Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to an organization in my Congressional District that has served this nation for more than a century, protecting pets from abuse and helping to make America a more humane country. Founded on the belief that animals are entitled to kind and respectful treatment and must be protected under the law, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is celebrating its landmark 145th anniversary on April 10, 2011.

Inspired to take action after witnessing the beating of a work horse on a New York City street, Henry Bergh founded the ASPCA in 1866. He believed that protecting animals was an issue that crossed party lines and class boundaries. He used his gifts of oration to make a commanding moral and legal case to protect animals, persuading some of Manhattan's most prominent leaders at the time, including members of the Rockefeller family and the Mayor of New York City to support him in this important fight.

From the beginning, the ASPCA fought hard to provide care and protection for the city's working horses and transform dog pounds into professionally run adoptions facilities. And they opened an animal hospital which serves New York City to this very day.

The modern ASPCA also includes a Humane Law Enforcement department, which upholds state animal cruelty laws in the five boroughs. Last year alone, the ASPCA investigated some 4,000 reported complaints of animal cruelty, made 51 arrests, and helped more than 400 animals. With a 90 percent conviction rate for their animal cruelty investigations, the ASPCA is helping to make New York a safer place for both the city's residents and animals.

I am proud to say the ASPCA's Bergh Memorial Animal Hospital is one of the largest full-service animal hospitals in New York, with more than 24,000 patient visits in 2009, including almost 5,000 emergency exams. The hospital's Intensive Care Unit operates 365 days a year. This was particularly lucky for Gary, a one year old cat that fell from an apartment building window in April of 2010 and was brought to the ASPCA's hospital in critical condition, with a life-threatening fractured pelvis. The hospital's veterinarians worked tirelessly, against all odds, to save Gary. He is alive today thanks to their skills.

My colleagues will find it interesting that Bergh Memorial Animal Hospital was an early leader in radiation therapy for cancer in animals and, during World War I, ASPCA veterinarians helped care for the horses used by the U.S. Army.

Mr. Speaker, the ASPCA has helped to change the way Americans view animals and the tools that are needed to care for them. It led the way with a wide variety of innovations from horse ambulances to the cardboard boxes that people use to carry home the pets they adopt-- boxes that were devised by an ASPCA shelter clerk.

Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, nearly 4,000 cats and dogs are saved each year when they are adopted from the ASPCA Adoption Center. The state- of-the-art adoption center was recently renovated and now houses more than 300 cats and dogs in accommodations designed to create an inviting, appealing space for both pets and people.

The ASPCA also manages the Animal Poison Control Center, which- handled more than 167,000 cases of pets exposed to toxic substances last year--treating cases that ranged from cats and dogs to horses and livestock. Its location in Urbana, Illinois provides the ASPCA with a strong presence in the Midwest to complement the New York City Headquarters.

In closing, the ASPCA's founding mission ``to provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals'' continues to. resonate today some 145 years later, and I am proud to rise today to pay tribute to this organization in my district. I hope you will all join me in wishing them many good years to come.

Mr. Speaker, I was on medical leave and missed votes on March 16-17, 2011. Had I been able to, I would have voted ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 181; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 182; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 183; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 184; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 185; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 186; ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 188, final passage of the NSP Termination Act; ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 189; ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 190; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 191; ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 192 prohibiting funding for National Public Radio; and ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 193 directing the President to remove the United States Armed Forces from Afghanistan.

Madam Chairman, this bill drastically cuts funding for FAA programs, threatening the development of the NextGen air traffic control system and requiring the furlough of hundreds of safety-related employees.

The bill also would change the National Mediation Board's election rules. Airline and railroad workers would no longer vote for union representation by a majority of those voting but by a majority of all those eligible to vote. It would be extremely undemocratic to thus count votes not cast as ``no'' votes. No election in any free country does so. And I urge my colleagues to support the LaTourette-Costello amendment to strike this provision.

I also oppose provisions in the manager's amendment providing liability immunity for the airlines and limitations on discovery. Section 336 would block access to safety-related data through discovery and would block use of such information in court. It is virtually unheard of for Congress to simply declare that broad categories of information cannot be obtained by a party to a lawsuit or even used as evidence in a legal proceeding.

Section 337 provides immunity to airlines and their agents for any type of damage resulting from an event contemplated by a safety management system. These systems are designed to analyze virtually every kind of risk, so granting this immunity would make it virtually impossible to hold an airline or individual accountable for negligence causing almost any accident. This liability shield would deprive injured victims of their rights and would also preempt State tort law.

We haven't held any hearings on this in the Transportation Committee or in the Judiciary Committee, which, frankly, has jurisdiction and the proper expertise with which to analyze such grants of immunity, and we haven't heard any evidence to justify these dangerous restrictions.

I find it hard to believe that anybody thinks that airlines should be allowed to act with negligence and be free from liability should you or I or any other American be injured or maimed or killed as a result of the negligence.

For all these reasons, I must oppose the bill.

However, I do want to thank Chairman Mica and Congressman Coble for including language in the manager's amendment to strengthen the provisions guaranteeing the right to carry or check musical instruments onto an

airline. This is an issue I've worked on for many years, and I am very pleased to see it finally moving forward.

