Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, about a month and a half ago, we heard the President speak to us about the economy, about his goals for America. He labeled his speech ``middle class economics,'' and tonight, I want to pick this issue up once again.

We are here most every week discussing this issue, although last time we were up here, we took up another important issue, Alzheimer's. But I want to come back to middle class economics, why it is important. Well, basically, it is important because it drives our economy.

The great majority of Americans want to be in the middle class, and most of them are. Unfortunately, we have seen the decline of the middle class, their ability to own a home, a car, to provide for their family--but if the middle class is healthy, it will drive our economy, and it will create jobs, so the focus on the middle class becomes very, very important.

We can do this by strengthening their wages. If they are able to earn more money, then they will buy the home, the car, and the economy will grow, and other people will be able to enjoy the fruits of our economy.

I am going to focus on infrastructure in a moment, but I just want to skip that over and go down to the other things.

Health care--who among us doesn't want to have a good health care program, so that if we get sick or injured, we will be able to get to a doctor, get to a hospital, get the care we need to get back on our feet, and to once again be productive or, in our old age, be able to enjoy our retirement?

So the affordable health care becomes really important, and here, we

have the Affordable Health Care Act as part of that.

Finally, we need to develop policies to grow the middle class, and one such policy is infrastructure, which is the focus of tonight's discussion. I want to just stay with this infrastructure issue for a few moments, and then I am going to invite my colleague from Minnesota, Rick Nolan, to join us here.

Let me talk about this also. The other theme, in addition to the middle class economics, is the Make It In America theme that we have been talking about for 4 years now. Trade, taxes, energy, labor, education, research, and infrastructure, these are the elements that we fold into our Make It In America agenda.

We talk about trade. There is going to be a lot of discussion about that here in Congress over the next several months as the Trans-Pacific Partnership comes up. Taxes, which we will pick up with the infrastructure issue in a few moments--energy is also part of the infrastructure issue.

Anyway, Make It In America means bringing the jobs back home, employing Americans, doing the things that we need to do in this country, whether it is the health care sector; the infrastructure; building the roads, the bridges, and the like; or education. That is the Make It In America agenda, and it is part of the middle class economics. In fact, it is the key to it.

Why is infrastructure important? Well, there are certain things like this, a collapsed bridge. This is on Interstate 5 in the State of Washington. This is a bridge near the Canadian border. About 3 years ago, it went into the river, collapsed--one of about 163,000 deficient bridges here in the United States.

So, yep, we have got a problem. Are we going to be able to address this problem? Well, we had better.

Actually, it is 156,000. I was a little bit overanxious there.

The American Society of Civil Engineers, who build these things, have graded the American infrastructure, and I just want to go through it: aviation, our airports, which I believe the Vice President, in referring to LaGuardia, said even the developing countries have a better airport than LaGuardia in New York City, aviation, a D; bridges, C-plus--as I said, 156,000 deficient; dams, D; running water, D; energy, D-plus; hazardous waste, D; inland waterways, D; levees, to protect us from floods, D; our ports, a C; public parks and recreation, C; our railroads, C-plus--whoa, a C-plus; our highways, a D; our schools, that is where our kids are, a D; solid waste, we are doing pretty well, that is a B; our transit systems, D; wastewater, a D.

Incidentally, in California, we are in the midst of a major drought, and it is perfectly clear that the wastewater systems are inadequate. If we were to also fund the recycling programs which could be connected to the wastewater, we could, in southern California, over the next half decade, create a million acre feet of new water as we recycle the water from the fifth biggest river on the west coast of the Western Hemisphere, the sanitation plants in southern California.

So we have got some work out ahead of us.

Let me bring this home before I invite my colleague from the great State of Minnesota to join us on this issue.

Earlier today, I was reading an article in The Sacramento Bee about the transportation systems in Sacramento. Let me just share some of these thoughts with you.

In Sacramento, the average commuter spends 32 hours each year stuck in traffic. This amounts to $669 of lost productivity. That is literally wages that could have been earned if they weren't stuck in traffic. For all of the commuters in the Sacramento area, which I represent, that is $834 million of commuting time. For the truckers in the area that are trying to pass through Sacramento on Interstate 5, on Interstate 80 or Highway 50, it is $199 million of lost productivity.

There is another alternative. Down in Riverside, a southern California city that I once represented when I was lieutenant governor, they want to build a 13-mile streetcar system in the city of Riverside. It would cost about $300 million. The economic analysis that was done on that indicates that if they were to do it, there would be a 4-to-1 return on investment. Now, you tell me which investment banker on Wall Street wouldn't want to have a 4-to-1 return on their investment. Well, the city of Riverside could have a 4-to-1 return on their investment of $300 million to build that 13-mile streetcar section. That is property values and economic development.

This morning, The Wall Street Journal published an article in which the American Society of Civil Engineers was quoted that between 2012 and 2022, in America, because of the insufficient infrastructure--and remember, I just read you their GPA, mostly Ds--lost sales, $1 trillion of lost sales. For the United States, the delays will cost $3.1 trillion. And to bring it home to a single company--a big company but, nonetheless, just one company--United Parcel Service, UPS, all of those big brown trucks that are out there, $105 million in lost revenue.

There is a solution. The President has put forward to us, the Members of Congress, a 6-year, $478 billion transportation plan that will be paid for--fully paid for with the current gasoline and diesel tax not increased, keep it the same--and going out to those American corporations that are stiffing the American taxpayer by hiding their profits overseas. The President says: Bring those profits home; pay your fair share of the taxes. So there is a fully paid-for proposal before us here in the House of Representatives for a $478 billion, 6- year transportation program.

Now, I think our Speaker represents an area in Ohio near Kentucky, and I believe there is a bridge in that area called the Brent Spence Bridge. It crosses the Ohio River between Kentucky and Ohio. It was built for 80,000 cars a day, and now there are over 200,000 cars a day that pass over that bridge--or try to pass over that bridge--creating a monumental traffic jam and slowing down the entire economy in that region.

By the way, don't ever walk or drive underneath the bridge because the concrete in the bridge is falling off. They have a nice little safety net over the road beneath it, so perhaps, therefore, you won't be hit by a falling piece of concrete.

So the issue for us, the Representatives of the American public, is: Are we willing to put together a full transportation program so that these kinds of bridge collapses are pictures of yesterday, not the pictures of tomorrow's future?

I would like to have the gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Rick Nolan, join us now. If you would come on down and join us, perhaps here on the floor, and take one of the microphones.

Mr. Nolan, you have a fascinating history here in the House of Representatives. You were here in the early seventies as a Representative and then decided to go back to Minnesota and build a business, a lumber manufacturing, a timber manufacturing business. It was very successful. Then you came back to straighten us out, bringing all of that history to us.

Welcome, Mr. Nolan. Thank you so very much for joining us this evening as we talk about transportation and infrastructure in America.

Well, you had an opportunity to learn about the private sector and learn about the necessity of transportation; and I think your business was dependent on that, both to get the materials to your lumber mill and then to export.

Well, there is no doubt about the importance of it. If you want to build good middle class jobs, a lot of those jobs are in the infrastructure. It may be a hardhat job out there putting up the steel and the concrete, the ironworkers or the cement masons or the operators of the heavy equipment. All of those are really good middle class jobs, no doubt about it, wherever they happen to be across the Nation. But also, in the back office, somebody has to do the accounting; somebody has to do the design work--the architects, the draftsmen and -women that are involved.

So these jobs permeate the entire economy. And it is absolutely true that if we can fund--that is, pass--a 6-year, robust transportation bill that is fully paid for, Americans would go to work in middle class jobs. That is the first effect: people will have jobs. And in building the infrastructure, you then lay the foundation for future economic growth.

You have seen this in your area. I was thinking about your call for the family to be able to enjoy the fruits of life. And I am thinking about you have got some heavy-duty hunting country up in your area. You are out in the backwoods of Minnesota, if I recall.

And in between are bear, deer, and fish.

I think it is May 15.

Well, there is no doubt that if we were to pass--well, we

don't have a choice. If we don't pass a bill in the next 2 months, 2\1/ 2\ months, all public works, transportation programs, will come to a screeching halt. There will be no more Federal money, and it will simply stop. So we have got work to do. As you say, if the committee could have its way, we could put together a good bill. There has been a long history here of the transportation bill being a bipartisan bill. We can do that.

If we don't--let me just go back through this. I get stacks and stacks of paper, and this one caught my eye. It is entitled, ``Infrastructure Investment Creates American Jobs.'' I said: Well, that is kind of a pretty good cover there. It has roads, bridges, ports, and so forth. It is the Duke Center on Globalization, Governance & Competitiveness. So it is the Duke University. Here they say:

Old and broken transportation infrastructure makes the

United States less competitive than 15 of our major trading

partners and makes manufacturers less efficient in getting

goods to market.

Underinvestment costs the United States over 900,000 jobs,

including more than 97,000 American manufacturing jobs.

Maximizing American-made materials when rebuilding

infrastructure has the potential to create even more jobs.

Relying on American-made inputs can also mitigate safety

concerns related to large-scale outsourcing.

I am with you, Duke--Duke University. I am from the west coast, and I have problems with some of these east coast athletic teams, but, hey, I am with them on this one. Infrastructure creates American jobs.

This is something that I have used over and over again. This is from Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. He is the former economics adviser for Senator John McCain when the Senator ran for the United States Presidency. He put it this way:

For every dollar invested in infrastructure investment,

$1.57 is pumped back into the American economy with well

paying, middle class American jobs.

This is just really critically important. The question for us, and the reason we are here on the floor and the reason we are talking about this issue of middle class economics and now transportation, is that we are up against another timeline here. We have got the transportation cliff, we have got a bridge that is collapsed, and the question is: Will this Congress provide a transportation bill that can bridge this collapsed bridge and rebuild it? I think we can. I know we must.

My fear--my fear--Mr. Nolan, is that we have become really, really good at something we used to play when I was a kid, and it is called kick the can. We have become really good at kicking the can down the road rather than just coming to grips with the reality that we have to have a long-term transportation bill.

There are many reasons for it. These are long-term projects, and over the last I guess almost 7 years now we have not had a long-term bill. The longest one has been a 2-year bill that passed 2 years ago, and that doesn't give the planners enough time to plan these long-term projects or the assurance that the money, the Federal money, will be there; $478 billion, 6 years, fully paid for, doesn't increase the gasoline or diesel tax but requires American corporations that have run away from their obligation to this Nation by hiding their profits overseas to bring those profits back and tax them accordingly.

That is the President's plan. It is all there for us. Can we do it? I don't think we have any choice. I think we have to do it, Mr. Nolan. I don't know how you feel about it from Minnesota, but I know in California that we are in the midst of a major drought, and this is going to be the fourth year of a major drought in California, and it has been at least 30 years since there have been any major water infrastructure investments in California. Our economy in California is paying dearly for it. About one-third of the rice fields in my district are fallow. If you go further south into the San Joaquin Valley it is probably about the same percentage. Cantaloupes, cotton, and other kinds of row crops, tomatoes, are not being planted.

We have to have in California investments in our water infrastructure. One of the things that my Republican colleague--and Mr. Nolan, you spoke about bipartisanship--my Republican colleague from my area, Mr. LaMalfa, he and I are going to introduce tomorrow a piece of legislation to build a very large, offstream reservoir called Sites Reservoir. It is about 1.8, 1.9 million acre-feet of water. If that had been built a decade ago, the drought would still be very difficult. There would be a lot of trouble and a lot of lost opportunity. But at least we would have a very significant amount of water available stored in that reservoir to help us along. So we are going to do that. That is a major infrastructure program, and we will see if we can participate here at the Federal level with the participation that the State of California voters have already approved, a $7.6 billion bond act in which there is money for storage, both aquifer, underground, as well as surface storage, probably including the Sites Reservoir.

So there are things we can do. And this is a piece of legislation, we will present it to the Congress and the Senate and hopefully it will move along. Mr. Nolan, I am sure that you have projects up in your area that are important, and perhaps you would like to pick up here.

This was the bridge across the Mississippi in Minneapolis?

Well, in California, you would have 150 opinions if you had 50 people.

Work with the kids on their homework.

You were on the committee.

There is no doubt about it--you can ruin your car real fast. That 5-mile road was a county road, I assume, it was not your personal road?

Whatever it took, you got it done.

