Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, it is good to be back here on the floor once again. Tonight, we want to carry on our long-running discussion about how to improve the American economy, how to create jobs here in this Nation and move us all forward, how to rebuild the middle class, how to make sure that every family has the opportunity

to earn a good living, buy a home if they want to, educate their kids, get health care, and enjoy the fruits of this great Nation.

We often talk about this in the context of Make It In America. This is our jobs agenda. This is the agenda about how to rebuild this Nation, and there are seven different parts to it: trade policy, which we are not talking about tonight; we will talk a little bit about taxes; energy, that is another day; labor; education; and research.

We are going to spend tonight talking about this issue, the infrastructure issue of this Nation.

Let's see, in California, it is right smack in the middle of commute time, 5:15. I am from California, and I know that my constituents in the Sacramento area on that great Interstate 80 are sitting there in a traffic jam.

What a surprise. Or maybe they are on the Caltrain returning from the San Francisco area and held up behind a freight train that is probably carrying bulk and crude oil to the refineries in the Bay Area. They are waiting and waiting and waiting, whether they are on the road or on the train or on the bus, waiting and waiting and waiting.

Folks, in case you didn't know it--and I know you did--we have got a transportation problem in America. We have got a very serious problem.

So as we talk about jobs, as we talk about our Make it in America agenda, we need to talk about infrastructure, we need to talk about transportation, because this is a big, big issue for America. It is an issue that affects every single one of us.

My district also has about, I don't know, 150 miles of Interstate 5. So as you travel from California and you head north, last winter or last year, you would get on Interstate 5, you would get past Seattle, and then you would come to a screeching halt. Why? Because the Interstate 5 bridge in Washington State, just as you got to the Canadian border, collapsed. Wow.

How could that happen in America? How could it be that our bridges on a major interstate connecting Canada, United States, and Mexico would collapse? Well, it is because we did not maintain that. It is because our transportation policies are the previous century's policies and they don't fit in this century.

So, all across America, you are going to see more of this. In a moment, I am going to turn to my colleague from New York (Mr. Tonko), and he will undoubtedly talk about the problem on that side.

It was a big day here in the Congress, because today we did what we do so very well: we kicked the can down the road. We have a major transportation crisis. This isn't the ``bridge to nowhere,'' but this is where we are headed right now. We are headed for a transportation crisis, because in about 3 weeks, maybe 4 weeks, the transportation funds are going to run out of money.

So, in an effort to deal with this problem. The United States Congress, led by our Republican leadership, did what it has done for the last 3\1/2\ years, and that is taken their can and kicked it down the road. We passed a stopgap temporary transportation funding bill that will provide us with another 10 months of funding so that the rest of the Nation's transportation systems--the State governments, the local governments, the cities, and even the Federal Government--will be perfectly unsure what the game plan is for the future years.

How they will plan, nobody knows, because they don't know what to expect from the Federal Government in terms of funding beyond the next 10 months, which is precisely where we are today. So, doing our very best, the repeated process of kicking the can down the road, we did it once again. Now, I will admit, I voted for it. We had no options, unless we wanted to lose several tens of thousands of jobs.

This is what my State government gave to me. If we fall off the bridge and don't fund transportation, here is what will happen to California: 73,572 jobs will be jeopardized; 5,692 active highway and transit projects will come to a screeching stop, which is pretty much what the commuters are doing right now on Interstate 80 between Sacramento and Davis, where it is my district; and California has 172,201 miles of public roads that will continue to be in very, very poor condition.

So, given the options that our Republican leadership has presented to us--and, by the way, we don't do anything that they don't allow us to do--they gave us the opportunity to kick the can down the road. Okay, better than nothing, but not the solution.

I would like to now turn to my colleague from the State of New York to talk about this system from your area, and then I would like to go back to what we should be doing, what we must be doing, which is to put in place a 4-year transportation program that actually solves our transportation and infrastructure problems, the Grow America Act.

What is the view from the east coast? Any better than the west coast?

Paul Tonko, my colleague, I yield to you.

Mr. Tonko, thank you so very much. It is always good to be on the floor with you. Thank you so very much for bringing to our attention once again the history of this Nation, how it was built, the great infrastructure.

There is a report card out on how our infrastructure is today. This was put together by the engineers and others who do this kind of work. I am just going to read through this: aviation--these are our airports--D; bridges, C-plus; dams, D; drinking water, D; energy, D; hazardous waste, D; inland waterways, D; levees, D; ports, C--whoa, that is good; public parks and recreation, C-minus; rails, C-plus; roads, D; schools, D; solid waste, B--I guess we can get rid of our trash, that is good--transit, D; and wastewater, D. So, the entire infrastructure is D.

Do you want to know why? Well, here is the reason why. Short-term we run out of money.

Let's take a look here.

In 2002, we spent $325 billion on nondefense structures, all of these things I just talked about, and that was 2002, at the beginning of the Bush Presidency. And then every year after that--we are now down to about $225 billion.

So $100 billion of investment, annual investment, disappeared, and so now we are running all of these D scores. It is fortunate that we are not asking for--well, I guess we are asking for reelection. We are in trouble.

Just by the way, I got a phone call from my wife, and she said: You know, about the pickup truck, John. I said: What about it? She said: I've got to take it in, the mechanic says the wheels are out of alignment. I said: How much is that going to cost? She said: Somewhere over $100. On average, in San Francisco, $782 is spent on every car every year to repair for the damages of the poor highways in California. I don't think I have New York, Mr. Tonko, but I suspect it is no better there.

Let's talk about the future. Excuse me, I am just stuck. I don't want to get stuck on the past, but it is pretty bad. Let's talk about the future.

No doubt about that. I am thinking about the Twin Cities. That was another bridge that collapsed more recently. These are real reminders of the necessity of dealing with the reality of transportation.

Fortunately, there is a way to solve the transportation and the infrastructure challenges of this Nation. It has been proposed by President Obama. It is called the GROW AMERICA Act. It specifically is designed to rebuild our crumbling transportation system.

It is a comprehensive plan. It deals with all of the various parts of the transportation and infrastructure system. There is a major piece for our rail. There is a major piece for inner city transit buses and transit within the cities. There is a piece for the ports, bridges, and highways. All of this is encompassed in the GROW AMERICA Act, which the President and Secretary Foxx of the Department of Transportation proposed a few months ago.

The legislation was presented to the House of Representatives, introduced here in the House by Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton about a month and a half ago, and it has simply sat there. The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of this House has not taken it up, although it should.

We should be holding hearings on this issue, because this is what we need to address: the rail system, the buses, the ports, the bridges, the highways, the freight systems; the movement of men, women, materials, and freight all across this country.

The program is a very robust program, and over 4 years it will bring us almost back to what we were doing in 2002. Because in 4 years, we would be spending at the level of $325 billion a year over that 4-year period of time.

But here is what it means for next year. If we were to pass the GROW AMERICA Act now rather than kicking the can down the road, beginning October 1, 2014, we would have $7.6 billion to fix our highway system. We would have $6.8 billion to improve public transportation: buses, light rail, and intracity rail. We would have $3.4 billion for our rail systems, like what you have here in the Northeast Corridor. Out in California, we have the Capital Corridor, the train system between San Diego and Los Angeles, and so forth. And we would have $1 billion for our freight transportation system, or a total of $18.6 billion more in 2015 to fix our crumbling infrastructure.

This is a very robust investment and it covers all of these programs. Each of these programs are necessary in and of themselves, like the highway system, to fill the potholes so that men and women across the country don't have to, as I must do, take my pickup in for a front wheel realignment. And all of these other systems, like transit, rail, port and freight systems, we would be able to grow those. We would be able to begin to fix our infrastructure system, and we would put people back to work.

Representative Tonko, what is happening tomorrow? The Speaker and the leadership of this House are going to do a press conference to talk about suing the President?

And we haven't taken up a transportation bill, have we?

Let's put aside that lawsuit tomorrow and all the foolishness that it is and at least let you and me and whoever cares to join in this talk about substantive issues the American people really want, which is to do our work to put together programs that actually meet the needs of the people.

This is the President's proposal. I know the President has said if it has his name on it, it isn't going anywhere. So take his name off of it and let's just call it an American act.

What is it?

It is a 4-year program. It is 4 years of transportation infrastructure funding. As you said, it is holistic. It includes many different elements, including planning and research, as you just described. It is $302 billion over the 4 years, which is a substantial increase over what we are presently doing. It is fully paid for and does not increase the deficit.

I love my charts. I hope the rest of you like them as much as I do. If you don't, I am going to show them anyway.

What happens when we invest a dollar in infrastructure is we actually grow the economy by $1.57. So for every dollar we invest, we get economic growth. We increase the economy in this case by another 57 cents beyond the dollar that we have already spent. And as you just said, you are laying in place the foundation. You have made the capital investment that will endure for years to come.

Anyway, in 4 years, this GROW AMERICA Act is $302 billion over the 4- year period. For transportation, the highway system has $199 billion. That is a 22 percent increase over what we are currently spending. In the area of transit systems, it is $72 billion over the 4-year period. That also is an increase. There is research, which we have talked about.

The multimodal, this I really like. You talked about the transit hubs, and that is an important piece, but the multimodal freight system is the ports, the trains, and the highways all coming together.

I know you have major projects in New York. You may want to talk about those.

These are the hubs for which our economy grows because it is the export as well as the import from overseas. It is the rail system that then takes those containers of that cargo and puts it on the rails to go across the country--whether it is BNSF, or UP on the west coast, or the CSX rail system on the east coast--and the trucks, and they all come together in a hub. So there is actually $10 billion for those rail hubs. For the rail system itself to improve the Nation's rails, it is $19 billion over the 4 years.

Then there are the special innovative programs that local governments want to do like the TIGER grants. These are local programs. That is $5 billion.

It is a substantial growth in what we have been spending over the previous years, and you will remember the chart that shows the decline in spending. It is an opportunity for us to pick it up and push it forward at a much higher level, employing people, growing the economy in the process, and laying

down the foundation--the concrete, the steel, the bridges, the rails-- upon which the economy will grow.

I know you have examples of this. Please, Mr. Tonko.

Excuse me. Are you like California, with D ratings?

Si se pueda. Yes, we can.

We can do it.

It is interesting that we spend a lot of time talking on the floor here in the Chamber about government regulation and red tape and all of that. In the GROW AMERICA Act, there are major reforms to speed up projects, to move projects faster--to get the concrete poured, to get the bridge built, to get the airport up and running.

Those reforms are very, very important. They, along with the overall bill, are languishing for lack of a hearing, for lack of action. We really have the opportunity to not only put the projects in place, but to put them in place faster with the reforms that are called for in the GROW AMERICA Act.