I hope that we can continue to find areas of agreement, since passage of a long-term FAA authorization bill is long overdue. I look forward to working with my colleagues in that spirit. But until the funding levels are increased, the safety and worker provisions are in place, the poison pill provisions about union votes are removed, I cannot support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Kucinich resolution directing the President to remove United States Armed Forces from Afghanistan.

It is time to bring U.S. involvement in the war in Afghanistan to an end and to bring our troops home. The war effort in Afghanistan is no longer serving its purpose of enhancing the security of the United States, which should be our goal.

We were attacked on 9/11 by al Qaeda. Al Qaeda had bases in Afghanistan. It made sense to go in and destroy those bases. And we did. We have every right, we have every duty to destroy bases which are being used to plot against the United States. But the CIA tells us that there are now fewer than 100 al Qaeda personnel in all of the country of Afghanistan.

It is past time to admit that our legitimate purpose in Afghanistan-- to destroy al Qaeda bases--has long since been accomplished. But it is a fool's errand to try to remake a country that nobody since Genghis Khan has managed to conquer. What makes us think, what arrogance gives us the right to assume that we can succeed where the Mongols, the British, the Soviets failed? No government in Afghanistan, no government in Kabul, has ever been able to make its writ run in the entire country.

Why have we undertaken to invent a government that is not supported by the majority of the people, a government that is corrupt, and try to impose it on this country? Afghanistan is in the middle of what is at this point a 35-year civil war. We have no business intervening in that civil war, we have no ability to win it for one side or the other, and we have no necessity to win it for one side or the other. This whole idea of counterinsurgency, that we are going to persuade the people who are left alive after our firepower is applied to love the government that we like is absurd.

It will take tens of years, hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars, tens of thousands of American lives, if it can be done at all, and we don't need to do it. It's their country. If they want to have a civil war, we can't stop them. We can't choose the rulers that they have, we don't have to like the rulers that they have, and we don't have to like their choices. It's not up to us.

At this point we must recognize that rebuilding Afghanistan is both beyond our ability and beyond our mandate to prevent terrorists from attacking the United States. And if it be said that there are terrorists operating in Afghanistan, that may be, but it is also true of Yemen, Somalia and many other countries. We do not need to invade and conquer and occupy all those countries, and Afghanistan provides no greater necessity or justification for military operations.

We are throwing $100 billion a year--plus countless lives--down a drainpipe, for no useful purpose at all--and with very little discussion of our purposes and of whether our policy matches our purposes.

To continue so bad a policy at so high a cost is simply unconscionable. It is unjustifiable to sacrifice more money and more lives this way. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting to bring the U.S. involvement in the war in Afghanistan to a close.

Now, I want to say a word about supporting the troops. I believe it is more supportive of the troops to bring them home from a war that they should not be fighting than it is to give them weapons to fight an unnecessary war in which some of them, unfortunately, will lose their lives.

So I say support our troops. Bring them home. Support the country. Stop fighting where it no longer makes sense.

Vote for this resolution. Let's bring our troops home.

I hadn't planned to speak except I must rebut the nonsense we just heard from the previous speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States has a duty to faithfully execute the laws. He is doing so. Though he doesn't agree with the Defense of Marriage Act and though he doesn't think it's constitutional, unlike President Bush, who refused to implement and to enforce the laws he thought were unconstitutional, President Obama is enforcing the law. He is simply not urging it in court. That's his prerogative, and that's his duty if he doesn't think it's constitutional.

The fact of the matter is, given Supreme Court precedent on the standards to use in defending a law that discriminates against people, he had no choice because, when you have a group that is discriminated against and that inherently in its characteristics is not politically powerful enough to protect itself, the precedents all say you must have heightened scrutiny.

That is what the President is urging in court. He is enforcing the law, and he is doing exactly what he ought to do.

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

Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to offer this amendment along with the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) and the gentlewoman from California (Mr. Stark).

The continuing resolution provides approximately $100 billion for Department of Defense operations in Afghanistan. This amendment states that not more than $10 billion of the funds made available by the bill may be used for military operations in Afghanistan. The intent is clear: It is time to bring U.S. involvement in the war in Afghanistan to an end and to bring our troops home. The war effort in Afghanistan is no longer serving its purpose of enhancing the security of the United States, which should be our goal.

We were attacked on 9/11 by al Qaeda. Al Qaeda had bases in Afghanistan. It made sense to go in and destroy those bases. And we did. We have every right, we have every duty to destroy bases which are being used to plot against the United States. But the CIA tells us that there are now fewer than 100 al Qaeda personnel in all of the country of Afghanistan. Congress and the American people helped greatly reduce U.S. involvement in Iraq. Through the elections in 2006 and 2008 we forced a new direction in Iraq and helped bring thousands of troops home. We must now do the same in Afghanistan.

The intent of this amendment is to reduce the funding for Afghanistan sufficiently to leave enough funds to provide for the safe and orderly withdrawal of our troops but not funding for ongoing combat operations.

The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) earlier today said he would propose an amendment to establish a blue ribbon commission to examine our war effort and to ask the question of how best to fight the war. With all due respect, that is the wrong question. The right question, the first question is: Why do we need to fight this war at all?