A couple of things that I think are also important as we go about this infrastructure, and that is: Who is going to provide the material? I want to give you an example of why it is important that we honor the Buy America laws that exist today. We have had Buy America requirements in laws for almost 50 years now, and those requirements simply say that if it is our taxpayer money or your taxpayer money, then it should be used to buy American-made products and materials.

Now, out in California, we have the San Francisco Bay Bridge. This is about a--what do we have here--$3.9 billion project. Excuse me--it is not $3.9 billion; it is about $6 billion. It is $3.9 billion over budget. This project replaces the old San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge connecting the two cities across the bay that collapsed during the 1989 earthquake. The bridge went out to bid, and the contractor said: I can use Chinese steel, and it will be 10 percent cheaper if we use Chinese rather than American-made steel. So the State waived the Buy America requirements. They didn't use them. They went out and bought Chinese steel.

Well, they got 3,000 jobs in China and overbudget and poor material. In fact, today it is reported in the California newspapers that one of the major bolts, which is a 25-foot bolt, and I don't know, it must be several inches across, that holds down the main pier to the bridge is cracking. So we have a problem here.

Now, New York is undertaking a bridge across the Hudson River. It is called the Tappan Zee Bridge, and it is made with American steel. American steel is being used. The total cost is $3.9 billion--notice, that is the cost of the overrun in California. There are 7,728 American jobs, and it is 100 percent made in America.

When we go about this infrastructure, I want to make very, very sure that we maintain the Buy America requirements. We can do it.

I am going to put up one more placard here. This is one of my favorites. This is a brand-new 100 percent American-made electric locomotive for the Washington, D.C., to Boston Northeast corridor. About 70 to 80 of these will be made.

In the American Recovery Act--you remember the stimulus bill-- somebody wrote in $700 million for Amtrak to buy new locomotives, and they said: 100 percent American-made.

General Electric looked at it, other companies looked at it, and a German company looked at this $700 million or so and 70 to 80 locomotives, 100 percent American-made, and they go: We can do that.

So Siemens, a major international German company, had a manufacturing plant in Sacramento, and they set about to make 100 percent American- made locomotives. They built double the size of their factory, hired several hundred new workers, and they went out across the United States to find all the parts.

They are now building 100 percent American-made locomotives, a major infrastructure project, great for American jobs, great for the future. This is one of the first ones that came off the lot.

Now, my final point and then I want to turn this back to my colleague from Minnesota. Today, on the east coast, Amtrak is going out to bid for 28 new high-speed train sets to travel between Washington, D.C., and Boston at maybe half again as fast as the current trains, so you can zip between the two cities--Washington, D.C., and New York--in, I don't know, 2 hours or less. They want--Amtrak--wants a waiver from the Buy America provisions, and I am saying: No way, period.

This is American taxpayer money that is going to be used. You are going to buy America, we are going to make those train sets in America, and we can do it. Yes, we can--si se puede.

We can do it. We can build these things in America and create good middle class jobs in America, just like Siemens is doing in Sacramento when they are making 100 percent American-made locomotives in Sacramento.

This is an opportunity for us as we build our infrastructure, as we put together the surface transportation plan, as we take the Water Resources Reform and Development Act. Keep in mind and always keep in place the Buy America provisions, so that your tax money is used on American-made equipment and employing Americans making those things.

I am sure this is important up in your area, as well as it is in Sacramento, California, on the edge of my district, Mr. Nolan. I know it is important to me, and I think it is important to Americans, that we use our tax money to buy American-made products that are employing Americans.

Well, here it is, the San Francisco Bay Bridge built with Chinese steel. They built a brand-new, one of the most advanced steel mills, making one of the most advanced types of steel in China-- 3,000 Chinese jobs, zero American.

Then the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York, American steel--probably some of that iron ore from your district goes into making that steel.

No doubt about it.

You were just singing my song there. This Bay Bridge, why was it $3.9 billion over? Because the steel was unsatisfactory. It was low quality, it had cracks in it, it didn't meet the requirements, they had to go back and redo the welds--many, many issues. You are absolutely correct about quality, as well as about the jobs in America.

We are going to make it in America. We have an opportunity here.

Can I take up one more issue?

Mr. Nolan, I thank you so very much. The folks in the northern Minnesota area are blessed to have you return after a 32-year hiatus. You came back with a fire in your belly, and you are ready to go.

Thank you so very much for joining us this evening.

I want to bring up just one more issue, and then we will call it a night. America is blessed with a lot of energy. We have seen a resurgence of American energy here in the United States. We have seen us go from an importing Nation--we can be an exporting Nation.

One of the things that the American gas industry wants to do is to export a strategic national asset, that is our natural gas. It has allowed us to have one of the lower energy prices in the world.

That has allowed for a resurgence of manufacturing in the United States. There are other factors. Clearly, the ability to have low- priced natural gas is one of the ingredients in the resurgence of American manufacturing.

Now, the gas industry wants to import a lot of gas so they can get two or three times more for the gas overseas. I want to be really careful here, I don't want to drive up the price of natural gas, but if we are going to export this strategic national asset, then we ought to consider two other strategic issues for the United States.

One of them is the merchant marines. These are the American sailors and American ships. Our military is absolutely dependent on the merchant marines. We ship a lot of things through the air on the big C- 5As and the C-17s, but it is a small percentage of what we need if we go to Iraq or any other part of the world with our military. The merchant marines have historically, from the very earliest days of this Nation, been one of the key strategic assets in the United States.

A third strategic asset is the U.S. Navy and the shipyards that build the naval ships. Those shipyards are absolutely critical. If we didn't have them, would we go to China to have them build our aircraft carriers and our submarines? I don't think so. The shipyards are a strategic asset, absolutely essential for American defense.

You have got these three things: the natural gas, a strategic asset; the merchant marines; and the shipbuilding.

Here is a key to American jobs, and that is, if we are ever to export natural gas, it will be done in liquefied natural gas. You take the natural gas, you compress it into a liquid, and you put it on an LNG-- liquefied natural gas--ship. This is an example of one liquefied natural gas ship.

Sometime this year, a company--Cheniere--located in Texas will begin exporting LNG from a facility in Texas. They will need about 100 ships to export the full capacity of that LNG export facility. My sense of this is let us use that export of a strategic national asset to build and to grow the other two strategics.

We should require that any LNG shipped from the United States be shipped on American-made tankers with American crews, thereby lifting up the ability of our Nation to grow its economy and to maintain its strategic defense industries--shipbuilding and the merchant marines--at the same time we ship and export a strategic asset.

What does it mean? It means that the shipyards in America in the next two decades would be busy. American workers would be in those shipyards, they would be making the ships, so it would be the shipbuilders.

You can imagine what could happen in the ports around the United States--in Baltimore, in the south coast, along the gulf coast, and in California, San Diego, up in Washington, and even San Francisco--an opportunity to build our economy with, once again, infrastructure, a different kind of infrastructure, this is moving infrastructure, the great ships that will be all across the oceans of this Nation and in the harbors around the United States, American ships, American-built ships, American sailors, exporting American liquefied natural gas.

Si se puede--yes, we can. We can make it in America. We can rebuild the American economy. We can focus on middle class economics with the infrastructure systems that we must build, the foundation for future economic growth, and the foundation for American jobs today.

Make it in America, build America, build our ports, our water systems, our highways, our bridges, our airports, our sanitation systems. Let us have the American Society of Civil Engineers come back with an A-plus rating when they look at our airports, an A-plus rating when they look at our rail lines, our transit lines, when they look at our transit systems, when they look at our waste disposal systems. We don't want to be a backwater.

This is America. We are the people that can build for the future. All it takes is the Senate and the House to pass a 6-year surface transportation bill and infrastructure bills that are fully funded, that provide the foundation for middle class jobs, middle class economics, putting Americans back to work, and building this Nation's future.

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

Mr. Speaker, ``Alzheimer's,'' a word that brings fear and trauma to families all across America and, indeed, around the world. Tonight we are going to spend our time talking about this dreaded disease for which there is no known cure and which always ends in death.

I would like now to turn to my colleague, this being a bipartisan Special Order hour, unusual to be sure, but absolutely appropriate given the fact that this illness affects virtually every American family. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).

I thank the gentleman from Virginia for joining us and for his commitment to this very serious issue. There are approximately 5.1 million Americans who have Alzheimer's today, and it is expected to substantially grow. As the baby boomers come into their latter years, we would expect to see as many as 13 million Americans with this disease in the years ahead. It will be an incredible challenge for this Nation.

I now yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Higgins) for him to join us and share his thoughts on this issue.

Mr. Higgins, thank you for sharing your thoughts on this dreaded disease for which there is no known cure and there is no way to diagnose it until it is present. You cannot get ahead of this illness, but there are ways we can make progress. You pointed out what has happened over the last decade with extraordinary research efforts, and this chart really lays it out there as to where we are.

For breast cancer, we have seen a decline of 2 percent in breast cancer deaths; prostate cancer, an 8 percent decline; heart disease, a 16 percent decline; stroke, 23 percent decline; and then one of the great victories, HIV/AIDS, a 42 percent decline in the number of deaths. This is the result of research, an extraordinary amount of research going on, not only in the United States but around the world, resulting in significant drops in the death rates for those diseases.

On the other hand, Alzheimer's, where we have just over $500 million of research, we have seen a 68 percent increase in the death rates. This is the story of Alzheimer's. This is the challenge that we face. This is the challenge that every American family faces and our communities. We will talk more about this a little later.

The cochair of the Alzheimer's Task Force here in the Congress of the

United States is the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Maxine Waters), who has joined us this evening to talk about the work that the task force is doing and her own commitment to this profoundly important issue. Maxine and I have had the pleasure of working together for 40 years, so it is all good.

Thank you.

Congresswoman Waters, thank you so very, very much for your leadership as cochair of the Alzheimer's task force here in Congress. Obviously, it is leading to some good pieces of legislation. Last year, when you introduced that legislation, I had the privilege and pleasure of being a coauthor. I will join you again as you introduce those pieces of legislation. I bet we can get all 194 members of the task force on board. That will give us--let's see, we need 18 plus 6--24 more Members and we can get it past the House of Representatives.

Let's do it. Yes, we can. Si, se puede.

Thank you very much. I really appreciate your leadership on this. I know this is a personal issue for you with family having been impacted by it.

I want to just take a few moments--and I know you are going to have to take off and head to another meeting--but Alzheimer's is very, very much a personal thing.

This is my wife, Patti, with her mother as her mother was entering the last year of her 15-year struggle with Alzheimer's. We had the good fortune of Patti's mom, Merle, living with us in our home, and we were able to take care of her. We had a daycare come in to handle the issues during the day. But then in the evening, Patti and I took care of her. It turned out to be a good experience for us where the family really pulled together, the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren all coming together.

I think our situation was, perhaps, unusual in that my mother-in-law was always kind, always gentle, even though in the last couple of years she could not speak and was unable to really move very much. But, nonetheless, it was a period of time where the grandchildren came to know her in a very different way.

I remember one incident that took place about a year, maybe 14 months before she died. Her speech was garbled and not really clear. We couldn't understand. But our little 3-year-old granddaughter climbed up on great-grandma's bed and was listening to the great-grandmother talk. The rest of us adults were gathered around and we were talking about whatever it was, and our little 3-year old began to translate what great-grandma was saying. We were suddenly caught up in the awareness that, while the mind was not functioning fully, it was, nonetheless, functioning in a way in which this woman, who was then 90 years old, was able to understand what we were saying, but because of this disease was unable to articulate, at least to us, her involvement in the conversation.

It was one of those moments when we realized that this illness destroys the mind a piece at a time. It doesn't just wipe out, as a stroke might, but it takes away the cognitive ability of the mind in a slow progression through time. This progression was about 15 years, but other progressions might be very, very rapid.

I know earlier today our colleague from Missouri, Vicky Hartzler, had intended to join us, but was called away late this evening. Her mother died just 3 weeks ago of this illness. She explained some of the way in which it happened. When we come back in about a month to do another Special Order hour, I will ask her to join us and, hopefully, she will be able to share her experiences.

But I suspect among the 435 of us here there are, perhaps, more than 50 percent of us whose families have been personally impacted, and then the neighbors, as Mr. Goodlatte was sharing with us.

If you would like to join in, let's have a colloquy. We will share thoughts about what we can do about the research effort. I will put up some charts and we can chat on for a few minutes.

