Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Con Res. 120, a resolution supporting the goals and ideals of National Women's Health Week. Throughout my career as a member of Congress, I have consistently fought to ensure that all Americans have access to quality, affordable, and comprehensive health care. As a cosponsor of the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act, a supporter of additional research on diseases that target women, and a longstanding advocate of securing health care for all women, I am pleased to support this resolution.

Women's health issues are of the utmost importance to me, and this resolution helps to promote awareness for healthy lifestyles and disease prevention for women. It is important to ensure that women both in Michigan's 15th District and across the United States understand the steps that can be taken to reduce the risk of disease, are aware of the disease disparities that exist among women from different backgrounds, and are exposed to healthy habits and key health issues from an early age. I understand that encouraging preventative care for women is important for reducing the cost of health care. As a longtime supporter of improvements to our Nation's health care system and increased research on women's health issues, I am pleased to support National Women's Health Week and to cosponsor H. Con. Res. 120.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 386, the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act. This legislation provides the Department of Justice with the tools it needs to fight fraud in the use of funds under TARP and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. S. 386 has a number of provisions that seek to protect Americans by ensuring the agencies tasked with investigating and prosecuting mortgage and financial fraud have the funding and personnel they need to do so. I am also pleased the House recognizes the need for increased accountability for mortgage lending businesses not directly regulated or insured by the Federal Government, an industry responsible for nearly half the residential mortgage market before the housing crash.

I am more hesitant to support other provisions of S. 386. This bill includes an amendment to establish a special commission to investigate the causes of the current financial crisis. I believe that any such commission should be comprised of members of this body, who are furthermore from the committees of jurisdiction relevant to the matter. I have introduced a resolution, H. Res. 345, to do precisely that. It is my long-held belief that the Congress should, contrary to the prevailing fashion of the times, conduct, its own oversight work. For the simple fact that members of this body will ultimately write the legislation to re-impose a strict regulatory framework

upon the financial services industry, they should be personally involved in vigorous efforts to expose the many and sundry causes of this country's recent economic collapse. In brief, well-informed members of Congress write more effective legislation.

With this in mind, I voice my support for aggressive oversight of the financial services industry, but respectfully object to the manner in which S. 386, as amended, mandates it be performed.

Mr. Chair, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 2187, the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act. I joined a cosponsor of this legislation because I believe our children are our greatest hope and their success determines the future success of our nation. To best prepare them for their future, we have a responsibility to provide them with the best education possible.

Today's legislation helps to further that goal by ensuring that our school districts have the funding they need to provide safe and healthy learning environments for our children. We know that America's schools are millions of dollars short of the funding needed to renovate and equip our schools for the 21st Century. H.R. 2187 would authorize $6.4 billion for school facilities projects for fiscal year 2010, providing a down payment for work to modernize our schools, while at the same time greening our schools. This legislation also requires school improvement projects to meet green building standards, as well as provides funds to help schools to track the energy needs and use of their facilities. Under this bill, Michigan would receive over $244 million for school facilities projects.

As father and a grandfather, nothing is more important to me than ensuring that the schools in the 15th and Michigan are safe and well- constructed. However, with state budgets in peril, many schools are struggling to maintain their payrolls, let alone make the improvements necessary to their schools. We know that green schools reduce pollution by using about 30 percent less water and energy than conventional schools. By providing funding for green building and renovation, we will help relieve some of the burden on the school budgets by helping our schools to save on energy expenses. This will result in savings that schools can dedicate to modernization, equipment, or reform.

At the same time we are improving the buildings our children and grandchildren learn in, we are also creating much needed new jobs. An estimate by the Economic Policy Institute finds that this legislation would support as many as 136,000 new green jobs. This will put some of the thousands of unemployed in Michigan back to work, while also teaching them new skills in the clean energy sector.

