Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for this opportunity. At least once a week we come before the House to talk about jobs, that little four-letter word that is so important on everybody's mind--can I get a job, will I have a job, what does it take to get a job in America. We still have far too high unemployment, and we still have a great need to ensure that our jobs produce the kinds of wages and opportunities that Americans really want. They want to be able to buy a home, have a car, raise their families, provide the necessities, and see their kids get a great education and opportunity.

We have a long way to go. We have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go. One of the critical ways that America can and must build jobs is build the infrastructure, to make sure that those foundations of the economy will grow, upon which cities will be built, those things that allow us to prosper, the critical investments. In this case, the physical investments are the issue that we are going to talk about today.

We have an opportunity. Beginning tomorrow, a conference committee will be formed here in the Capitol made up of Senators, Republican and Democrat, and Members of the House of Representatives, both Republican and Democrat, sitting down together. Oh, yeah, together, actually at the same table, tomorrow morning, 9:30, to beginning a conference committee on the Water Resources Reform and Development Act, otherwise known as WRRDA. If you are around here long enough, you know what that means, but I guess the rest of the world really needs to know it is the Water Resources Reform and Development Act.

And so 13 million jobs, 13 million jobs in America depend upon how well that conference committee does its work. The House of Representatives a few weeks back put out its version of the bill. The Senate did several months ago. Senator Barbara Boxer from the State of California, my colleague, will be chairing that committee. We have work to do. We have the task of making sure that 13 million American jobs that depend upon the Water Resources Reform and Development Act will be secure. It is a big one.

So what is involved in the Water Resources Reform and Development Act? Well, how about this: 99 percent of America's international trade travels through our ports and waterways. That is a big number. I suppose there is some 1 percent that travels on airplanes, and those are probably very high-ticket, high-priced items. But if you are talking about the great, almost the entire, majority of America's work, that goes through our ports and waterways. This is what the Water Resources Reform and Development Act is all about. It is about our ports, the great ports of America. It is about the waterways of America. It is about the locks and the dams on the rivers.

Let me put this up for just a second. This is an interesting map. I don't know if many Americans have really considered the map of the United States and the waters of the United States. Obviously, the coastline, we don't have Alaska on this map, but it should be there also. The great coasts, the east coast, the gulf coast, the Pacific coast, and of course on and around Alaska. That is not all. Each of these rivers also is a waterway upon which commerce flows; and tomorrow, with the conference committee for the WRRDA bill, we will be discussing how to make these rivers more attuned to the environment and to commerce.

On the great Mississippi River, the Missouri, the Ohio, and the Illinois Rivers and all the way up into Wisconsin, an enormous amount of America's commerce flows along those rivers. And joining me in just a moment will be Representative Bill Enyart from the State of Illinois, and he will be talking about some of these issues as they relate to that part of the world. But this great river system in the central part of America is a major highway. There are interstate roads, to be sure, and there are local and county roads, but most of them feed into this great system that moves up and down the Mississippi River. The Water Resources Reform and Development Act is all about that. It is all about that commerce on that great river and about whether the locks and the levees that are on that river are adequate to meet the needs of commerce and the needs of public protection.

For those of us on the west coast and the east coast and even into the gulf, it is about the ports. It is about the ports of America and whether those ports are adequate for the commerce that we need to have. So when you happen to go by a port and you see one of these tied up at the dock, you can think about the American economy and about 99 percent of the international trade that goes in and out of our ports. It is a big deal. It is a very, very big deal, and most of America's ports are antiquated. The shoals, that is the mud and sand at the bottom of the ports, have been accreted, that is, built up over the last several years; and it needs constant dredging. And so part of what we will be dealing with at the WRRDA conference committee is the dredging of the ports and quite possibly the shore side, what is going on there.

These are subjects that we will come to in the next few minutes as we talk more about how we can build jobs in America and simultaneously build the American economy by building the great infrastructure.

One more issue I want to put up here before I call on Mr. Enyart is this one. You see all of these rivers here; they are critically important. They are critically important for commerce and trade and obviously water and agriculture and all the rest. But sometimes-- virtually every year--they are also a major problem for America.

This happens to be a picture of a levee break on the Sacramento River system. I happen to represent 200 miles of the Sacramento River. This break is all too common across America; and so the Water Resources Reform and Development Act, which will be up tomorrow in the conference committee--it is not going to be finished but at least it will make some progress toward completion--will deal with the levees.

