Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, it's with sadness that I rise to honor the life of Anthony Dejuan Boatwright, who

passed away at the age of 11 Sunday night. Juan was 14 months old when he was left alone at his day care center, fell into a bucket of water and bleach, and suffered irreversible brain damage. At that time, there was no law requiring Georgia licensed day care centers to carry insurance or even let parents know that they didn't carry insurance. That meant that despite being awarded a $30 million jury verdict, Juan's family couldn't collect the money needed to care for Juan's life over the past 11 years.

Juan's mother, Jackie, has led a courageous effort to correct this injustice. And in 2004, Georgia enacted a law requiring that day care centers disclose their insurance status. Last Congress, Juan and Jackie's fight led the House to pass the Anthony Dejuan Boatwright Act so that families across America would never again experience the same tragedy.

During the last 11 years, Juan inspired a movement to protect the safety of children everywhere. Juan, your mother and I thank you for your life. You will be missed, but your legacy lives on.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on the 47th anniversary of Bloody Sunday to recognize the courage of our colleague, Congressman John Lewis, and the many forgotten heroes of the civil rights movement.

Nearly 50 years ago in Selma, Alabama, some 600 demonstrators marched for equal voting rights for African Americans. They got only as far as the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where State and local lawmen attacked them with clubs and tear gas and drove them back into Selma. Journalists captured the brutality of these attacks, sparking the public outrage that eventually led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

This Sunday, Congressman Lewis returned to that very bridge that changed history. Again, he was met by a large group of police--but this time they served as his congressional escort.

Mr. Speaker, we've come a long way in the last 50 years, but we still have a long way to go in order to ensure equality and justice for all, and I ask that my colleagues join with me in that work.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 3521, the Expedited Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act of 2011. This bipartisan legislation will cut wasteful spending and reduce the deficit by reestablishing the principal of a line-item veto.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that occasionally an unnecessary or wasteful expenditure makes its way into a spending bill. This bill increases accountability over those expenditures by giving the President the authority to identify specific wasteful spending and make Congress take an up-or-down vote on its merits.

This legislation requires that all savings go directly toward deficit reduction. This legislation is a commonsense solution to cut wasteful spending and reduce our unsustainable deficit. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. It's a step toward getting our economy back on track and getting people back to work.

Mr. Speaker, this day marks a sad anniversary for many of the folks I represent. Four years ago today, a combustible dust explosion destroyed the Imperial Sugar plant in Port Wentworth, Georgia, killing 14 people and injuring more than 40 others.

The sad truth is that this explosion didn't have to happen. Experts have known about the dangers of combustible dust for decades, and experts have developed industry standards that can prevent combustible dust explosions and fires. Unfortunately, these commonsense practices have not become the national standard despite preventable explosions and fires in Georgia and throughout America before and since.

Today, on the fourth anniversary of this tragedy, I ask my colleagues to support H.R. 522, the Worker Protection Against Combustible Dust Explosions and Fires Act of 2011, introduced by Mr. Miller of California. This law would require the Secretary of Labor to promulgate standards for regulating combustible dust.

We shouldn't wait until another disaster strikes. We owe it to the dead and the wounded to take action today so that disasters like the Imperial Sugar Plant explosion will never happen again.

Mr. Speaker, 100 years ago, Juliette ``Daisy'' Gordon Low organized the first Girl Scout troop in Savannah, Georgia. Daisy began with 18 girls in one troop in Savannah, but her movement has grown to include over 50 million American women over the past 100 years, including 3.2 million active members today.

The Girl Scouts build character by engaging girls in community service, developing leadership skills, and preparing girls to take their place in the world. I know what I'm talking about because I have a twin sister, and she was a Girl Scout.

I'm proud of the hard work of the girls and women who've been a part of the Girl Scouts movement, but I'm even more grateful for the positive influence this institution has had on millions of girls throughout America and the world.

So I congratulate the Girl Scouts on 100 great years, and I wish them every success for the next 100 years.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the lifelong public service of my fellow Georgian, former Congressman Ed Jenkins. Congressman Jenkins was born in Young Harris, Georgia. He was a veteran of the Coast Guard and a graduate of Young Harris College and the University of Georgia Law School.