It is past time to admit that our legitimate purpose in Afghanistan-- to destroy al Qaeda bases--has long since been accomplished. But it is a fool's errand to try to remake a country that nobody since Genghis Khan has managed to conquer. What makes us think, what arrogance gives us the right to assume that we can succeed where the Mongols, the British, the Soviets failed? No government in Afghanistan, no government in Kabul, has ever been able to make its writ run in the entire country.

Why have we undertaken to invent a government that is not supported by the majority of the people, a government that is corrupt, and try to impose it on this country? Afghanistan is in the middle of what is at this point a 35-year civil war. We have no business intervening in that civil war, we have no ability to win it for one side or the other, and we have no necessity to win it for one side or the other. This whole idea of counterinsurgency, that we are going to persuade the people who are left alive after our firepower is applied to love the government that we like is absurd. It will take tens of years, hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars, tens of thousands of American lives, if it can be done at all, and we don't need to do it. It's their country. If they want to have a civil war, we can't stop them. We can't choose the rulers that they have, we don't have to like the rulers that they have, and we don't have to like their choices. It's not up to us.

At this point we must recognize that rebuilding Afghanistan is both beyond our ability and beyond our mandate to prevent terrorists from attacking the United States. And if it be said that there are terrorists operating in Afghanistan, that may be, but it is also true of Yemen, Somalia and many other countries. We do not need to invade and conquer and occupy all those

countries, and Afghanistan provides no greater necessity or justification for military operations.

We are debating on this floor hundreds of budget cuts--cuts that will grievously hurt millions of Americans--in order to reduce our expenditures by about $60 billion. Yet we are throwing $100 billion a year--plus countless lives--down a drainpipe, for no useful purpose at all--and with very little discussion of our purposes and of whether our policy matches our purposes.

To continue so bad a policy at so high a cost is simply unconscionable. It is unjustifiable to sacrifice more money and more lives this way. I urge my colleagues to join me and Ms. Lee and Mr. Stark in voting to bring the U.S. involvement in the war in Afghanistan to a close. Vote for this amendment. Let's bring our troops home. Let's stop wasting our lives and our money and our treasure and our forces. Let's bring our troops home. Let's devote our resources to something that helps the people of this country.

Will the gentlelady yield?

Thank you.

The remarks of the gentleman from Florida were incorrect. This amendment limits $10 billion from this CR, enough to bring the troops home during the pendency of this CR. Funds that were already spent were appropriated from the previous CRs. So it hasn't already been spent.

I thank the gentleman for his remarks and for yielding.

I just want to make one comment on what was said a moment ago by the gentleman from Florida. This amendment reduces funding in this CR to $10 billion. It should be enough to withdraw the troops. But the argument was made that to reduce the funding is not to support our troops, to rob them of the implements of doing their job. But the fact is that the only power that Congress has to effectuate the war-making power, to control whether we should be at war somewhere or another, is the power of the purse.

We are not saying, by adopting this amendment, we would not be saying that we want our troops there with no weapons and so forth. We would be saying use the funds to bring the troops home. It is more supportive of the troops to bring them home from a war that they should not be fighting, that is not vital to our national security, it is more supportive to bring them home than it is to give them weapons to fight an unnecessary war in which some of them, unfortunately, will lose their lives.

So I say support our troops. Bring them home. Support the country. Stop fighting where it doesn't make sense, and spend our military resources where it helps the national security of the United States, which is not in Afghanistan right now.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Madam Chairman, I am not going to repeat all of what has been said about the Republican war on women, about the fact that the Republican majority was elected pledging jobs and all we see is a war on various social services and women and nothing about jobs, but I am going to say this: I have been listening very carefully to the supporters of this amendment, to Mr. Pence and others, and what do I hear? I hear that we must punish Planned Parenthood by defunding them because they have committed a number of sins.

Sin Number 1, they perform abortions. They are a very large abortion provider, and even though none of those abortions are paid for with Federal funds, that is prohibited under the Hyde amendment however you read it, we don't like Planned Parenthood because they are a large abortion provider.

Number two, we don't like Planned Parenthood because they have committed allegedly various terrible things. Some provocateurs went into their offices and said that they were representing sex workers and they were offered services, and any organization that is willing to do this should not get Federal funds.

We are going to punish Planned Parenthood, number one, because they are a large abortion provider and we don't like abortion providers; and, number two, because they do other things, which if in fact they do, which I don't think they do, but if in fact they do, they are bad things.

There is a major problem with this. There is a major problem with this rhetoric and with this reasoning. And, by the way, the CR to which this is an amendment eliminates title X family planning funding anyway, so it will eliminate most of the funds that go to Planned Parenthood. But whatever funds that are available, they can go to other people to provide those services, not Planned Parenthood, because we don't like Planned Parenthood for various reasons.

A bill that punishes someone, some person or organization who is named or is identifiable, by legislative action is called a bill of attainder. That is the definition of a bill of attainder: A legislative punishment, penalty, a legislative penalty, a legislative-enacted penalty--in this case, no funding--directed at some identifiable person or organization to punish them for something.

