing by providing only $1.35 billion, a $150 million reduction from last year's enacted level.

My amendment would finally address the undercutting at public housing agencies by providing an additional $335 million to match the President's request of $1.7 billion for administrative fees.

Mr. Chairman, our first priority must be to ensure that every working family, every senior, and every child has access to a safe, healthy, and affordable home. This amendment will guarantee that no one has to choose between paying their rent and putting food on the table.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Point of Order

Mr. Chairman, we can all agree, I think, that this amendment is necessary.

We are talking about denying tens of thousands of families and seniors access to an efficient, cost-effective program that keeps families together and lowers the government's costs over the long term.

Without this amendment, we will see a spike in homelessness, a spike in medical costs, and a spike in hungry kids.

I understand the point of order. I understand that the rules demand an offset for any funding increase in the bill. I also appreciate the chairman's efforts to support Section 8 and public housing.

But when funding levels are this restrictive across the board, as they are in this bill, it is impossible to offset such drastic underfunding without hurting other people in need. The rules and the drastic underfunding of this bill make it impossible to meet basic human needs.

I hope that, as we go forward, we can find a way to provide these funds so that kids, working families, and seniors are not out on the street, as I guarantee you this bill at this funding level will do.

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

Mr. Chairman, since 1992, the Housing Opportunity for Persons With Aids, or HOPWA, has provided a vital safety net for people living with HIV/AIDS. In the United States, 50,000 people become infected with HIV every year, and 1.1 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. More than 500,000 of those individuals will need some form of housing assistance during the course of their illness, but 145,000 of these individuals will have unmet housing needs.

Housing interventions are critical in our continued fight against HIV/AIDS, and research clearly shows that stable housing leads to better health outcomes. Inadequately or unstably housed individuals are less likely to access routine medical care and more likely to rely on costly emergency and acute care that leads to far higher health care costs. Providing stable housing to people with HIV/AIDS has an immediate impact on the health outcomes, reducing the risk of transmission to a partner by 96 percent, reducing emergency room visits by 36 percent, and reducing hospitalizations by 57 percent. In other words, investing a modest amount in HOPWA today saves us millions, if not billions, of Federal taxpayer dollars in the future, not to mention many lives.

HOPWA is the only Federal program to provide cities and States with dedicated resources to address the housing crisis facing people living with HIV/AIDS. And yet, despite the bipartisan agreement on HOPWA's effectiveness and the clear need for additional funding, this legislation provides only $305.9 million for HOPWA in FY15, a cut of more than $24 million from last year, and pushes HOPWA funding below its fiscal year 2008 funding levels, despite an estimated 300,000 people being newly infected with HIV since that time. At this abysmally low funding level, thousands of families and individuals will lose access to HOPWA and face dire health consequences.

My amendment would stop this devastating cut by increasing HOPWA funding by $29.1 million and restoring the program to $335 billion, the level it received 5 years ago in fiscal year 2010. I recognize $29 million may sound small by Federal budgeting standards, but this additional funding will ensure that those families and individuals who rely on HOPWA for secure, stable housing will not suddenly find themselves back on the street with no access to lifesaving medical treatment.

To protect those living with HIV/AIDS and to stay within the House rules, my amendment offsets this additional funding through cuts to HUD's Information Technology fund. I recognize--I recognize--the importance of providing HUD with phones and computers, but nothing is more important, quite simply, than saving lives. We must pass this amendment and give those families battling HIV/AIDS a fighting chance.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.

I understand that there is an irrational fear of bringing Guantanamo detainees into the United States, even though we would only do so to bring them to justice. In contrast to the military commissions at Guantanamo, which have not reached one verdict other than by plea, the Federal Court system in the United States has been extremely successful at prosecuting terrorists and safely imprisoning them for long periods of time.

One of the 9/11 terrorists is in a U.S. prison. The shoe bomber is in a U.S. prison. The underwear bomber is in a U.S. prison. The Times Square bomber is in a U.S. prison. One of the Boston Marathon bombers is in a U.S. prison. We have tried and convicted terrorist masterminds in U.S. courts in my own district.

But others are being held at Guantanamo without any prospect of a trial. Ever since Magna Carta, we have denied the government the power to imprison and punish people on mere accusation. Just because the government labels someone a terrorist doesn't make him one. The government must be asked to prove the accusation in court. That has always been a bedrock American principle until we opened Guantanamo. Now we imprison people indefinitely without trial. By what claim of right do we do this?

