Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleagues will join me tonight in voting for this important bill to keep our word to the American people. Keeping our word to our constituents is one of our most important responsibilities, and the President and those of us who ran to secure the southern border promised that we would see this wall built in those parts of the border where it makes sense.

We are relying on the good judgment of our sector chiefs down on the border to tell us whether a fence makes the most sense or a wall or perhaps a weir dam in places on the Rio Grande River where you simply dam up the water. Where the local sector chief believes that is probably the best way to secure the border, we are going to follow that recommendation.

But this $5 billion that is set aside in this bill for construction of border fencing and a wall is consistent with what the full Appropriations Committee did this summer. We debated this extensively, Mr. Speaker. We all talked about this. This is not a new number. This is something that the full committee voted on and approved when the Appropriations Committee voted the Homeland Security bill out of committee this summer.

This is consistent with what the committee did. This keeps our word to our constituents, and we are also keeping our word to those Americans who suffered as a result of the disasters in California with the wildfires and the flooding that occurred from the hurricanes.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Frelinghuysen again for his support of the people of southeast Texas who suffered from Hurricane Harvey. It was my privilege, as the Representative from District Seven in west Houston, to help spearhead that recovery package for Hurricane Harvey that brought together the delegations from Florida and Texas.

Mr. Speaker, we put together, with the chairman's help, the largest hurricane recovery package in the history of the United States and made sure that the people who need that money got it as soon as possible. That is another reason it is so important to pass this bill to make sure the flood-ravaged people of Florida get the help they need.

Above all, this is about keeping our word to our constituents, something I have been proud to do in representing the people of west Houston in District Seven for 18 years.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this important piece of legislation tonight.

Mr. Speaker, the Founders entrusted the power of the purse to the Congress because it is the most effective and powerful check and balance in our Constitution. It is vitally important that this Congress work to pass these appropriations bills in their full detail. We cannot continue to operate under a continuing resolution, which just allows the executive branch to run unchecked.

These bills have been carefully negotiated. These bills allow the public to see how our hard-earned tax dollars are being spent. These bills enable the Congress to have some real authority over the executive branch.

In the 18 years it has been my privilege to represent the people of west Houston, and to chair a subcommittee on appropriations, I was able to work together with my colleagues in putting together the largest hurricane recovery package in the history of the country, working together to make sure that our laws are enforced and that the Department of Justice is following the law, enforcing the law, and securing the border.

These things can be done through the power of the purse, through the responsibility we have as Members of Congress, as appropriators. It is essential we pass these appropriations bills and do so in a bipartisan way.

I have always worked closely with my colleagues throughout the State of Texas and throughout the country, regardless of party, because we are doing it for the good of the country. As Mr. Crowley said in his remarks and you can detect by the response in the House, we all work together arm-in-arm as patriots. Let's pass these appropriations bills in detail when we come back here in the next year when the CR runs out in February.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

In 18 years, it has been my extraordinary privilege to represent the people of District 7. I have had the world's best role model as a Congressman.

My predecessor, George H.W. Bush, was the first Congressman to represent District 7. He, just as he was to Roger Williams and as he was to Kevin

Brady, has been not only a role model to me, but an adviser who helped to guide me when I first decided to run for office.

He has always been there for me to offer advice every step of the way. He is an extraordinary role model. Everyone who knew him understood immediately that they were in the presence of someone extraordinary.

As Mark McKinnon remembers: ``George H.W. Bush will be remembered by history as a deeply accomplished public servant. But the many of us who were lucky enough to pass through his orbit will remember him for his uncommon grace and love toward family and friends.''

The editor-in-chief of Texas Monthly once said of George H.W. Bush that it is clear there is a narrative that runs through the Bush family: ``be polite, treat people decently.''

This came from his father and from his mother. They passed it on to their children.

He remembers: ``Every encounter I ever had with George W. Bush, whether it was Governor Bush or President Bush 43 or ex-President Bush, he was the same guy. He is very much his father's son, and all of us who are parents hope that whatever else we don't do right, the thing we do do right is to convey the fundamental values of who we are and who we're supposed to be to our kids.''