Congressman Jenkins represented north Georgia in Congress for 16 years, serving on the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee. His service and his approach to service are a good example for all of us today. Those who knew him and served with him remember him as a levelheaded workhorse and a zealous advocate for the interests of his district, especially the textile and poultry industries. More importantly, he was willing to work in a bipartisan way to do what he thought was best for his constituents and his country.

After Congress, Ed Jenkins served as a member and as chairman of the University System of Georgia Board of Regents. Congressman Jenkins passed away on New Year's Day, but he is survived by a wife of 51 years, two daughters, two grandchildren, and thousands of friends and admirers. We've missed him a lot these last few years, and now we'll miss him even more.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to recognize the accomplishments of the Augusta Branch of the NAACP and to honor them as they celebrate their 38th Annual Freedom Fund Banquet.

For over a century, the NAACP has served on the front lines of change in America. So often when we recount their success, we think of the most prominent images of the Civil Rights Movement. We remember the heroes who marched peacefully and stood with dignity in the face of injustice. And we remember how they overcame those who hosed and humiliated college students and put dogs on women and children because of the color of their skin. But there has been--and always will be-- more to the NAACP than this chapter in the Civil Rights Movement.

The NAACP has committed itself to shepherding the cause of equality and justice in America. In the 50 years before and since the sit-ins and marches that toppled Jim Crow, the NAACP has played a vital role in numerous communities to protect the political, educational, social, and economic rights of all persons regardless of color.

The Augusta Branch of the NAACP in my home district was recently honored with nine awards at the Georgia State Conference NAACP Convention. Among their commendations were awards for overall outstanding contributions as well as recognition for accomplishments in social justice and increased membership.

As a Life Member of the NAACP, it's a particular point of pride for me to see one of the NAACP branches that I represent recognized for their important contributions. I offer them my continued support and many more years of success in Affirming America's Promise.

Mr. Speaker, we all know that many senior citizens in our country have trouble getting the Social Security and Medicare benefits they've paid for throughout their working life, and many veterans have trouble receiving the benefits they've earned through their service and sacrifice in protecting our country. However, because of the hard work of my district staff, folks in my district recovered over $3.5 million in benefits that they were entitled to but were not getting from the Federal Government in just the last year alone.

This shines a light on a big problem with our Federal Government. Our constituents shouldn't have to appeal to their Congressman to get the benefits they're entitled to. We need to work together to make the Social Security Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs work better so that none of our constituents will have to get their Congressman to help them get their benefits.

Until we get to that point, I'm proud that I have a talented and hardworking staff who may report to me but who work for the people of Georgia's 12th District.

Madam Speaker, I rise to encourage my colleagues to give a little something back this season to those who give so much.

Every year we accumulate thousands of frequent flyer miles as we travel between our districts and Washington, DC. For the past several years, I've donated my frequent flyer miles to the Fisher House's Hero Miles Program, which provides free airline tickets to American soldiers and their families, and to the Children's Miracle Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving and improving the lives of children.

Most of my frequent flyer miles this year came from congressional travel, and I don't think it's right to use them for myself. What I do know is that there is no better way for us to use our frequent flyer miles than to help troops and their families see each other, or to help sick kids get well.

I encourage each of my colleagues to join me and donate the frequent flyer miles you receive for government-funded congressional travel to programs like the Fisher House and the Children's Miracle Network, and to do it this holiday season.

I want to particularly thank the chairman for yielding me time to speak in support of the balanced budget amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the balanced budget amendment, which I've supported since I first came to Congress. We all agree that our Nation's debt is unsustainable. Our economy is struggling, and folks everywhere are struggling to find work. But facts are stubborn things. And it's a fact that balancing the budget is essential if we're going to protect our future and the future of our children and grandchildren. Balancing the budget will also create the long-term stability our economy needs to fully recover.

Amending our Constitution is not something to take lightly. We shouldn't do it on a whim or because it is politically expedient. Amending the Constitution is something that we as a Nation should undertake only when it is truly needed. Unfortunately, Congress has demonstrated time and again that it cannot and will not balance the budget on its own. It is truly needed now.