How can we be sure we are punishing actual terrorists and not actual people when we hold no trials? Mr. Wolf said someone may be acquitted. If he is acquitted he should be released. That is our basic principle of justice for the last thousand years.

Guantanamo should be closed and its inmates either tried or released. It is beyond time to close Guantanamo so it can no longer be used to rally our enemies to recruit terrorists, to undermine our ability to bring terrorist suspects to justice, and to violate bedrock American principles of due process of law.

I am astonished, frankly, that I would hear on the floor of the United States Congress someone say that people might be acquitted, therefore, they should be held in jail forever because maybe the evidence doesn't exist because someone in the government in

the all powerful, almighty, all knowing bureaucracy says that if someone is a terrorist that person must be held in jail indefinitely because maybe we don't have the proof. That is not America.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, today we have the first chance in more than a decade to finally place some real limits on the sweeping, unwarranted--and at times unlawful--government surveillance that many of us have fought against for years.

First and foremost--and as the administration acknowledges in its Statement of Administration Policy--this bill will end bulk collection under section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, and will ensure that the government is also prohibited from using its National Security Letter authority, or pen registers and trap-and-trace devices, for bulk collection. It does so by requiring the government to identify a specific selection term--something like a person's name, or an account or telephone number--as the basis for obtaining information. This term must limit the scope of records collected to those that are ``relevant'' to an authorized investigation, which requires a reasonable relationship between the particular records and the subjects of a terrorism investigation.

I share the concerns that the current definition of ``specific selection term'' may still allow overbroad collection. But given the ``presumptively relevant'' categories that Congress has already identified in section 215--and because the bill will now require participation of an amicus in the FISA Court who can argue against an overly broad reading of the law--the government would not be permitted to, for example, use an entire telephone area code or an Internet router to collect and warehouse records just because a terrorist suspect might be using a phone in that area code or sending communications that might traverse that router.

Moreover, to the extent the FISA Court ever construes a specific selection term too broadly, other reforms in the bill ensure that Congress and the American people would know about it immediately and could rein them in.

These changes are quite significant, as are the new restrictions to the use of FISA section 702, which allows the NSA to target persons located outside the United States.

The USA FREEDOM Act on the floor today certainly does not give us everything we want or need. It is the product of heated negotiations across party and committee lines and with the intelligence community. It is far from perfect, but it is an important step forward, and we will work to fix remaining problems and strengthen the bill as it moves through the Senate. But a ``no'' vote on this bill today may mean no reform at all, thus leaving in place the framework that could lead to the continued dragnet surveillance of our citizens. This must end. This still makes critically important changes that we should all support. That is why I will vote for it and why I urge everyone else to vote for it.

With that, I want to thank Congressmen Sensenbrenner, Goodlatte, Conyers, Scott, and Forbes, and all the staff members who worked on this bill.

This is a signal occasion. It is the first real progress we will have made--not enough--but a really good first step.

Mr. Speaker, I have heard arguments against this bill, and all of them amount to one argument: the bill doesn't go far enough.

I agree. It doesn't, but it is rarely a good argument against a bill to say it doesn't go far enough, if it goes a long way towards solving a real problem.

This bill will end bulk collection. It will end it under section 215. It will end it under trace and trap, and it will end it under NSLs. Without this bill--and I hope it is strengthened in the Senate--we will have no chance to end bulk collection, and the current framework which allows the dragnet surveillance of our citizens will continue.

I wish this bill were stronger, but it is what we are able to get now. It is a major step forward, and not to pass this bill now would be to say to the NSA: Continue what you are doing, we are placing no restrictions on you beyond what the law already has.

Mr. Chairman, we are told in opposition to this amendment that terrorists have no constitutional rights. That is like saying rapists or murderers have no constitutional rights. But accused rapists and accused murders do have rights until it is proven that they are guilty, and then their rights are taken away from them. The same must be true of accused terrorists.

Ever since Magna Carta, we have denied the government the power to imprison and punish people on mere accusation. That is tyranny. The government's labeling someone a terrorist

doesn't make him one. The government must prove the accusation in court. That was always a bedrock American value until we opened Guantanamo. Now we imprison people indefinitely without trial. This must stop.