One of the things that survives about George Bush, the elder, is the fact that he passed along to his own children that same decency, that same line of decency that he learned from his parents.

In fact, Jeb Bush once said: How great is this country that it could elect a man as fine as our dad to be President?

If we remember what George W. said as he accepted the Presidential nomination in the year 2000, President Bush 43 said, as he accepted the nomination: ``My father was the last President of a great generation, generation of Americans who stormed beaches, liberated concentration camps, and delivered us from evil. Some never came home. Those who did put their medals in drawers, went to work and built on a heroic scale highways and universities, suburbs and factories, great cities and grand alliances, the strong foundations of an American century.''

George H.W. Bush brought the Cold War to a peaceful conclusion, successfully managing the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany, and the end of the Soviet Union without provoking violence from communist bitter enders.

In the first Gulf War, George H.W. Bush established that on his watch America would not retreat from the world but would intervene decisively when the global balance of power was in jeopardy.

His life was spent in the service of his Nation, and his spirit of conciliation, common sense, and love of country will stand him in strong stead through the ebbs and flows of posterity's judgment. On that score, George H.W. Bush was a uniquely good man.

In a political universe where good men are hard to come by, there was bipartisan consensus a quarter century after he left the White House. We will miss this great, good man, and America and Texas are far, far better that he lived and he served his Nation so well.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Aschley Schiller, a member of the professional staff of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Departments of Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies, who plans to pursue other opportunities after eight outstanding years of Federal government service.

Aschley started her Federal career in 2010 as a Presidential Management Fellow after receiving a bachelor's degree in history from Texas A&M University in 2008 and a Master's degree in public policy from the University of Michigan's Gerald Ford School of Public Policy in 2010. The Presidential Management Fellows program is a highly selective, prestigious two-year training and development program for recent graduates with advanced degrees.

As a Presidential Management Fellow, she worked for the Small Business Administration to improve its acquisition processes and for the Office of Management and Budget analyzing proposed business loan subsidy rates and agency activities for inclusion in the yearly President's budget request.

After completing her fellowship, Aschley worked as a strategic advisor to the Chief Financial Officer of the Small Business Administration. There, she evaluated government-wide budget and procurement policy changes and reviewed agency budgets, programs and performance.

Aschley came to the House Appropriations Committee in 2013 where she worked as an analyst for the Surveys and Investigations office conducting oversight of military construction and veterans affairs programs. She conducted reviews of several multi-billion dollar programs to identify weaknesses and recommending changes in program funding levels, policies and reporting requirements. In addition, Aschley helped improve the operations of the Surveys and Investigations office by reducing the time required to issue reports and improving communications with subcommittee staff.

I met Aschley in 2015 when she became a professional staff member of the Commerce, Justice, Science House Appropriations Subcommittee. Since that time she has done an outstanding job supporting the Subcommittee, the Federal government and the American people. Aschley is expert in the operations of the Departments of Commerce and Justice. She has provided me with analysis of their activities and budget requests, prepared me for hearings with agency heads and Cabinet secretaries, advised me on how to respond to funding and reorganizations proposals, and provided constant oversight of agency activities. Aschley has written several Appropriations bills, advised me how to respond to amendments during Full Committee meetings and House Floor consideration, and she has negotiated several Appropriations bills with the Senate and the Minority party.

Aschley should be proud that her intelligent and hard work for the House Appropriations

Committee has improved our nation's ability to forecast the weather, study the ocean, support the nation's fishing industry, protect intellectual property rights, respond to natural disasters, and improve the course of justice.

Aschley will be missed by the Committee. We wish her well, thank her for her years of service, and know that she will excel at whatever future endeavors she pursues.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to make votes on June 15, 2018, due to illness. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 267 and ``yea'' on rollcall No. 268.