Let me just pick up this chart. You mentioned research in your opening remarks, and then again. Your leadership on this has been absolutely extraordinary--the bills that you have introduced and the encouragement you have given to others to introduce legislation and push it forward.

I think this is where we are going to spend our time--fighting for research. I am going to go through this.

Ms. Waters, I know you must leave. Thank you so very much for joining us.

This poster shows how we are spending our National Institutes of Health research dollars. We can be thankful for each piece of this research that is going on.

First, on the cancer research ongoing with considerable success--and I will come back and show an earlier poster that I had--we are spending $5.418 billion. This is in fiscal year 2014--$5.418 billion.

What does that result in? Well, over the years, between 2000 and 2010, we have seen breast cancer deaths decline by 2 percent, prostate cancer decline by 8 percent. That is what research will do. It is successful.

With HIV/AIDS, just under $3 billion spent annually in 2014, and again we are seeing HIV/AIDS an incredible success story. Still with us, but nonetheless, we have seen death from HIV/AIDS decline by 42 percent as we have invested $3 billion over the years; in 2014, $3 billion, and a little less in the previous years.

Similarly, cardiovascular illnesses--heart disease, stroke, and heart attacks--we are spending around $2 billion of your taxpayer money on this particular disease. What is the result? The result is that deaths from heart disease from 2000-2010, deaths from heart disease are down by 16 percent and stroke down by 23 percent.

What does this mean? This means that research really works.

Where are we with Alzheimer's research? Alzheimer's research in 2014 was $566 million, just over half a billion dollars for Alzheimer's research. And where are we with Alzheimer's? Well, that same period of time, we have seen Alzheimer's deaths increase by 68 percent, in part because there is no cure except death, and that is what has happened. As the baby boomers age, as that cohort of the population moves through into advanced age, Alzheimer's is taking a grip on those people.

So this is the story. Our goal this year, along with the research that Ms. Waters has already discussed, and some other bills that will be discussed in the days ahead, our goal this year is to ramp up this research. A project, as a result of the legislation that was passed in the year 2011, gave us information from the National Institutes of Health and other scientists that the appropriate level of funding to understand Alzheimer's, to find a cure or at least a way of prolonging health and delaying the onset of the illness, should be about $2 billion a year, something similar to what we are spending on cardiovascular research.

Fortunately, in last year's budget--that is the 2015 budget, that is the current budget--we increased the funding by about $25 million. Good. We are not getting very close to $2 billion, which is the goal to really get and understand this disease. But, nonetheless, we put $25 million more into it last year.

I hope that all of us who are concerned about this make a full-court press this year to try to get that number up to a much more substantial number so that we can really get at this research. The President, recognizing this problem--as was discussed earlier by one of our colleagues here--the President has proposed an additional $50 million. Good. But, once again, not what the scientists tell us we need to really adequately fund this illness. So we are going to work on this.

I notice that my colleague from California--would you like to join us? This is a bipartisan Special Order hour. Unusual, to be sure. Usually, we talk both sides--one side talks about the other side, the other side talks about them. This time we are talking about a common problem that affects all of us--Democrat, Republican, Independent, left, right, center, up, and down--all Americans.

My colleague from California, welcome.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.

I know in your district--in the Orange County area--there is major medical research going on at the University of California at Irvine and, certainly, at UCLA, at the mind institutes there. Out of that research do come new technologies, new drugs, new kinds of equipment, some of which are patentable; and the licensing of the new drugs through the FDA is always a challenge, so we do have multiple tasks here. We have to deal with the patent laws and the availability of patent research dollars and then have to make sure that the drug actually is made

available to address the illness. I thank you so very much for joining us.

Mr. Speaker, I want to go back to a couple of things that we were talking about earlier on the research side. Our goal is to ramp up this research to try to get to the level that is suggested. Now, we always look at cost benefit. Is this research going to pay off? I think it will.

As I was preparing for this evening, I came across an email, actually, from the University of California at Davis, which I represent--near Sacramento--at their California National Primate Research Center. They have been using stem cell research to address the issue of Alzheimer's. What they have found is that they are able to use this Nouvelle stem cell therapy in primates, which is similar to the human brain, and to actually have some success. They have now taken it the next step further. Here is where we are into the FDA and the approval of drugs, Mr. Rohrabacher. They have taken it the next step further, and they are doing clinical human trials with this drug, and it seems to restore the human brain.

Now, that is a long way before we get to the end of this story, but this is what happens when we have research developing a new therapy--in this case, a stem cell therapy with primates--and now transferring it over to the human in a clinical trial. How exciting it is--the possibilities--not just in slowing down the progress of the disease, which has been the short-term goal, but maybe in being able to restore the human brain. Wow. Wow. I think of my mother-in-law. I think of those whom I know who have come down with this illness, and I am going, wow, what if? What if it had been available? Well, it could be.

I know, Mr. Rohrabacher, you are very interested in international work. You have traveled extensively. You are involved with other countries and their research. This is not just a United States issue; this is an international issue.

Earlier last year, in June, the new cochair of the Alzheimer's Task Force here in Washington, in the House of Representatives, conducted a bipartisan international conference in New York at the United Nations, pulling together researchers from around the world. We have another piece of this puzzle available to us in the United States-- international research, NIH research, research at the universities, at the various mind institutes around the Nation--all of that.

As a result of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with improvised explosive devices and the extraordinary impact that those have had on our military--the soldiers, the marines, and others who have suffered from those explosions--we are now, in the military budget, appropriating a significant amount of money for research into traumatic brain injury as well as into posttraumatic stress syndrome, trying to understand the human mind. What happens when you get that blow against the head? What causes the brain to react and to deteriorate? That research also informs us about Alzheimer's.

One of the goals that I will be pursuing this year is to try to bring together all of these research programs that are underway. Even the National Football League is engaging in research having to do with traumatic brain injury to the football players in the professional football leagues. They are trying to understand what it is all about. So, if we could pull together all of that research and pool the information and make it available--perhaps what is going on at UC Davis and at other research institutions--I think we can jump-start the solution.

Fortunately, I won't be doing this alone. Our former colleague here, Patrick Kennedy, heads up an organization called the One Mind organization, and that is their goal: to pull together the research--to get all of the international, the military, the National Institutes of Health, the National Football League--and to have all of us working towards a common goal of understanding the human mind, what the injuries are, and how we can deal with Alzheimer's as a result of all of that.

I am going to put up a couple more pieces of this puzzle and the trauma that it brings. We discussed this briefly early on, and I just want to come back to this.

The already high cost of Alzheimer's will skyrocket as the baby boomers age. This is driven by three things: one, the cost of treating Alzheimer's, which is very expensive and is ongoing; secondly, there is no known cure; and, thirdly, the demographic growth of the population. Today, you are looking at somewhere around $225 billion spent by the government and private and individuals and families on Alzheimer's, and it is expected to grow to close to $1 trillion by 2050. This is an extraordinary growth rate. A lot of this money is going to be taxpayer money spent on Medicare and Medicaid.

This one shows the cost increases to Medicare and Medicaid. In 2010, Medicare and Medicaid were spending about $122 billion. In 2020, it is expected to go up to nearly $200 billion and then just continue to escalate. This, many think, is the way in which Medicare and Medicaid will be bankrupted--just with Alzheimer's alone. Now, this is the government spending. The private spending--private insurance and families--will probably be spending somewhere around a third of this amount in the years ahead. So, if we are able--and we believe we can. Just take one look at what is going on at UC Davis, and that is just one of dozens and dozens of examples.

What is happening is that the research is coming on. The first goal is to delay the onset. It is anticipated that, if we were able to quickly ramp up to $2 billion a year of research, we would, within the next 4 to 5 years, be able to find a way, perhaps with a drug therapy, to delay the onset of Alzheimer's by 5 years. What does that mean? That means that the $2 billion that is spent on research leading to the delay--not the cure but just the delay of the onset--would, in the next 3 years, after that delay goes into place, save the taxpayers the $2 billion that was spent on research, and then those savings would continue on into the future. If you are a financial analyst on Wall Street and if you are able to get a payback within 3 years, you are thinking that that is a pretty good investment. So we ought to look at this in terms of cost benefit, in terms of investment--the financial side of it. That is appropriate.

Yet, on the human side, think what could be done. Think what could be done to those families, to my wife's mother--my mother-in-law--if her illness were delayed 5 years. She would have had 5 more years of healthy life. She didn't die of heart disease or cancer. She died of Alzheimer's. She could have had an additional 5 years if we had been able, at that moment, to have delayed the onset of the disease. As we understand how to delay the onset, we will also learn how to cure the disease. This is where we are headed. This is our goal. This is what we want to try to accomplish.

I am going to put this one up because it is so dramatic. Here is the cost of treatment today for the Federal Government. This is 2014: $150 billion from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. CMS: $150 billion. These are actually 2012 expenditures. Then this is where we are spending the money: $560 million on research. It is lopsided.

My final point before I turn back my time today is to take these two charts, actually. This one: Research works. Research saves lives. Research improves the quality of life for Americans.

Cancer research: we have decreased the cancer rate for breast cancer. Cancer research: we have decreased by 8 percent prostate cancer. HIV/ AIDS research: a 42 percent decrease in the death rate. Heart disease and stroke: 23 and 16 percent. Alzheimer's: we are not there yet. We are researching, but we are not there yet, so we wind up with a death rate that is rapidly increasing.

Ultimately, it is about this: it is about my family, and it is about your family. It is about the American families. It is about the American families who are enduring their loved ones--their parents, their grandparents--slowly, slowly dying of Alzheimer's, losing their mental capabilities. It affected our family, and I suspect it has affected your family. It doesn't have to be. We can deal with this. Yes, we can--si, se puede. We can do this, and your Congress--Democrat and Republican--is working on this issue. We are going to beat Alzheimer's. It is our task. It is our challenge.

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

Madam Speaker, and Members, wow. There are actually people here in the audience and Members.

We have talked a lot about middle class economics, but why? Why is it important? Why did the President raise this issue in his State of the Union? What is this all about?

We are going to spend some time here today working our way through middle class economics, and some of my colleagues may join me, and I asked the Republicans, if they want to join, they could too.

It is okay, Madam Speaker, that they are not listening. But this is really an important issue.

So why is middle class economics important?

What is it all about?

It is really about driving the economy. If you want to create jobs in America, if you want to have economic growth in America, the middle class of America, the great middle class, the millions upon millions of men and women that are working families, they need to grow. And so middle class economics is all about growing the American economy, because that is where demand is created.

We often talk about the job creators, and businesses really create product and they create profit. But it is the middle class that actually creates the growth in the economy by creating the demand. So if we are able to grow the middle class, grow the paychecks, increase the vast number of Americans who are in the middle class, we will create the jobs. So that is why middle class economics is on our agenda.

There are other pieces of this. It leads to higher wages. So when you increase the middle class, you increase the higher wages, creating the demand.

So that is what this is all about. It is about opportunity. It is about growing the ability of the working families in America to make it, to have a shot at education, to have a shot at a home. So that is what we are going to talk about today in the next 46 minutes, about middle class economics. The President brought this issue to us. We are going to spend some time discussing this.

I notice that our fearless whip, Steny Hoyer of Maryland, has joined us.

Mr. Hoyer, please, let's get into this conversation.

I thank you, Mr. Hoyer. Nobody has been at this longer than you. You have been working in the Halls of Congress and across this Nation advocating for the middle class.

Both Democrats and Republicans now agree that the middle class in America has stalled out. They have not seen the increase in their paychecks. In fact, in the last couple of years, there has actually been a decrease on the average middle-American paycheck.

So what we are all about and what the President proposed to us in his State of the Union was middle class economics. And it is critically important, if we want to grow the jobs in this Nation, that we have got to pay attention to the middle class and how they can improve themselves, how they can have a higher standard of living, have greater paychecks. In doing so, we will grow this economy. We will be able to deal with the deficit. There are numerous ways in which this can be done.

We need to look for higher wages. Infrastructure is critically important. In the budget that the President just put forth yesterday, there is a major advancement that he is proposing for infrastructure, a 6-year program, over $600 billion in that 6-year period--$673 billion building our roads, rebuilding our bridges, our ports, our communication systems. When you do that, you actually are going to grow the economy, and it is the middle class that will have those jobs.

So this is all about growing the middle class, otherwise known as middle class economics. That is what we are going to debate this year.