In the 110th Congress the House passed this legislation, but unfortunately it was not considered by the Senate before adjournment. As the school year comes to a close, I urge my colleagues in the Senate to consider this legislation quickly so that this summer school districts across the country can begin greening their schools.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2346, the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009. I am supporting this legislation because it contains necessary funding for our troops at war in Iraq and Afghanistan and ensures they have the proper equipment and resources they need. However, I am pleased this is the last time we will use emergency supplementals to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which grows our federal budget deficit and places the burden of paying for the wars on our children. From now on, we must keep our word and use supplemental appropriations only for true emergencies, like natural disasters, pandemic flu outbreaks, and terrorist attacks.

In addition to providing funds for continued drawdown of troops from Iraq, refocusing military efforts in Afghanistan, and new strategic initiatives in Pakistan, this legislation contains much-needed funding to respond to urgent humanitarian crises involving refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). While I thank the Committee for including this assistance, I believe much more is necessary to respond to the dire situation Iraqi refugees and IDPs find themselves in since the beginning of the Iraq War. The United States has both a moral obligation to assist this displaced population--the largest since the Palestinian Diaspora of 1948--and also a strategic interest in stabilizing the region so young Iraqi men and women turn toward the future of their country rather than to violence and extremism because they have no place else to go.

H.R. 2346 also contains relief for our troops who have been forced to remain on duty

through multiple tours of often intense combat missions. This bill contains $734 million to retroactively provide service members and veterans $500 for every month they served under stop-loss orders since 2001.

This bill has many other important provisions that I am pleased to support, like funding for pandemic flu response, fighting growing violence along the U.S.-Mexico border, and international food assistance during the global economic crisis. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in voting ``yes'' for H.R. 2346.

Mr. Chair, I rise in support of H.R. 1728, the ``Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act.'' Risky lending practices, combined with the consequent securitization of mortgages, ultimately brought a violent end to the housing bubble and left the United States with a constricted credit market not seen in generations. In short, simple avarice and an inexcusable disregard for the long-term health of the mortgage market gave rise to the economic crisis in which this Nation presently finds itself mired.

Just as our predecessors did in the wake of the Great Depression, we, too, must enact laws to ensure transparency in our economy and prevent the recurrence of practices that have left millions of Americans facing foreclosure. H.R. 1728 is but one of several essential means by which to achieve that end. This legislation, by requiring the licensing and registration of mortgage originators and proof of a borrower's ability to repay a home loan, will serve to impede--and hopefully altogether prevent--the irresponsible home lending practices that have in great part crippled the economy of my home state of Michigan, which, with one foreclosed home for every 136, has the sixth-highest foreclosure rate in the nation.

Although politically expedient to focus our ire over the current economic crisis on insalubrious actors in the financial services sector and making them the target of punitive legislation, we must not lose sight of the necessity

of providing consumers adequate protection from predatory lenders. H.R. 1728 recognizes this by prohibiting any compensation structure that could cause a loan originator to steer applicants toward costlier mortgages, providing a grace period for tenants before eviction from their homes, and creating an Office of Housing Counseling within the Department of Housing and Urban Development to educate consumers about what some might term as the Byzantine inner-workings of the housing market.

I am proud to support passage of this legislation and urge my colleagues to do so as well.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of S. 386, the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act. This legislation provides the Department of Justice with the tools it needs to fight fraud in the use of funds under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. S.386 has a number of provisions that seek to protect Americans by ensuring the agencies tasked with investigating and prosecuting mortgage and financial fraud have the funding and personnel they need to do so. I am also pleased the House recognizes the need for increased accountability for mortgage lending businesses not directly regulated or insured by the Federal Government, an industry responsible for nearly half the residential mortgage market before the housing crash.

I am more hesitant to support other provisions of S. 386. This bill includes an amendment to establish a special commission to investigate the causes of the current financial crisis. I believe that any such commission should be comprised of members of this body, who are furthermore from the committees of jurisdiction relevant to the matter. I have introduced a resolution, H. Res. 345, to do precisely that. It is my long-held belief that the Congress should, contrary to the prevailing fashion of the times, conduct its own oversight work. For the simple fact that members of this body will ultimately write the legislation to re-impose a strict regulatory framework upon the financial services industry, they should be personally involved in vigorous efforts to expose the many and sundry causes of this country's recent economic collapse. In brief, well-informed members of Congress write more effective legislation.