Mr. Chairman, as the designee of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. McCaul), I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, when Hurricane Harvey hit Texas last year it put over 50 inches of rain into an area the size of New Jersey. It was the first category 4 hurricane to make landfall in the continental United States since 2004. It was an extraordinary amount of rain and a devastating event, leading to the largest housing disaster in the history of the United States.

This led to 1.4 million Texans evacuating their homes, and 300,000 households were left without power. There was over $160 billion in damage. This is the second most expensive storm, Mr. Chairman, in American history, and the most expensive storm in Texas history. Hurricane Harvey was the third major flood to impact the people of Houston in my district since 2015.

Mr. Chairman, I want to particularly thank my good friend, Mr. Al Green. We have worked together in the Houston area in a bipartisan fashion. All of us in the Houston area--Al Green, Gene Green, Sheila Jackson Lee, Ted Poe, and Michael McCaul, who is also working with us on this amendment and helped put this forward--all of us in the Houston area have worked together in a bipartisan fashion to help the people of Houston recover.

We were proud to work together with the Florida delegation to help the people of Florida recover from Irma and Maria--and Puerto Rico. As the only appropriator from southeast Texas, I was proud to spearhead that effort in putting together three emergency hurricane supplemental bills, for a total of $141 billion, the largest amount of money the Corps commander tells me that he has ever seen in his 40 years of service at the Corps.

Mr. Chairman, I particularly want to thank the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Frelinghuysen for his support. I want to thank the chairman of the Transportation Committee, Mr. Shuster--he and I were elected together in 2000--for his support on this important recovery effort. We are approaching the 1-year anniversary of Harvey, and we have not forgotten the devastation that it brought to the people we represent.

After we passed that emergency appropriations bill, after those agencies had received that money, one of our most important and, frankly, frustrating jobs is getting the agencies to release the money, to get it into the hands of the homeowners who had suffered, the business owners who had suffered, and to make sure that the Army

Corps of Engineers is speedily carrying out the studies and recommendations that they have to do to build the flood control structures we need in southeast Texas.

This amendment, Mr. Chairman, that Mr. McCaul and I are putting forward today says, very clearly, that the Secretary of the Army shall expeditiously carry out these flood control studies and make sure that they are built as rapidly as possible. I can tell you from my position on the Appropriations Committee, as a subcommittee chairman representing southeast Texas, I will use all of the tools the Appropriations Committee has available to us, working with Chairman Simpson and Chairman Frelinghuysen, to ensure the Corps moves rapidly.

Mr. Chairman, I thank Chairman Shuster for his support of this amendment. And I also thank my colleague, Al Green, for his support on this amendment today. We have worked together arm in arm in helping people recover from these three disastrous floods over the last 3 years. This amendment will make sure the Army Corps of Engineers completes these studies rapidly, that they execute quickly, and build whatever is recommended to help protect the people of Houston and southeast Texas from the next storm. We are going to make sure, as the people's elected representatives, that our constituents' very scarce, hard-earned, and precious tax dollars are wisely and carefully spent in an expeditious way to rebuild and to protect us against the next giant storm.

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

Mr. Chair, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green), my colleague.

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with Chairman Shuster and with my colleagues in the House representing the great State of Texas in ensuring that this money gets out the door to our constituents as soon as possible to help them recover, and that the Army Corps of Engineers is moving as rapidly as humanly possible to complete these studies and build the flood control structures we have to have to protect the people of southeast Texas from the next storm.

Mr. Chair, I urge passage of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Appropriations have until 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 24, 2018, to file a privileged report to accompany measures making appropriations for the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other purposes.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege tonight to pay tribute to the life of a great Texan and a great American: Barbara Pierce Bush.

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), my colleague.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for those remarks.

Barbara Bush and George H.W. Bush do exemplify all of the greatest character traits that made the Greatest Generation what it is and made this country what it is. It has been a privilege to represent the Bush family and to succeed George H.W. Bush in Congress, who was followed by Bill Archer.

I succeeded Bill Archer. He was chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. He succeeded George H.W. Bush. The Bush family is revered nationwide and admired and revered by all of us in Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be joined tonight by my colleague from Dallas.