Article I, Section 9 says, ``No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed''; a fundamental foundation of constitutional law.

If Planned Parenthood or anybody else is doing terrible things and ought to be punished, that is up to the courts. If, indeed, Planned Parenthood is trafficking with sex traffickers, let them be prosecuted. If, indeed, Planned Parenthood is doing anything illegal, let them be prosecuted. Let the organization be prosecuted. Let the individual employees who are doing these things be prosecuted at law. That is our system. But you don't punish an organization because they are doing something of which you don't approve.

Now, if you want to say we don't think that there ought to be any contraceptive services in the United States and therefore we are going to have no title X funding, the CR does say that. I don't agree with it, but it is constitutional. But to say that if we have title X funding, if we have maternal services funding, none of it can go to Planned Parenthood, it can go to somebody else, but not Planned Parenthood, that is a legislatively enacted punishment because Planned Parenthood is or is allegedly doing things of which you don't approve.

Now, I heard a lot at the beginning of this Congress about we have to make sure that we adhere to the Constitution. This is a bill of attainder, because it is a legislatively enacted punishment of a named organization because that organization is doing things or is allegedly doing things of which we don't approve.

So I submit that in addition to all the other reasons why this shouldn't be done that have been enacted here, this is flatly unconstitutional, and I challenge anyone to say how this is not a bill of attainder. Again, the black letter definition of a bill of attainder is a legislatively enacted penalty aimed at some person or organization that is identifiable, named right here, for some reason, that they have done various things, provided abortions, done illegal things or otherwise.

So in addition to all the other problems, this amendment is unconstitutional and will be struck down by the courts if it should pass.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise as designee of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) and I am pleased to offer the amendment at the desk.

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

Mr. Chairman, this is a bipartisan amendment sponsored by Mr. Conyers, Mr. Paul, myself and Mr. Jones. The amendment would prohibit the use of any funds made available in this act to make an application for what's commonly known as a section 215 order requiring the production of library circulation records, library patron lists, book sale records or book customer lists. The amendment is very narrowly drawn to protect the privacy of all Americans from unwarranted governmental investigation in an area directly related to their beliefs and private thoughts.

What we read, where we read, what we listen to, our interests, the type of information we seek, our private tastes in art and music all tell a great deal about us. The right to be free from the prying eyes of government in these areas is absolutely necessary to protect our rights of free speech, religious liberty, liberty of conscience, freedom of association and political freedom. This amendment will not prevent the government from obtaining this type of information provided it obtains the constitutionally required warrant. What it will stop is the use of 215 orders which are issued by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court under standards so loose it is almost impossible for the government to get turned down, instead of the normal warrant. In fact, the secret court has become a virtual rubber stamp for the government.

The amendment also will not stop the use of section 215 orders in other investigations such as surveillance of computer communications, even if conducted in libraries. Section 215 authorizes the government to obtain ``any tangible thing'' so long as the government provides a ``statement of facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the tangible things are relevant to a foreign intelligence or an international terrorism or espionage investigation.''

This would include business records, library records, tax records, educational records, or medical records. Before the enactment of section 215, only specific types of records were subject to the orders issued by the secret court, and the government had to show ``specific and articulable facts giving reason to believe that the person to whom the record pertains is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.'' In other words, specific reason to believe that the person you were talking about is either a foreign agent or a terrorist.

This dragnet approach of section 215, which does not need those specific facts, allows the government to review personal records even if there is no reason to believe that the individual involved has anything to do with terrorism. This poses a threat to individual rights in the most sensitive area of our lives with little restraint on the Congress.

While Congress has decided to extend the life of section 215 that does all these things for the next few months, during which I hope we can take a closer look at it and, if not reform it, then do away with it, I think it entirely inappropriate for us to provide some reasonable protection for these very limited and sensitive areas and in effect cutting out library records from the section 215 extension that we just voted.

Do not believe the scare tactics that this amendment might impede investigations and might make us vulnerable to terrorism. The government has many tools with which to investigate terrorism and other types of wrongdoing. In fact, section 215 is rarely used. Search warrants and other investigative tools would still be available to the government. But in any event, most of section 215 is unaffected by this amendment and will continue. This amendment pertains only to library records.

When we last considered this amendment a number of years ago, it passed

this House overwhelmingly with bipartisan support. Today, Representative Conyers and I offer it with two Republican colleagues, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) and the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones). I urge my colleagues to support this amendment dealing only with the library records aspect of section the 215.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have left?

I will yield the 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah).

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I move to strike the last word, Madam Chairman.

I won't speak for 5 minutes. I've been sitting here waiting for my amendment to come up, which it will in a couple of hours probably. But I have to make one comment on everything I'm hearing on the floor.

We hear amendment after amendment to extend unemployment benefits to the unemployed in a time when we have 9 percent unemployment, and they're struck down because there's no pay-for. The amendment provides no other means of paying for the unemployment insurance.

For the last 50 or 60 years it was never considered necessary, in a time of recession and high unemployment, that in order to extend unemployment benefits you had to find someplace else to pay for it. It was automatic emergency spending until this Republican Congress.