I was starting to talk about the TIGER programs. This is an opportunity for our local county, city, State to put forward innovative projects. For example, the systems that you were talking about, the transit hubs, those can be proposed. They can be graded based upon their utility, on their usefulness.

Those are then grant programs--public, local, State, together with the Federal Government. This is a substantial increase. I know these are very popular in California. We keep lining them up, but there hasn't been sufficient money. In the GROW AMERICA Act, there is a significant increase. Some $5 billion would be available for these innovative transportation projects.

What is there not to like in this? It is fully paid for--interesting. It is fully paid for in two ways--one, on the existing excise tax on gasoline and diesel. It is not increased, but is still the same. Then the balance--that is, the increase--is to be paid for by closing tax loopholes on corporations.

It is interesting that today, as the President was talking about this and also talking about closing tax loopholes on corporations that are offshoring American jobs, The Wall Street Journal--that rather famous and quite good newspaper--carried on its front page, ``The Race to Cut Taxes Fuels Urge to Merge,'' a cute headline.

Then, in The New York Times, another headline on the very same subject reads, ``Drug Firms Make Haste to Elude Taxes.''

So right here in these two national newspapers are examples of the kinds of tax avoidance games that are being played by American corporations to avoid paying their fair share of the American taxes.

The President, in the GROW AMERICA Act said stop it, stop these kinds of tax loopholes, tax breaks, that American companies are taking to avoid paying their share of the burden of transportation. He wants to close these loopholes, and here are two that clearly ought to be closed immediately.

We certainly can do it. We certainly ought to do it. Our predecessors have done it. There are 435 of us here in the House of Representatives, and the question is: Are we willing to do it?

It can be done. This plan, GROW AMERICA, is fully paid for. Yes, some corporations that are skipping out on their taxes would have to participate, and they should. They ought not be tax dodgers.

This is a very interesting plan put forward by our colleague John Delaney, a Representative from Maryland, that would take those profits that these corporations have stored overseas--profits that they have not paid taxes on in America--to repatriate, to bring that money back to America.

His program would generate, over a period of 10 years, $720 billion to be used in public-private partnerships to build our infrastructure. There are many, many ideas about how this could be paid for. The President has laid out a plan not to raise the gasoline and the diesel tax, but rather to bring about some tax fairness, and corporations would be required to pay their fair share--all of it good.

I suspect we have maybe another 5 minutes or so, but I want to bring up one of our favorite subjects. I am going to put this up.

Here we are with the GROW AMERICA Act and all of the things that could be done. This is back to Make It In America. I love this photo. It is one of my favorites.

I know, often, you travel on the train from New York down to Washington, D.C.--or back--right about now. This locomotive, which is the most advanced electric locomotive in America, made in America, was paid for by a Make It In America strategy.

Part of the transportation program--the American Recovery Act--back in 2008 said that they put aside about $700-plus billion for Amtrak all across the Nation to be used for improving the Amtrak system.

They said that that money would be used to build locomotives, and they said 100 percent American-made. Siemens, a German company, said, oh, $700 billion for locomotives made in America, we are a German company, we can build those in America.

So in Sacramento, California, in the infrastructure program, Siemens has built a 100 percent American-made locomotive, and it is going to be operating very soon on the Northeast corridor.

This is a good thing. This is how we can rebuild the American middle class. This is how we can create jobs, using our infrastructure investments to build jobs in America.

It is a fundamental piece of our Make It In America strategy of rebuilding our manufacturing sector where you do have good, solid middle class jobs, where a family can earn a living without both husband and wife having to work all the time or maybe two or three jobs.

We are talking about the American Dream being restored, and the infrastructure is a fundamental piece of that--not just because it moves the economy, not just because it is foundational to economic growth, but because it is American middle class jobs.

It is the hardhats. It is the welder putting together the new locomotive. It is the engineer designing the system. It is the accountant. It is the secretary handling the paperwork. It is America building each future.

The President has laid out a good plan. Is there some way better to do it? Put your ideas on the table, my colleagues, put your ideas on the table.

How can you do better than this GROW AMERICA Act? Let's get about doing it. This is our future. This is America's opportunity, and it is fully paid for, doesn't increase the deficit. In fact, it will grow the economy and provide us with those middle class jobs.

I know, Mr. Tonko, you have been at this for your entire career, as have I, and to be here in Congress, at this moment, when we had an opportunity, we missed it today. We missed the opportunity today to grow the American economy, and instead, we kicked the can down the road. Better than nothing, but not good enough--nothing to be proud of.

Mr. Tonko, a few seconds--I don't know how much time we have.

It is time to close. We can build America. We can build our infrastructure. The President has laid out a worthy plan, comprehensive, and all of the elements of the infrastructure that we must do. It is fully paid for. It is a good starting point.

Maybe there is a better way of doing it, but we cannot get it done with short-term, kick the can down the road bills, such as was passed today, but that is better than not doing anything.

This is the American future, and the question for all of us, 435: Why did we come here? Did we come here just to pass the time, or did we come here to really build America?

We are going to Make It In America. We are Americans, and we will make it.

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

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, during the fifties and sixties, we were engaged in what was known as the cold war. We could not build nuclear weapons fast enough, and we surely built a lot of them. Beginning in the eighties and on into the nineties, we got a little more sane. We and Russia and others became somewhat more sane about what to do with our nuclear weapons, and we began to dismantle many of the nuclear weapons we had, as did Russia.

In the nineties, an agreement was reached between the United States and Russia on the disposition--that is, the ultimate disposition and disposal--of the unused, unnecessary plutonium that both the United States and Russia held in their various stockpiles. That was a good thing. You don't want this stuff lying around. You don't want people to get their hands on it, particularly terrorist organizations. So there was a common understanding between Russia and the United States on the disposal of this unused, unnecessary, and extraordinarily dangerous material. The United States undertook to do this in a facility in South Carolina known as the MOX facility, and we have been at it since the late nineties, putting together a facility.

It hasn't gone well. In fact, it has gone very, very badly; and in the recent last 2 or 3 years, the administration has decided that this is not going to work and that the facility as designed should be put in cold storage and there should be a new way of dealing with this issue.

This amendment would instruct the Department of Energy to undertake a very quick and, in my view, a very appropriate process of going out to those entities and businesses and others around this Nation that can find a way of disposing of this very dangerous plutonium, and do it quickly. It calls for a 6-month process in which the Department of Energy would ask for requests for proposals from qualified companies to dispose of this, including the company that presently does it, AREVA, a French company that is currently operating the facility, have them come forward with a redo of their proposal, can they do it, and other companies. I know of perhaps two that can come forward. Get this thing underway so we can once again carry out our commitment in a treaty with Russia to dispose of our plutonium material.

This does not negate the South Carolina facility. In fact, it would hold the South Carolina facility in place and probably lead to the continuation of that facility, perhaps in a new modality, to dispose of the plutonium. That is what it does. It short-circuits--that is, shortens--the time in which the Department of Energy is already moving to do this.

Under their present proposal, I would suggest it would probably be a decade before they decide what to do. But they need a kick in the pants, which this amendment does; get out there, go to the companies that know how to do this, and get it done. It is in the interest of the United States and in the interest of Russia to dispose of this unnecessary, unused plutonium. If we don't move forward this way, we are looking at a decade, in my estimation,

a decade before the Department of Energy is willing to make a decision.

So that is what the amendment does. I suspect I am going to get a point of order here, but I would like all of us to consider the alternative of not doing this. If we don't take a program such as I am proposing here, we are going to wind up with this thing just lingering out there, a huge fight with South Carolina saying we want to go forward with AREVA; AREVA is not working; on and on and on.

So I ask for an ``aye'' vote on the amendment and a foregoing of this point of order so we might, as the House of Representatives, take up this amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Point of Order

Yes, I do.

Madam Chair, I guess I don't understand the suggested ruling. We are spending a pile of money here. We are going to spend, I don't know, some $12 billion on the path we are on. The bill itself proposes to spend money to keep this project going. The administration says we can't go, it is not working, don't do it.

All my amendment does is to tell the Department of Energy, get on with what you need to do anyway; that is, figure out how to do this. It doesn't spend any more money. In fact, it would spend a whole lot less money than in the present drafting of this legislation, and it doesn't change law at all.

All it does is it directs the Department of Energy to do something, and it specifies how it should be done. That doesn't change law. Well, this whole thing is a law, so the bill itself changes law. So this simply directs how they should carry out their action for which they already have money.

Fine, avoid the issue. Let this thing linger, let it fester and rot, and do nothing. And wait 10 years with this plutonium there while the Department of Energy does what it does best which is to contemplate the future rather than getting things done.

Now we will take up the point of order, and this amendment would fail on a point of order. I would suggest to anybody who cares to listen, this issue has to be dealt with. This amendment does not select a winner or loser and it doesn't change the fundamental underlying law that we have put in place.

Madam Chair, I want to thank my colleagues on both sides of this question.

I think it would be wise to really take a look at the language of the amendment. It basically says that none of the funds made available by this act may be used by the Bureau to terminate, to implement, administer, or enforce the termination. This is about the Bureau terminating. It simply says the Bureau cannot terminate the contract until this court case is settled.

Is it necessary? It really depends what the Bureau intends to do. I would suspect that the Bureau probably would not move to terminate, but they could, in which case chaos ensues.

There will be a settlement in this court case at some time in the future. We don't know when. It is a very complex case. It deals with biological opinions. It deals with the ESA. It deals with very complex biological circumstances of the fish in the delta. This amendment simply says the Bureau cannot terminate until the court case has been settled. That is it.

Is it necessary? Well, it could be necessary. Therefore, this simply puts in place a requirement that would avoid chaos in the Central Valley Project. That is it.

My colleagues with whom I normally stand side by side in protecting the rivers, I find myself on the opposite side because this amendment needs to be understood in its simplicity and in its potential importance. Therefore, I support the amendment.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I would hope my colleague from Idaho, after finishing the excellent explanation I have of this, would withdraw his point of order.

This is about an extraordinary opportunity that the United States has. We have been blessed with a very significant supply of natural gas. We have the technology to obtain that gas, and we also are now looking at the possibility or the reality of exporting that natural gas in the liquefied natural gas form. A facility is already licensed and is in the process of nearing construction on the Texas coast.

This amendment would actually replicate what was passed by the House of Representatives in 2006 and became law with President George W. Bush's signature, which basically said that if we are going to import natural gas, it must be imported on an American-flagged ship.

We will soon be exporting liquefied natural gas, and this is the only step available to me in this forum to replicate what we did in 2006. Now we would at least take a step towards making sure that natural gas is exported on American-flagged ships.

This is a big deal for the maritime industry of America. This is a big, big deal. Because if we fail to take steps along the way to secure the maritime industry, we will see it disappear.