I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson) to honor the life of Barbara Bush.

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is right. All of America is better because Barbara Bush has lived. All of us are better people for having known and admired Barbara Bush. She has been a source of inspiration to me, as I know she has been to my colleague from Dallas and the millions of Americans.

People from all over the world poured into Houston to celebrate her life and to pay tribute to her as she lay in repose at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, people from all walks of life.

As my colleague, Dr. Burgess, said, she, in a very simple gesture, with a patient who was ill with HIV, broke down the stigma that people felt, the fear people felt that HIV might be contagious. Barbara Bush just acted instinctively, as she always did, with courage and compassion, in hugging that young man that was ill and demonstrating to the world that no one needed to fear people who were ill with HIV. And now that disease has been contained and rolled back. It is a treatable condition.

She devoted her life to, as my colleague from Dallas said, helping those who were less fortunate.

Barbara Bush was born in 1925, June 8, in New York City. And as my colleague, Dr. Burgess said, she was one of only two women in American history who was both a wife and a mother to a United States President. She was the wife of the 41st President, George H.W. Bush; and mother to the 43rd President, George W. Bush.

Barbara was only 18 years old when she married George Herbert Walker Bush in 1945. They had six children together over the course of their marriage.

As First Lady, she is best remembered for her untiring advocacy for universal literacy, and she founded the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy.

She first met George at a Christmas dance in Connecticut in 1941 when she was 16 and he was 17. George Bush asked a friend if he knew Barbara, and the two were officially introduced, but when the waltz began to play, they sat out the dance, because he did not know how to waltz. So they just spent their time getting to know each other.

As they spent more and more time together and fell in love, shortly after George's 18th birthday, they both became each other's first kiss.

Their engagement was officially announced in the newspaper in December of 1943. George was on leave during Christmas as a Navy pilot, and they were reunited over that Christmas in 1943. Two weeks later, on January 6, 1945, George and Barbara were married.

Barbara Bush told Time magazine in 1989 that: ``I married the first man I ever kissed, and when I tell this to my children, they just about throw up.''

While George was away at war, the two wrote letters to each other as their only means of communication. They were deeply and passionately in love, and she kept her sense of humor right to the very end.

In a letter to Barbara, George wrote, during the course of the war, he said: ``I have climbed perhaps the highest mountain in the world, but even that cannot hold a candle to being Barbara's husband.''

In another letter dated December 12, 1943, George wrote to his darling Bar about his happiness in reading their engagement announcement in the newspaper: ``I love you, Precious, with all my heart. And to know that you love me means my life. How often I have thought about the immeasurable joy that will be ours some day, how lucky our children will be to have a mother like you.''

This letter was released shortly after her passing.

She was an extraordinary woman, an inspiration to all of us.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Olson). I am honored to be joined tonight by my colleague from the 22nd District of Texas.

America is a far better place because Barbara Bush lived. She has been an inspiration to all of us.

George H.W. Bush has been a leader in Texas. He started out his career as the Harris County Republican Party chairman and was elected to Congress in 1966, and a new district was created on the west side, the Seventh District.

When George Bush came into this House Chamber, he was assigned to the Ways and Means Committee. He served on the Ways and Means Committee for two terms. Then he ran for the United States Senate in 1970, and he ran against Lloyd Benson in that race, and then he moved on to become the United Nations Ambassador.

Then George Bush's successor in Congress, Bill Archer, who was elected in 1970, went on to become chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Chairman Archer served there from 1970 to 2001, when it was my privilege to succeed Bill Archer. And I joined the Appropriations Committee. Right now, I chair a subcommittee.

The United States is very, very fortunate in that another Texan has stepped up to serve as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Congressman Kevin Brady, who joins us here tonight. He represents the Woodlands and the Eighth Congressional District.

As chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, he just successfully passed the largest tax cut in American history, which is already doing remarkable things to rejuvenate the American economy and to restore immense prosperity to this Nation coast to coast, something that I know George and Barbara Bush are immensely proud of.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady). We are honored to have him join us tonight in celebrating the life of Barbara Bush.