We are going to spend the next several months as we put together the budget first and then the appropriations and the various pieces of legislation--for example, reauthorizing the surface transportation program. We want to structure that. We, the Democrats, want to structure that in such a way that the principal benefits flow to the working families of America so that they can see greater wages, so that they can see greater opportunities. And there are many, many pieces to this puzzle that we need to pay attention to. So we want to grow American jobs.

The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) was here just a moment ago. And he has been talking about this theme of making it in America, which builds on the Buy America laws which have been in effect for more than 40 years. Our taxpayer money must be spent, should be spent on American-made equipment. We will come to this in a little more detail, but these are the fundamental parts of growing American jobs. You make things in America, whether that happens to be a movie or a new app for your iPhone or a train or a plane, whatever it happens to be. Make it in America; and use our taxpayer money to buy American-made equipment.

This one here: a well-educated workforce is fundamental to growing any economy, whether it be in Bangladesh or in the United States, the education of the workforce. If you have a well-educated workforce, your economy will grow.

America used to have the best education system in the world. We are not there anymore. We have fallen way off that power curve. We have got to establish America's position as having the best educated workforce in the entire world.

Now, the President, in his State of the Union and as part of the middle class economics, spoke to this issue when he talked about community colleges, all Americans being able to get 2 years of education at a community college, perhaps to pick up an AA degree or some skill set, and that it be free. What an important, important element that is in having a well-educated workforce. There are many, many other pieces to this educated workforce, and we will, over the next several weeks and months, be talking about this as we go forward.

Research and development. Well, I am from California, and I represent a

major research university, the University of California, Davis. You can just see spreading out from that university new businesses in biotechnology, biomedical, biopharmaceutical. We are seeing energy programs and new companies being created from the research at the universities. This is not just at Davis, California, but certainly Silicon Valley is a prime example of the skill being used all across this Nation, and other research institutions around the Nation. These are the ways in which you grow American jobs.

We talked earlier about infrastructure. We will come back to that.

Trade policies are also critically important. We will be debating the Trans-Pacific Partnership here and the TTIP, the European trade agreement. In those trade agreements, it is vitally important that we don't give away the American jobs. It will be a great debate. Very important. We have seen what happened with NAFTA and other trade agreements when we have simply allowed the offshoring of American jobs.

So these are six pieces of how you grow American jobs.

I notice my colleague from Vermont is here.

If you would care to join us in this conversation, I would be delighted.

Mr. Welch, your representation of the State of Vermont is unparalleled. You have been at this for some time, and you have so correctly pointed out all of the various policies that are in law today that hold back the middle class.

You have talked about the tax policy that basically supports those at the very, very top--the one-percenters, the 10 percent--and forces, therefore, the tax burden onto the middle class and the poor. The President is suggesting a shift in that, and we are going to debate that here--and we should. But again, that is one more piece of this middle class economics to grow American jobs. These are all public policy issues, the Make It In America, the Buy America provisions, the education.

You raised something that has been very, very much on my mind. I have kids that have school debt from going to medical school or nursing school or even just to the 4 years, and I often wonder, the great majority of the student debt is actually owned by the Federal Government. I think about 60 percent of the $1 trillion-plus in student debt is owned by the American public.

We refinance everything. We refinance our credit cards, and we refinance our home, seeking a lower interest rate. I just wonder: Why don't we refinance the student debt?

We could borrow money at less than 2 percent now for 10 years, probably 3 or 4 percent for 20 years. Why don't we go out and borrow at 2 percent, refinance that debt, and let them pay 2\1/2\ rather than 6, 7, 8, and 9 percent?

You bet.

Refinance your home; refinance your student debt. It is a bookkeeping procedure at the Federal level. Right now, those students are paying a very, very high interest rate to the U.S. Government, and they are held back. This is a major part of the middle class.

Mr. Welch, thank you for joining us.

Madam Speaker, I am going to carry on here for a few more moments. We are going to talk about a few other things that go into this. That previous placard had Make It In America as one of the principal ways of growing American jobs, and it is really true.

Madam Speaker, I want to give you just two examples of how Make It In America and Buy America creates American jobs--or not. Two bridges, one on the west coast, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and one on the east coast--New York, actually--the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York.

This bridge in the San Francisco Bay was supposed to be about a $3 billion project. It turned out to be over $6 billion. Instead of buying American steel, they went out and bought Chinese steel. It was supposed to be 10 percent cheaper. It turned out to be far, far more expensive. It became over budget.

It did create 3,000 jobs in China and serious problems with the quality of the steel, the welds, and other problems. Anyway, it wound up almost $4 billion over budget, more than 100 percent more expensive. That was San Francisco. This is my State. This is a major controversy and, if you will, a major scandal in California.

In New York, the Tappan Zee Bridge is now under construction. It is 100 percent U.S.-made steel. It is coming in at about $3.9 billion total, under budget, and there were 7,728 American jobs as a direct result of the decision made by New York to buy American, to make it in America.

This is the most clear example that I have been able to find--west coast, east coast--and the east coast is making the right decision of buying American, using the American taxpayer dollars in the case of both the commuters in New York or the commuters in San Francisco Bay, paying their money to China in the case of San Francisco Bay Bridge, or to American workers and American steel companies, a prime example of why Make It In America is so critically important because it is all about those middle class jobs.

It is about the steelworkers, the ironworkers, and the men and women that are doing the welding that are in the shops and in the steel mill harvesting or mining the coal and the iron ore to make the steel.

Keep this in mind, America: when we talk about Make It In America policies and when we talk about middle class economics, we are talking about bringing it home, keeping it home, and building our own economy.

China can do what they want to do, but let them do it with somebody else's money and not with American taxpayer money, so we are going to push this policy hard.

I want to give you another example, Madam Speaker, and that is that at this moment Amtrak--we know what Amtrak is. It is just the American passenger rail system. Amtrak is requesting a waiver from the Department of Transportation on the Buy America requirements for the purchase of 28 new high-speed rail train sets for the east coast corridor.

Amtrak correctly wants to make the trip between Washington, D.C., and Boston a whole lot faster. To do that, they want to transition to a whole new type of train--not the Acela, which was the last version of high speed. They want to go to a real high-speed system here on the east coast.

However, we are talking about tens of millions of dollars to be spent on these high-speed train sets, 28 of them. They want to waive the Buy America requirements--waive the Buy America requirements.

What happened with the Bay Bridge, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge when they did that? The jobs went overseas. I am saying: No way, no how, are you going to waive the Buy America requirements. They say: Oh, but you don't understand. America doesn't make high-speed trains.

Yes, that is correct because we have never had them in the United States, and we never will if we waive the Buy America requirements both for the high-speed rail on the east coast or the high-speed rail on the west coast.

No way, no how, Madam Speaker, should we allow American taxpayer money to be spent overseas. Build it in America, make it in America, and hold on to those Buy America requirements. They are legal. They have been in law for nearly half a century. Keep them.

Amtrak, I am sorry, but I have talked to the companies that could manufacture these trains. They say: Of course we can make them in America. It is going to take a little while. We have got to build the factory. We can do it. If it is required, we will do it.

I will give you an example of how it actually happened. In the stimulus bill, the American Recovery Act, there was a provision, some $700 million for Amtrak to purchase 100 percent American-made locomotives--these are the electric locomotives that will be operating on the east coast corridor, 100 percent American made, $700 million, about 80 different trains, 80 different locomotives.

Siemens looked at that and said: Hmm, 700 million, that is a lot of money, 80, 90 trains or locomotives, we can do that.

They took their light-rail factory in Sacramento, California, about a mile from my district, a few miles from my home, expanded it, and began the process of making it in America. Those new locomotives are 100 percent American made by a German company operating in the United States.

Don't tell me you can't do it. Don't tell me that you cannot make aluminum frames for these trains, that you can't make wheels and brake systems in the United States. This is the United States. We used to be--and we must be--at the top of the pack. We can be if we bring it home, if we keep it home, and if we make it in America.

Remember. Remember this fiasco in California. Remember what happens when you went to China to buy steel, 100 percent over budget, and a lot of ongoing problems as to the safety of this bridge going forward.

Remember New York. They said they were going to buy American. It comes in under budget with 7,728 jobs in the United States, built by Americans. I am not proud of California in this situation.

Madam Speaker, there are a couple of other things that are on my mind. As I said, why middle class economics? It is about growing the demands. It is about rebuilding the middle class, giving the purchasing power to the middle class, and growing their wages.

Grow the paycheck. Grow the paycheck. Grow the jobs. Grow the paycheck. These are all ways in which we can raise the wage. There is this little #raisethewage, so when you see that out there on your Twitter account, you know what it is about. Grow the paycheck, buy American, education--job training and education.

This is a big one: more than 50 percent of the women in America are working, and they are working at the same job as a man for about 75 percent of the wage. Do you want to grow the wage? Do you want a bigger paycheck for American families?

Then pay attention to the law that has been in effect in the United States since John F. Kennedy signed it in the sixties, and that is equal pay for equal work.

This one down here at the bottom, the men and women at the bottom at the minimum wage. We have been calling for a raise in the minimum wage for months and years here.

If you want to help out the American economy, you raise the minimum wage--we--excuse me, not you, us--Members of Congress and the Senate-- raise the minimum wage, and we will see greater purchasing power and a growing economy as a result of that.

You don't lose jobs. The economic studies are clear. You are not going to lose jobs by raising the minimum wage. It hasn't happened in California. The minimum wage went up in California a year ago. We have seen job growth. We didn't see less jobs.

What we are seeing, Madam Speaker, is greater purchasing power by the families of America, fewer people on food stamps, and fewer people on welfare. As you raise the minimum wage, that is what happens, so this is what we call grow the paycheck, raise the wage.

I am going to let education go. We will pick that up later. I want to pick up one of my current challenges. I think anybody that studies American history will know that America was the greatest maritime nation in the world. We would contend with the United Kingdom-- England--as to which was the greatest maritime nation, and we surpassed England.

We have lost that. We have seen our maritime industry--our mariners and

our ships--decline. We have very, very few ships flying the American flag anymore. All of the cruise ships that are advertised even on the Super Bowl 2 days ago were flagged overseas. They didn't have American crews on them, although all of their passengers seemed to be American-- or at least many of them.

What we need to do is to find ways to rebuild the American maritime industry. These are the sailors, the merchant marines, the American mariners, the captains, the sailors, and the engineers.

It is also the shipbuilding. The great shipyards of America are in need of business. We do a lot of naval ships. Madam Speaker, this is a fundamental national security issue. The shipyards in America, the ability to build ships for the Navy and for our domestic trade is critical as a security issue. Obviously, it is critical as a jobs issue. We can do this.

We are in the process of exporting natural gas with liquefied natural gas. A new terminal by the Cheniere company in Texas will need 100 ships or more just for that one terminal. What I am saying is that if we are going to ship a strategic national asset--natural gas in the form of liquefied natural gas--if we are going to export that, then we ought to use that export to secure a second national security issue, and that is our merchant marines and our shipyards.

When this tanker, which happened to have been built in Japan, finds its way to an American port, will it be American sailors? This is a very dangerous thing. You are talking about millions of gallons of natural gas in liquefied form. Will it be American sailors? Will this ship be an American ship?

India wants to buy natural gas from the United States. They have a tender offer out. That tender offer says: We want to buy X gazillion cubic meters of natural gas--good--and three of the ships that transport that must be built in India.

And I say to India: Great. The other six or seven ships must be built in the United States. You want our gas, terrific. Then we want to have the ships built in the United States with American sailors.

This is a fundamental national security issue.

I just noticed that my good friend, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko), came to join me on the floor, probably because I was praising New York so profusely with the Tappan Zee Bridge. Mr. Tonko, good for New York. Shame on California for building a bridge with Chinese steel.

Mr. Tonko, you have been here on the floor with me many times over the last few years, and we keep beating this drum about American jobs. We now have a policy from the President, middle class economics, that has all of the elements, many of which we have talked about on the floor--the research issue, the education issue, the job training issue, the infrastructure, all of those things--and it is all pulled together in middle class economics.

Another piece of that puzzle is trade policy. If we are going to grow American jobs, as I put this up before--Make

It In America, Buy American, education workforce, research, infrastructure, and then this one down here, trade policy.

The gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) has spoken to us on the floor about this issue many times. She is passionate about it. I think she is right about it. We have to be really, really careful as to how we do our international trade programs so that we don't hollow out the great American manufacturing sector, American jobs, whether they are in agriculture or manufacturing, or in other parts of our economy.