I hear amendment after amendment that's denied. We can't even formulate certain amendments because we can only increase, not even increase spending, we can only restore draconian spending cuts on human services that are necessary for our people if we reduce other human services.

But the tax cuts that we've seen, the huge tax cuts of hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars for our wealthiest citizens at a time when the top 1 percent of our people, the richest 1 percent of our people have 24 percent of the income and almost half of the wealth in the country, we can't talk about increasing or restoring those tax cuts. Those tax cuts are a given.

Madam Chairman, this is the culmination when we see $100 billion of cuts in spending, in non-defense discretionary spending, spending on transportation that is necessary if our economy is to be competitive, spending on research and development that is necessary if we're going to be able to create jobs, spending on schools and education and housing that is necessary for our people, spending on job training so our people can work, spending on unemployment insurance so they can eat. All of these things must be cut in order that the wealthiest people have tax cuts, in order that the tax cuts for the oil companies not be disturbed.

All of this is the culmination of a 30-year campaign by the Republican Party to starve the beast. Ronald Reagan's Budget Director, David Stockman, I believe coined the phrase ``starve the beast.'' He said, he pointed out that if you come to the American people and you say, We want to reduce certain services, we want less money for transportation, the voters don't go along with that. If you say, We want less money for education, the voters don't go along with that. And if you say, We want less money for most things that are necessary, the voters won't say yes.

But if you deliberately create a crisis, if you deliberately create a situation where there is no money, by cutting taxes of the rich so that they don't pay their fair share, you can create a crisis, and then you come and say we can't afford this. We've got a budget deficit. We must reduce unemployment insurance. We must reduce schools and housing and transportation and the competitiveness of our economy and the jobs available for our people. We must reduce them because there is no money. Then you can get away with it. And that is the plot that the Republican Party has been advancing for 30 years, and today we are seeing the culmination of that. Today and in this Congress.

But remember what creates this necessity for these drastic cuts: The fact that we are unwilling to restore the tax cuts for the richest portion of our population. We are unwilling to take away the tax breaks for the oil companies. We are unwilling to tax the large corporations as we used to. We are unwilling to have the rich pay as high a percentage of their income in taxes as their secretaries. That's what's really at stake here.

But this debate is structured by the rules which have been imposed on this House that prevent us from bringing this all together in one debate. Unfortunately, it is not in order. The chairman ruled it's out of order if someone proposes to pay for a restoration of unemployment insurance by increasing a tax or by cutting war funding because it's not in the same bill. It's not in the same section of the bill.

So the American people's representatives have our hands tied because we are prisoners of the construct constructed by the Republican Party that says, let the rich have their tax cuts, let the oil companies have their tax breaks, let the multinational companies export the jobs overseas and pay no taxes. We'll pay for it by robbing the American people of transportation, of highways, of bridges, of unemployment insurance, of job creation, of education. That's what we're dealing with here, and the debate should be looked on in the context of the culmination of that 30-year plot by the Republicans which we're seeing, which was freely admitted by a lot of people, starting with Ronald Reagan's budget director who started it.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Let me begin by congratulating the gentleman from New Jersey on his program to repair fistulas, which are a great problem for many women in the developing world.

I yield to the gentlewoman from New York.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, the continuing resolution under consideration today includes very dangerous cuts to key transportation programs. This is exactly the wrong thing to do if we want to reduce unemployment, create jobs, and grow the economy.

In a survey released by the American Public Transportation Association, 80 percent of private sector businesses surveyed indicated that the level of Federal investment in public transportation has a large influence on their business revenue. For example, every $10 million in capital investment in public transportation yields $30 million, three times, in increased business sales. The Texas Transportation Institute's ``2010 Urban Mobility Report'' shows that worsening road congestion across the Nation, $134 billion, $134 billion a year costs in loss productivity. And when it comes to transit alone, every $1 billion invested creates or supports 36,000 jobs.

Despite the clear link between transportation funding and economic recovery, this continuing resolution cuts billions for transit, high- speed railroads, and other key infrastructure projects. The CR cuts over $8 billion from current infrastructure formula programs and already-awarded projects, resulting in the loss of over 280,000 jobs from the current budget funding levels.

These proposed cuts to transportation include $4.975 billion in high- speed and intercity passenger rail grants; $710 million in transit capital investment grants; $292 million in FHWA surface transportation priorities; $150 million in grants to Amtrak; and $100 million in Federal Rail Administration rail safety technology grants.

This amendment would eliminate these cuts and restore transportation funding to their current levels, not any increase for inflation, no increase for increased population, no increase for increased work, but simply to restore the current levels. We must restore these current levels because every dollar we cut reduces $3 in business activity, and every $1 billion we cut costs 36,000 jobs in an economy which cannot afford to lose tens of thousands of jobs.

Unfortunately, the underlying bill cuts transportation funding so dramatically and other funding so dramatically that it is virtually impossible to write an amendment to restore transportation funding to current levels even that would be in order under the rules the House has adopted without causing great harm to other critical programs. This is particularly true since all the transportation funding programs and all the Housing and Urban Development programs which are in this title are underfunded. So it's almost impossible to say let's restore these transportation funds but eliminate other transportation or housing funds.