Guantanamo should be closed, and its inmates should be tried or released. Our Federal courts work. They have repeatedly tried, convicted, and sentenced terrorists to long prison terms. Prosecuting and imprisoning terrorists on U.S. soil has proven to be safer, less expensive, and less harmful to our national security.

I urge my colleagues to support our amendment to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, end indefinite detention, and restore our national honor.

Mr. Speaker, I had to depart for a meeting at the White House, and as a result, I missed one vote on May 19, 2014. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 219, awarding a Congressional Gold Medal to the American Fighter Aces.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Moran-Smith-Nadler amendment.

We are told by some in the majority that enemy soldiers should not have constitutional rights. But, Mr. Chairman, a majority, concededly, of those at Guantanamo, were never involved in a hostile act against the United States, and 86 percent were turned in for bounties.

We don't know whether these people are enemy soldiers. Some of them may be and some of them are probably not. And we don't know that they are terrorists.

Those facts must be determined in a fair proceeding of some sort, but at Guantanamo there are no proceedings. They haven't managed to hold military trials. And we can't hold civilian trials there.

So we are holding people for no purpose, with no proceedings, no hearings, no opportunity, for essentially forever.

The time to close Guantanamo is now. Guantanamo is a stain on our national honor. Never mind all the foreign policy reasons why it is poisoning our relations with foreign countries and instigating terrorism against it. The fact is, it is wrong.

We are holding 154 people at Guantanamo, 77 of whom have been cleared for release. That is to say, they have been found guilty of nothing, are thought to be guilty of nothing, and have been judged not to pose any danger. Nonetheless, they are not released.

There is no reason and there is no right for us to hold them further. The others should be brought to the United States and tried for their offenses.

Mr. Chairman, I wonder which of our colleagues does not believe in the American system of justice. I wonder which one of us does not trust our own American courts. I wonder who among us does not believe in the Bill of Rights, who does not believe in the right to counsel or that people should have an opportunity to have their guilt or innocence established in court.

What we have at Guantanamo is a system that is an affront to those beliefs and to the United States.

In the last decade, we have begun to let go of our freedoms bit by bit with each new executive order, each new court decision, and yes, each new act of Congress. We have begun giving away our rights to privacy, our right to our day in court when the government harms us, and with this legislation we are continuing down the path of destroying the right to be free from imprisonment without due process of law.

Indeed, I wonder if some of the people in Guantanamo broke out of jail, inflicted injuries on American personnel in so doing, and were caught, how we would defend ourselves when they said, We were just victims of kidnapping. The United States Government kidnapped us, with no claim of right. We had every right to use force to escape an illegal kidnapping by a government acting, essentially, under no law.

I want to commend the gentleman from Virginia and the gentleman from Washington for fighting to close the detention facility at Guantanamo.

The language in this bill, without our amendment, prohibits moving any detainees into the United States and guarantees that we will continue holding people indefinitely--people who may not be terrorists, some of whom we may suspect to be terrorists, none

of whom have had a day in court to prove they are or are not terrorists. We will continue to hold them indefinitely without charge, contrary to every tradition this country stands for, contrary to any notion of due process.

Because of this momentous challenge to the founding principles of the United States that no person may be deprived of liberty without due process of law--and certainly may not be deprived of liberty indefinitely without due process of law--we must close the detention facility at Guantanamo now in order to restore our national honor. This will afford the detainees no additional constitutional rights. The Supreme Court has already ruled detainees at Guantanamo have the same constitutional rights as they would if they were brought here.

We must close this facility, try these people or let them go, and restore our national honor. Support this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, the Better Off Budget will make our country more competitive and will create 8.8 million jobs through investments, repairing our roads and bridges, modernizing our waterways, and educating our young people. It is the only budget that gets America back to full employment, and does it within 3 years.

The Better Off Budget puts an end to a system where CEOs pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries and corporations get unneeded tax breaks. This budget restores full funding to food stamps and strengthens Medicare and Medicaid. It makes a clear choice to support working and middle class families, seniors and those in need, and to reinstate fairness in our economy.

For the fourth year in a row, Republicans choose to hurt the many while lavishing benefits on the wealthy few. They choose to slash 3 million jobs and destroy the safety net. They choose to dismantle Medicare and Medicaid and slash aide to college students. They choose huge tax cuts for billionaires and tax increases for the middle class. The Republican budget makes a clear choice--billionaires before working Americans and seniors.