Ms. Kaptur, we would love to hear from you on this issue. I know that you are passionate about it and very well informed.

Ms. Kaptur, you are very, very correct about the role of trade policy and hollowing out the American jobs in almost every sector--you mentioned several sectors--and in every one of those, we have seen this happen.

We are going to be engaging in a debate this year about whether we are going to extend trade policies to what is called the Trans-Pacific Partnership and, also, very, very soon, whether we will give away our constitutional obligation to write trade policy, whether we are going to give that away to the administration.

For me, this is extremely important. We have seen this year after year, we have seen this problem, and I do not want to see a repeat of it in the new legislation.

I would like to just move to a couple of other issues. We have got about 7 minutes left. Perhaps, Mr. Tonko, if you would take a few of those minutes and wrap up, keeping in mind that this is all in the context of middle class economics, how the American family that is struggling to make it in America, how they can do better with a set of policies that we are proposing to the American public--tax policy, infrastructure, educational policy, research--all of these things that are part and parcel of middle class economics.

Mr. Tonko, I thank you so very, very much.

Ms. Kaptur, we are in what we call the rapid fire. You have about 2 minutes, then I will wrap it up with another minute, and we are out of time. If you would, please.

I want to thank you and Mr. Tonko for joining us, so I have got Ohio and New York. Mr. Hoyer was here earlier from Maryland and Mr. Welch from Vermont. We covered a large part of the United States.

We are all talking about what the President has put forth as a national policy of middle class economics: how we can grow the American economy, why it is so important for the middle class to really succeed, because that creates demand that then America businesses can fulfill in their many, many ways.

I notice that the esteemed chairman of the Rules Committee is here, and I suspect he wants to present us with some information. Mr. Sessions, if you are ready--and I will continue on until you are ready.

In the meantime, the elements of the middle class economics, we know why it is important. It builds the demand that the businesses can then fulfill--American business--and so you really create the jobs with that demand.

It also gives us higher wages. You are strengthening the middle class with higher wages.

We talk about infrastructure. We will spend a lot of time talking about infrastructure as we come up to the May deadline where we must renew the infrastructure law, the surface highway transportation.

All of these are pieces of the puzzle.

We are nearly out of time, but I see the esteemed chairman of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield.

If I may interrupt here for a second?

Thank you for the courtesy that you provided to me in the Rules Committee when the liquefied natural gas--the LNG bill came up and when we talked about how we could use that strategic asset to enhance another strategic asset, the American shipbuilding industry. You were kind.

We had a wonderful discussion in the committee and then again on the floor. It is another way in which we can grow the American economy, by using public policy in this way, and there are many, many other pieces to it.

I think your staff has just arrived with the papers that you need, so I will yield to you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I have always looked forward to a dialogue, a bipartisan dialogue, on important issues, and I didn't quite know that we would come to that at this moment while we await your staff bringing down their papers.

In the meantime, I thank my colleagues very much, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

I am opposed.

Mr. Speaker, this final amendment to the bill will not kill the bill. Frankly, it will substantially improve it. It won't send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will come to the floor for a vote later this morning.

We have heard a lot of discussion here about jobs in the Rules Committee, and I thank the chair, Mr. Whitfield, for his interest in this particular proposal and for the Rules Committee listening to the debate very carefully about how we can significantly advance America's national interest.

Natural gas is a strategic asset. It has allowed us to substantially reduce our energy costs in the United States; replace, re-power many of our power plants; bring down the cost; and, frankly, lead to an increased manufacturing sector.

Shipbuilding is also a strategic national asset. Our Navy depends upon it. However, 107,000 Americans work in the shipbuilding industry in our ports and ship yards. It is a strategic asset, as are the mariners. American mariners are also a strategic asset.

What we are trying to do with this amendment is to bring together these three strategic assets of America and advance the American economy and our national security at the same time.

This amendment would simply require that if we are going to export liquefied natural gas, a strategic asset, then we should do it in a way that advances our national security and our economy by requiring that those ships be manned and ``womanned'' by American mariners, the captains, the engineers, the sailors, that they be American.

This is a safety issue. Natural gas is a very volatile issue, and, under current law, when it is imported, it has to have American mariners on board.

Similarly, by requiring that the ships be American-built, we will be able to employ several hundred thousand new men and women in our shipyards. If it is about jobs--and we all claim this bill is about jobs--then let's take it another step. Let's take it another step, so that we really rebuild the American shipping industry, that we put American mariners to work, that we revitalize our shipyards, so that our U.S. Navy will be able to have a robust competition for their ships.

There are 117 shipyards in the United States that build ships. None of them, yet, build these tankers. They could if we pass this amendment.

Let's build it in America. Let's make it in America. This is a strategy that is employed by India, which has a tender out to buy gas from the United States. That tender requires that three of the ships used to transport that be built in India.

I say let's build the other seven in the United States. They want American natural gas; build the ships in America.

We know that this is a big industry. Cheniere needs 100 ships when they begin to ship natural gas, LNG, from their new terminal in Texas-- 100 ships. Are those American ships?

No, not without this amendment. Those ships will be Chinese ships in Chinese shipyards built by Chinese.

How about America? How about building it in America?

That is what this amendment is about. We can all agree that we want American jobs. Is there one among the 435 of us who wants the jobs to be in China or Korea or Japan? I don't think so.

Let's do it in America. This is an American-made amendment. This is an amendment for American workers, American shipyards.

This is not going to kill the bill. This is going to make this bill into a real ``Make It In America,'' a real American jobs bill with hundreds of thousands of jobs spread throughout this Nation.

Mr. Chairman, work with us. Make this into a real, robust American jobs bill. Adopt this amendment. Put aside the normal game we play with MTRs, which is just kind of a Kabuki dance here.

Let's do it for the American workers, for the American shipyards all across this Nation. That is what this is about.

This is an unexpected opportunity that has come about because of our great natural gas industry here. Take advantage of it. Think about the national security. Think about our shipyards, the U.S. Navy, the mariners. Make it in America. Adopt this amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, this chart has been up, really, for the last 4 years, and I keep bringing it back because it is pretty important. This is about American jobs, about how we can rebuild the American economy, and about how we can, at the same time, provide employment opportunities--those middle class jobs that we all want to talk about--and do it in a way that actually improves our environment.

Today, I want to focus on one part of this. I have asked some of my colleagues to join us, and Congresswoman Hahn will be joining us in a few moments to talk about a piece of this.

In the Make It In America agenda, we have these items: international trade, which is critically important that we do right; tax policies of all kinds; our energy policy. Oh. By the way, in the last 5 years, the energy policy of the administration's has almost made the United States energy independent. We are actually producing 4 billion more barrels of oil a day now than we were 6 or 7 years ago, so we do have an energy policy--green energy, moving away from the greenhouse gasses; a labor policy; education, the training of our workers; research, which is critically important. We may come to that later today, but I really want to focus on this one which is at the bottom because it is foundational. The foundation of the economy of the United States is the infrastructure.

Way, way back, the Founding Fathers--everybody around here wants to talk about the Founding Fathers and what the Founding Fathers would do and how they would act. I will tell you what George Washington did in his first weeks in office.

He turned to Alexander Hamilton, the Treasury Secretary, and said: Hey, Alex. Develop an economic development plan for me. How are we going to grow our economy?

Treasury Secretary Hamilton came back--he formed a committee of one, and he came back with a plan of, maybe, 30, 40 pages, and in that plan was fundamental infrastructure development.

He said the role of the Federal Government is to make sure that we have postal roads, to make sure that we have ports and canals--the infrastructure of the day.

So, for those who like to harken back to the Founding Fathers--they ought to also consider the mothers. In any case, infrastructure was fundamental. Today, I want to talk about infrastructure, and I want to do it in a way that will really, hopefully, excite this body into passing a very robust, complete surface transportation infrastructure bill.

Now, President Obama and Department of Transportation Secretary Foxx have made a proposal called ``Build America.'' It is a good proposal that covers all of the elements that we need--the highways, the ports, the railroads, freight. All of those things are in that bill. Unfortunately, it didn't have a hearing last year. Hopefully, it will be foundational this year as we consider in the next 3 months a surface transportation infrastructure bill for the United States because, in May, the world comes to an end as the programs of the Federal Government's for transportation expire. We need a new law going forward, so what we want to talk about today is that issue.

I am going to take just a few seconds. Every now and then, somebody sends brochures and studies to us. This one came from Duke University, the Center on Globalization, Governance & Competitiveness: ``Infrastructure Investment Creates American Jobs,'' and they have got this little executive summary which is really helpful to us:

Old and broken transportation infrastructure makes the

United States less competitive than 15 of our major trading

partners and makes American manufacturers less efficient in

getting goods to market.

Representative Hahn, that is where you want to come in and talk about ports.

This is Duke University:

The underinvestment of infrastructure costs the United

States over 900,000 jobs, including 97,000 American

manufacturing jobs.

Maximizing American-made materials when rebuilding

infrastructure has the potential to create even more jobs.

Relying on American-made inputs can also mitigate safety

concerns related to large-scale outsourcing.

One of the things that really, really bothers me about my home State of California is the way in which the State of California decided to build the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. We are talking about a multibillion-dollar project, $3.9 billion over budget, 12 years late, and the steel in that bridge came from China. How brilliant was that?

One of the principal reasons for the delay was the steel was delayed, the steel was faulty, and the welds were faulty. There were 3,000 jobs in China and zero jobs in the United States. By the way, the Chinese demanded that they be the inspectors on the job--not good at all. This kind of tells us about why making it in America is important.

There is another example. I don't like to brag about New York, since that is a long, long way from my district, but the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York was built with American steel, had a $3.9 billion total project cost, 7,728 American workers were hired, and it was designed to last 100 years without any major structural maintenance.

I know Ms. Hahn is going to come up here and probably carry on some bragging. We have got a lot to brag about in California, but we cannot brag about what happened with the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge because it was a financial disaster. It was a jobs disaster for the United States, for American workers. Even today, there are continuing reports coming out about the faulty bridge construction.

Infrastructure investment creates American jobs, and if we require that those investments be made in America, we are going to be talking about Americans going back to work. All of us talk about the middle class. Well, let's build the infrastructure, let's use American-made materials, and let's really build American jobs for the middle class.

Ms. Hahn, I believe you have something to say about ports. The fact is that you represent the two biggest ports in America, you will argue: Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles.

Thank you so very much, Ms. Hahn. The proposal that you put forward almost seems magical. If it was magic, you would have figured it out--and you did--but to use money that is already going into the general fund and divert it back to what it was really intended to--that is the enhancement of our ports--is entirely sensible.

I suppose that I am a coauthor.

I am sure I will be.

The rest of the story that we have is that we need to take a look at our transportation infrastructure specifically in a very holistic, universal way. It does us no good to improve the interstate highway system when the link between the ports and the interstate highway system doesn't work.

For example, I-10 in southern California that you and I know so very well is the way you get out of those two ports onto the interstate highway system. It is rather inadequate. That is an example of that linkage that you are talking about.

We have many, many more things to talk about here. I welcome you to stay. We will probably circle back on it.

I see my colleague from Ohio. I think there are some ports in Ohio that quite possibly are in Marcy Kaptur's district.

Ms. Kaptur, if you would join us on this issue of infrastructure and jobs and making it in America.

Speaking of bridges falling down, this is the Interstate 5 bridge in northern Washington State that fell down 2 years ago. Interstate 5 is the main intercontinental highway from Mexico to Canada through California, Oregon, and Washington. It created a bit of a traffic jam when it went down.

Thank you so very much, Ms. Kaptur.

You notice our Make It In America agenda, they have trade up here at the top, and you very well pointed out the problems that occur with an unfair trade deal, NAFTA being but one.

At this moment, the President has asked us, Members of Congress, to pass what is known as the Fast Track, which basically gives authority to the President to cut a deal and then bring it to Congress, and we don't get to amend it. It is either an up-or-down vote. They say that is the only way they can negotiate.

Well, if that is so, then that is no way to negotiate because we are the representatives--actually the Constitution very clearly leaves to Congress the issue of international trade negotiations.

It is our responsibility, and I am not about to find a situation in which we give to the administration unfettered authority to cut a deal on international trade when you consider what happened with NAFTA, when you consider some of the other trade deals that have hollowed out the American manufacturing sector.