In fact, this CR is such an irresponsible and reckless document that it is almost not worth trying to fix it. The Republicans have seized on this idea to cut $100 billion from the current budget, pulling that figure arbitrarily out of thin air and without any regard to what it could mean for our economy or the services that it prevents. It is a dangerous overreach that would be devastating for middle- and working class Americans. It would destroy tens, in fact, hundreds of thousands of jobs without replacing them and would threaten national security.

The transportation cuts are a small part of these irresponsible cuts. This amendment is a small part of opposing this dangerous continuing resolution, and I anticipate unfortunately that my amendment is going to be ruled out of order. I hope that's not the case. In a rational House, it would not be the case, but I urge my colleagues to support the amendment if they have the opportunity to do so, and in order to support reasonable transportation funding so as not to decimate this economy. If necessary, I urge them to vote against the entire CR.

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

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Reclaiming my time, I'd like to just point out, of course what the gentleman from Massachusetts says is absolutely correct.

I won't take the 5 minutes, but I just wanted to complete a couple of comments on Amtrak from the discussion of the last amendment.

That amendment, which has now been passed--I thought it wasn't--on a voice vote, but which has been passed subject to a vote on the floor presumably tomorrow, if adopted, will, as Mr. Olver said, essentially eliminate all capital funding for Amtrak after debt service is taken care of, all capital funding.

Now, the question is raised: Why should we spend money on Amtrak for capital funding when it loses money? The gentleman asked that. Well, the answer is almost no transportation modality in this country makes money. That's why we had to form Amtrak in the first place.

You look at trucking, for instance. You look at trucking. We support the interstate highway system without which the trucks couldn't operate. Someone may say, well, the trucks pay diesel fuel taxes; they support the highway system. Not really. One 18-wheeler of 70,000 pounds does 10,000 times the damage, the wear and tear, the vibration damage to a highway as an automobile, yet the trucks don't pay 10,000 times the gasoline tax as the automobile driver does. If we asked them to do so, trucking would be uneconomic. I'm not suggesting we should, obviously, because we need a trucking industry.

By the same token, we need rail transportation because rail is three times as energy efficient per ton mile for freight. It's far more energy efficient. I don't have the figure, per passenger. We want to decrease our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. We want to have less of borrowing money from China to give it to Middle Eastern potentates who help fund the other side on the war on terror. So we need more rail. The only way we do that is by funding Amtrak, and Amtrak has to put money into capital improvements, to a large extent, because for 50 years there were no capital improvements on the passenger rail system.

So an amendment like this is totally destructive, because we must have in this country a choice, a choice for shippers, a choice for people of the modalities of transportation, to make our economy more efficient and to make people's lives better so they don't sit on the highways in congestion all the time.

So Amtrak is cheap enough. And for $850 million for the entire country, which is much too small, it should have been the $1.3 billion, which was the authorized level, we should maintain that level and certainly not go--well, we shouldn't have that level. We should have $1.3 billion, but the CR is bad enough taking it to 850, which only

allows a couple hundred million for capital for the balance of the year. We certainly shouldn't bring it down essentially to zero by adopting the amendment that we just voice voted which will come up to a vote on the floor tomorrow.

Offered By: Mr. Nadler

Amendment No. 511: Beginning on page 346, strike line 12

and all that follows through page 348, line 2.

On page 348, strike line 17 and all that follows through

page 351, line 17.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose the extension of these provisions when the House has done nothing to consider them or to consider possible reforms or even to hold a hearing or a markup.

The three sections scheduled to sunset are all troubling, and I hope that we will have the opportunity to review them carefully before they come before the House again.

Section 215 authorizes the government to obtain ``any tangible thing,'' such as library or business or medical records, if ``there are reasonable grounds to believe that they are relevant'' to a foreign intelligence or international terrorism investigation. Before the enactment of section 215, the government had to show ``specific and articulable facts giving reason to believe that the person to whom the records pertain'' is a foreign agent or a terrorist. Section 215 allows the government to delve into the personal records of someone even if there is no reason to believe that that person has anything to do with terrorism. This poses a threat to individual rights in the most sensitive areas of our lives, with little restraint on the government.

Section 206 provides for roving wiretap orders, supposedly to catch up with technology, but these orders identify neither the person to be tapped nor the facility to be tapped. This is, for all practical purposes, a general grant of authority to wiretap anyone anywhere that the government wants. They should either have to identify either the person or, because of modern technology, the facility. But one or the other. There are almost no limits to this authority and no requirement that the government name a specific target. This is akin--very similar--to the British general writs of assistance which engendered the first colonial outrage that led to the American Revolution. Here we are coming full circle.

Section 6001 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, the so-called ``lone wolf provision,'' permits secret intelligence surveillance of people who are concededly not affiliated with a foreign government or organization. It provides the government with the ability to use secret courts and other investigative tools that are unacceptable in a domestic criminal investigation, as if we were dealing with a foreign government or entity. According to government testimony, this provision has never been used because you can use the normal criminal provisions if you suspect someone of planning mayhem or terrorism or anything else. Surveillance of an individual who is not working with a foreign government or organization is not what we normally consider or understand as foreign intelligence. There may be good reasons for the government to keep tabs on such people, but that is no reason to suspend all of our laws under the pretext that it is a foreign intelligence operation.