With this in mind, I voice my support for aggressive oversight of the financial services industry, but respectfully object to the manner in which S. 386, as amended, mandates it be performed.

Mr. Chair, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 627, the ``Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights Act of 2009,'' a bill of which I am a proud co-sponsor. My friend and colleague, Representative Carolyn Maloney, who is the bill's author, has been a tireless advocate for protecting consumers from the abuses of the credit card industry. This legislation will mandate meaningful reform on an industry that has been permitted to run wild for far too long.

We hear daily of countless Americans, who are struggling to pay their bills. Compounding this lamentable state of affairs is the fact that workers in this country have suffered a decline in real wages over the past decade. As a result of being stretched to their financial breaking point, many families have had to resort to using credit cards to pay for unforeseen costs, such as car repairs or emergency room bills. Far too often, these families are subjected to arbitrary rate increases and also forced to pay iniquitous late fees.

H.R. 627 will help put an end to these shameful practices and require credit card companies to treat consumers fairly. Importantly, this legislation will restrict the practice known as ``universal default,'' wherein a credit card company uses information about a cardholder's financial status, such a change in his or her credit rating, to raise the cardholder's interest rate, even if the cardholder has not defaulted on payments or made them late. Moreover, H.R. 627 will also ban what is known as ``double cycle billing,'' which is the collection of interest on amounts already paid by consumers to credit card companies.

In this time of severe recession, I feel it imperative that consumers be afforded fair protection from unfair credit card industry practices. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this common-sense legislation, which will help stem the tide of unscrupulous and predatory lending that has brought our nation to an economic precipice of gargantuan proportions.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in honor of Lana Pollack on the occasion of her receiving the Michigan Environmental Council's (MEC's) 2009 Helen and William G. Milliken Distinguished Service Award.

I have known Lana as both a friend and a colleague. She is a public servant of the highest order and a remarkable human being. Lana has served her community and her state with distinction. As a Michigan State Senator from 1982 until 1994, Lana led the effort to provide for a cleaner and more beautiful Michigan. As a champion of environmental causes, Lana helped clean up our state and ensured that those who polluted paid for their transgressions. But she did not limit herself to just one issue; Lana fought for legislation to provide gender equity, educational improvements and reproductive rights.

After leaving the Michigan State Senate, Lana joined the Michigan Environmental Council, serving as its president from 1996 until her retirement in January. While president of the MEC, Lana provided the force and leadership that grew this terrific organization, doubling its size and producing a ten-fold increase in its budget. But it wasn't the size increase or the money that made Lana's leadership of the MEC such a success, it was the quality of work that the MEC produced. Under Lana's watch, the MEC continued in its mission to protect Michigan's environment and preserve its natural resources. Lana used her skills in building coalitions of support to manage the 70 member organizations that make up the MEC in their combined efforts. Through passion and pragmatism Lana led the MEC from one success to another in its fight to protect our environment.

Lana Pollack is a model public servant. She is being honored with the Milliken Award because of her lifetime of service and her commitment to the environment. Her efforts personify what it means to be an active and engaged member of a community and an individual who is willing to fight for those principles they care deeply about. I am pleased to congratulate Lana on this tremendous accomplishment, for which she is so worthy of recognition, but above all else, I am honored to have her friendship. I ask my colleagues to join me in saluting Lana Pollack for her leadership, passion and record of accomplishment.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the fiscal year 2010 budget resolution. I know that today's proposal come as a result of much negotiation and discussion, and makes a number of difficult decisions about our financial future.