You put that chart up so very clear. Associated with that chart are real lives, real middle class families. We had just over 19 million middle class families in manufacturing in 1990. It went down to just over 10 million as a result of these trade deals that you talked about. We are now beginning to come back up, principally because of cheap energy in the United States, natural gas specifically. So we have got a ways to go here.

We need to be really, really careful, as Members of Congress, representatives of the American people, that we don't give away even more American jobs.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Well, one of the problems--we spent a lot of time talking about this 2 years ago, and it has dropped off the discussion table, although it should come back--is the manipulation of the Chinese currency so that China is able to maintain a very, very significant trade advantage vis-a-vis the United States by the pricing of the Chinese currency. Grossly unfair, something that we need, as representatives of the American people and the middle class and the manufacturing sector, to forcefully address in legislation such as you have just described, where the administration is required to look at the problem, and then make suggestions, or correct the problem if it does not take an act of Congress.

We just can't give it away. We are talking about American jobs. We are talking about the middle class.

The President stood here less than 10 days ago in his State of the Union and talked about the middle class. He called it a middle class economic policy--absolutely correct.

But, at the same time, this trade issue intervenes in that program and, quite likely, will further harm the middle class by hollowing out the American manufacturing sector. So let's be careful here about these trade deals.

You talked about the transportation from Mexico. A few years back, I was the insurance commissioner in California, elected by the people of California, and we were discussing with Mexico the insurance on those trucks that, under NAFTA, were supposed to come into the United States.

At that time, and hopefully this has been solved--I am not the insurance commissioner now, but I remember very well--we were unable to develop with Mexico an insurance policy in Mexico that would transfer into the United States and cover these trucks that were in the United States. They said it wasn't necessary.

Well, my staff and I looked at the details of the insurance and we said, this isn't worthy insurance. This isn't going to protect somebody that is run over by a Mexican truck. So we demanded, and at that time, we actually stalled.

But it appears now that the Department of Transportation is moving forward, and I surely hope that this insurance issue has been solved.

Now, if I might go back to a little bit of infrastructure and the transportation issue, as we pointed out in our discussion thus far, we have to come to grips, within the next 3 months, with a new transportation, surface transportation program for the United States.

And these are real jobs. For every billion dollars--again, this comes from Duke University, which produced this report, ``Infrastructure Investment Creates American Jobs''--the Duke Center on Globalization, Governance and Competitiveness, in their summary, they point out that for every billion dollars invested in transportation infrastructure, there are 21,671 jobs created.

For every dollar invested in transportation infrastructure, $3.54 is returned to the economy.

I have one of those little charts here. This is an older study. I used this 2 years ago. I am going to have to rewrite this because this one says, for every dollar invested in infrastructure investment, $1.57 is pumped into the American economy. That came from Mark Zandi. But this now is 3 years old.

This new study by Duke University indicates that this number, $1.57, really ought to be $3.54. So, wait a minute, fellows. This is even better.

So let's get this transportation bill done. Let's pump it into the economy. And if we just met the minimum needs, as we see them today, it is about $111 billion a year for the next 5 years that we should spend on this infrastructure for transportation.

That is a lot of money. But even $100 billion, we would find that we would create 2,470,000 jobs. That is 58 percent more jobs than the current funding level would provide and over $400 billion in total economic impact.

So if we want to build the economy, if we really want middle class jobs, we would pass a very robust surface transportation program so that the ports, as Ms. Hahn talked about, so that the highways and the trade programs that you talked about, so that all those things could come together, and we could really jump-start the economy and provide that middle class economic impact that all of us are now talking about, including the President. So this could be done, and we fully intend to do it.

I want to pick up another piece. If you would like to join our--to come back into our discussion, Ms. Kaptur, please do.

Thank you so very, very much for bringing to our attention one of your constituents who faced this situation. There were 8 million other American workers who found themselves unemployed as these trade deals went into effect and American jobs moved to Mexico, to China, and other places around the world. So we must focus on Mr. Hahn and on those who share that.

Earlier, I think before you actually came in, I talked about steel. Again, this article was from Duke University, and they have a chapter here, ``A Tale Two of Bridges.'' One is the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge--they have the Chinese flag behind the bridge--built with Chinese steel, almost a $7 billion project, of which $3.9 billion was over budget. It was 12 years late. There were 3,000 Chinese workers hired. Very serious questions have been raised about the quality of the construction.

The State of New York, the Tappan Zee Bridge, built with U.S. steel. The total project cost $3.9 billion. 7,728 workers were hired, and it is designed to last for 100 years without major maintenance. There is Mr. Hahn's job. It is that U.S. steel, made in America.

I very quickly want to give two examples of where Make It In America really, really counts. This is one I have often used. This is near my district--in fact, about a mile or two from my district in Sacramento, California.

In the stimulus bill, in 2009, there was a provision for some $600 million, $700 million for Amtrak to buy new locomotives for the east coast here. This is an electric locomotive. There was a sentence added to that $600 million, $700 million law for it to be 100 percent American made.

Now, nobody was making locomotives in the United States at the time, nobody. But Siemens, a German company, looked at it and goes, 70, 80 locomotives; a $600 million, $700 million contract; made in America--we could do that. So the German company, Siemens, used a plant that they had in Sacramento that was making light railcars and said: Okay. We are going to make light railcars, and we are going to make locomotives.

They are now producing the locomotives 100 percent American made. Hundreds of jobs in the Sacramento area. And then all across America, there are manufacturers that are making the wheels, probably making the doorknobs or the system that attaches to the electrical line overhead.

Made in America. Why? Because Congress wrote a law--by the way, no Republicans voted for it; this was the stimulus bill--made a law that said it must be 100 percent American made.

I don't have a picture. I wish I did. If I had thought about it earlier, I would have brought one.

We are now in the process of deciding how much of our natural gas we are going to export. It is called liquefied natural gas, LNG, liquefied natural gas. There is an export plant, a $20 billion export plant built on the gulf coast in Texas, owned by a company called Cheniere. They are 3, 5 months away from the first export of that natural gas. There is a lot of discussion about how much we can export without driving up the price, and that would be very harmful to American consumers--home heating, manufacturing, and the like. But what they do export will take 100 ships to export from that single export terminal, 100 ships.

And I am going: Let me see now. Natural gas is a strategic national asset

that has allowed for a reduction in the cost of energy in the United States, extremely important. American mariners are absolutely essential to our national defense, as are the domestic ships. Thirdly, the shipyards are essential for the U.S. Navy. These are three strategic assets that the United States has.

I proposed an amendment last night in the Rules Committee that almost was adopted that said, if we are going to export a strategic national asset, then let us also build two additional strategic assets. The mariners, the captains, the mates, the seamen, let them participate in this export of natural gas, and let's build the ships in America.

There are five terminals that are presently authorized for construction. Cheniere has completed a second terminal of about the same size. It is going in near Corpus Christi, Texas. And there are three others. So we may be talking somewhere between 300 to 400 ships needed to export a strategic national asset.

So my legislation would say, okay, then let us enhance our Nation's security by building those ships in America. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of American jobs in our shipyards, in our manufacturing facilities in Ohio, building the pumps and the pipes and the valves and the compressors that are necessary. This is a big, big deal. And while we guarantee those jobs for the American shipyards, we also strengthen the U.S. Navy's ability to build ships at a reasonable cost.

We could do it. We could actually do this with one simple piece of legislation that isn't more than 20 lines long. Now, that is exciting.

Trains, planes, ships. It is in America's future. It has been in our past. And it is the policies, the policies of the American Government, that set these in place and in motion.

Isn't that exciting? We can do that, Ms. Kaptur. We can do that. And we can move production to Ohio manufacturing, the shipyards on the gulf coast, the east coast, and the west coast. It is all there for us.

Exactly so. Exactly so. It is absolutely critical to our national defense that we have a strong maritime industry. We used to have the biggest maritime industry in the world. We have just given it away for many, many different reasons. But it can be rebuilt.

I want to give one more example, and then I am going to wrap. And if you would like to participate in the wrap, then we can do that.

At this moment, Amtrak is out with a request for a proposal to build 30, 33 new trains, high-speed rail trains for the northeast corridor, from Washington, D.C., to Boston, high-speed trains that can go 160, 200 miles an hour, reducing the commute time. That request for a proposal to manufacturers around the world is coupled with a waiver of the Buy America requirements. We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars of American taxpayer money and a waiver of the Buy America requirements because Amtrak said they don't build them in the United States. Well, that is true. We don't build high-speed rail in the United States, and we never will if we give waivers.

But if we set in place a solid requirement that American taxpayer money is going to be spent on American-made equipment, we will build in the United States facilities to manufacture high-speed rail. The same thing applies in California with the California high-speed rail system.

In our future, we will have high-speed rail. The question for us in our policy debates is: In our future, will those high-speed rail trains be built in America, or will they be built in China or Korea or Japan or Europe?

I want them to succeed. But, by God, I want America to succeed, too. And I know that if we stick to this Make It In America agenda, we will rebuild the American middle class.

It is exciting, Ms. Kaptur. It is very, very exciting that a policy statement, a law put forth by 435 of us here and 100 over in the Senate can really dramatically alter America's economy and do it in a way that doesn't really cost us more money but simply requires that our tax dollars be spent on American-made equipment so that American workers can prosper.

Now, if somebody wants to go out and use their own tax dollars to buy goods from China, that is their business. Fine, go do it. But if it is your tax dollars and my tax dollars, then it ought to be made in America.

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the time.

I yield back the balance of my time.

``The seats of the Senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year, of the second class at the expiration of the fourth year, and of the third class at the expiration of the sixth year, so that one-third may be chosen every second year.''

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

I am.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to offer an amendment to this bill. Passage of this amendment will not prevent the passage of the underlying bill. If it is adopted, my amendment will simply be incorporated into the bill, and the bill will immediately be voted upon.

Mr. Speaker, I don't know if a question is appropriate, but is this February 2? Is this Groundhog Day? I am curious. This is the 10th time this bill has been before the House, and those who are in support would argue, ``Enough is enough. Let's pass it and get on with it.''

Those of us in opposition would say, ``Well, why haven't you written a bill that is sufficient to the problems raised by the pipeline?''

Specifically, 10 times on this floor--and even additional times in committee--the issue of the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund has been raised. We have raised that issue 10 times. It has been debated here on the floor. I have heard five, six people speak to that issue.

The chairmen of the committee are well aware that this bill has a huge loophole in it allowing one company that owns a pipeline to avoid paying into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.

Why in the world would we move a bill that allows this company, unique among all others, to not participate in a very, very important part of the protection of communities and the environment?

The Kalamazoo issue has been raised here--the spill. Over $60 million was paid for by the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund and then reimbursed by the pipeline company.

Let's do something right. This is great fun: back and forth, back and forth. We kick this thing around. We may get some political points on one side or the other. But why in the world don't we write a decent piece of legislation? Why don't we do it right? Why would we exempt one company among all of the others of hundreds of pipeline companies and allow this one Canadian company--and I love Canada, my son-in-law is a Canadian.

This is about doing what is right. This amendment would simply include this company being required to participate in the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. It is a lot of dollars. It is about $24 million a year. That is a pretty good tax break. Who among us would not like to have that tax break? I guess we are all going to stand up because we want to have it.

The rest of the story is this: we have spent an enormous amount of time on this issue when, in fact, as has been said here many times by proponents and opponents, we ought to get on to real infrastructure.

Consider the time spent on this issue when you consider the time that has been spent on transportation bills on this floor. Consider the time that we must spend figuring out how to pay for repairing our bridges, building our highways, our ports, our airports. Consider that time.

Ten times, this bill has been here. Ten times, this House has ignored a tax break that is not warranted. It will allow to move forward to the Senate a bill that, in its very substance, provides an unwarranted, unnecessary, and grossly unequal tax break to one company among all the other pipeline companies.

This amendment simply comes to the point of making sure that this pipeline

company, like every other petroleum pipeline company in America, pays its fair share of the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which is essential.

I see some of my friends from Michigan here. You know how important this is. The Kalamazoo River was a big deal--$60 million thus far and more to come. The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund was there to provide the early money for the cleanup.

It is important, folks. My colleagues, this is important. Let's do it right. This is our 10th time. Let's do it right. Adopt this amendment. We clear up one problem in the bill. We remove one point of opposition, and we do what is right.

I ask for your ``aye'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

Thank you so very much.