While some have argued that each of these authorities remain necessary tools in the fight against terrorism, I believe we should not miss the opportunity to review the Patriot Act in its entirety, including the 14 sections that were sunsetted that are now permanent that many of us opposed making permanent at the time and thought should continue to be sunsetted so we could review them from time to time. We should examine the act to see how it's working, where it's been successful, where it's failed, where it goes too far, and where it poses threats to our liberties. That's the perfect of sunsets; and to extend the sunsets without review undermines that purpose.

There is another law that is allied to this that also deserves careful review, the National Securities Letters Reform Act. I have introduced legislation which would better protect civil liberties while ensuring that NSLs remain a useful tool in national security investigations. I hope we can work to strike that balance in a responsible and effective manner, but the record of the abuse of the NSL authority is too great for the Congress to ignore. I was encouraged to see some of my Republican colleagues across the aisle last week vote ``no'' on the extension. It shows a healthy skepticism of unrestrained government power to spy on people in the United States. That is the essence of opposition to unchecked government power. That value should not be a partisan one. I hope to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to restore our traditional respect for the right of people to be secure from unchecked government intrusion. That's why we have the Fourth Amendment. I hope we will be able, after this vote, to examine carefully the way these provisions have been used or abused and to look at ways to reform the law in light of experience. That was the purpose of sunsets, and I hope we can take advantage of that opportunity.

Offered By: Mr. Nadler

Amendment No. 44: Beginning on page 346, strike line 4 and

all that follows through Page 351, line 17.

Offered By: Mr. Nadler

Amendment No. 232: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I rise in opposition to this extension of the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act.

I cannot support this extension when the House has done nothing to consider these provisions, or possible reforms, or even to hold a hearing or a markup. While in the past, Members have had the opportunity to receive classified briefings, we have dozens of new Members who have received no such briefings.

Section 215 authorizes the government to obtain ``any tangible thing'' relevant to a terrorism investigation, even if there is no showing that the ``thing'' pertains to suspected terrorists or terrorist activities. It is sweeping in scope, and the government is not required to show reasonable suspicion or probable cause before undertaking investigation that infringes upon a person's privacy, including the records of what he has read in the library. Congress should either ensure that things collected with this power have a meaningful nexus to suspected terrorist activity or allow the provision to expire.

Section 206 provides for roving wiretaps which permit the government to obtain intelligence surveillance orders that identify neither the person nor the facility to be tapped. This is supposedly to update the law to deal with portable cell phones and the like and other modern technology, but it goes too far. Without the necessity to specify either the person or the facility to be tapped, this is, for all practical purposes, a general grant of authority to wiretap anyone and anywhere the government wants. There are almost no limits to this authority and no requirement that the government name a specific target. This is very akin to the old British general Writs of Assistance which engendered the first colonial outrage that led to the American Revolution.

Section 6001 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, the so-called lone wolf provision, permits secret intelligence surveillance of non-U.S. persons whose are concededly not affiliated with a foreign government or organization. According to government testimony, this provision has never been used, yet it remains on the books. It has never been used because there is ample other authority to do that in any event.

Surveillance of an individual who is not working with a foreign government or organization is not what we normally understand as foreign intelligence. There may be many good reasons for government to keep tabs on such people, but that is no reason to suspend all our laws under the pretext that this is a foreign intelligence operation.

While some have argued that each of these authorities remain necessary tools in the fight against terrorism and that they must be extended without any modifications, others have counseled careful review and modification. Some have even urged that we allow some or all of these authorities to sunset. I believe we should not miss the opportunity to review the act in its entirety, to examine how it is working, where it has been successful, where it has failed, where it goes too far, and where it may need improvement. That is the purpose of sunsets, and to extend it without review undermines that purpose.

I have also introduced the National Security Letters Reform Act, which would make vital improvements to the current law in order to better protect civil liberties while ensuring that NSLs remain a useful tool in national security investigations. I hope we can work to strike that balance in a responsible and effective manner, but the record of the abuse of the NSL authority is too great for the Congress to ignore.

I realize the majority has the votes to extend these provisions. I hope we will be able, after this vote, to examine carefully the way these provisions have been used or abused, and to look at ways to reform the law in light of experience. That was the purpose of sunsets, and I hope we can take advantage of that opportunity.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the Republican effort to deny 32 million Americans health care, to deny millions of middle class Americans the ability to get health care insurance if they have preexisting conditions and to drive up our national debt by an additional $1.4 trillion over the next 20 years.

The Affordable Care Act will stave off the 55 percent of personal bankruptcies caused by health care emergencies. By banning rescissions, banning the preexisting conditions insurance bar, banning annual and lifetime coverage caps and capping annual out-of-pocket expenses, this law ensures that nobody will go broke because they get sick.

The bill will save the lives of the approximately 45,000 Americans who now die every year because they lack health insurance. For America's seniors, the Affordable Care Act strengthens the Medicare program. Seniors will no longer pay out of pocket for preventive services; and the cruel doughnut hole, which forces seniors to choose between taking their drugs or going without, will be closed.