We have the Jones Act, and that is good, but the Jones Act has only held the very minimum. It is 82 ships now. Forty years ago, we had 1,000 ships operating under the American flag, with American sailors and mariners.

If we allow this amendment to go into place, it would simply require that the Department of Energy put in front of other applications those applications that have utilized American-flagged ships in the export of their liquefied natural gas.

It sounds to me to be the right thing to do if you care about America. If you don't give a hoot about American sailors and American ships and the American maritime industry, then brush this aside with the point of order.

Idaho isn't on the coast, but Idaho cares deeply, deeply about the export of American grain on American ships for programs such as Food for Peace and the Jones Act.

This amendment would begin to secure the American maritime industry by simply saying to the Department of Energy: If you are going to approve an LNG export facility, then put first in line that export facility that is going to utilize American sailors, American crews, and American ships. If you care about this Nation's maritime industry, then you ought to be supporting this amendment and my next one, which goes in the same direction.

So I would ask my colleague from Idaho, who controls this debate at this moment, to put aside his point of order and allow the House of Representatives to have a vote on whether they care--all 435 of us-- about the American maritime industry and this one little step in providing an opportunity for American-made ships, American sailors, American crews, and the American maritime industry to survive in a very hostile environment, where other countries, like China, and others, subsidize their maritime industry and have literally decimated the American maritime industry.

Let's support Americans. Let's support our industry. Let's have this amendment come to a vote on the floor and let us all see whether we stand with the American Shipbuilding Council and the Navy League and others who do support this.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Of course I do.

My colleague from Idaho correctly asked me a question: How does this work? Would this in fact stop the export of LNG?

No, it absolutely would not. Other countries who want the LNG may or may not operate ships. The fact of the matter is it is going to take hundreds of ships to export this natural gas.

The reality is that this amendment----

I will take your admonition and continue on.

How much time do I have to talk on the point of order?

Did the Chairwoman say that the time is unlimited as long as I speak to the subject?

We will come back at this in the proper way.

Madam Chair, I have amendment No. 102 at the desk.

Madam Chair, before we go to the point of order dance, which we seem to be pretty good at, I want to explain why this is an important step. It is not as strong as the previous issue I raised, but it is, nonetheless, a very, very important step in the process of how we are going to export our liquefied natural gas.

As I said earlier, the United States is blessed with a very significant amount of natural gas. Many people raise the question about whether we should export it at all. That question is interesting, but moot because we are going to export it.

We have already had one facility that has been approved and will be soon exporting gas. The question that this amendment addresses is: Will that gas be exported on American ships, with American flags, with American sailors?

As I said with regard to the previous amendment that I brought up, this issue has already been resolved with regard to the importation of natural gas.

We are now talking about the exportation of natural gas, and therefore, we would simply do the same thing we do with import--do it on American ships, with American sailors, with the American flag.

There is a reason for that. I explained that earlier. It has to do with our maritime industry. It has to do with the safety of those ships. Let me just tell you that these ships carry an extraordinary amount of natural gas, and should there be an incident, then it could be extraordinarily dangerous in our ports. That is why the original law in 2006 was put in place.

All this amendment does is to set small criteria for what already happens. The Department of Energy does consult with MARAD. They already do the consultation.

This simply says: in that consultation, consider the American flagging of these ships. It doesn't set a requirement. It doesn't set new law. It simply says: when you consult, Mr. Secretary of Energy, with MARAD, then consider the American flagging of these ships. That is it--nothing more.

I have got to tell you that this is important stuff, and that is why the Navy League and that is why the Shipbuilders Council and, as I said, others--I don't have their letters with me today--have said in their letter--and I will read this paragraph--that one proposed amendment would require the Department of Energy, DOE, to consult with MARAD on the availability of U.S.-flagged vessels in processing applications for the export of liquefied natural gas, LNG.

That is it. They support this. Why? Because they see the opportunity for the maritime industry to do in the export what is required in the import. That is it. How this could be ruled out of order, I don't understand, but when that opportunity comes, I intend to take that up also.

Why don't we vote? As Members of this House, why don't we vote on whether we support our maritime industry or not?

I yield the remaining time to my colleague from the great State of Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Madam Chair, how much time do I have remaining?

I don't know what more to say here. The points of order are useful, I suppose, but not to me.

Madam Chair, to this issue, I would love to see a vote on the House floor on whether we really support our maritime industry, on whether we really support our sailors or not.

This is about as minimal an amendment as I could imagine, and I am almost embarrassed in bringing something so weak before this floor on something so important as the future of our maritime industry.

I don't know that I have any choice, but to at least try with this small step to bring before the House an amendment that would really help our industries.

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

I do, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, keeping in mind your admonition that I speak to the point of order and not to the underlying amendment, I don't believe this changes any existing law; although, the entire bill changes existing law.

This amendment speaks to one part of what already takes place, and that is that the Department of Energy does consult with MARAD on this subject matter. This amendment simply says that the Department, in that consultation, shall consider the issue of availability of American- flagged crude-LNG tankers. It doesn't say you can't go forward. You can go forward. It doesn't say anything about that. It simply says that, in that consultation, take into account this simple issue.

With regard to the point of order, the amendment that preceded my attempt with this amendment did, in fact, change law, but it was not ruled out of order.

Now, I accept the fact that I can't have it my way. In fact, I am one of seven children, and I have never really had it my way. But this is not a substantive or even a minor change in law compared to what preceded this amendment.

Okay. I know I am going to lose this one, but I am not going to give up on this issue. I appreciate the support of the chair on building American LNG tankers, and we will bring that to the appropriate committee at the appropriate time.

In the meantime, Madam Chair, I think you are about to make a ruling.

Mr. Speaker, we have just heard a very interesting 1 hour on an issue that is important, and

I would like to bring to this floor another issue that affects every American family either directly or indirectly, but in a very profound, and in most cases, a very sad, very sad way. One in five American seniors are affected by this disease called Alzheimer's.

I know it has affected my family. My wife's mother at the age of 92 died of Alzheimer's. She spent the last 2 years of her life living with my wife and me in our home, where we were able to provide care for her. I think that that is just one story among the millions of American families that are trying to find a way of dealing with this devastating disease.

In the last years of her life, my mother-in-law always had what seemed to be a bright outlook. She was never a complainer, and she always seemed to recognize her grandchildren, particularly the very young grandchildren. I will never forget a day where our youngest grandchild--her youngest great-grandchild--was climbing into bed with her, and my mother-in-law was, what I thought, was babbling. And that young child who could just barely speak was translating in a very real way what my mother-in-law was saying. It was my wife and I that were unable to understand. Just one moment in a long period of time that my mother-in-law lived with us in her final years.

This story is replicated time after time across America. One in five seniors will have Alzheimer's and will die of it.

If we take a look at the well known diseases that affect Americans, here is the death rate: cancer, clearly, clearly a problem. Heart disease, cancer, and stroke. Over the last 10 years, we are seeing a decline in the death rate for all of these well known and devastating diseases. We have seen the progress of research and the application of medical practices to these diseases, cancer, heart disease, and stroke, all declining, stroke by some 23 percent. HIV/AIDS, another devastating disease in this country, an incredible 42 percent decline in the death rate between 2000 and 2010.

And here is Alzheimer's, the same period of time, a 68 percent increase. My mother-in-law was one of the people that made up this statistic.

Deaths from major diseases. This is a clear indication of what happens when the public, acting through Congress, and governments, State, local, and private organizations, put their shoulder to the wheel and decide that it is time to do something about cancer, heart disease, stroke, and HIV/AIDS.

What is happening here? What is happening with Alzheimer's? Well, part of the answer is the aging population, the baby boomers. That is part of the answer, but it is not the complete answer.

What does this mean to the American taxpayer and the American families? It means it is a very, very expensive disease. In fact, it is the most expensive disease in America. Medicare, the principal source of health insurance for the elderly, 1 in 5 dollars in Medicare is spent on Alzheimer's, well over $240 billion a year for Medicare and Medicaid alone.

And where is this going? Well, here is where the costs are going. The cost of Medicare and Medicaid, 2010, $122 billion; 2022, $195 billion; 2050, $880 billion. So what are we going to do here? Well, we are going to spend an awful lot of money unless we get ahead of this devastating disease.

Looking at it another way, a different graph, same story, the skyrocketing cost of Alzheimer's care. This is not the peak, this is just where we stop counting in 2050. Baby boomers coming on and then this disease taking hold and literally bankrupting the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

So what do we do? Well, here is what we are doing, a neat little chart here, treatment shown here, this is the Medicare portion, this is the Medicaid portion. We are looking at a huge expenditure, $150 billion. This is from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Oh, down here, this is the comparison for research. This year, $566 million of research. Extraordinary expense, a lot of research, but not nearly enough to address the problem.

For example, back to that first graph that showed the decline in cancer research, HIV, heart--I wonder why it happened? Look where we are investing: cancer research, $5.481 billion; HIV/AIDS, $2.978 billion; cardiovascular, $2.15 billion; Alzheimer's, $566 million.

This is a very, very good graph. This is what happens when we invest in research and treatment protocols. Let me remind you of what those investments have meant. Cancer, decline in death rate; heart disease, decline in death rate; stroke, decline in death rate; HIV, decline in death rate. The major reason for it is the investment in research and treatment protocols. Cancer, HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular, Alzheimer's.

So where are we going to go here? Are we going to stay with this and see an increase in Alzheimer's disease and death over the next years? Or are we going to go with something that can solve the problem? And that is investment, investment by the people of America and around the world in addressing this devastating illness for which today there is no cure, there is no way to slow down the progress, and we don't know when it is coming on until it is with us.

And so families across this Nation find themselves in a devastating situation. I would like to recount just one devastating situation. It was on National Public Radio in the Sacramento region. A gentleman from the State park system retired at the age of 65, thinking that he and his wife would be able to spend their next years traveling, enjoying themselves and the benefit of the years of work they had put in.

His wife was 1 year younger. No sooner had he retired, his wife came down with early onset of Alzheimer's. The result is a devastation in their family, obviously, to the lady. She doesn't even know today that she is married to her husband of 42 years, but he cares for her, day in and day out, every day, 24/7.

There are many pieces of legislation that are here in the Congress that deal with this caregiving situation. There is also legislation that would ramp up the research necessary to get at the disease to fully understand what it is all about and how we might treat it and prevent it. These pieces of legislation deserve our attention.

Joining me tonight is a colleague from California who is carrying one of those pieces of legislation, a woman who has spent her entire career--public and private--in Congress and in the California legislature, addressing the problems of health care, the problems of the underinsured and the underserved, an incredible woman who has her own story to tell.

Let me introduce to you Maxine Waters, my colleague from California.