Mr. Speaker, as George H.W. Bush's successor, representing the Seventh District, as I said, I succeeded Bill Archer, I am keenly aware as well every day that I have the privilege of representing the Seventh District, that I have an especially high standard to live up to, the Bush standard of absolutely impeccable integrity, honor, and consistency.

The Proverbs tell us that our greatest possession on Earth is our good name, worth more than all the gold and the silver in the world. And by that measure, the Bush family--Barbara Bush, George Bush, the entire Bush family--are the wealthiest people on Earth.

In a memoir that Barbara wrote in 1994, looking back on their 50-plus years of marriage, she wrote that George and she were ``the two luckiest people in the world.''

She said: ``And when all the dust is settled and all the crowds are gone, the things that matter are faith, family, and friends. We have been inordinately blessed, and we know that.''

According to their granddaughter, Jenna Bush Hager, Barbara and George gave thanks every night for their blessings and for each other in their prayers. Each night before bed, George H.W. still said, ``I love you, Barbie,'' to his wife, according to Jenna.

When the Bushes first came to Texas, they settled in west Texas and went into the oil business.

We are privileged tonight to be joined by the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, the Congressman representing Midland and Odessa, the Bushes first home in Texas, the gentleman from west Texas, Mike Conaway. We are delighted to have him with us tonight.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway).

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Conaway very much for his comments.

When Barbara and George lived in the Midland-Odessa area early in their marriage is when they lost their daughter, Robin. It, of course, is an unimaginable and unbearable loss to lose a child. But Robin was carried away by leukemia, and the Bushes devoted much of their lives to raise money for leukemia research, to defeat that terrible disease, to raise awareness of the disease, to give hope to others; because when they lost Robin in 1953, there wasn't really anything the doctors could do.

It is a great tribute to them both that they were so heavily involved in helping to raise money for cancer research to fight leukemia through the Texas Medical Center. MD Anderson, one of the greatest cancer hospitals in the world, is located in the Texas Medical Center on the edge of my district, and it has been my privilege as the chairman of a subcommittee on Appropriations to spearhead record increases in funding for the National Institutes of Health to help fight childhood cancers like leukemia. The Bushes were an integral part of that. They have done immeasurable good in so many ways and touched so many lives and inspired so many people all over the United States and throughout Texas.

I know that all of us in the Texas delegation, all of us across the country, are praying for the Bush family and share in their grief. But we also have the sure knowledge that Barbara Bush is in a better place; that she has been reunited with her daughter, Robin, and that she was at peace.

Mr. Speaker, we are honored tonight to be joined by my colleague from Houston, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, who joins us here tonight to pay tribute to the life of this remarkable and extraordinary First Lady, Barbara Bush.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Houston for joining us tonight to honor the life of this great woman, Barbara Pierce Bush, who, as my colleague mentioned, was a national leader in literacy, focused her efforts as First Lady on building literacy in the United States, and, in fact, in a televised event, an event that really, I think, symbolizes who Barbara Bush was and how big her heart was and the way she treated everyone that she met.

It was an event celebrating the bicentennial of the Constitution where Barbara Bush met a man named J.T. Pace, who was a 63-year-old son of a sharecropper, who had only recently become literate and able to read.

And he was scheduled to read the Constitution's preamble out loud in front of a large audience, Barbara Bush instinctively understood that he was very, very nervous. She quietly slipped up alongside him and asked him if she could help him read it out loud while standing next to him.

Mr. Pace was very grateful and said, yes, of course. And soon they went up on stage together and began reading out loud the preamble of the Constitution.

As Barbara Bush detected that Mr. Pace became more comfortable in reading in public, she continued to lower her voice until only his voice could be heard. And he suddenly realized that he was reading the preamble to the Constitution in front of this huge audience on his own.

Well, it brought tears to his eyes because Barbara Bush had stood alongside him, understood his fear and anxiety, had lifted him up, and given him the confidence that he needed to complete the task, and allowed Mr. Pace to find his own voice.