The Army Corps of Engineers is the responsible Federal agency for the maintenance of the rivers, for the waters of America, whether they are in the rivers or along the shore. They are responsible for the ports, that is, for the maintenance of the ports, not the ports themselves. And in my district, the Army Corps of Engineers plays a major role in public safety because it is their responsibility to make sure that these levees are adequate to the challenge of a flood. When those levees are not adequate, great damage is done across America. It is approximately $22.3 billion of annual unspent American treasure that is still in the pockets of America and the governments of America when these levees work. When they fail, it is a huge expense--floods, flood damage, and the like.

I would like now to call on the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Enyart) to share with us his view of the necessity for the Water Resources Reform and Development Act and the way it protects and helps his district.

Thank you very much. Sometimes I want to call you Congressman, and sometimes I want to call you General. Always we are going to say that you really know the Mississippi. You served there in the National Guard, providing the protection to the people, and to have a very good sense of what is necessary in that part of Illinois and beyond.

As you were talking about the issues of moving goods and services up and down the great Mississippi River system--Ohio, Missouri, and the other rivers--there is about $1.4 trillion of goods that move down that river into the other ports across America and is shipped out across the entire world. That is 30 million jobs. You were talking about that.

You also raised a point that is very important, and that is that it is not just the ongoing jobs of the tugboats and the barges, the granaries and all of that, but it is also the job of building the infrastructure itself. The men and women that are going to get out there and put together the new docks, the new levee systems--all of those things require manpower. And we know that there is an enormous benefit. Every dollar that is invested in infrastructure returns well over $3 back into the economy immediately, to say nothing of the long- term benefit that comes of having that new lock system in place, more efficient, longer locks so, as you said, more of those barges than just one towline can work their way through the lock and not have to be broken up into smaller towlines.

So there are a lot of issues in this piece of legislation. It is going to be an extremely important moment in moving the economy forward. This is the first time in 6 years. It has been 6 years since the Congress and the Senate got together to do a water resource reform and development program. Why? I guess we just couldn't quite figure it out, but we have to do it this time.

There is a need for very serious reform in this system. We know that many of the projects that are undertaken, that the Corps of Engineers is working on, are forever trying to get in line and get in place.

We know that many projects simply are derelict; they never should be built. So the bill removes $12 billion of derelict projects that should never be built and replaces them with new projects that are critically important. Some of those are the locks along the Mississippi and the Ohio system and some of the other dams that are out there.

For me in California, we know that these projects are critically important. The city of Sacramento, Mr. Enyart, is one of the most flood-risk cities--in fact, it is No. 2 in flood risk; probably No. 1, now that New Orleans has had an opportunity to have its flood walls rebuilt following the devastation of Katrina. Now it is Sacramento. It is a huge population in a very risky area, a population that I represent part of and share with Congresswoman Matsui, the city of Sacramento.

It is a little different than New Orleans. When Katrina came through, it was flooded, to be sure, and terribly damaged. Many lives were lost. But the water was warm. In Sacramento, if the levees were to break on the American River or the Sacramento River system and flood that system, we are talking about very cold water, water that people would not survive in for more than a few minutes because of the temperature and hypothermia. So we really need to build those levees.

As I go into this task of being on the conference committee where I will serve as one of the representatives of the House of Representatives, I will be looking at those kinds of projects that are really about human life, the safety of my constituents and the safety of constituents all around this Nation where these levees need to be built to a high standard. Many of them need to be repaired in my district, the delta of California. Many of the levees are over 100 years old and were never built to standards that would be applicable today.

So we have work to do. We have levees to build. We have ports to build. We have channels to dredge. We have jobs that will be created when we pass this bill and adequately fund it.

One other thing that is possible here is not only will we create jobs directly in building the ports, dredging the rivers and channels, building the levees and repairing them--those are direct jobs. Not only will we do that. We will also have the long-term foundation, the investment necessary for future economic growth. We will also, if we do one more thing--and I hope to get this into the legislation. That is to make sure that there is a strong buy America provision.

This is going to be American taxpayer money that is going to be used for the steel in the locks, for the cement, for the pilings in the piers and probably the dredges that will be used for the channel. This is all American taxpayer money that will be used to buy and maintain that equipment. If it is American taxpayer money, then, by golly, you ought to be buying American goods. So buy American. Use our taxpayer money to build the rest of the manufacturing sector of America. Build our steel industry by buying American steel for the locks and for the piers and for the cement and for the other work that needs to be done. Make it in America. It is very simple. Use American taxpayer money to make it in America and to buy American goods.

So I am going to be working very diligently on that conference committee to make sure that this buy America provision is strongly embedded in the legislation. I know that if we are able to do that, we will not only improve our levees, dredge the channels, build the ports, but we will also have the opportunity to make American jobs in the manufacturing sector.