The Better Off Budget is about building an economy that creates jobs and supports working and middle class families, not just the richest 1 percent. I urge my colleagues to invest in this country and support the Better Off Budget.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 4323, the Debbie Smith Act.

Every 2 minutes in this country, someone is sexually assaulted. That means, by the time I finish my remarks today, at least one man, woman, or child will have been brutally attacked.

By the end of this year, more than 200,000 people--nearly all of them women and girls--will have been victimized in the most inhuman way. Only 60 percent of victims will ever report their attacks, and barely 3 percent of attackers will ever serve a day in prison.

These statistics are staggering, and we are not doing all we can to ensure that every victim has access to the justice he deserves. Too often, victims who are willing to report their attacks face invasive examinations, which leave them feeling victimized all over again.

They then wait, often living in fear and with no information from law enforcement, while their rape kits collect dust in evidence lockers or sit on lab shelves. Every untested rape kit is a lost opportunity to provide justice and to catch dangerous criminals.

To see the importance of rape kit testing, look no further than New York City. In 1999, the city enacted a policy to test every rape kit and to eliminate its backlog of over 17,000 kits, and 15 years later, that policy has made a world of difference.

Every kit collected in New York is tested within 30 to 60 days, and the arrest rate for rape has skyrocketed from 40 percent to 70 percent. Compare that to the national rate of 24 percent. Clearly, the more rape kits we test, the more rapists we get off the streets.

Imagine what would happen if we tested all of the 400,000 rape kits that are still sitting on the shelves today around the country.

I have fought to end the rape kit backlog for nearly 15 years. In 2000, I supported the passage of the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act, which provided $40 million to help States analyze DNA evidence.

When the rape kit backlog failed to decrease by 2002, I introduced the Rape Kit DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act, which would have authorized $250 million to help police departments finance rape kit testing.

In 2004, I cosponsored and worked closely with Mr. Sensenbrenner and others to enact the Justice for All Act that created the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program, which authorized hundreds of millions of dollars for DNA testing and strengthened the ability of State and local law enforcement to test rape kits.

While I am pleased that we will reauthorize the Debbie Smith Grant Program today, I am disappointed that we are not considering a complete reauthorization of the Justice for All Act, including the Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Grant programs.

DNA evidence is vital to providing justice for all people by putting violent criminals behind bars and by exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals. We should not allow a vital program to lapse because it is less politically expedient.

It is my hope that we can work together to pass a complete reauthorization of the Justice for All Act as our colleagues in the Senate claim to do shortly. In the 10 years since the creation of the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program, we have seen much progress, but the backlog continues to be a major problem, and prosecuting is uneven across the country.

I commend the chairman of the committee and the ranking member and all

of the other Members who have worked on this bill. I urge my colleagues to support the bill and to work towards a day when no rape kit goes untested and every victim of sexual assault sees justice.

Will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman.

Isn't it true, sir, that the language that you read from the amendment says ``nothing in this bill''? It means that if the amendment were passed, the ability of the Congress or the courts to enforce the law against the President would be exactly the same as if the bill didn't pass, so it wouldn't immunize the President from the current law.

It would immunize him from whatever new thing the bill would do, but not from the current law and whatever ability the courts have to restrain the President from not enforcing civil rights laws right now.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, my amendment adds a new section to the bill to ensure that the President retains the well-established constitutional authority to exercise prosecutorial discretion when enforcing our laws.

H.R. 4138 would empower either the House or the Senate to file a lawsuit whenever one House disagrees with how the executive branch is implementing a law. The bill applies to enforcement decisions made by any officer or employee of the United States, thus reaching into every decision across hundreds of thousands of ``Federal statutes, rules, regulations, programs, policies, or other laws.''

H.R. 4138 is a practical nightmare. It invites endless costly litigation over policy disagreements that do not raise any legitimate constitutional concerns. We need look no further than the examples cited by the sponsors of this bill to see that this is true.

Far from representing a violation of the Take Care Clause, President Obama's decision to delay--not to refuse--enforcement of various deadlines under the Affordable Care Act are reasonable implementation decisions that are designed to ensure the ultimate success of the President's signature law. Delaying implementation of a complex law is not unusual.

Similarly, the administration's setting of immigration enforcement priorities falls well within its exercise of prosecutorial discretion and raises no legitimate constitutional concern.

The administration's decision to provide temporary relief from removal for certain DREAMers--young adults brought to the United States as children--complies both with Congress' statutory directive to establish national immigration enforcement priorities and within the President's responsibility to exercise prosecutorial discretion under the Take Care Clause of the Constitution.