I thank Congresswoman Waters. A couple of things come to mind as we were talking about the research effort.

We will very soon appropriate well over $80 billion--$80 billion--for ongoing military actions in Afghanistan. We make choices here, and it seems to me that we need to understand the import and the importance of the choices we make.

Now, that does not include the CIA and the State Department and the USAID--those are additional expenses over and above that the military will be using--at a time when, presumably, we are pulling out of Afghanistan. What would $1 billion of that $80 billion mean to the Alzheimer's research programs here in the United States?

Well, first of all, we shouldn't appropriate $1 billion because you can't ramp up that fast; but if we spread that over 2, 3, 4 years and go from $566 million to $1.5 billion, what could be accomplished?

I know that, in my own district in the Sacramento Valley, the University of California, Davis, has a very robust and breakthrough opportunity on brain research. I know in your own area of Los Angeles, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Southern California are, together, operating major research programs on the mind, on the human brain, and how it is harmed, what is it that sets off Alzheimer's.

We can do this, but these are choices that your Representatives, the American people, your Representatives are making choices here in this House about how to spend your money. When one in five seniors comes down with Alzheimer's and we make a choice to spend $80 billion in Afghanistan, you should be questioning this. As to our rationality, are we making the right choice? I think not.

Let me just comment on your legislation, Congresswoman Waters. Your Alzheimer's Caregiver Support Act, H.R. 2975, I am thinking what it would have meant to Patty and I as we took upon the task of caring for her mother.

We really didn't know much about Alzheimer's and really didn't know much about the kind of care and the kind of reaction and different things we might do and she might do.

It would have been so helpful to us to have had that kind of information available, that kind of support. Now, we got through it very well. We had a lot of ability to search out information, and we are not unique, but I think the general public who is facing this personal crisis of a husband or a wife--and as you said, two out of three are going to be women--as they face that crisis, if they had the support that your bill would give to them, here is what you should expect, here is what you can do, here is where you can get help.

It is a good bill. We ought to pass it. We ought to pass this bill. So, Congresswoman Waters, thank you for doing that. If you want to comment back on how you came to put this bill in, what was your motivation? How did you come to see it, from your own experiences? I know you have friends and, perhaps, even family that faced this situation.

Well, this chart clearly shows--clearly shows--what happens when you make an investment: cancer, HIV, cardiovascular. I remember, 20 years ago, nobody thought you could solve HIV. It was there and it was going to devastate the entire planet, but research-- research--paid off. While this disease is not under control and is still all too prevalent, there is an ability to stem the impact of it and to be able to live with that disease. We can make progress here.

I am just thinking again about your piece of legislation, about the kind of help that people need and, really, education beyond just what you have talked about in your bill. Every family goes through this in either their own family or a neighboring family in the early onset, early in the progress of the disease. The change in the way in which a person functions and works and interacts with the family is profoundly disturbing to the family, even more so if the family doesn't understand and doesn't know what is happening.

So the ability to diagnose Alzheimer's early becomes very, very important to the well-being of the family, as you said. If that family understands what is happening, they are better able to cope with a very, very difficult situation. If they have no idea and Mama or Dad just suddenly seems to be off in some strange and unimaginable direction, the family can be torn apart. I know we have seen this many, many places across the people that I have known over the years. But your bill ought to be law, and we ought to be funding those kinds of nonprofit and social organizations that can address and help an individual understand what is going on in the Alzheimer's situation.

Another one, your second bill dealing with the Patient Alert Program, I remember very well a situation that occurred years ago where a neighbor simply wandered off and it created a community crisis: Where did he go? Where is he? After a couple of days, it turned out to not be a devastating situation. Your bill would provide assistance in tracking and keeping track of and finding those men and women that will and have wandered off. This is very much a part of this illness. So thank you for introducing these pieces of legislation.

My plea to my colleagues here is let's focus on this. There are many, many things we focus on here. All too often it is just political one- upmanship. This is not a Democratic issue; it is not an Republican issue. This is an American issue affecting nearly every American family. I like your legislation. I would hope the President would have this on his desk tomorrow morning, would sign this and get the help that people need.

There are several other pieces of legislation that are also introduced. I would like to introduce my colleague, who is carrying a piece of legislation on this matter, and yield to him for his exposition. So if you would care to join us, we will hear from, actually, the other side of the aisle. It is a bipartisan 1-hour, so please.

I thank you so very, very much.

One of the challenges that I find in the House, there are 435 of us, and I never had the opportunity to work with you directly on committees. We just are not on the same committees, so I hardly know you, but I already like where you are headed. I like the way in which you speak to this issue and the way in which you show your compassion. I really look forward to working with you. These are bipartisan issues.

If you just hang on a few seconds, there are about seven bills that have been introduced thus far. Representative Markey, who is now a Senator, introduced H.R. 1507, which I think one of our colleagues has picked up here. That deals with the Social Security Act and makes this illness, a comprehensive Alzheimer's disease diagnosis, part of the Medicare program.

There is a bill introduced by a Republican, Mr. Guthrie. It is the Alzheimer's Accountability Act. This one basically says, okay, there is a plan. How are we doing with the plan? What is the plan to deal with Alzheimer's research, the support necessary? And it would require that a report be prepared

every year so that we can keep track of progress or lack thereof. I like that bill because I think accountability is really important for us. Ultimately, these will be our decisions.

You can jump in on any one of these you may be involved in.

Well, we are doing some of that tonight.

There is another one. This issue is not an American issue. This issue is a worldwide issue. Every society, every ethnic group in the world faces Alzheimer's, some more severely than others. There is another piece of legislation introduced by Chris Smith, who is the cochair of the Alzheimer's Caucus here in Congress. This one is H. Res. 489, the Global Alzheimer's resolution by Mr. Smith. It says it is the policy of the U.S. Government to encourage and facilitate the following efforts concerning Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia. This goes to the World Health Organization and other nations that are involved in research, the sharing of knowledge and research.

We can, as you just said, leverage, leverage what we are doing with what is going on in other countries--certainly the European countries; we know China is doing a lot of research on this--together the whole world facing a common issue, and perhaps we can find a much better and a faster solution.

No doubt about it. There is research going on all around the world. Major drug companies are involved. Countries are doing their own research. It is all possible.

One other bill that I would like to bring up, this one is introduced again by Chris Smith, and this is called the PACE Pilot Act. This is a program for all-inclusive care for the elderly, which currently helps those over 55, to provide a continuity of care and comprehensive care for them. It is more than just Alzheimer's. We know that nursing home care is extraordinarily expensive. This is an effort to try and keep people in their home with appropriate care and support.

So this is another piece of the puzzle, together with the two bills that our colleague Maxine Waters had introduced, giving us a package of legislation that we ought to work on.

The other piece of legislation which is not among these bills is the annual appropriation bill. Last year, we increased Alzheimer's research by $100 million, a very, very good thing.

But, again, we could do much more. And if we were to do that, I am convinced we would be able to advance the knowledge, the early detection, and, as you said a moment ago, a cure for this devastating illness. It is there. The only thing we need is to focus our attention and the world's attention on this, put the money into research, and then we can see a solution.

If you would care to wrap up, I have had my say on this.

Representative Roskam, it is a pleasure working with you this evening. We will call this a beginning, working across the aisle on a program that affects everyone and every family in this Nation.

We can deal with Alzheimer's. We just need to put our shoulder to the wheel and push forward with the programs that we know are successful, many of them introduced by our colleagues here. I, too, am happy to be a cosponsor of all of these pieces of legislation.

So much for this night on this very, very important piece of legislation. We will come back to it in a few weeks and see what progress has been made in perhaps the appropriations process or in the passage of these pieces of legislation.

In the meantime, Mr. Speaker, we have had our discussion this evening on this important illness, and 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 9 o'clock and 3 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, July 9, 2014, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

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

I am opposed to the bill.

I object.

Mr. Speaker, this is the final amendment to the bill, which will not kill the bill or send it back to the committee. If adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage, as amended.

My colleagues, America is blessed with many, many resources--all of you, for example. America is blessed with great natural resources, among them natural gas.

We have seen a terrific increase in the availability of natural gas, and it has provided this Nation with the opportunity to have the lowest price energy among the industrial nations, an incredible advantage that we have received as a result of God's gift of natural gas.

The question for all of us to ponder for a moment is: How will we use that natural gas and to whose benefit will it inure?

This bill will provide for the protection of Americans who have, from these number of years, enjoyed a reasonable price for their energy, but if this bill moves forward as presently written, we will be talking about seniors who will see higher prices in their natural gas and in their energy.

If this bill moves forward as it is currently written, we will be seeing our natural resource, this strategic asset, wind up in the hands of countries who support terrorists or countries who are engaged in industrial espionage through cyber attacks on our industry and on our government.

If this bill moves forward as it is presently written, we will not see American ships under our flag with our sailors taking this natural resource, this strategic asset, across the oceans.

However, ladies and gentlemen, if we approve this amendment, we will be protecting our seniors from higher energy prices because this bill says that, in determining the public interest, we will make sure our seniors are protected.

If we adopt this amendment, we will see that none of our natural resource--natural gas, a strategic asset--will wind up in the hands of countries who have supported terrorists.

We will find that no country that allows people in their country to engage in cyber attacks against our industries or against our government will have our precious natural resource, and we will see American ships with American sailors and American flags on the ocean exporting this strategic national asset.

The question, therefore, for each and every one of us is this: With whom do you stand? The gas companies, who will have billions and billions of dollars of profits exporting? Or, do you stand with our seniors?

Who do you stand with? Countries that are engaged in cyberattacks against America, and who are supporting terrorists?

Who do you stand with? Do you stand with American sailors and shipbuilders?

That is the question. That is what this amendment is all about. It is about protecting America.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I have to catch my breath after listening the last hour to an unbelievable stream of consciousness.

I want to be very specific about some things that we really need to do here in Congress.

Often, we come to the floor in the evening and we talk about the subject of making it in America, rebuilding the American economy brick by brick, road by road, job by job, and putting the manufacturing sector back on its feet.

Today, my colleagues and I want to talk about one part of that Make It in America agenda, and that is not the trade, taxes, energy, labor, education, or research, but rather the infrastructure part of that equation.

Infrastructure is the foundation upon which any economy grows. And the American infrastructure has a problem.

Here is the problem.

The American infrastructure is falling down, falling apart, overused, overworn, and in desperate need of rebuilding. We can do it. America once built the greatest infrastructure in the world. We are falling way, way behind in our own country and we are not even keeping up with other countries, such as China, which is building everything everywhere and laying in place an infrastructure that will carry them into the future.