Nearly every State in the Union has a balanced budget amendment. Families throughout America have to bring their income and outlays into balance, and so can the Federal Government.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation is bipartisan. It is responsible. It is the right thing to do. And I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join me and the Blue Dog Coalition in supporting the balanced budget amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to highlight this week's passage of S. 894, the Veterans Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2011. During this difficult economic time, it's more important than ever that we keep our promises to our veterans.

This bill provides a cost of living adjustment to the disability pay of our wounded veterans. This well-earned increase will go a long way to help veterans make ends meet. This could not have been done at a more appropriate time as we're one week away from Veterans Day.

I'm happy to see that my colleagues joined together in a bipartisan fashion to pass this legislation. Again, I commend my colleagues for standing together for veterans by passing the Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act, and I encourage my colleagues to continue to work together in a bipartisan fashion to keep

the promises our country made to veterans when they first signed up.

I have an amendment at the desk.

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

Many of the small business owners that I've talked to back home tell me that the biggest barrier that they face in starting up a business is securing access to capital. When traditional lenders aren't lending, we need to find innovative ways to get startup and expansion money in the hands of small business job creators.

This bill uses the Internet to knock down some of the financial barriers that get between mom-and-pop startups and willing investors so they can get the money they need to grow their businesses and put more people to work. However, as with almost everything involving the Internet, new opportunities to do good bring new opportunities for mischief. We all agree that businesses and investors must understand the potential risks that come with these innovations. The bill requires that the SEC adopt regulations specifying the warnings and information that the issuer has to offer, but it leaves the content and the formatting of this information to rulemaking proceedings to be completed later, and it leaves open the possibility of inconsistent warnings and information for different investment opportunities.

My amendment takes the bill's basic approach one step further by requiring that the offering contain a link to a site maintained by the SEC where the SEC will post a comprehensive set of warnings and safety tips to anyone who is about to use the Internet to raise capital without all of the hassle and the safeguards of a regulated SEC offering. This would provide a consistent set of warnings and avoid the inconsistent, unclear, or misleading messages that investors might get from different Web sites.

Madam Chair, a word to the wise is sufficient, but too many words can obscure the information that folks really need. My amendment offers something better than a word--a link to the information that we all agree that investors should have available to them before they put their money down. Investors don't have to read it and they don't have to heed it, but it's there. And that's the least that we should do. Small businesses and the investment community stand to gain from this system, but only if everyone involved is on the same page about the potential benefits and the drawbacks. My amendment will help make sure that happens.

I want to thank my colleagues for their work on this bipartisan bill, and I ask for your support in passing this job-creating, investor- protecting amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Well, I understand that our staffs have consulted with each other about the utility of this. I don't know how far they have gone with the SEC. But I can tell you the basic outline of this requirement is not to gum up the offering, not to require the issuer to put all kinds of stuff in the offering that can actually obscure the information that the offerer wants to put to the public and can allow the SEC basically to intrude into that offering, but to require one simple link where they can go and get all of the information that any wise investor needs.

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

I understand the gentleman to be concerned about the distinction between this type of offering and a public offering, and I wish to remind him of what perhaps wasn't clearly understood. The point we're trying to make here is an exempt offering. That does not have all of the rigamarole and the hassle and the fine print and all of the safeguards that go along with a public offering.

It is because we're trying to provide the ease and convenience of an exempt offering while still providing the necessary information that folks have to have that we all are concerned about the investment warnings that the gentleman thinks we need to have in the bill. I agree with that. This is not a public offering. What we're trying to do, though, is to make sure that we don't exempt folks from having the information they might need to have before they make an investment in this entirely new and heretofore unregulated marketplace.

The gentleman is also concerned about the fact that there is yet another Web site. We're just talking about a page here that can be readily linked so the person looking at the information that the issuer wants to make available to the public, they can just hit on one link, and they can go someplace else immediately and get all the information that they need or the information they don't need. They can read it or not read it.

I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Yes, a site on the Internet, on the World Wide Web, can be just one page that can have all the information that you need.