I have enormous respect for the two of you, and this issue has been before us many, many times. If we wait for a comprehensive tax reform, the tar sands may be totally eliminated and used up. We have an opportunity today to get it done.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, on December 10th, I was proud to bear witness to the passage, under Unanimous Consent, of the House and Senate compromise language for the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Reauthorization Act of 2014. S. 2444, the culmination of months of hard work and diligent analysis by Coast Guard Subcommittee Chairman Duncan Hunter, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, Ranking Member Nick Rahall, Senator Rockefeller, Senator Thune, myself, and our staff, is a beacon of the thoughtful compromise and responsible lawmaking we hope to see more of in the coming years.

Notably, S. 2444 contains a provision to ensure that our commitment to U.S. maritime is maintained as America considers the possible exportation of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Existing law, written before the natural gas boom when America was forecasted to be an LNG importer, authorizes the Secretary of Transportation to develop and implement a program to promote the transportation of imported LNG on U.S.-flag vessels. Under the Deepwater Ports Act, the Secretary is also required to give top priority to the processing of licenses for LNG import facilities that will utilize U.S.-flag vessels. S. 2444 includes language from H.R. 5270, the Growing American Shipping Act, to modernize these laws. LNG exports will now be included in the program to promote the use of U.S.-flag vessels in the carriage of LNG, and the Secretary will be required to give priority processing to export applications for deepwater port terminals that would utilize U.S.-flag vessels.

The U.S. shipbuilding industry and U.S. natural gas market are strategic national assets essential to U.S. national security interests. Shipbuilding is critical to the growth and flow of our economy, and to our ability to control the safety and security of the global supply chain. It is also essential to the United States Navy, which relies on a select few remaining shipyards for the construction of new ships and the repair and refitting of existing ships. Despite this importance, our foreign trade fleet has declined from 1,200 ships in the 1950s to less than 100 today, and despite having pioneered gas tanker technology, America no longer manufactures LNG tanker ships. To transport LNG by sea, the world must rely on China, Japan, and South Korea to build the requisite tankers.

Further decline of the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base will continue to erode competitive bidding among shipyards, both for commercial builds and for Navy shipbuilding needs, thus compromising efforts to reduce the deficit and balance the national budget. It will also result in the further loss of marine engineering expertise, preventing the adoption and utilization of the same cutting edge ship construction technologies used by our foreign competitors. Furthermore, tens of thousands of American jobs, both inside shipyards and throughout the U.S. supply chain, depend on the strength of the maritime industry.

The decline of the shipbuilding industry threatens another strategic national asset in reducing key personnel. The U.S. Merchant Marine is a highly trained, militarily-useful labor force, and American merchant sailors are the foundation of our marine transportation system. Further attrition of the Merchant Marine threatens American security because our nation relies on this secure source of labor for the movement of supplies and military cargo and personnel. The explosive nature of LNG strengthens the need to ensure that the transport of LNG, especially through U.S. ports, is done by U.S. seafarers, and not foreign crews that come with an increased potential for sabotage.

The export of LNG is projected to slowly ramp up over the next two or three years and will then quickly accelerate over the next decade or more. This will allow both time and a stable, long-term market demand, which--if given the correct incentives--could spur the U.S. shipbuilding industry to re-tool its infrastructure and processes to ramp up the production of domestic tankers, paving the way for production of vessels for export of this strategic national asset. It is in the U.S. national interest to utilize the emerging LNG coastwise and export trades to provide reliable, long-term markets for U.S. commercial shipbuilding and for U.S.-flag operators, to expand and increase the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base, and to use LNG export trade to strengthen U.S. strategic interests and alliances with LNG trading partners.

Therefore, it is the purpose of this law to enhance the national security and port safety of the United States by encouraging to the maximum extent practicable the transport of LNG on U.S.-built and -flag vessels. This law aims to maintain the technological ability of the United States shipbuilding industry to build and repair vessels for the Navy and the Coast Guard by maintaining the critical industrial infrastructure and skilled human workforce necessary to build such vessels. Further, this law promotes American job creation by encouraging domestic shipbuilding and the use of U.S. mariners in the transport of American LNG.

This provision of the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2014 is supported by the Maritime Trades Department (AFL-CIO); the Seafarers International Union (AFL-CIO); the Transportation Institute; the Shipbuilders Council; the Navy League of the United States; the American Maritime Officers; the Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association (MEBA); the International Association of Masters, Mates and Pilots (MM&P); the Maritime Institute for Research and Industrial Development (MIRAID); the Marine Firemen's Union, Metal Trades Department (AFL-CIO); the Sailors' Union of the Pacific; the American Maritime Officers Service; and the American Maritime Congress. I thank these organizations for their commitment to national security, a strong maritime industry, and the creation of good American jobs so vital to the economic prosperity and future of this nation.

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

I rise in support of this legislation. As summarized by my colleague from California, it alleviates the Office of Inspector General of the United States Department of Homeland Security from having to perform three annual audits.

Repealing these audits will help to slightly reduce the burden of congressionally mandated reports. All this information is available to us in other forms and it is good to get rid of these reports, which are sometimes not really sent anyway.

By the way, Mr. Hunter, congratulations on the recently passed Coast Guard legislation.

Furthermore, eliminating the mandate will allow the IG to reallocate resources to something really useful, like finding out what went wrong, wherever it might be. This way, the legislation may improve the oversight of programs and the activities of the Department of Homeland Security, which would be extremely useful to Congress.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

As a new insurance commissioner in California in 1991, I had lots of problems with pensions, a lot of problems with insurance companies going broke. I was summoned to Washington to appear before the Commerce Committee to explain. I had great fear in my mind. The very famous John Dingell was chairing that committee. But I very quickly realized his goal and mine were the same, that is, to find ways to protect people. A deep friendship then ensued for many years.

My mentor is leaving this session. I will miss him. I know that everybody in this House will miss him in many ways. He is a good man. His heart is as big as this Nation which he has worked so hard for.

John Dingell, a great, great Member of Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition of H.R. 5781, yet another California water-grab bill. If enacted, H.R. 5781 would dictate specific actions for water management agencies' experts to take while undermining state water rights and state environmental laws. These directives would eliminate flexibility in the system by making it more difficult for state and federal agencies to make real-time, science-based decisions to address the drought.

In addition to my colleagues speaking out against the bill today, the Administration issued a Statement of Administration Policy on the bill which states:

H.R. 5781 makes operational determinations regarding the

use of limited water resources during the ongoing drought,

and contains many new provisions that could lead to

unintended consequences or further litigation, the

Administration cannot support the bill in its current form.

Further, the Administration highlighted its ongoing work to address the drought:

The United States Department of Agriculture has directed

millions of dollars in food, conservation, and emergency

water assistance to tens of thousands of residents in areas

hardest hit by drought. The Bureau of Reclamation has

provided cost-share assistance for nine water reclamation and

reuse projects in the State as well as millions of dollars in

grants to build long-term resiliency to drought. . . . The

President has directed Federal agencies to work with state

and local officials in real-time to maximize limited water

supplies, prioritize public health and safety, meet state

water quality requirements, and ensure a balanced approach to

providing for the water needs of people, agriculture,

businesses, power, imperiled species and the environment.

Instead of legislating how the current dwindling supply of water should be moved within the state, we should follow the Administration's lead and fund conservation, recycling, and storage projects to create new water.

Additionally, over 30 environmental, natural resource, and fishing groups sent letters of opposition to H.R. 5781 to Congress. Fishing industry groups oppose the bill because:

The bill would undermine existing legal protections for

salmon, endangered species, and other species in the Bay-

Delta ecosystem, in order to pump more water out of the most

important salmon producing system south of the Columbia

River. For example, the bill would rewrite and override

protections required under the Endangered Species Act and

replace the best available science with political micro-

management.''

Authors of H.R. 5781 believe it will boost the economy in part of California, but in this haphazard attempt at amelioration, they risk eliminating jobs in the $1.4 billion salmon industry by, jobs in the Delta tourism industry, and jobs in Northern California agriculture.

Natural resource and bird organizations oppose the bill because of the devastating impact it could have on migratory birds and other fish and wildlife in the Bay-Delta estuary. According to these groups:

California has already lost more than 90 percent of its

existing wetlands and in the current drought conditions,

migratory birds are crowding onto the small remaining habitat

areas, suffering from decreased food and increased risk of

disease.

With at least a billion birds migrating along the Pacific Flyway each year, we cannot afford to eliminate even more habitat. We must ensure water supplies are properly balanced for all needs and mandating exports to water users south of the Delta will not achieve this balance.

In addition to being deeply flawed, this bill is being rammed through at the last minute. Introduced just last week, this bill is circumventing all regular order and will be voted on despite having no hearings and no mark-ups. As the Sacramento Bee states, ``The new bill deserves a full public hearing so that we know its full implications for California.''

As I have stated before, this drought is caused by nature--something so painfully obvious, it can be seen from space. Circumventing science and legislating how to operate a water system is irresponsible and we must find ways to add to our water supply instead of taking water from one group and giving to another for political gain. For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I rise in strong support of H.R. 5769, the Howard Coble Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act.

As explained by previous speakers, this bill is bipartisan, bicameral, and is noncontroversial. It reauthorizes the Coast Guard and the Coast Guard Reserve and the Federal Maritime Commission. The legislation includes many important provisions that were contained in H.R. 4005, the Coast Guard authorization legislation that was passed and reported by voice vote from the committee, as well as overwhelming support here on the floor on April 1 of this year.

Maintaining a safe, reliable, and efficient maritime commerce that enables our foreign and domestic trade to fuel the U.S. economy remains as important today as it was in 1790, when former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton established the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, the predecessor to the U.S. Coast Guard.

This new legislation will provide our Coast Guard with the resources and policy tools they need to meet the challenges presented by an ever- evolving economy and security demands of our Nation.

First, let me explain. A sincere gratitude to my colleague, Duncan Hunter, the chair of the subcommittee, for the work that he and his extraordinary staff have done in putting together this bill. Working together, I think we have accomplished something useful.

Mr. Rahall's leadership on our side was exemplary. He gave us the resources, the time, and the encouragement to get this job done, and that was repeated by Mr. Shuster on the other side. We have a great team, and I am proud to be part of it.

This is a compromise to be sure, but it is a good one. First and foremost, the bill includes several noncontroversial administrative and management directives to better align the Coast Guard missions and needs with the long-term capital planning and annual budget requests.

Additionally, the bill would grant the Coast Guard with greater flexibility to augment Active Duty forces and provide explicit cooperative agreement authority to enhance the Coast Guard's ability to develop beneficial partnerships with other maritime stakeholders. The bill provides new guidance to the Coast Guard as it continues to rebuild its fleet of offshore cutters.

I am particularly pleased this legislation would advance several positive initiatives to reinvigorate the U.S. merchant marine and improve maritime transportation. Most noteworthy, this legislation would advance several positive policy initiatives, among them the enforcement of cargo preference laws and regulations, a move that is long overdue.

Additionally, the legislation requires the Department of Transportation to develop a new maritime strategy and direct the Government Accountability Office to conduct an assessment of how future export trade can be augmented.

I welcome the opportunities to chart new courses forward to improve the competitiveness of the U.S. flag fleet on the high seas, to increase opportunities for short sea shipping, and to expand our commercial shipbuilding industrial base.

I am pleased that this legislation will advance significant new policies already discussed by Mr. Hunter to finally force the Federal Government and the Coast Guard especially to take constructive actions to address the implications of the thawing of the Arctic Ocean and the imminent demands for commercial maritime transportation and resource development across that vast region. A particular shout-out to Mr. Hunter for leading the charge on this very important effort.

In closing, this bill is responsible legislation that would provide budget stability for the Coast Guard, advance sensible policy reforms, and promote our merchant marine. The bill deserves support from Members from both sides of the aisle.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Police Officer George M. Poppe as he retires after more than 24 years of law enforcement service.

Officer Poppe began his law enforcement career in 1990 as a Police Officer with the City of Albany. On November 3, 1997, he was hired as a Police Officer with the Fairfield Police Department. Officer Poppe served the community in various capacities that included Patrol, Violent Crime Suppression, and Major Crimes Investigation. Some of his most significant contributions to the Police Department have been the special assignments he held including Special Activity and Felony Enforcement (SAFE Team), Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT Team), K-9 Handler, Firearms Instructor, and Field Training Officer.

Officer Poppe has received numerous commendations from citizens and coworkers, and he was awarded two Lifesaving Medals, the first in 2000 and the second in 2001, for his heroic intervention, exemplary performance and dedication to duty during two critical and life- threatening incidents.