And owners of small businesses will get billions of dollars in tax credits to help them provide health coverage to their employees-- unless, of course, the Republicans are successful in enacting a tax increase on small businesses by repealing the law.

We did all this and more while reducing the deficit by what CBO now estimates will be $230 billion in the first 10 years and $1.2 trillion in the next 10 years.

The Republicans say the bill is an unprecedented or unconstitutional expansion of constitutional power. They are wrong. There is nothing radical, dangerous, or unconstitutional about the act. We have the power to enact this comprehensive plan, including its minimum coverage requirement under the commerce, necessary and proper, and general welfare clauses of article 1, section 8 of the Constitution. Similar attacks were levied against the Social Security Act of 1935, saying it was unconstitutional for the same reasons. Those arguments were unsound and rejected then and will fare no better today.

Indeed, leading Republican lawmakers championed individual mandates as part of their Health Equity

and Access Reform Today Act of 1993 introduced by Senator Dole and Senator Chafee. The requirement of individual participation was valid then, and it is valid now.

For all of these reasons, I strongly encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this misguided repeal bill.

Mr. Speaker, following is my statement in its entirety:

I rise in opposition to the Republican effort to deny 32 million Americans health care, to deny millions of middle-class Americans the ability to get health care insurance if they have pre-existing conditions, and to drive up our national debt by an additional $1.4 trillion over the next 20 years.

Last March, I had the distinct pleasure and honor of voting for the Affordable Care Act, which achieves many of the goals I have been fighting for my entire adult life.

The Affordable Care Act will stave off the 55 percent of personal bankruptcies caused by health care emergencies. By banning rescissions, banning the ``pre-existing conditions'' insurance bar, banning annual and lifetime coverage caps, and capping annual out-of-pocket expenses, this law ensures that nobody will go broke because they get sick.

When fully implemented more than 32 million additional Americans will have access to health care coverage. This translates into saving the lives of the 45,000 Americans, who now die every year because they lack health insurance.

In addition, the Affordable Care Act extends greater rights and benefits to women. No longer can insurance companies discriminate against women by charging women higher rates than men for the same coverage. No longer will women be denied coverage because insurance companies consider pregnancy, C-sections, and being the victim of domestic violence to be pre-existing conditions. No longer will women go without critical maternity care coverage, access to mammograms, and other key preventive care services--services that will be available without co-pays and deductibles. Ending these routine, disgraceful, and patently unfair practices are a tremendous victory for women and children.

For America's seniors, the Affordable Care Act strengthens the Medicare program. Seniors will no longer pay out of pocket for preventive services, and the cruel donut hole, which forces seniors to choose between taking their drugs or going without, will be closed. And by cracking down on fraud and waste, the Act ensures that those who seek to take advantage of our seniors and steal from the Medicare program will no longer have a free ride.

The Affordable Care Act also benefits America's young people. Often without the option of employer-based health insurance, young people now can stay on their parents' health plans until their 26th birthday.

And owners of small businesses will get billions of dollars in tax credits to help them provide health coverage to their employees-- unless, of course, the Republicans are successful in enacting a massive tax increase on small businesses by repealing this law.

We did all this and more while reducing the deficit by what CBO now estimates will be $230 billion in the first ten years, and $1.2 trillion in the next ten years.

Mr. Speaker, when our predecessors passed similarly historic laws such as Social Security in 1935 and Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, they knew the measures would require further consideration. In the years since those crucially important programs were signed into law, Congress has made, and will continue to make, improvements to those programs. And that is the key--to make improvements to the law. Instead of spending our time looking for ways to build on and perfect the health care reform law, Republicans want to take a sledgehammer to it, to throw out everything, without any consideration at all. No matter that our economy still needs our attention. No matter that millions of Americans remain out of work.

The Republicans say the bill is an unprecedented or unconstitutional expansion of Congressional power. They are wrong. There is nothing radical, dangerous, or unconstitutional about the Act, through which Congress is regulating the vast interstate health and insurance markets in a number of ways that protect the American people. We have the power to enact this comprehensive plan, including its minimum coverage requirement, under the Commerce, Necessary and Proper, and General Welfare clauses of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. Similar attacks were levied against the Social Security Act of 1935. They were unsound and rejected then and will fare no better today.

We require citizens to participate in programs--like Medicare and Social Security--when necessary to accomplish an objective wholly within Congressional powers, and there simply is nothing so surprising or severe in requiring similar participation--by requiring that those who can obtain insurance do so or pay a tax penalty--in our comprehensive framework for health care reform. Indeed, leading Republican lawmakers championed individual mandates as part of their Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act of 1993. The requirement of individual participation was valid then, and it is valid now.

For all of these reasons, I strongly encourage my colleagues to vote NO on this misguided repeal bill, and instead, to say ``yes'' to guaranteeing health care for 32 million more Americans. To say yes to enabling millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions to obtain health insurance. To say yes to ending gender rating and rescissions. To say yes to allowing parents to cover their adult children on their health care plans. To say yes to strengthening Medicare for our seniors. To say yes to growing our economy by supporting small businesses. To say yes to reducing our deficit.

``The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular State.''