To be frank, 2009 has opened with a number of different challenges Congress and the Administration must address. We continue to face turmoil in our financial markets, our domestic auto industry and small businesses are struggling to stay afloat, and we have witnessed a dramatic loss of jobs. Like Roosevelt before him, Obama is facing an economic downturn of enormous magnitude. Guiding our country and our economy through this will require our government to make difficult and innovative changes. This budget resolution lays out the guideline for how these changes will be made.

As we begin to address health care reform, this budget resolution will provide the down payment to implement new changes to the way our health system cares for the sick. For the nearly 46 million Americans who are without health insurance, this budget resolution is a sign of our government's commitment to achieve reform that will ensure all Americans, regardless of their bank account, have access to quality and affordable health care. It also will ensure that our health system makes needed changes to reduce high administrative costs, and cut out fraud and abuse. Make no mistake; reforming our health care system is vital to the Nation's economic recovery efforts.

This legislation also increases investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency by nearly 10 percent for 2010. These investments will allow our country to provide loans for renewable power generation, increase the energy efficiency of our federal buildings, modernize the electricity grid to make it more efficient and reliable, among other things. Such investments will help to encourage the creation of new ``green'' jobs for workers who have been displaced, and more importantly, will help ensure that our energy needs are supplied by American innovation.

I am also pleased to support the conference agreement's provisions for our veterans. The agreement honors our veterans by ensuring they have the proper medical care. Among other things, the bill provides $53.4 billion to the Department of Veterans' Affairs--an 11.7 percent increase for veterans' health care and other services, allows Congress to provide advance funding to the VA health care system, and expands enrollment eligibility for Priority 8 veterans.

Most importantly, this budget makes a commitment to our children and their grandchildren by investing in a quality education that will prepare them for their future careers. We know now that in order to compete with our neighbors across the way our children need a high quality education and access to either higher education or training to prepare them to compete in a global economy. This budget will continue to raise the maximum Pell grant in order to ensure that its buying power increases and more low-income students will have access to the aid they need. In addition, the budget expands on the investments made in primary education and early childhood education ensuring that our schools are increasing student achievement and investing in high- quality facilities.

There is no doubt that these investments are costly, however, unlike the previous Administration, the Obama Administration and Congress have made a commitment to cut the federal deficit by nearly two-thirds in 2013. As a parting gift, President Bush provided the Obama Administration a $1 trillion deficit. This is not a deficit that came about overnight; rather it is the result of poor fiscal planning from an Administration that inherited a $5.6 trillion surplus. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of today's budget resolution not because I believe it will bring our economy out of recession overnight, but because I believe it will go a long way towards helping American families and workers who need it. For many of those in the 15th District and across the country, this economy has left their bank accounts battered and their 401(k)s depleted. Many of these folks have nowhere else to turn. A vote for this budget is a vote for those in need.

Mr. Speaker, today I've introduced legislation establishing a select committee to examine the causes of the current financial crisis; most certainly, serious financial and other misbehavior on Wall Street and within the banking community. It is modeled on the Pecora Commission, which held hearings in 1932 and 1933 to investigate the roots of the Great Depression, whose seriousness is only slightly greater than that which we now confront.

As Ferdinand Pecora said of the Great Depression's source, he said, ``Legal chicanery and pitch darkness were the banker's stoutest allies.'' Let us take heed of Pecora's words and support this resolution which will foster a coordinated approach among the several committees of jurisdiction in this matter, and to help us remedy and prevent the unsavory practices that have led our Nation to an economic precipice of gargantuan proportions.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to offer my congratulations to the University of Michigan and its University Library System in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on the occasion of its 125th anniversary as a Federal Depository Library.

Since 1884, the University of Michigan Library has served the University of Michigan and the Southeastern Michigan community as a public space where citizens can find information about their government. As part of the Federal Library Depository Program (FLDP), the University of Michigan Library provides free access to journals, electronic resources, microfilm and more on an endless number of topics and is equipped with thoroughly trained librarians to help navigate. Throughout its history, the FLDP has striven to make our citizenry more informed and ultimately more engaged in the democratic process.