Reclaiming my time, the main concern that I've got is that the investment protections the gentleman refers to in the bill suffer from the problem of being both overinclusive and underinclusive. On the one hand, it gives the SEC comprehensive authority to require that certain information be made

available and the person be tested and answer questions on the information that the SEC requires that they demonstrate competence on. This could suffer from underinclusion if the SEC doesn't ask or insist that the person have the most minimal information. It could be incredibly overinclusive if the SEC wants to use the authority given by the bill, as written, to require that the investor demonstrate competence on a million things.

Just think of the terms and conditions in the typical software download program; and if someone's got to answer a question about every sentence in there, you can actually give the SEC the authority, and you're kind of inviting them to go into this offering and to require competence on all kinds of stuff the person doesn't need.

Oftentimes, as Emerson said, a glimpse reveals what the gaze obscures. What I think folks need to have is a direct link that takes them to the information that anybody ought to have, and they can read it or not read it. They can heed it or not heed it. But it won't gum up the offering. It won't get between what the issuer wants to make available in order to make the sale and the information a person needs to have in order to decide whether or not this is the right place for them to make this kind of investment.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman for his discussion and for his good-faith effort to try and reach an understanding as how we can make the investment information more meaningful. I'm concerned, too, about the stamp of approval, the so-called Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval someone might get from finding something that is heretofore highly regulated available now in a totally brand-new marketplace. I'm concerned about the opposite impact, that not having the right information in the hands of the investor can serve as a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, what's in front of them now.

As written, the bill allows the SEC to prescribe all kinds of information that the person has to demonstrate a competence in. My bill would do a lot better than that. It would get the SEC out of the conversation, provide a link where a person can go someplace else and see what it is they need to see if they want to see it without getting between the issuer and the customer.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise to ask my colleagues to join me in improving congressional oversight of Federal spending by cosponsoring H.R. 3121, the Reclaiming Oversight of the Executive Branch Spending Act.

Too often Congress appropriates vast amounts of money within broad funding categories and gives the executive branch the freedom to spend it with little oversight. The constitutional obligation to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely lies with Congress. My legislation would require that all Federal spending and loan guarantees over $100 million be explicitly approved by Congress.

Had my bill been law a year ago, Congress would have had to approve the $500 million loan guarantee to the now bankrupt Solyndra and perhaps we could have stopped that from happening. Today, however, the only real vetting of programs like the Solyndra loan happens after things have gone wrong and the money has been lost.

Congress needs to reassert itself and ensure that all programs are properly vetted. The old carpenter's rule still applies: measure twice, cut once.

I ask all of my colleagues to help me end wasteful spending by cosponsoring the Reclaiming Oversight of the Executive Branch Act.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask my colleagues to join me in strengthening the Federal Recovery Coordination Program. Federal Recovery Coordinators were originally envisioned by the Dole-Shalala Commission as a way to help wounded warriors navigate the incredibly complex bureaucracy of the VA and Defense Department health systems.

Despite the initial successes of the program, administrative problems have prevented the program from reaching its full potential. That's why I've introduced legislation to address these problems.

My legislation codifies the Federal Recovery Coordination Program and places it under the joint jurisdiction of the Secretaries of Veterans Affairs and Defense. It will ensure that Recovery Coordinators have the authority to act on behalf of a veteran when they identify a need, and it ensures they have access to all stages of the recovery process, especially during the initial transition from active duty.

These reforms will help to strengthen this program and help us better serve the needs of our wounded veterans. I ask for my colleagues to join me in support of this legislation.

I thank the ranking member for the time to express another view on the legislation.

I'm proud to be an original sponsor of the EPA Regulatory Relief Act. This legislation was drafted in response to new EPA regulations on emissions from industrial boilers. I believe those regulations, however well meaning, cannot reasonably be met with today's technologies. I believe that this bill is a more reasonable solution than that proposed by the EPA.

The choice before us is not between the two mutually exclusive outcomes of dirty air or more jobs. Our challenge is to promote policies that serve both. I think this bill strikes a better balance. It will spur industry to make investments that cut down on harmful air emissions, while minimizing the chances of negative economic consequences and job losses.

I'm proud to have worked in a productive, bipartisan way to get this bill to the floor, and encourage my colleagues' support.