Mr. Enyart, you may have some additional thoughts that you would like to bring to our attention. If so, please have at it.

Well, we also, Mr. Enyart, in California we have those same issues. Let me swap places with you. I want to put up one of the maps here of California.

Mr. Enyart, you were talking about the central part of America. You certainly can see it here, as you were discussing the Mississippi River system and your area, up here in the Illinois area.

In California, we think we are a real big State and we have got a lot of people, and this legislation is extremely important for California. I am going to just point out some of the--San Francisco Bay, one of the great maritime bays in the world. We would argue there is none more beautiful nor more important than the San Francisco Bay.

In and out of this Bay flows a vast amount of commerce to the Port of Oakland, and also up to the rivers, into the central part of California, through the delta on the Sacramento and the San Joaquin River, where trade now goes, international trade, to the Port of Sacramento and the Port of Stockton.

Very, very important because, like Illinois and the great Midwest, we have a vast agricultural economy here in the central valley of California, and a lot of that, particularly rice from my district, goes out of the Port of Stockton and Sacramento.

Both of those ports now have channels that are of insufficient depth to bring in the large ships, and so it becomes much more expensive. The issue you raised, Mr. Enyart, about the cost of shipping, if you have small ships that can't carry a full cargo because of the depth of channel, it gets more expensive.

So in this area, channel maintenance at the Port of Oakland, channel maintenance for the Ports of Sacramento and the like and, of course, up along the Contra Costa County area, where the refineries and the oil tankers come and go.

As you move further south, we have got the ports, mostly fishing down here along the coast and, of course, Monterey, which is famous, Pebble Beach and the Monterey Bay area.

Then you get down to Los Angeles, and the two great, great harbors of America, side by side, together form the largest harbor system in this Nation, and you can argue whether it is the largest in the world, but it is surely big, the Port of Los Angeles, represented by Congresswoman Hahn, and the Port of Long Beach, side by side there in the Los Angeles area, Long Beach represented by Mr. Lowenthal.

Those ports are really one of the major engines of international trade and economic growth, and of course, from those ports, those great cargos move in and out, all across America on the railways and highways. So we have that.

Then of course you can get down here to San Diego, some other harbors along the way in Orange County, and then the harbor of San Diego, which is extremely important for the military. Any time you happen to get to San Diego, you will see the aircraft carriers there from the U.S. Navy and other critical equipment and ships of the U.S. Navy. All of that is important.

Here in my district--I am going to put up another map, and this is where I really get involved. This is a map of, obviously, San Francisco Bay here, with the harbor of San Francisco, the Port of San Francisco, the Port of Oakland, Alameda in here and up along the Contra Costa coast.

As you get into the delta, this is the largest inland delta, or the largest delta on the west coast of the Western Hemisphere, and one of the great inland deltas of the world. There are more than 1,000 miles of waterways here in this delta area.

I represent about half of that area, the Sacramento River going up here and the San Joaquin River coming here, and then down into the great San Joaquin Valley. These areas are all protected by levees, and so the rivers are confined within those levees, and many of those levees, as I said a while ago, are more than 100 years old, and they need protection.

The water system of California, water flowing from the north, across these, through these waterways that are channeled by the levees to the great pumps down here, delivering water to southern California and the San Joaquin Valley, depends upon these levees.

This is part of the WRRDA bill, and so these levees and protecting the water system of California and the great agricultural enterprises of the delta are critically important, and the Water Resource Reform and Development Act provides money for the maintenance and the continuing studies of these levees, as well as for many of the critical environmental habitats in the area.

As you move up the Sacramento River, you will come to the great metropolis of Sacramento, which I talked about, and here, the American River coming in with the Sacramento River. Right in this area is, arguably, the highest flood danger area in America, and there is a project right here in the Natomas area that is absolutely crucial, crucial to life and limb.

Then as you move on up in the rest of my district, going up 200 miles from here to here, you have Yuba City and Marysville, again, communities that have flooded in the past, with the loss of life, and those too are dependent upon the success of the WRRDA bill.

Now, what we are going to do tomorrow, and in the days ahead as we move through this conference committee--and my task, is to get the policy set. But the other side of it is the money. Where's the money coming from?

Well, the austerity budgets that have been such the prize of our Republican colleagues really have stripped money away from the projects that we have been talking about, stripped money away from the maintenance of the ports, the dredging of the channels, and the protection and enhancement of the levees. That money has been stripped away.

So, with the first sequestration that took place about 8 months ago, $250 million of money that the Corps of Engineers would have for the ports, for the channels, and for the levees, disappeared. That was Sequestration 1.