While my colleagues now seek to drag courts into nonjusticiable political disputes, the fact of the matter is that no court has ever found delay in implementation of a law or the routine exercise of criminal or civil enforcement powers to constitute a violation of the Take Care Clause.

The fact is that courts likely will refuse jurisdiction over lawsuits brought by Congress against a President because H.R. 4138 violates bedrock principles of constitutional law.

The Supreme Court has long recognized that the Take Care Clause vests the President with ``broad'' discretion to determine when, against whom, how, and even whether to prosecute apparent violations of the law.

In Heckler v. Chaney, for example, the Court confirmed this core principle when it recognized that:

An agency's refusal to institute proceedings shares to some

extent the characteristics of the decision of a prosecutor in

the executive branch not to indict--a decision which has long

been regarded as the special province of the executive

branch, inasmuch as it is the Executive who is charged by the

Constitution to ``take care that the laws be faithfully

executed.''

The injection of Congress and the courts into decisions that the Constitution squarely commits to the President's discretion raises significant separation of powers concerns. It also lies beyond the purview of the courts to accept any such case under the Supreme Court's political question jurisprudence.

In Baker v. Carr, the Supreme Court made clear that the courts cannot and will not interfere in matters that the Constitution commits to a coordinate branch of government.

My amendment seeks to mitigate H.R. 4138's unconstitutional encroachment into the President's authority to faithfully execute the law by adding a new subsection (d) to ensure that nothing in H.R. 4138 ``limits or otherwise affects the clearly established constitutional authority of the executive branch to exercise prosecutorial discretion.''

My amendment cures one of H.R. 4138's many constitutional infirmities. I urge all of my colleagues to support it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, how much time remains?

I will yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren).

Mr. Chairman, I don't have the time to answer all of Mr. Gowdy's arguments except to say that if this bill were to pass, which it won't because the Senate won't look at it, but if the bill were to pass and if my amendment were adopted, it would simply make it easier for the courts to define what prosecutorial discretion is and is not, and I am confident that they would agree with Mr. Gowdy as to some of the horribles not being prosecutorial discretion. But since it would put prosecutorial discretion as an exception to the bill, then you could get a judicial determination as to what prosecutorial discretion is and what it isn't.

I urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this burdensome and unnecessary piece of legislation.

We all know this is a message bill, a one-House bill that is not going anywhere in the Senate and is intended only as political propaganda against the President. It is a sham, and we all know it. In fact, we have come to expect it.

Never mind that there are real problems facing the American people that we can and should be working on, like raising the minimum wage, reforming our broken immigration system, creating jobs, extending unemployment insurance.

I guess it's not enough for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to ignore America's real problems. They have to waste time on invented problems that don't really exist.

That brings us to the bill before us today. This bill would require the Attorney General to report to Congress any instance when any Federal officer establishes a policy to refrain from enforcing, applying, or administering any Federal law, as well as to state the grounds underlying such a nonenforcement policy.

It expands the current law, which requires the Attorney General to report instances when he determines not to enforce the law because he believes that law to be unconstitutional. This new burdensome mandate would not only result in confusion and drain already-limited law enforcement resources, but would present separation-of-powers concerns as to its constitutionality.

The bill would require the Attorney General to oversee every single Federal officer, every U.S. attorney, every deputy U.S. attorney, every agent of any Federal agency, thousands of people, and would require him to determine in every instance when they prioritize enforcement of some classes of cases over others whether such exercises of discretion constitute a ``policy'' of nonenforcement. What a complete mess. Millions of decisions every year. Talk about your bureaucratic nightmare, not to mention your waste of taxpayers' dollars.

What is even worse is this bill is a thoroughly flawed solution in search of an imaginary problem. Over the course of two oversight hearings on the topic, the bill's supporters have failed to identify a single example of the President really failing to ``faithfully execute'' the law.

It is clear that they have confused constitutional violations with the President's legitimate exercise of enforcement discretion, which is not only well within his authority, but is in fact required by the Constitution's Take Care Clause.