The University of Michigan Library in Ann Arbor is one of the largest university library systems in the United States. It consists of 19 libraries in 11 buildings, which combined, hold over 8 million volumes. These impressive statistics and the fine work of its employees mean this library system has consistently ranked as one of the top ten academic research libraries in North America. The fact that the University of Michigan has, for 125 years, been home to a FDLP library speaks to both its remarkable record as an educational institution and its committed role in ensuring access to our civic process.

Once again, I congratulate the University of Michigan on this tremendous achievement and I wish the library system and the entire university the very best in the future.

Madam Chair, today I rise in support of the fiscal year 2010 budget resolution. Today's vote on the budget is a critical one, not only because it finally invests resources in domestic priorities, but because it also takes into consideration the needs of our families.

Our economy is suffering, financial markets are in turmoil, and back home in Michigan we are facing an unemployment rate of 12 percent. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle suggest cutting our spending, while also providing huge tax cuts for their fat cat friends and more subsidies for oil and gas companies. These are not the folks that need government tax breaks and subsidies.

If it is not the government who will pump money into our economy, provide tax cuts to our families and make health care and education more affordable, then who will? We know that our banks are not lending, families are living paycheck to paycheck, and our small businesses and companies are struggling to maintain their payroll. The status quo is not an option.

For the first time in eight long years we have a President who proposed a budget that takes into consideration the long-term stability of our country and provides a strong economic plan to guide us out of this recession. To that end, Congress proposes cutting the deficit by nearly two-thirds by 2013, reducing discretionary spending to its lowest level ever, and including initiatives to cut waste, fraud and abuse, saving taxpayers nearly $50 billion. And for the first time, Congress and the administration are including the costs of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the budget, no longer hiding the costs in supplemental legislation.

Yes, Congress and this administration is tackling a lot at once, not only because the last administration left a platter of problems at our feet, but also because we can no longer afford to put off health care reform, or climate change, or quality education. Our country and our economy need a long-term solution.

Through this budget we will begin to tackle the rising costs of healthcare by reducing high administrative costs and rooting out inefficiencies. We will ensure that Medicare physician payments provide clear incentives for better quality care and ensure that primary care physicians are compensated for the hard work that they do. All of these steps will set the stage for health care reform and provide a down payment for legislation this summer.

This budget also continues our investment in education by raising the maximum Pell grant award, including additional assistance to help more low-income students complete college. This is critical to ensuring that our current and future employers continue to have a highly educated workforce. We need to keep our workforce competitive with our neighbors abroad and I strongly believe that ensuring access to education for all is one way to do that.

Finally, we will look towards laying the foundation for climate change legislation this summer by ensuring that funding and tax incentives in the stimulus bill receive significant funding--producing new sources of energy and creating green jobs across the country. Further, it will set aside funding to be used to pay for climate change legislation that the House and Senate are working on as we speak. This will ensure that the final product that makes it to the President's desk is paid for, allowing for responsible legislation that will cut greenhouse gas emissions, promote energy independence, and create new jobs in the energy sector.

I want to commend the leadership of the Obama administration and Chairman Spratt for all of their hard work to put together this budget proposal. I know that producing a budget that will address the problems of the last eight years, while also investing in the priorities of our families, was not an easy task. However, it is high time that the budget helps all Americans, not just the wealthy. Let this budget be a message that Congress has heard our families loud and clear--we want to ensure your families are healthy, your children receive quality education, and your paychecks stretch a bit further than they used to. This is

particularly true for the people of the 15th District--you can rest assured that I am working tirelessly to help you through this tough time. Together we can, and we will, turn our country's economy around.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1256, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. This historic legislation will grant the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco products. Aside from a few technical changes, H.R. 1256 is identical to the legislation Chairman Waxman and I worked hard together to pass in the House last year.

This legislation is long overdue:

In 1957, Surgeon General Leroy Burney declared the causal link between smoking and lung cancer.