She was an extraordinary woman, and I feel humbled every day to represent the Bushes, to be their Congressman, to follow in his footsteps, to follow in her footsteps, and to do my very best to live up to the very high standards that they set for all of us as Americans, and especially as public servants.

Every day that I have this privilege, I remember the standard that she set for all of us, the standards that she set for her family.

Her granddaughter, Jenna Bush Hager, explained why her Ganny was given the nickname ``The Enforcer.'' Jenna explained that there were a few simple rules that her grandmother followed: Treat everyone equally; don't look down on anyone; use your voice for good; and read all the great books.

Barbara loved her family more than anything else on Earth. As she liked to tell people repeatedly: In the end, when all the dust is settled, when all the crowds are gone, the things that matter most are faith, family, and friends.

She was abundantly blessed. In fact, her most prized possession was a painted cow, because when her husband, George, saw that Barbara had swooned over the painted cow statues installed around Houston in 2001, he decided to surprise her with one. But as the former President paced a warehouse full of colorful works of cows painted by local artists with his longtime chief of staff Gene Becker, President Bush could not decide which one his wife would like best.

So he bought a blank one, and, as he expected, Mrs. Bush turned it into a family art project.

They had the white cow placed on the lawn of the family seaside home in Kennebunkport, Maine, and in the years since, she and George had each of their 5 children, 17 grandchildren, and 8-and-counting great- grandchildren decorate the cow with handprints and autographs, and it became her most prized possession because it symbolized their entire family and their deep bond of love and affection for each other.

Barbara Bush taught that humor, wit, and grace were the best accessories that a woman could wear. Jenna Bush Hager shared that her Ganny embodied uniqueness and authenticity, from her mismatched Keds, her pearl earrings, to her snow white hair.

Barbara Bush always stressed the importance of internal beauty because, as she said, your looks will fade, but your kind words and the way you make people feel will be remembered by people forever, and you are measured by the love of those around you and how you have loved them.

Her family members stated that she was the glue that held them all together. In a eulogy by her son Jeb, he stated that his mom was his first and most important teacher. She taught him to, ``sit up, look people in the eye, say please and thank you, quit whining and stop complaining, and eat your broccoli.''

The little things that she taught turned into bigger life lessons. ``Be

kind, always tell the truth, never discourage anyone. Serve others, treat everyone as you would want to be treated, and love your God with all your heart and all your soul.''

At Barbara's funeral, Jeb Bush told a story of the last time his mother was in the hospital. He said that his father, in Jeb's opinion, probably got sick on purpose just so he could go visit Barbara.

When George went into her room, he had a breathing mask over his face, a hospital gown. His hair was uncombed--in fact, standing straight up--and as he walked into Barbara's hospital room and held her hand, Barbara opened her eyes, took one look at him, and said, ``My God, George, you are devastatingly handsome.''

She kept her sense of humor and her perspective and her joy and love for her family right to the end.

When Jeb asked her how she felt about dying, Barbara stated that she knew that Jesus was her Lord and savior. She said she did not want to leave her husband, but she knew she would be in a beautiful place.

We know that Barbara is now reunited with her daughter Robin, who passed away when she was 3 due to leukemia. And as George W. Bush said at the end of his mother's life, although ``Laura, Barbara, Jenna, and I are sad, our souls are settled because we know hers was.''

We are all blessed as Americans, we are certainly blessed as Texans, as Houstonians, to be neighbors, to be friends, to have known this great good woman and this extraordinary family, the Bush family, that has exemplified everything that has made America great: integrity, duty, courage, commitment, self-reliance, religious faith, devotion to family, the benefits of hard work, and remembering that your good name is your most valuable possession worth more than all the gold and silver in the world.

And truly by that measure, the Bushes are the wealthiest people on Earth, and we are all so very fortunate to have known them, to have learned from them, to be inspired by them, as I continue to be every day as the Congressman from the Seventh District of Texas.