Officer Poppe has been a valued employee and his commitment to the community was evidenced on a daily basis. He is a loyal representative of the law enforcement community and admired for his hard work, dedication, and positive work ethic.

Mr. Speaker, tonight, I want to spend some time with my colleagues discussing something that we actually can do for every American family, something that the Congress of the United States can take action on soon, like this week, when we pass our appropriations bill or, perhaps, next week if we fail to get the job done this week.

We can help every American family tomorrow, the next day, and on into the years out ahead if we take action. The subject matter of tonight is about an issue that affects every American family wherever you are out there--my own family, your family, the families of my staff, perhaps even the families of those who are working with us tonight.

This is an illness. This is an illness that has become the most expensive and will soon become the most pervasive illness in America. It is Alzheimer's. It is dementia associated with Alzheimer's. It is a devastating illness.

It is one that robs individuals of their mental abilities. It robs them of their memories of their families, of their work, of their lives. It confuses and muddles their thoughts, and eventually, it will destroy that individual, so tonight, we talk about Alzheimer's.

Is there anyone out there, any family, any individual, who hasn't seen this illness? I think we all have.

Let's get into it in some detail. A little later, as my colleagues join us, we will continue the discussion and talk about what we can do--your Representatives. There are 535 of us--435 here in the House of Representatives from every part of this Nation and from every walk of life and from every community, and there are the 100 Senators from every State. Let's use some of these charts to see if we can get a better fix on what we are actually facing here in America.

Let's see. Alzheimer's is the most expensive disease in America. One in five Medicare dollars is currently spent on people with Alzheimer's, 20 percent of every Medicare dollar. In fact, the total cost of Alzheimer's today--this year, 2014--is over $215 billion--a quarter of a trillion dollars. More and more of that money will come from Medicare as the baby boom population begins to move into its more senior years.

This illness is not just found in seniors. We are also learning about the early onset of Alzheimer's, men and women in their thirties and forties--early Alzheimer's. Of course, it extends on, mostly in the more senior population, 60-65 and above.

This is an illness that is also associated with genetics. If you have Alzheimer's in your family, there is a higher probability that you will have Alzheimer's yourself, but it is also an illness that is associated with brain damage that can occur from concussions.

I think we have all heard about the National Football League players who have suffered with one form of dementia or another and who have died early because of it. We also know that traumatic brain injuries are the most common injuries found among our troops who have returned from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Alzheimer's, it is there. It is very expensive.

What can we look forward to in the future? Let's see. This is Medicare and Medicaid--the Federal Government expenditures--not the family expenditures, not the expenditures by health insurance companies. This is just the Federal Government.

Today, it is about $122 billion. By the end of this decade, it will be $195 billion. As this wave of baby boomers passes through our demography and through our society, we expect, by the year 2050, that the Federal Government will be spending over $880 billion--$120 billion short of $1 trillion--on this illness, and this may be just two-thirds of the total cost. Well over $1.2 trillion will be spent in about 35 years on this illness.

Do you want to bust the budget? Do you want to see the deficits of America soar almost uncontrollably? Then look to Alzheimer's and dementia and the effect that they will have on the Federal budget deficit. Pay attention to these numbers because these numbers are the story of the American Federal budget and of the personal budgets of families across this Nation--Alzheimer's and dementia, $880 billion of Medicare and Medicaid money by 2050.

There is another way of looking at it. It is a different graph but the same story. The already high cost of Alzheimer's will skyrocket as the baby boom moves through the population. There it is: the same numbers, the same graph, the same extraordinary challenge facing America.

I should also mention that this is not just an American issue; this is an issue for every advanced economy in the world. If you are able to avoid the childhood illnesses--the illnesses that kill so many in the developing world--then those economies that have advanced to the more developed economies face the exact same population surge and costs associated with Alzheimer's and dementia.

What can we do about it? We can actually do a lot. I suspect, if you are looking at this on your TV screens or are here in the audience, you really only see the green line. This speaks of the treatment for Alzheimer's: today, $250 billion by Federal and local and private.

On this one over here is research, treatment versus research. It is the old adage: You spend it now or spend a lot more later. A penny saved is a penny earned.

What does research amount to? I have to pull this up close--oh, here it is. We are spending $122 billion to $150 billion or so of Federal and State money. What are we spending on research? $566 million. Billions? Millions? What does research amount to? It actually works. Research actually will solve problems, medical research.

How long have we been at polio? I remember growing up around the issues of polio. It was very common in our communities, then some money was spent on research and a polio vaccine. You don't see polio in our communities anymore.

The research worked with the development of the Salk vaccine, followed by other vaccines to treat polio. It is essentially wiped out in America. It only exists in a few very isolated places in the world. If we were to spend the money on a vaccination in those areas, we would see polio disappear from our world. The same thing happened with smallpox.

I want to show you something more of today. Let's look at the research budgets for those programs that are active today: investments in health research at the National Institutes of Health, $2,014; cancer research, $5.4 billion on cancer research.

Enough? Probably not. We probably could and should spend more on cancer research. Should we do so, I would suspect that we would see even more success in treating cancer in its earliest stages.

HIV/AIDS, nearly $3 billion on HIV/AIDS--have we solved the problem? No, but we have certainly figured out how people can live with HIV/ AIDS, and we are probably going to see a vaccine sometime in the near future. This is what we are currently spending--nearly $3 billion--on

Well, I get to represent the University of California- Davis, and it is in my district, although the hospital and the research center are not. So I guess we share the same sadness.

Thank you very much, Ms. Speier. I really appreciate you bringing the women's issue to this.

The last 3 years of my mother-in-law's life were spent in our home as she went through the process of Alzheimer's. And it is, indeed, a women's issue. Two-thirds, as you say, are women. And we experienced that. Fortunately, for us, it worked out very well for us and our family.

But we are not unique, and while our experience was sad but good in some

ways, that is not always the case. This is a huge, huge burden. Not only are the women the ones who suffer, but the women are often the ones who care for those who have it.

So I thank you so much.

I notice my friends from the east coast have joined us. We often do an east-west thing here. My two friends are debating who is going to go first.

Mr. Fattah, why don't you go first, and we will go from there.

Thank you so very much, Mr. Fattah, and thank you for your role on the Appropriations Committee trying to move the money into this research so that we can address this. You mentioned the Staglins out in California and their project, which is the One Mind project, our former colleague Mr. Kennedy involved in that project, trying to pull together the research from around the world and here in the United States specifically, so that there is a sharing of knowledge back and forth from these various research centers, so that the synergy would come from the knowledge that may exist at Cal Tech or New York, which we will undoubtedly hear about in a few moments, or in your country out in Pennsylvania.

Sure.

Well, thank you so very, very much. I am going to turn to my colleague from our normal East-West dialogue here that we have done so many days, so many times over the last few years.

Mr. Tonko, thank you so very much for joining us once again as we talk this time about--we usually talk about jobs and the economy and how we can build it, but this time we are talking about Alzheimer's, so please.

Mr. Tonko, thank you so very much for your bringing to us the information about actions that have already been taken. The Alzheimer's plan that you discussed lays out a process by which the National Institutes of Health will develop a program of research, bring it directly to Congress so that we can then analyze it and hopefully fund that research. It is the pragmatic way of dealing with it. As you said, it is based upon a studied step-by-step process to get to the solution of Alzheimer's.

There is also other legislation. Our former colleague, now Senator Markey, put together a bill that is called the HOPE Act, and that is one that would require that Medicare take specific account of Alzheimer's, and that in the Medicare program, there be a method for Medicare to fund early diagnosis of Alzheimer's and then the early treatment. As was said by one of our colleagues earlier, a delay of a couple of years or 3 or 4 years in the onset of serious Alzheimer's is extraordinarily beneficial to the individual and to the family, and, in a larger context, to the budget of the individual family, their insurance company, as well as the Federal government through Medicare and Medicaid.

So that program also speaks to the caregiving that is necessary and Medicare picking this up. It is clearly going to be the illness that will bust the bank unless we can get ahead of it, and that is where the research comes into focus and into play. We can do this.

There is another angle to this. I was going to take this up with Mr. Fattah when he was here. He was talking about other agencies and other governments that are involved in dealing with this. About a month ago I had the opportunity to spend about an hour with the new Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Mr. McDonald, and we were talking about the various challenges that the Department of Veterans Affairs has dealing with all of the veterans, and it wasn't long before the conversation turned to traumatic brain injury and PTSD, post-traumatic stress syndrome, both of which are illnesses or problems of the human brain.

We were discussing how the Department of Veterans Affairs is dealing with this. It turns out that they also have a research budget, and we know that he was unaware of some of the research that was going on both at the NIH and what Mr. Fattah talked about, the One Mind program that our former colleague Mr. Kennedy is involved in in pulling together the research that is available around the world, bringing that research together so that the synthesis of it could be a much more rapid solution to the problems that Mr. McDonald faces in the Veterans Administration dealing with post-traumatic stress illnesses as well as traumatic brain injury.

So all of these things come together, and in dealing with it, ultimately we carry a heavy burden of responsibility here in Congress.

Thank you, Mr. Tonko, for joining us in this Special Order hour. Working with you has always been a pleasure. I think this subject is one that you and I and our colleagues will want to take up as the days go forward.

In the spring, the 2015 Alzheimer's Day will occur once again here in Washington, DC. There will be thousands of people coming to Congress, knocking on our doors, grabbing our lapels, and asking us to pay attention to this illness.

I want to review some of the costs, and then basically wrap this up. You talked about home care. There are articles that appeared recently in The Sacramento Bee about elderly people taking care of each other, a wife taking care of her husband in their 50th year of marriage with severe Alzheimer's, the love that is so apparent, but also the difficulty of an elderly person taking care of another elderly person.

We can address that. That is what the HOPE legislation is all about, bringing Medicare into this.

The research thing that we talked about earlier, I am going to put up very, very quickly a couple of charts. This one, what is going to happen to the Federal budget if we do not address Alzheimer's, it is $122 billion today; in 35 years or 40 years, we are going to look at over $800 billion, and that doesn't include the private sector. It is going to be $1.2 trillion spent on this, so we are going to bust the budget. If you are a deficit hawk, you should be paying attention to this.

What do we need to address it? Well, we certainly need care for the caregivers. We have talked about that. We also need research. The plan that was in the earlier legislation laying out the Alzheimer's plan called for an additional $200 million this year on top of the $566 million that we are currently spending.

Keep in mind that, for cancer, it is nearly $5.5 billion; for HIV/ AIDS, nearly $3 billion; and cardiovascular illnesses, just about $2 billion annually spent in research at the National Institutes of Health.

They are very good, it is very important, and not a nickel should be taken away from that, but we should add $200 million this year as we complete the appropriation process right now.

People ask, ``Where can we find the money?'' Well, let's see. We just said we are going to spend $5.6 billion in Syria and Iraq--new money. I know that my work on the Armed Services Committee--I am on the Strategic Forces Subcommittee. We are talking about more than $12 billion over the next 6-7 years rebuilding a nuclear bomb that nobody knows what to do with.

Maybe there are choices that we can make. Would America be better off with a new nuclear weapon or rebuilt nuclear weapon, spending $12 billion or so on that, or maybe spending it on Alzheimer's research?

Our work is about choices, Mr. Tonko. How are we going to allocate the resources of this Nation? My suggestion is we go where every family in America will be affected, every family, either directly as my family has been directly impacted by this. My mother-in-law lived with us the last 3 years of her life, dying at the age of 92; yes, we were affected.

We know the genetic issues. My grandchildren are looking out there and saying, ``This is a genetic thing, Papa. What about me?'' So that worry carries through our family, and I suspect it carries through every family in America, either directly or indirectly.

Let's make a choice. Let's make a choice to attack with research, with care, with funding the most expensive, most common, most deadly illness in America and in other developed countries: dementia and Alzheimer's.

We can do it. This is not an impossible task. This is simply a task of focusing like a laser on this issue, and when we do, we will find the same success that we have seen with heart, cancer, and HIV/AIDS-- not cured, not stopped, but a very significant drop in the deaths associated with those illnesses.

Mr. Tonko, I have completed my statements tonight. I think you have another comment.

I thank you very much, Mr. Tonko, for joining us tonight. I also thank my colleagues, Mr. Fattah from Pennsylvania and Ms. Speier from California, for joining us on this important subject.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 6 o'clock and 12 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, December 3, 2014, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.