Here is why we are not keeping up. Here is why we are falling down. Here is why we have potholes. Here is why cars are losing their ability to stay on the road. It is not because the drivers can't drive but because we are not spending the money that we once did. Way back in 2002, we were spending some $325 billion a year. Right now, we are down to somewhere below $250 billion on infrastructure. That is why we see bridges collapsing. That is why we have the transportation snarls and all of the problems in our transportation system.

As they say in the Middle East, just wait. It will get worse. Here in America, we are just 2 months away from this happening. We are going to fall off the transportation bridge. The funding for transportation programs, funded by the Federal Government, will run out of money sometime in August, perhaps in early September, depending on several factors that are simply unknown, but the funding for the maintenance and construction of our roads and bridges by the Federal Government will be over. There will be no more Federal funding available unless this Congress acts.

We have a roadmap. We have a plan. We have a program. President Obama and the Transportation Department, with Secretary Foxx, recently laid out a program called the GROW AMERICA Act. It is a program that would provide $302 billion over the next 4 years, which is money that is desperately needed for rail, buses, ports, the freight system-- ``buses'' meaning light rail, heavy rail. It is for the transit systems in our cities and the rail systems--Amtrak--bridges and highways. All of this is available. The GROW AMERICA Act is a real proposal. It is one that this Congress should take up. If there are some who have better ideas and better plans, bring them forward. For highways, it is about $199 billion. For bridges and buses, it is about $79 billion and about $10 billion for the freight systems. For the rail, it is another $10 billion to $12 billion.

All of this is possible, but we need to do this. We need to finance it, and this program by the President is fully financed. The $302 billion relies upon the existing excise tax that all of us pay for our gasoline, for our diesel fuel. The President would add another $100 billion or so to fill up the pot so that we would have the $302 billion, which is some 27 percent more than we presently are spending on the transportation system. Where does that extra money come from? It comes from corporate reforms, but that is not the only proposal on how to finance our transportation system.

In a few minutes, I will turn this over to my colleague from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), who will talk about that in some more detail. Also joining us tonight is my colleague from Kansas City, Missouri (Mr. Cleaver), who will be talking about his transportation system in that area.

But this is a real plan--a real proposal--all of the details that we would need on how we could develop the freight programs: where you would connect the ports to the rail systems, how you would provide those intermodal proposals, how we could repair the bridges--the funding for it--over a period of time, and the highways. It is all coordinated around fixing the things that are broken, not necessarily adding but fixing first, fixing what is broken.

For the rail systems, critically important is the intercity rail, which is the Amtrak system here on the east coast. Then this happens to be the Capitol Corridor in my own district, which runs from Roseville, all the way through San Jose and through San Francisco. It is one of the most heavily used rail corridors in the entire system.

One of the things that we also talk about here in the Make It In America is that we spend our tax money on American-made goods. If we are going to spend $302 billion of American taxpayer money, my legislation would increase the Buy American provisions, and I want to give you just one brief example of what it means:

This is the most modern locomotive in the United States, and it is, arguably, one of the most modern electric locomotives in the entire world. It is built in Sacramento. This is money that was made available in the American Recovery Act, the stimulus bill. Written into that bill was a provision that said that money--some $800 million--for Amtrak locomotives had to be spent 100 percent on American-made locomotives. Siemens, the big German manufacturing company, looked at that, and it said: $800 million and 100 percent American made? We could do that. So they took their factory in Sacramento and expanded it, and this is the first locomotive among those that will come off the lines--some 70 or 80 of them--that will be 100 percent American made. This locomotive will soon be operating here on the East Coast Corridor. Eventually, we will get those in Sacramento, but those will be diesel elective.

The final point I want to make before turning this over to my colleague Mr. Blumenauer is this. These were men and women in my district--Fairfield, California--in December of last year, who attended a job fair that I put on in Fairfield. I expected to find a few of my fellow citizens attending that. This job fair took place in December, and the temperature was just below 40 degrees. It was a foggy and rather cold day. More than 1,000 people lined up outside our job fair seeking a job.

Americans want to go to work. Americans want to work. They want those good, middle class jobs that come from building the infrastructure. It is just not the hard hat jobs. These are the technicians, the engineers, the accountants, the secretaries, the people who are working on the software. There are all of those jobs, and these are the men and women who want them.

So our plea today to our colleagues on the Republican side is: Let's go to work. Let's go to work here in the Congress. Let's put forward a transportation bill that avoids that transportation cliff, that allows the American public to go back to work--tens of thousands of jobs. Indeed, 3.5 million Americans will lose their jobs in the coming year if we fail to put together a transportation bill. That 3.5 million plus thousands upon thousands more will be able to go to work if we get this transportation program moving.

The President has given us a program, the GROW AMERICA Act. If there are those with better ideas, they should come forward. We should act upon that legislation, improve upon it and figure out the financing. If the President's notion of ending unnecessary corporate tax loopholes and giveaways isn't the best way, then let's put together a better way.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I would yield back my share of the time and, if possible, turn it over to my colleague, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), to manage the remaining portion of this session.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize California Chrome and his team for their outstanding performance in the 2014 Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes.

California Chrome was the winner of the Kentucky Derby on May 3 and the Preakness on May 17, and had an excellent showing at the Belmont Stakes on June 7, where he tied for fourth place. His family, Perry and Denise Martin reside in Yuba City, which is in my district. I am proud to have them as constituents.

The Martins bought California Chrome's mother for only $8,000, a bargain by horse racing standards, and the horse's success is a true ``rags-to-riches'' story. The Martins conducted thorough research in selecting the dam, Love the Chase, which further contributed to California Chrome's success. California Chrome inspired thousands of fans and brought a renewed sense of excitement to the races. His success shows us that no matter our background, we can rise to greatness with a little bit of luck and a lot of hard work.

His family has also made a number of important contributions to California and our entire nation. Perry Martin has worked on electronic failure analysis and environmental quality testing at McClellan business park north of Sacramento for more than a decade. He is the author of a 500-page textbook titled ``Electronic Failure Analysis Handbook'' and has briefed Congress and the Air Force Chief of Staff regarding avionics and weapons systems.

Congratulations to California Chrome, his jockey Victor Espinoza, trainer Art Sherman, the Martin family, and their co-owner Steve Coburn. California Chrome is a source of pride for California's 3rd Congressional District and I look forward to seeing all that he accomplishes in the future.

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment deals with a profoundly important issue that will be before the House of Representatives and this Nation for the next three decades at least. This is an amendment that deals with the Joint Strike Fighter, the F-35, and the dual capability of that fighter, basically meaning how to retrofit or make that fighter capable of handling the B-61 nuclear weapon.

This is a weapon that is principally designed for our allies, to be used in Europe. It is a weapon that is now in the process of being life-extended at a cost of several billion dollars over the next decade.

The question is, Do we need to revamp the F-35 in such a way as to be able to handle both conventional as well as nuclear weapons? This is the question before us. It is a question that involves our allies, and it is a very, very expensive issue that we must deal with.

If we just continue on, we will spend billions upon billions of dollars on a system that may or may not be desired by our allies around the world. We are just pushing our way forward here without really considering all of the issues involved.

This amendment that I brought forth on the floor today is really the wake up to this larger issue and the extraordinary expense and the ramifications that it has with not only our allies but with potential adversaries around the world.

What I really would like to do is to expand upon a study that has already been put into this legislation, a study that Mr. Quigley has successfully brought in, and expand upon it so that the report that comes back to us be more full, providing more information. We need that information in order to make a wise decision here about how we are going to proceed.

This is an issue that the Armed Services Committee is wrestling with, as well as, I am certain, the Appropriations Committee. Later in this process,

when we get to the end of this bill, I will have another amendment that I will put forward that will fence off this $15 million until such time as that report comes in, and I would recommend that that report be more full and more complete.

Mr. Chairman, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

That is true. I intend to withdraw my amendment in hopes that we could, at the end of the bill, undertake a more full report and fence off the $15 million until that comes forward. I am not asking for a commitment now, but as we proceed through this bill, if the members of the Appropriations Committee, the chair and the ranking member specifically, would consider that language, it would be much appreciated.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, earlier today I took up this issue by attempting to strike the $15 million that is appropriated in this bill for the initial phases of figuring out how to make the F-35 dual- capable, that is, capable of handling both conventional as well as nuclear weapons.

This is the opening of a very, very expensive process. Probably well over somewhere between 10 and $20 billion will be spent on this entire program.

The F-35 is our plane of the future. It is extremely important for the defense of this Nation. However, the issue of whether that plane should be dual-capable or not really revolves around the role that the F-35 dual-capable plane will play in the European theater.

Presently, we are deploying in Europe the B-61 bomb. That bomb is now being life-extended, rebuilt for the purposes of doing what it has done before, that is, to sit there basically unused. It will be both a tactical as well as a strategic weapon.

There is a major cost factor that will affect this budget and future budgets for years to come with this initial decision that we are now making.

What this amendment does is to simply build off a portion of the bill that is already in place. It does call for a report. This amendment fences off the $15 million, says you can't use it until such time as the details that I add to the existing language of the bill before us-- those details were read by the reader a moment ago.

Let me just quickly go through them:

Until the House of Representatives has delivered--that is, until the military has delivered to the House of Representatives defense committees a report, among other matters, on the total anticipated cost of making the F-35 joint fighter nuclear-capable;

Next, the number of aircraft expected to have such capability;

Next, the total number of tactical B-61s expected to undergo the life-extension program, including the total anticipated cost specific to the tactical B-61.

This is critical information that we have. The language in the bill is okay, but it doesn't give us the specificity that we need to make the decision, and frankly, I don't think we ought to start down this path until we really have some better notion of where we are going with the expenses of this.

We also know that the European community is, at best, ambivalent about what to do with this issue, and they certainly are ambivalent about whether they are going to pay their share of the costs of the airplanes that they will eventually acquire that will have this dual capability.

So big questions out there. This is an amendment attempting to gather the specific information that we should have to make a wise and informed decision in the future.

I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I would much prefer if you could say this is really wise and information that we need and that we would add this to the bill somewhere along the process.

I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, what I would prefer to do, sir, is to proceed and to continue the discussion. I think this is an important matter.

Mr. Chairman, I don't know how much time I have remaining.

Well, perhaps I will just wrap, and then we will take up your point of order and see where that goes with it.

This is an extremely important issue. It has to do with our relationships with NATO. It has to do with cost-sharing by the NATO community, who will eventually acquire these planes, and it also has to do with the B-61 bomb, which is an extraordinarily expensive program that may or may not fit into the future for NATO or even for us.

So this amendment is designed to give us the information that we need and, until we have it, it prevents the use of the $15 million.

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

Point of Order

I ask to be heard on the point of order.

Mr. Chairman, at the subcommittee, with great respect, I respectfully disagree with you. This does not change law. It simply writes into the law an extension of what is already in this bill, and that is, it calls for a report.