Every day that I represent this extraordinary district and these amazing people in Houston, who all stepped up and helped each other during Hurricane Harvey--and the Bushes were right there helping their neighbors and friends--every day that I have the privilege to represent this great city in this wonderful and amazing place, the Congress of the United States of America, I will always remember the standard of integrity that the Bush family left for me and for all of us. And I will work very, very hard to continue to make Barbara and George Bush and the Bush family and all Houstonians proud of my work on their behalf, because we are all abundantly blessed to have had Barbara Bush as First Lady, as a role model and a mentor, but we know that she is in a better place and is reunited with her daughter Robin. And as George W. said: We are all sad for the loss, but our souls are settled because we know hers was.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this critical appropriations bill to ensure that our military has the resources they need to protect us abroad and that our law enforcement agencies have the resources they need to protect us here at home.

This legislation makes sure that the U.S. Attorneys, DEA, ATF, U.S. Marshals Service, and the FBI are getting the money they need to make our communities safer by investigating and prosecuting more gun and immigration criminals, human traffickers, dealers in opioids and other dangerous drugs, international criminal organizations, and gangs. This bill will make this Nation safer and help secure our borders.

This bill will also provide funds for over 100 additional immigration judge teams to speed up their removal of people who are in the country illegally.

The bill provides new resources for State and local law enforcement, Mr. Speaker, including a $300 million increase in grants to help address the terrible opioid epidemic in this country, and increases to help protect women against violence, protect our schools and ensure the safety of our children, relieve the backlog of sexual assault kits, fight human trafficking, and help compensate States for housing illegal aliens in their prisons and jails.

The American space program is the best on Earth, and this legislation ensures it will continue to be the best on Earth, with funding for our human and planetary space program. In fact, the journal, Science, today reports that this legislation has given a major boost to science across the board. We have made sure the National Science Foundation preserves its competitive edge with a $300 million increase for research grants. These funds will foster innovation and U.S. economic competitive, including funding for research on advanced manufacturing, physics, mathematics, cybersecurity, and neuroscience.

Mr. Speaker, this bill deserves the support of all Members, and I urge a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to attend votes on January 16, 2018 due to weather delays in Houston. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 18 and YEA on Roll Call No. 19.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to make votes due to an off Hill meeting. Had I been present, I would have voted ``Nay'' on rollcall No. 5.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill (S. 2273) to extend the period during which vessels that are shorter than 79 feet in length and fishing vessels are not required to have a permit for discharges incidental to the normal operation of the vessel, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Frelinghuysen and Speaker Ryan for rejecting the Office of Management and Budget's completely inadequate funding request that they sent to Congress. It is the job of the Appropriations Committee and Congress to write these emergency spending bills, and we have done so.

I am one of eight subcommittee chairmen who held public hearings at the request of the chairman. I want to thank Chairman Frelinghuysen for listening to all of us to change the legislation to ensure that the State of Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico are a long way towards being made whole. This is a tremendous step in the right direction. We are grateful for the funding that is contained here. We are also grateful for a lot of the changes that the chairman and the committee have included.

For example, we have got $12 billion here for the Army Corps of Engineers' projects that is going to be prioritized

and targeted to areas that have suffered repeated floods over the last 2 years, to areas that have been declared disasters by the President. That will help ensure that the people of Texas, in particular, who had 53 inches of rain over an area the size of New Jersey, the people of Texas and southwest Louisiana who suffered from Hurricane Harvey, those projects will receive priority consideration by the Army Corps of Engineers. That is going to help us get that third reservoir built in northwest Harris County.

This funding is also sufficient to fully pay for all federally authorized flood control projects in southeast Texas. That means we will have front-loaded funding for a critical project to finish out Brays Bayou, to build it to the 100-year flood protection standard.

The Army Corps of Engineers' funding is also going to allow us to dredge the Port of Houston, the Port of Beaumont, and open up those ports to full capacity.

Another important change that the chairman included at my request, and I am very pleased it is in there, is that we had a lot of people flooded because the Army Corps of Engineers opened the floodgates necessarily on Addicks and Barker.