Whether it be increasing the minimum wage with Federal contractors, which he is allowed to do; allowing the DREAMers to stay in the country by deferred deportation orders, for which there is much precedent; or even delaying implementation of certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act, all of these actions are well within the President's legal authority. Of course the President has the authority to set guidelines for Federal contractors or to prioritize immigration enforcement dollars away from deporting children. Even when it comes to delaying deadlines of provisions in the Affordable Care Act, his goal was not to undermine the law. It was the exact opposite--to ensure that the law continues to work well for the millions of Americans who are benefiting from it: the children under age 26 who can remain on their parents' policies, those with preexisting conditions who can get insurance, women and seniors benefiting from increased preventive care services, of course the millions of previously uninsured who now have health insurance.

So, Madam Speaker, I hope my colleagues will be content with their message bill based on half-truths, completely unworkable technically, and completely without any benefit to the millions of Americans who want more from Congress than silly messages.

Americans want results. They want higher wages, a better immigration system, and affordable health care. I guess the Republicans are content to have them wait and to try to entertain them with silly nonsense. It is really sad. I hope we can get down to dealing with serious issues in this Congress.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, my amendment exempts from the bill any construction project for a nuclear facility planned in an area designated as an earthquake fault zone.

The RAPID Act would prevent meaningful input on complicated construction projects that have the potential to have disastrous impact on individuals living near them.

The meltdown of the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake and tsunami highlights the dangers of regulatory failure when it comes to ensuring the safe operation of nuclear reactors. In particular, the Fukushima disaster illustrates the failure in planning a construction project in an area susceptible to earthquakes and tsunamis.

March 11, 2014, next week, marks the 3-year anniversary of the Fukushima meltdown. A recent reporter visiting the site described it like this:

The site of Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan remains a

post-apocalyptic landscape of abandoned towns, frozen in

time.

Now, consider the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, which is only 24 miles from New York City and, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, could be at risk of reactor core damage from an earthquake. An estimated 17 million people live within a 50-mile radius of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant.

By imposing strict deadlines and limiting opportunities for agencies and the public to participate in the approval process, this bill could prevent the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from being able to protect the tens of millions who live in the greater New York Metropolitan area and millions of Americans who live near nuclear power plants from a catastrophe akin to what happened at Fukushima in Japan.

I want to point out that we have already had nuclear accidents right here in the United States. Just last month, night shift workers inhaled plutonium that was leaked from a nuclear waste burial site in Carlsbad, New Mexico.

Radioactive materials reached the surface and were inhaled by several workers. Those workers face the possibility of subatomic particles bombarding their internal organs for the rest of their lives.

Now, imagine the immense risk to human health that would result from a large-scale leak caused by an earthquake. It would be catastrophic. We cannot afford to water down nuclear regulations or restrict the ability of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from doing its job of protecting human health.

My amendment would ensure that the inclusive and prudential construction approval process that currently exists under the National Environmental Policy Act will continue to apply to any construction projects for a nuclear facility planned in an area designated as an earthquake fault zone.

The procedures in this bill that would short-circuit the NEPA procedures are just too dangerous when you are considering an application to construct a nuclear facility in an earthquake fault zone.

I urge everyone to support the amendment because, when it comes to constructing a nuclear facility in an earthquake fault zone, we really cannot be too careful.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I would simply point out that, no, the RAPID Act does not guarantee any nuclear power plant or anything else, but it does short-circuit the proper review.

It, for instance, says that if certain procedures are not completed within a certain period of time, the application is deemed approved. It means that the applicant can slow-walk information and get an approval automatically because the review is not complete within a period of time.

It is just too dangerous. The present procedures that we have have, in fact, allowed us to build the nuclear power plants, and other facilities have been built.

We should not play Russian roulette with the lives of millions of Americans

by short-circuiting the environmental review of nuclear power plants, especially in earthquake fault zones.

Yes, we need energy. Yes, we should have energy from all sorts of power sources, but we should do it safely and not risk Fukushimas galore.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor David Lachmann on his retirement from the House of Representatives and to thank him for his 25 years of federal service.

David came to Washington in 1989 to work for former Congressman Steve Solarz of Brooklyn, staffing him on the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, as well as on issues related to criminal justice, religious liberty, housing, and the environment.

When I was elected to Congress in 1992, David became my first legislative director. In 1997, David moved to the Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law. For the past 13 years, he has served as the Democratic chief of staff on the Constitution and Civil Justice Subcommittee.