It also fences off a certain amount of money, in this case $15 million. That is really the ante, the beginning of a very expensive process. It fences it off until we have that information report from the Pentagon. I think that is the wise thing to do.

In fact, the appropriation bill in many, many respects changes laws, and I think we are all aware of that.

I am also aware that I have yet to overcome a point of order, but there is always the first time, and we can be hopeful that this might be the first.

But I draw the attention of the chair, the ranking members, and anybody else that cares to listen, be prepared to spend somewhere between $15- and $20 billion if we go forward with both the B-61 and the retrofitting to the F-35 so that it will be dual-capable--capable of both conventional as well as nuclear weapons.

I think we better know where we are going, have a good sense of the total cost, and also have a very good sense of where our European allies want this to be, and I think they ought to also pay for it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the history of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. As told by the church itself:

``Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church, under

the leadership of Pastor Godfrey R. Patterson who joined in

fall 2013, is one of the first African American congregations

in the Sacramento Valley in the state of California, and

until 1946, Bethel A.M.E. Church was the only African

American congregation in Yuba County, California. The Church

was organized in 1854, in a home located on California Alley,

between Sixth and Seventh Streets, and the address was later

changed to 113 Fifth Street--Marysville, California. The

Reverend D.P. Stokes was the organizing Pastor, and the first

Trustees were: G.A. Cantine, D.W. Sands, and Samuel Rinzel.

The physical building of the church was built in 1863, next

door to the home which became the parsonage, and the deed for

the land was made to the Trustees at that time: Mr. J.

Watkins; P. Churchill; P. Powers; S.W. Williams; Charles

Bush; B. Brooks; and J.C. Cork. During the 1864-1865 A.M.E.

Church Annual Conference, held at Bethel A.M.E. Church in San

Francisco, California, Bethel A.M.E. church was recognized

and received into the A.M.E. Church connection; the

congregation consisted of twenty-three (23) members.

On July 2, 1921, the church was destroyed by fire along

with most of the lower parts of Marysville. The physical

structure of the church was rebuilt in the same location of

which it stands today at 115 Fifth Street.

The early Pastors, from 1857 to 1879, were circuit

ministers. Many Pastors followed from 1880 to 1970; and in

1970, Reverend Winn, assisted by the ``Men'' of Bethel,

personally remodeled the physical building, and paneled walls

in the downstairs kitchen area, as well as remodeled the

parsonage. Also, very instrumental in the renovation was the

late Waymon Sales, a doer of the Word.

Reverend Charles DeWitt followed reverend Winn, and was

followed by Rev. Joseph Forbes who initiated and directed

many education and community service projects always in the

best interest of both, the Church and the Community.

Pastors of more recent history are: Reverend E.D. Farris

(1978-1980); Norris Williams (1980-1985). Reverend LaGrant

Moore, now a Presiding elder in the Southern California

Conference of the 5th Episcopal district, served from 1985-

1987; followed by reverend Percy Leaks (1987).

In 1987, reverend Willie L. Adams was appointed and served

until 1992; under his administration, the physical structure

of Bethel A.M.E. Church took on a new look; the old parsonage

was demolished, and the sanctuary and pulpit areas were

enlarged; the upstairs area was reconstructed into a balcony;

This construction was made possible through the hard work of

``Buckley Construction'' and several members of the

congregation.

Reverend David Reginald Allen, Sr. served from 1992 to

1994; and Reverend David Wayne Coston, Sr. served from 1994

to 1999. In 1999, reverend Dante L. Rome was appointed to

Bethel, and served until April 2007; in July 2004, under the

leadership of Rev. Rome, an additional 20 feet was added to

the north end of the building, along with a beautiful

``stained-glass'' window displaying the A.M.E. Church

Denomination's symbol of the ``cross with the Anvil''

depicting the initial pulpit used by our founder, Richard

Allen, in a blacksmith shop. Also a baptismal pool was added,

and the kitchen and downstairs restrooms were remodeled.

Pastor, Reverend Freda Cash was the first female Pastor who

was appointed to the Bethel A.M.E. Church at the Fifth

District's Mid-Year Conference in April 2007. Under her

leadership a new front entrance was constructed in June 2008.

Windows forming a cross on two sides of the structure have

engraved on each glass block names of members of the

congregation, and family members who have been called from

``labor to reward.'' The new entrance way has been dedicated

in honor of a faithful servant, Brother Murphy Buckley.

Also, under Reverend Cash's administration, an

``evangelism'' team, under the direction of our assistant

minister, Rev. Joyce Gardner and Steward, Bro. Paul

Lethridge, has been established. Once a month this team

reaches out into the community at the Veteran's Park on 5th

Street in Marysville, feeding physically and spiritually.

And, under the direction of our Evangelist, Terry Hammonds; a

homeless ministry that assisted persons in the

``Riverbottom'' with food, clothing, and other items that

assist them during the winter months, has been established.

Lastly, but not least, from the reactivation of our 7:30

a.m. morning ``Worship and Testimony'' service, the ``Early

Morning Disciples Alliance'' (EMDA) has been established.

This group of ``early risers'' has assisted the church

greatly with community outreach activities that bring

churches of different denominations together for worship and

fellowship.''

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, my colleague from California (Mr. Royce) has been working at this issue for a very long time, and he has considerable knowledge and certainly a compassion and a deep understanding of these issues. There is far more to this than was explained in your presentation.

There is an ongoing debate about how the United States ought to be assisting in the disasters and famines around the world. That debate came to a head last year in which it was decided that we ought to continue with the longstanding appeal for a Food for Peace program, with some modifications.

My concern here with this particular amendment is that it may open the door for a continuation of that debate and ultimately lead to the demise of the P.L. 480 program, which has extraordinary political support as a result of the combination of American farmers, the merchant marine industry, as well as many NGOs around the Nation.

I recognize that, in many places, it is necessary to have local purchases of food, and the chairman actually cited a couple of those examples. It turned out that the local purchase of food was accomplished through an existing program that USAID presently has, and that program is the international disaster assistance program, where money is available for the local purchase of food.

The bottom line is that this $10 million really doesn't add anything that isn't already available in the current appropriation--in the current bill, so I would say let's not go down this road right now. Let's not open up this door to what may very well be a very extensive debate that we have already had, so I would softly oppose the amendment.

I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee on the other side of the aisle.

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

Mr. Chairman, my colleague from California has it right. California is in a severe drought, as well as half a dozen other States, including Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Georgia, Oregon, and Nevada.

The intent of this amendment is to signal to the Department of Agriculture to move some money out of the salaries and the support for the Farm Service Agency and over to the Emergency Conservation Program. We know $11 million isn't going to do it, but it is a good start, and it is a signal that we need to send.

I know that, in my own district, we normally have over 500,000 acres of rice. This year, it will be 300,000 acres of rice planted. We have tens of thousands of acres of walnuts and almonds. Many of those orchards are going to die, unless there is an opportunity to provide for the emergency conservation programs that will be needed. Those are wells, pumps, and other systems.

We ought to do this. I urge an ``aye'' vote on this amendment. It moves money from one account to another account and back to the original account.

This is a messaging amendment. I ask for your ``aye'' vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, I love messaging, and I appreciate the House acquiescing to the previous amendment that is a messaging amendment.

Now, let's do something. Let's not just send a message. Let's send $50 million to the Department of Agriculture's Emergency Conservation Program, so that they can carry out an absolutely essential task, which is to assist farmers in States such as California, Nevada, Oregon, New Mexico, Texas, and Georgia. Those States are all experiencing drought. There will be others as this year progresses.

The money can be used immediately to set up water conservation programs. For example, earlier today, a research program that has been administered by the Department of Agriculture that has proven in several States, such as Maryland, Georgia, California, and others, is using modern technology like soil moisture sensing devices, coupled directly with irrigation systems that can be turned on when the plant needs water, not when the irrigator needs water.

Those systems can save between 20 and 40 percent of the normal consumption in the agricultural sector. That applies to virtually every kind of plant that might be grown.

It certainly applies in my own district with those almond orchards that are now without an adequate supply of water. If this was available to them now--as it could be if we were to pass this amendment and the appropriation bill--those farmers could then access this money, put in place those water conservation technologies, and stretch their supply, allowing them to keep their orchards alive.

God forbid that we have another drought.

Under the present scenario, thousands of orchards in California will die for lack of water, but if we can save this year and next year 20 to 40 percent of the water that is available, which is possible if we actually enact this legislation and provide the kind of incentive--in this case, 75 percent Federal, 25 percent farmer--we could keep those orchards alive.

So I appeal to my colleagues that we allow this to be done. The money comes from the overall account that is within the Department that provides for administrative expenses and salaries. Move it from there over to this conservation account. That money would then be available to farmers to use.

We ought to do this. We have other drought legislation that has moved through this House and went to the Senate, but there is no money in those accounts--well, we have the money.

The question is: Are we willing to make it available for farmers in any State where there is a drought emergency?

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, the gentlelady from Tennessee spoke about the American taxpayer and the money that is being spent by Congress, and I would like to pick up on that subject because I am deeply concerned about where and how we spend our taxpayer money. It is not our money. It is the American public's money, and it ought to be spent wisely, and it ought to be spent on American-made goods and services.

This amendment would build off of the current law dating back to 1933, the Buy American laws. This amendment is necessary, and I will tell you why it is necessary.

This is a picture of the new San Francisco Bay Bridge, built by the Chinese Government--several billion dollars of American taxpayer money, California bridge tolls, and Federal taxpayer dollars spent to buy steel products to build this bridge from the Chinese Government. It was a steel company in Shanghai, owned by the Chinese Government--actually, by the Chinese military--that built this bridge.

This bridge should have been built by Americans--American steel companies, American workers. It should not have been built by the Chinese Government. Three thousand jobs in Shanghai, zero jobs in America--and a very shoddy job done on the bridge, thousands upon thousands of faulty welds, over budget, and it went over on time.

We need to strengthen the Buy American laws. We need to bring it home. We need to Make It In America, and this amendment would strengthen the Buy American laws in the transportation portion of this bill.

It would simply say that 60 percent is good. 70, 80, 90, and 100 percent is where we ought to be. We ought not any longer contract out to foreign companies and specifically not to the Chinese Government to build American bridges.

We are going to spend $50 billion in this bill. Is that money going to be spent here in America on American-made goods and services? Or is it going to be spent somewhere overseas, perhaps China?

No more, I say. Build it in America. Use American taxpayer dollars to buy American goods and services. This ought to be the mantra of this Congress: Buy America. Employ Americans. Give American companies here in the United States the opportunity to bid on these jobs.

It is not going to be more expensive, and this is the proof, way over budget, way beyond the timeframes, and way beyond what is reasonable.