These folks were flooded by the action of the government in the Neches River Waterway and the Sabine Waterway and on the San Jacinto River.

Chairman Frelinghuysen included language that allows the Governor of the State of Texas to ask for a waiver of the prohibition against duplication of benefits.

Mr. Speaker, it is important for the people of Texas to know that help is on the way to not only repair the damage caused by the flood, but if they were flooded by the action of the government, there is a provision in this legislation today that will allow the Governor to request that they be compensated, that they can take out an SBA loan at the front and they will pay the government back, and then receive a Community Development Block Grant at the end to help make them whole.

Mr. Speaker, we will also be able to rebuild churches and synagogues. That is vitally important because we suffered so much damage in southeast Texas.

I am proud to support this legislation, and I look forward to working with the chairman and my colleagues as we go forward, if there is additional funding needed. I am very grateful for the support of Congress. I urge Members to support this vital legislation to help the people of southeast Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico have a better Christmas.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Congresswoman Jackson Lee, and I look forward to having her vote in support of this continuing resolution because she is committed, as I am, and everyone in Texas is committed to making sure the money continues to flow to the victims of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria.

As Congresswoman Jackson Lee knows, if this continuing resolution is defeated, if she votes against it, she is voting to stop the flow of money to the hurricane victims in Houston, and I know she doesn't want that to happen.

That is one of many reasons I rise today in support of this continuing resolution, because we want to ensure that the military has the funds it needs to operate.

As chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies, I want to be sure that the FBI and the Department of Justice has the funds that they need to continue to protect the people of America against terrorism, to protect women and children against violence, to stop the scourge of human trafficking and sex trafficking, to stop the scourge of opioid trafficking and abuse, and to stop the international drug cartels from pouring their poison into this country.

I am proud of the work that this full committee has done, and the hard work of my subcommittee--the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee--to ensure that the law enforcement agencies in this country have the funds they need; to ensure the

Department of Commerce, the National Science Foundation, and NASA have the funds they need to make sure America continues to be the world leader in scientific and space exploration.

My colleagues on the Appropriations Committee, working along with the Houston delegation, including Ms. Jackson Lee, we are working together arm in arm with the Florida delegation to create a hurricane relief package that will ensure that the people of Texas and Florida and Puerto Rico are adequately compensated for their losses, that we repair the damage to our flood control infrastructure.

But this is going to take time, Mr. Speaker. The Senate has not passed any appropriations bills, while the House has passed all 12 of them. We do not yet have an overall spending agreement on what level of funding is necessary for the military and for domestic purposes, and we have got to finish that hurricane relief package that Ms. Jackson Lee and all of us have been such strong advocates for.

So I urge Ms. Jackson Lee and the entire House to vote in support of the CR to make sure our hurricane victims are taken care of and the government continues to function.

Mr. Speaker, the difference of opinion on this bill vividly illustrates the profoundly different world view of Democrats versus Republicans. Democrats instinctively trust the government and instinctively distrust individuals. Republicans instinctively distrust the government and trust the good hearts and good sense of individual Americans to be the best stewards of protecting themselves, their family, their property, and their freedoms.

Our Founders understood this, and this is why the First Amendment protects our freedom of conscience and the Second Amendment follows it immediately so that we, as free people, have the ability to protect ourselves--our freedom of conscience--against the overpowering force of the government.

We in Texas enacted in 1995, while I was a member of the Texas house, a concealed carry law, and we have had now over 20 years of data. People can go to the Department of Texas Public Safety website and look under conviction rates and see that the concealed carry permit holders in Texas, over the last 22 years, are 21 times less likely to commit a crime than the average Texans.

The 7 minutes Sheriff Rutherford just mentioned to us are a lifetime, if you or your family or neighbors are at risk of attack. The individual law-abiding American who is carrying a concealed weapon has had a background check, they have been trained in the

use of the weapon, and they know the law. We all, as Americans, should work together to preserve the Second Amendment right of every American to keep and bear arms no matter what State they are in.

Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to support this important legislation.