As an expert on the First Amendment, and particularly on issues of religious liberty and church-state relations, David was instrumental in the passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

He is also one of the foremost experts in the House on bankruptcy, a very technical and complicated area of law

but one that affects millions of people. Over the last 25 years, David has worked tirelessly to advocate for the rights and well-being of people who are most in need of Congress' protection but who do not have access to high-priced lobbyists.

David performed these services every day, whether in defending against attacks on women's reproductive rights, working to protect Americans' civil liberties against PATRIOT Act provisions, or building support for legislation to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act.

David's resume is impressive, but it does not tell the full story. David is a legend in the House. He is one of those committed public servants who has become an institution within the institution.

As the chief of staff of the Constitution Subcommittee, David has been the point person on some of the most difficult and divisive issues facing Congress each year. Yet, he brings a sense of humor, wit, and perspective that is well known in the House, without ever sacrificing his commitment to advancing the cause of equality and justice, and to defending the rights and freedoms of the most vulnerable among us.

He has provided Members of Congress, staff, and advocates with a wealth of expertise and institutional memory on a wide range of issues that would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace. It will be a long time before I stop picking up the phone and dialing his number to ask him a question about some matter before the committee, or to get his perspective on the latest Supreme Court decision, or to just reminisce about the days of 1970s and 1980s New York politics.

David has worked with me for a long time, and his biggest contribution has been as a trusted adviser and loyal friend.

Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in thanking David for his service and for his dedication to working on behalf of the American people. He will be sorely missed in this institution, but we wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, on its milestone 100th birthday.

In February of 1914, a group of prominent American music creators and publishers met at the Hotel Claridge in New York to discuss a noble idea: a society that would champion and protect the rights of music writers and publishers by licensing the public performance of their music. The result was ASCAP, officially formed 100 years ago as of this Thursday, February 13th.

ASCAP's earliest members included John Philip Sousa, Irving Berlin and James Weldon Johnson--enormously important songwriters and composers of the early 20th century, and still beloved by Americans today. Since then, ASCAP's membership has grown exponentially. It currently has nearly 500,000 creators and publishers of music of all genres, and licenses the public performance of more than nine million musical works.

The society's membership includes countless musical luminaries past and present, from Duke Ellington to Katy Perry, George Gershwin to Jay Z, Leonard Bernstein to Beyonce, Marc Anthony to Brad Paisley, Henry Mancini to Hans Zimmer. Equally important, ASCAP also represents many thousands of writers whose names we might not recognize, but whose music we love.

As a long-time member of the House Judiciary Committee, I can attest to ASCAP's commitment to protecting the creative and economic rights of its members, and to working with lawmakers to build a viable future for professional songwriters and composers. ASCAP is always willing to come to Washington with guitars in hand, to remind us that every music creator is a small business owner who helps drive the US economy as they provide the soundtrack to our lives.

I can also attest to the important cultural and economic contributions made by the 3,500 ASCAP members in my congressional district. ASCAP members write the music for Broadway musicals; compose the theme songs and scores for the many movies and TV shows filmed in Manhattan and Brooklyn; and write the musical compositions performed by many New York recording artists. They are an integral part of the cultural and economic fabric of my district.

ASCAP's centennial comes at a critical juncture for music and copyright. The modes of music consumption are changing rapidly, and the future for songwriters has never been less clear. While ASCAP is uniquely positioned to help its members navigate this uncertain future, it is also hampered by a regulatory structure that has not evolved along with the music landscape. That antiquated regulatory structure prevents ASCAP from licensing new services in ways that balances the needs of music creators, licensees and consumers. Those rules need to be updated so that, in its second century, ASCAP can continue to enable songwriters to enrich our culture and uplift our souls while feeding their families and paying the rent.

For 100 years now ASCAP has been at the forefront of the global music industry, nurturing new music talent and licensing every new music distribution platform, all in the name of protecting the songwriters, composers and publishers that call ASCAP home. I hope my colleagues will join me in recognizing its contributions and wishing ASCAP a second century as remarkable as its first.

Madam Speaker, today we consider H.R. 7, the misleadingly named No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion bill. Congress, unfortunately, already prohibits Federal funding of abortion. This bill does not simply codify existing law. Rather, it modifies and extends current funding restrictions in the Hyde amendment and, for the first time ever, uses the Tax Code to penalize the use of private funds to purchase insurance that covers abortion. It denies small businesses the tax credits they are entitled to under the Affordable Care Act if they offer their employees health insurance, if that health insurance covers abortion. It similarly denies income-eligible women and families the tax credits that they are entitled to under the Affordable Care Act if they use their own money to purchase insurance, if that insurance covers abortion.