Build it in America, American jobs, spend American taxpayer money on American-made equipment, goods, and services. That is what this amendment does.

It also eliminates one of the problems that led to the segmentation, but we will not go there. We will simply say it is going to be made in America. That is what this amendment is all about.

I know we are going to get a point of order, but really, we ought to waive that point of order and put on the floor the issue: Is this House willing to Make It In America, to bring the American jobs back home? Is this House willing to allow American taxpayer money to be spent on American-made goods and services? Or are we simply going to do a point of order and avoid the fundamental question that was raised by my colleague in her previous discussion, how are we to spend the American taxpayer money? I say spend it on American-made goods and services.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Point of Order

Mr. Chairman, we could use the rules of this House to promote policies that are beneficial to the American Government, beneficial to the American taxpayer, and, most importantly, beneficial to the American workers, whether they are employed in the steel industry or the construction industry, or we could use the rules of the House to deny American workers the opportunity for jobs.

We are spending $50 billion in this legislation, and we ought not use the rules of this House to deny American workers, to deny American companies the opportunity to use the American taxpayer dollars to build America. The rules of this House are flexible. They can be used to benefit America and American workers or they can be used to the detriment.

The question the Chair has before it is, How will we use those rules? Will we, in this House, strengthen the American economy by requiring that the American taxpayer dollars be used here in America? Or will we use the rule in the opposite way, to the harm of American workers?

I suggest, Mr. Chairman, you rule in favor of American workers and override the request.

Mr. Speaker, I don't think we will take a full hour here, but there are a couple of things that we need to talk about.

I always like to start these hour sessions with why we are here; what are the values that we want to put forth.

Why do we spend these hours in the Chamber?

What is our job here?

I often find myself going back to FDR. He said back in the thirties something that has always been with me. He said: ``The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.''

The test of our progress: Do we provide more to those who have much, or to those who have too little?

How can we meet this test?

What can we do?

Today is one of those days that I guess comes from ``A Tale of Two Cities''; the best of times and the worst of times.

I am going to put up this photo of a levee break in California. I represent 200 miles of the Sacramento River Valley and probably have over 1,100 miles of levees. Today, actually is the best of times. The levees are not breaking. Actually, we are in the middle of a drought.

But today, at the White House, the President signed the Water Resources and Reform Development Act, an extremely important piece of legislation for my district, and for America, because this legislation provides for the protection of our cities. It provides for the flood control programs that are absolutely essential in my part of California and all across America.

So, Mr. President, thank you very much for signing that legislation.

And for the Members of this House and for the Senate that decided that it was time to put aside all the partisanship and to do something right for the people of America, we actually made progress today and the Water Resources Reform and Development Act is now the law of the land.

For California, Hamilton City will see their levees, after 15 years of effort, they will see their levees under construction in the coming year. And God willing, there won't be a flood this winter. And also an end to the drought, thank you.

Natomas, the city of Sacramento, major levee improvements there, and along Yuba City, along the Feather River, 40 miles of levee improvements now underway, and also over in Marysville.

We are thankful that there was bipartisanship and that there was a major piece of legislation. We have to provide the funding, but the authorization is there.

So this photo of a levee break in California, we can put it aside and we can then talk about this. This takes us back to FDR.

The Water Resources Reform and Development Act not only deals with levees and floods, it also deals with the ports. It deals with the inland waterways. It deals with the locks and all that comes with the transportation in the sector of water transportation, whether it is on the east coast ports, the ports in California, Long Beach, Los Angeles and in my area, Stockton and Sacramento ports.

We are talking about 13 million jobs, and these are the good, middle class jobs that Americans need. They want to go to work. They want a job. They want to be able to support their families. They want to be able to have a home. They want to be able to have that vacation.

With the Water Resources Reform and Development Act, now law, signed today by the President, we will see 13 million jobs in the future. They are not going to happen tomorrow, but they will over the next 5 years, as this bill--over the next 2 years as this bill goes into effect.

So FDR's challenge to us: What have we done for those who do not have enough?

Today, the signing of the Water Resources Reform and Development Act provides for those who do not have jobs the opportunity. For those who are in harm's way in floods, it provides for them to have those levees built over the next several years.

For those who have abundance, well, maybe their home is behind the levee also, or maybe they also will benefit from the improvement of our ports and waterways. So that is the good news.

So what happened today on the bad news side?

Well, let's talk about that. This is a picture of an Amtrak train that has been built in Sacramento, California. This train was paid for by the stimulus bill, which some in this House think was a failure, but the 600 employees in Sacramento at the Siemens manufacturing plant there, they don't think it was a failure: $800 million in the stimulus bill 5 years ago to provide for 100 percent American-made locomotives.

This is the most modern locomotive in the United States. It will soon be running on the Northeast corridor between Washington, D.C., and Boston, made in America, made in Sacramento by Americans, 100 percent American-made.

So why am I talking about something that happened in this House 5 years ago with the stimulus bill, the American Recovery Act? Why am I bringing it up tonight?

Because today, the House of Representatives passed an appropriation bill for transportation and housing, a woefully inadequate piece of legislation that actually will reduce funding for public transportation.

Amtrak may not be able to use this train, may not be able to use the locomotive that was built specifically for the Northeast corridor because our Republican colleagues reduced the funding for Amtrak and actually passed legislation to further restrict public transportation, Amtrak and public transportation, in our cities all over this Nation.

Why would they do that when we know, when everybody knows that transportation is absolutely critical, that public transportation, whether it be Amtrak or a light-rail system or a rapid transit system in any of our cities, is absolutely essential for those people who have little ability to travel to their jobs?

Whether it is on a bus, light rail or a train, they need to have that public transportation.

So what did our colleagues do?

They reduced the money for public transportation all across this Nation, whether it is Amtrak or your local light rail or your local bus system. Why? Why, when we know that we also have to deal with climate change?

And how can you deal with climate change when you do not fund the public transportation systems of this Nation?

It makes no sense. In fact, it is nonsense. You want to put people to work?

You put people to work in building the infrastructure of this Nation, whether it is a train, an Amtrak locomotive, or a levee, or a port, you put people to work building the transportation systems.

We know that we also have a major funding bill that is necessary. We have to reauthorize the transportation programs. The MAP-21 expires this year. We know that this summer the highway trust fund runs out of money.

So where was that money in the transportation bill?

It wasn't there. Reductions.

So who is going to build?

Who is going to repair our bridges?

Are we going to be able to do that?

Probably not, not with the money that was not appropriated today for the transportation programs.

But the President has proposed a major reauthorization of the transportation programs. It is called GROW AMERICA. It expands our highway fund some $302 billion over the next 5 years, an expansion so that we can repair our bridges.

We know across America, some 25 to 30 percent of the bridges in every district that the 435 of us represent, every single one of us have a bridge that is subject to collapse. In my district, I probably have more than 200 bridges that are in desperate need of repair for the protection of the individuals and communities that use those bridges, as well as the commerce that is dependent upon them.

But, no. We don't have a transportation bill on our side. We need to take the President's bill, we need to embrace it because it is fully paid for. It has not only the money that is currently available from the various programs that currently fund it--these are the excise taxes on fuel, whether it is gasoline or diesel, but it adds to that another very large sum of money by corporate tax reform.

Those corporations that have been able to skip out of their responsibility here in the United States to pay for the programs that all of us depend upon, they would have to pay their fair share in a corporate tax reform.

That money would then flow into the transportation programs, providing the money that we need to build our transportation system, whether it is the light-rail systems, the heavy rail, Amtrak systems, or the roads and the bridges of this Nation.

It is a good bill. It deserves our full support. We can tweak it. We can make little changes here and there, but unless we take up the challenge of transportation funding in this Nation, unless we are willing to work with the President and his proposal--we have no other proposal before us in this House of Representatives.

Let us embrace the President's proposal, make the changes that we think are necessary, but let us move forward. Let us make America move forward with a transportation program for this millennium, not for the last one, but for this one, one that provides all the benefits that we need.

I want to bring up another part of the transportation program--and once again, it is about jobs. The economist in this case, Mark Zandi, has done an economic analysis of the transportation programs and the infrastructure investment. By the way, this guy worked for John McCain in the McCain Presidential campaign.

His analysis is, for every $1 we invest in infrastructure, $1.57 is pumped into the American economy, so you are getting that multiplier effect. You are putting men and women to work, not just the hardhats, not just with the pick and shovels working on the roads and bridges, but also in the offices, the engineers, the architects, the economists, and all those who are doing the work in the back office.

So for every $1 that we invest--and let's think about it. The President's proposal is $302 billion over the next 5 years. Multiply it out. An extra $1.57 for every dollar invested.

So let us take Mr. Zandi's analysis. Let us apply it. So we probably have somewhere over $450 billion of actual economic growth, if we were to follow what the President has proposed in his

GROW AMERICA transportation program.

Has anybody got a better idea around here? I don't see much happening, but we know by midsummer, the transportation programs in America face a highway cliff. The Federal highway trust fund runs out of money--no new contracts.

Some 700,000 people are likely to be laid off in the ensuing year, unless the House of Representatives and the Senate takes up the challenge of funding the transportation programs of this Nation.

It is ports. It is highways. It is bridges. It is the bus systems. It is the Amtrak system. It is the rail systems of America. All of these are part of the President's proposal, and it is something we ought to take up and we ought to move forward with.

What we have been talking about here in these hour-long sessions over the last 3 years is another piece of this puzzle.

When we do infrastructure--whether it be the Water Resources Reform and Development Act, the levees and the ports, and the inland waterways, the locks, the channels, all of those critical parts of the Water Resources Reform and Development Act, as we do that and the transportation bill, we need to think about how to increase the multiplier that Mr. Zandi talked about.

He talked about, for every $1 we invest, you get $1.57 growth in the economy. However, he did not take into account another critical aspect of this.

This is our Make It In America agenda. If we take that $302 billion Presidential program and we take the piece of it that he has suggested--that we take the Buy America law that has been in effect in the United States since 1933--and we expand that from the current 60 percent content; that is, for every dollar spent in the transportation programs, we would go to 100 percent of that money being spent on American-made steel, concrete, iron, and American-made products of all kinds, so that when we build a bridge, it is American steel, and it is made in America.

The Make It In America agenda says: let us spend our tax money on American-made equipment, on American steel, by United States companies operating in the United States, that the men and women of America get to benefit from the tax money that they have contributed to our transportation programs.

This is the Make It In America agenda. It is using our tax money to employ Americans, American steelworkers, American bridgebuilders, American contractors.

I wanted to give you an example of what happens when you do not use the Make It In America agenda, when you ignore the 1933 law that says, at a minimum, 60 percent of the content in our transportation programs must be spent on American-made steel, American-made equipment.