In 1964, Surgeon General Luther Terry's Report proclaimed that cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action.

Today, fifty-two years after the cancer link was established, forty- five years after the call for remedial action, we are finally poised to regulate this lethal product.

H.R. 1256 creates a fully-funded separate tobacco center at FDA to regulate tobacco products. The FDA is the appropriate scientific and regulatory agency to provide this oversight. Through a user fee on tobacco products, FDA will have the resources to implement this legislation and the legislation segregates the tobacco center and its funding from other FDA programs.

The FDA needs more resources and greater authority to meet its other obligations with respect to food, drugs, devices and cosmetics. My colleagues, Mr. Pallone and Mr. Stupak, and I have introduced legislation to address this need. To my colleagues who are concerned with FDA's lack of resources, I invite you to join us in this effort.

Each year, tobacco use kills more than 400,000 people. The American people need assurance that their food and medical products are safe. But they also need meaningful oversight of tobacco products. This Congress can deliver both.

I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of H.R. 1256.

Mr. Speaker, I begin by thanking the great chairman of the committee, my dear friend from West Virginia, Mr. Nicky Joe Rahall. Thank you. This is a great bill, and I rise in support of it. And I thank you for what you have done for me and my people in Monroe and Monroe County, Michigan, in setting up the River Raisin National Battlefield Park in this legislation. This is a proposal which has the strongest possible support from all of the people in the area. It will preserve a battleground from the War of 1812, which was a major engagement west of the Appalachian Mountains where the Americans suffered a devastating military defeat. Out of better than 1,000 American regulars and militia who participated in the battle, only 33 escaped death or capture.

The future President of the United States, then-General William Henry Harrison, described the loss at the River Raisin as a ``national calamity.''

But it went beyond this. That was the battle which became the battle cry in the War of 1812. And it is that which probably led to the saving for the United States of all of the lands west of the Appalachians and certainly the Great Lakes Basin.

The park designation is so important to my people in the local community that they will give the land necessary for this to the Park Service without any compensation or charge. And this is certainly something which is important to us because this kind of local support is going to lead to an extraordinary relationship between the Park Service and the people in the area where volunteers will come forward to help make this park a tremendous success.

So I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. I commend and I thank my dear friend, the chairman of the committee, for his leadership, persistence and hard work. Getting this legislation to this point where it is going to the White House is an extraordinary accomplishment and shows extraordinary dedication and persistence by my dear friend, the chairman.

I want to say that this is going to be a great piece of legislation. It is a great event in the history of the country, and I am proud of my dear friend for the leadership that he has shown. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 1586, which will impose a significant tax on bonuses received by employees of certain TARP-recipient companies. This legislation, of which I am an original co-sponsor, sends a clear message that excessive compensation practices by TARP-recipients are indefensible and, as such, must be heavily penalized. On Tuesday of this week, I introduced my own bill, H.R. 1543, on this matter, which would subject bonuses to employees of TARP-recipients to a 95 percent tax. I am pleased to see that H.R. 1586 incorporates elements of my bill and thank Chairman Rangel for his kind consideration in doing so.

As AIG's recent actions remind us, it is unconscionable that companies dependent upon the largesse of the federal government for their very existence should in turn pay irresponsibly exorbitant bonuses to the rapscallions partially responsible for the current recession. From their glass towers, they frittered away the Nation's economic well-being. Compare that to the men and women who work on the assembly lines now being asked to make wage and healthcare concessions--also contractually guaranteed, I might add--to justify the rescue of U.S. manufacturers. If we can demand that decent people, who wear hard hats and blue jeans, must renegotiate their contracts, I see no reason those people wearing neckties and $1,000 suits should not also have to sacrifice to help their country in this time of need.

In closing, I offer my thanks to Chairman Rangel, as well as Representatives Peters, Israel, and Maloney, for their work to ensure that TARP funds are not wasted on reprehensible and undeserved bonuses. I urge my colleagues to vote in support of H.R. 1586.