The claim here is that a tax credit equals Federal funding. This is a completely new principle, asserted for the first and only time in this context. If we adopt this new theory--that granting tax relief is Federal funding--then how can tax relief for churches, synagogues, and religious-affiliated schools not be considered Federal funding in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment? We should all be very careful about establishing this new principle.

H.R. 7 is not a codification of existing law, nor is it just another attempt to enact the approach taken in the Stupak-Pitts amendment to the House-passed Affordable Care Act. H.R. 7 is a radical departure from current tax treatment of medical expenses and insurance coverage; and it is not justifiable, nor is it necessary, unfortunately, to prevent Federal funding of abortion.

I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill.

Today the House will consider H.R. 7--a bill that embraces the completely fictitious claim that legislation is needed to prevent federal funding of abortion services.

Congress already prohibits federal funding of abortion and has done so for more than thirty years. Many of us disagree with that decision. But regardless, there is no need for this bill, at least not to prevent federal funding of abortion.

Nor is the bill simply an effort to codify existing law. H.R. 7 modifies and extends current funding restrictions in the Hyde Amendment that are limited in time and scope, without any effort to determine how such a sweeping and permanent expansion would impact American women and their families.

If this were all, that would be reason enough to oppose it, but H.R. 7 actually goes much further. For the first time ever, anti-choice lawmakers are using the Federal tax code to penalize the purchase of insurance that covers abortion in certain circumstances. These penalties would apply when women and businesses use their own money-- let me repeat that, their own money, not Federal funds--to purchase insurance that covers abortion.

In particular, H.R. 7 penalizes income-eligible women by denying them the tax credits that they are entitled to under the Affordable Care Act if they use their own money to purchase insurance that covers abortion. It similarly denies small businesses the tax credits that they are entitled to under the Affordable Care Act if the insurance they offer their employees includes abortion coverage.

The claim here is that a tax credit equals Federal funding. This is a completely new principle, asserted for the first and only time in this context. If we adopt this new theory--that granting tax relief is Federal funding--then how can tax relief for churches not be considered Federal funding in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment? I am sure that many churches, synagogues, other houses of worship, and religiously-affiliated schools would be alarmed to discover this.

We all should be very careful about establishing this new principle.

Some additional tax penalties were in the bill when it was considered by the House Judiciary Committee. Those were removed and we now have new provisions that have never been considered by any Committee.

We have no idea who made these changes or why they were made. But they demonstrate the fiction and hypocrisy that underlies this bill.

This bill, unlike the version considered in the Judiciary Committee, no longer denies women who pay for abortion out-of-pocket the ability to claim those expenses as deductible medical expenses. And this version no longer taxes women when they use money they have set aside in flexible savings accounts or health savings accounts for abortion services. We welcome the removal of those tax penalty provisions, but these changes are not nearly enough.

This version, unlike the bill considered by House Judiciary, also adds a notice requirement that requires insurance companies to provide a false notice to policyholders that they will be forced to pay a so- called ``abortion surcharge'' if they are in a plan that covers abortion.

Existing law already requires plans to disclose to consumers whether a policy includes abortion. No further notice is necessary. And there is no surcharge for this coverage, as the new notice provision falsely suggests. The Affordable Care Act requires participating insurance plans to segregate monies for abortion services from all other funds, a measure my anti-choice colleagues insisted was necessary to prevent Federal funding of abortion. The segregation of a private dollar contribution of at least $1 a month is not a surcharge at all but merely a segregation of the premium. The new notice provision requires insurance companies to mislead consumers into mistakenly believing that they are paying a separate, additional charge for coverage of abortion and that they would pay a lesser premium for insurance that does not cover abortion.

The harms caused by this bill are compounded by the fact that we are being forced to consider it under a closed rule, with no opportunity for amendment.

The potential impact of this bill on the rights of individuals to spend their own funds to purchase comprehensive insurance that cover all of their health care needs (including the potential of an unplanned pregnancy) is significant.

Members should have been given the chance to consider amendments and debate the impact of this bill--and, in particular, its untested tax provisions--before taking an up or down vote on the whole package. This bill is too important, the impact on the rights of all Americans to spend their own money in ways see fit too great, simply to close the door to any debate.

I urge all my colleagues to vote no on this bill.