Here is what happens. This is a picture of the new San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge. It opened less than 7 months ago. It is a marvelous piece of architecture. It is quite a bridge. It has beauty, and it is extraordinarily expensive. This is a single-suspension bridge, so it is suspended on both sides, an architectural marvel.

However, all of the steel here in this 500-foot tower and the steel on the roadway was not produced in the United States. It was made in China by a Chinese Government-owned steel mill that was actually expanded and built on the backs of the American taxpayer--$1 billion spent of American taxpayer money, directly sent to China, to the Chinese Government-owned steel mill.

By the way, there were significant delays, and there were cost overruns because the Chinese steel manufacturer did a shoddy, crumby job of producing the parts of this bridge.

All of the welding was done in China by Chinese welders that were, by all accounts and by audits done by Caltrans, ill-trained, ill-prepared, and had done thousands upon thousands of very inadequate welds, so that when this incredible bridge arrived by boat from China, the welds were inadequate. There were cracks.

In fact, much of the welding was done in the rain in Shanghai. When you do welding in the rain, you are going to get a very bad result.

So there were thousands of problems, all of which led to a delay, and all of which led to additional expense, a prime example of what happens when you do not follow the law. The law said 60 percent content in the United States.

However, the Schwarzenegger administration in California figured out a way to circumvent the law. They took this bridge, a multibillion- dollar bridge, and they broke it into 20 different pieces, so that they could avoid the Buy America law--the result: made in China, 3,000 jobs, shoddy work, additional expense, and additional delays.

The President's proposal, the GROW AMERICA proposal that he has given to this Congress to consider and which we ought to consider, would say that, in this case, if you are going to use American taxpayer money to build a bridge, then it will, over the next 5 years, ramp up from 60 percent American content to 100 percent American content.

Let's do it. Let's Make It In America. Let's employ Americans, and let's tell the Chinese: you build your own bridges in China, but by golly, in America, it is going to be built by American steel and American workers.

That is what the President is proposing for us. That is what we ought to be doing, and we ought to be embracing the notion that we cannot do it on the cheap, as this Congress did attempt to do less than an hour ago with the passage of the Transportation-Housing appropriation bill, totally inadequate money to deal with our fundamental transportation programs, to say nothing of the housing programs that are desperately needed for the low- and moderate-income people of America.

If you care about the American workers, if you care about the ability of this economy to prosper, then we must embrace an aggressive, fully- funded, robust transportation program.

We must fund the Water Resources Reform and Development Act that the President signed today, and we are grateful for his signature. I am personally grateful that communities in my district will be able to have protection from floods in the future, as a result of that law.

However, the question will come to us: Are we willing to put up the money to build those projects? Today, we have a prime example of the unwillingness of my colleagues on the Republican side to fund the transportation program that this Nation desperately needs.

The infrastructure of this Nation is the foundation upon which the economy will grow. These are the issues of the Make It In America. Tax policy, the President addresses that in the GROW AMERICA. He says that American corporations cannot duck their responsibility to this Nation.

He has proposed tax reforms for corporations to pay their fair share--no more running away, no more getting a tax break for sending jobs overseas, but, rather, pay your fair share, and build America.

We will come to energy policy another day.

His proposal also calls for the job force preparation, so that we are training those men and women who are going to be our future engineers to build the bridges of the future, so that we will have the men and women that know how to do the welding--apparently, the Chinese could use that kind of training also--so that we would have the job training programs that at every level--the back office accountants, the engineers, the architects, the men and women that are operating the heavy equipment, and those that are doing the welding on these projects, that is part of the proposal that the President has put forward, and that is part of the GROW AMERICA proposal.

So the labor and the education come together. Down here, infrastructure. This is the Make It In America agenda. Tomorrow, my Democratic colleagues and I will be talking with our leader, Steny Hoyer, about how we can take an additional package of bills and advance the Make It In America, the GROW AMERICA proposals.

We would hope our colleagues here on the floor of the House of Representatives would embrace a bipartisan effort to really build our infrastructure, to take what success we had in the water resources and reform and take that success to the transportation issues that confront this Nation. There is much more that we must do.

As we do these things, we will also address a fundamental problem that faces this Nation, which is climate change. This is real. I studied this in the 1990s, when I was Deputy Secretary of the Department of Interior, as we prepared the American agenda for the Kyoto climate conference. Unfortunately, the treaty that came back from that conference was never adopted by the Senate in the 1990s.

So to this day, we have yet to address this issue, and we must. This is an issue that will cause flooding across this Nation. It will cause sea levels to rise, which we are already seeing, and it will lead to more severe storms, which we are already seeing.

How can we do that? Again, back to the transportation bill, back to the water resources bill. Put together the levees that we need to protect ourselves, and put together the transportation systems that allow for increased public transportation, whether it is on a locomotive built by that German company in America, in Sacramento, which is the most modern locomotive in the United States, made in America 100 percent.

Maybe it is a streetcar or a fast rail system or a bus, again, financed by Americans, built by Americans with a Buy America proposal, our taxpayer money used to employ Americans as we build high-speed trains, as we build new locomotives, hybrid buses, or whatever.

That public transportation will lead to a reduction in greenhouse gases, and if we eliminate the congestion that is caused by our inadequate highway system, we also will reduce greenhouse gases, all of which is good for climate change.

There is much more to be said. But now for more than 3 years, I have stood on this floor and brought to this floor and to the attention of this Nation the Make It In America agenda, which is part of the transportation system as well as part of our highways and ports system. So we are going to continue with this.

The plea I have to my colleagues--435 of them, Democrats and Republicans--is that we learn from our success. The Water Resources and Reform Development Act was a success--a bipartisan success. It lays the foundation for the protection that we need from floods, as well as growing our economy on the rivers, locks, and the ports of America. It was a good one. We thank the President for his signature today. Step one.

Step two comes to us over the next 3 months as we face the highway cliff where we know that if we fail to enact a new highway bill, we will see 700,000 Americans unemployed, losing their jobs over the next year. We have to get this job done. The President has laid out a good proposal. We can tweak it, we can make changes to it, but we must take it up, and we must move forward with the transportation program. And when we do, no more--no more bridges made in China, only bridges made in America, American taxpayer money spent in America for American steel and American workers.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, the United States Government maintains a series of ships that are standby, available to the Navy to be used in our national defense. Historically, these ships have been crewed, owned, and operated by American citizens.

There may be an attempt underway to change that to allow these ships to be crewed, owned, and operated by foreign entities. This amendment would preclude that.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, I don't intend to take 5 minutes, but this issue is rather important.

In the long history of the United States Navy, we have always built our ships in America. The Ready Reserve Fleet is part of our national defense system. It provides ships that are necessary for the hauling of cargo that are always ready and available for the military to move its equipment--men, supplies, women--wherever they may need to go across the oceans.

That reserve fleet is going to need to be recapitalized and replaced over the next several years. The question before us is whether that fleet and those new ships will be built in America or in China or Japan or Korea.

This amendment would simply require that they be built in America, as they have in the past.

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

Point of Order

Mr. Chairman, I wish to be heard on the point of order.

The point of order issue has been rather flexible, as we have seen in previous appropriation bills that have been on this floor. When the majority wants to change the law, it seems as though a point of order isn't appropriate. But when someone else wants to address a crucial national issue, such as making sure our shipyards have the work and our Navy and the Ready Reserve Fleet is American built, then I suppose a point of order seems to have some further power. Therefore, I don't think a point of order is appropriate.

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

Mr. Chairman, I understand the point of order. We are going to be facing that with my other six amendments, but I would like to speak to this issue and also to the others at the same time, and I will drop the other amendments.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of driving across San Francisco Bay on the brandnew east San Francisco Bay Bridge, a multibillion-dollar project. The steel of that project in its main section was built in China. It was fabricated in China. The Chinese steel company built a new steel mill, the most advanced in the world. There were 3,000 Chinese jobs and zero American jobs.

The way they are able to get around the Buy American provisions is that the State of California segmented the multibillion-dollar project into 20 different pieces, therefore avoiding the Buy America provisions on this crucial center span of that bridge. This amendment would prohibit that from ever happening again.

The other amendments speak to the $50 billion that is going to be spent by this bill and would require, in various

ways, that that money be spent here in America on American-made goods, American steel, American products, and on American workers.

We ought to buy in America. We ought to make this other national policy. We ought never have another Bay Bridge. We ought to do what we did in the American Recovery Act that required that some $800 million for Amtrak locomotives be spent on 100 percent American-made. Indeed, Siemens, a German company, has established a manufacturing plant in Sacramento to manufacture those locomotives.

One of the other amendments I will not be taking up tonight deals specifically with the rolling stock for public transportation, that it, too, be American-made and that we increase the percentage of American content from 60 percent to 100 percent.

This is American taxpayer money. That money ought to be spent in America. American taxpayers should demand it. The Members of Congress should demand that their taxpayers' money be spent on American-made equipment, goods, and services. This is part of the Make It In America agenda.

It is most specific here at this time, as we are about to, in the next day, spend $50 billion of American taxpayer money. Are we going to spend it on American-made equipment, American goods and services? Or are they going to be coming from China or somewhere else in the world?

The question is very straightforward for all of us. Unfortunately, because of the point of order that will be raised on this and the other six amendments, we will not have a chance tonight, tomorrow, and perhaps in the days ahead, to really do something for America in rebuilding our manufacturing sector by requiring that our taxpayer money be spent on American-made goods, services, and on American workers.

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

Point of Order

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the people of California's 3rd Congressional District, I want to congratulate the AP Government students and their teacher Mr. Paul Heaney at Rio Vista High School for completing a class report on three major policy issues: welfare reform, health care, and unequal access to education.

The students, Victor Aguilera, Frederick Alvarez, Jamie Moe, Dylan Coito, Alexandra Correia, Hannah Cronin, Christina Curiel, Eric Del Aguila, Diana Elisea, Tyler Gomes, Jonathon Heaney, Alexis Johnson, Rebekah Kinser, Chace Marlowe, Alexa Martinez, Melanie Oakes, Lily Roberts, Christina Rutledge, Alyssa Schneider, Caroline Schulz, Kimberly Scneder, Maria Silva, Brady Swing, Dora Uribe, Raven Vance, Elizabeth Ventura, Antonio Wright, and Emily Zepeda demonstrated hard work in this inspiring program. Education is about developing knowledge and critical thinking skills. These students are civically engaged, reaching their lawmakers with policy recommendations on key issues facing our nation.

I was honored to learn more about their recommendations during a class visit on Tuesday, May 28. They engaged in a robust debate and succeeded in finding compromise on complex issues.

Their willingness to work together in good faith and to build consensus is laudable and a lesson for us all.