On January 15, Sequestration 2 hits, with another $90 billion hit, and we are not sure exactly how much the Corps of Engineers will lose, but they are going to lose a vast amount of money.

So all of the talk, all of the energy that we are putting into writing the appropriate policies to reform, to improve, to put programs in place for the American economy, aren't going to happen. Well, many of them are not going to happen because of the austerity budgets and the two sequestrations.

This is a critical problem, a critical problem, and I would reach out to my colleagues, both Democrat and Republican, and say, but there is money. There is money available, but we are not spending it in the right place.

In the budget bill that passed the House of Representatives a few months ago, there was an increase in the authorization well above what the President wanted to build and rebuild nuclear bombs, over $12 billion over the next decade, for just one life-extension program on a nuclear weapon, the B-61--$12 billion.

Now, it can be argued, and I would argue this, that that was an extraordinarily inappropriate place to spend money. We don't need that bomb for deterrence, I don't believe. The military may argue that we do, but then they can never get enough of these things.

My argument is, we need to spend the money where real danger exists, and that real danger exists on America's rivers when these levees are not up to standard. When the levees protecting New Orleans were not up to standard, people died, billions upon billions were lost.

When the levees in Sacramento are not up to standard, billions will be lost and people will die, and that is an immediate threat.

We have got plenty of other nuclear weapons for deterrence, but to spend $12 billion in a way that I believe would be better spent on things that protect real people in real-life situations--so we are making judgments here. First of all, we are making a judgment--well, I wouldn't say either you or I, Mr. Enyart, are making this judgment, but our colleagues, particularly on the Republican side, are making a judgment that they believe you can build the American economy with austerity; that is, to cut the Federal expenditures. I disagree.

There are critical investments that the Federal Government should and must make. This is not new. Often we hear the talk around here, the Founding Fathers.

Mr. Enyart, have you heard people talk about, well, the Founding Fathers would do thus and so? We hear it all the time.

The Founding Fathers, let's take Washington and Hamilton, shortly after he was inaugurated--

Oh, by the way, Washington refused to be inaugurated in a suit made in England. He was inaugurated in a suit made in America. There was only one tailor at the time that would do that, but he did it.

Then he told Hamilton, I want a policy to build the American manufacturing sector. Hamilton came back some days later, probably 2 or 3 months, with a program, not 2,000 pages, but probably a couple of hundred pages at the most, and he said: We need, in America, to do the following things: to build the American economy and the American manufacturing base.

He said, one, we need to build ports. We need to build canals, and we need to protect American industry by using American taxpayer dollars to buy American-made goods. He said, beware of trade policies.

Hamilton and Washington wanted trade policies that protected the American manufacturing sector and American agriculture.

Interestingly, in the next few days, or in the next few weeks, we are going to have the question of trade policy before us here in the House of Representatives, and it is likely to be the Trans-Pacific Trade Program.

What is it?

Well, they want to fast-track it, where not one person on this floor will be able to say, wait a minute; we ought to change this, or we ought to change that. So we ought to be paying attention to the Founding Fathers who said, watch trade policy. Protect American jobs.

So as we go through all of this, in my district, we are going to have to have the money, American taxpayer money, plus a lot of local taxpayer money to protect the citizens in my district and the ports.

About $1.8 billion is collected at the ports to rebuild, to dredge, and to maintain the ports. About half that money is siphoned off for other projects.

Beware of austerity budgets. No more sequestration. This Nation cannot afford that terrible policy of sequestration because it will rip the heart out of the critical investments that America has to make.

I have rambled on here for a little while and went off to some other things. Mr. Enyart, would you like to pick it up for a while?

But ``compromise'' is not a dirty word in my lexicon. Compromise is absolutely necessary. There are things in the bill that I would have written differently. In the conference committee, there are going to be differences between the House and the Senate in how we do.

You have mentioned some of the issues. The environmental issues, some of them are controversial. But there is a major part of this bill to speed these projects forward and to hold the Corps of Engineers responsible for getting things done. Part of it is they have got 3 years to do the initial study, and they have got $3 million to get that study done, and their feet are going to be held to that commitment to get these projects moving forward. So there is a lot of reform in here, in the bureaucracy of the way this system has worked. There is also a lot of reform in this on allowing the local partnerships.

All of these programs are partnerships. They are partners with the local governments, ports, as you described earlier, local levee districts, and the like. Those partnerships, under present law, have a very difficult time to start a program early, to get it going without the Corps' permission. So what we have, we call it ``crediting.'' And that allows these local governments, local ports to begin a project. Eventually, there is a whole new process in here for selecting which projects will be done.

By the way, we are not going to do earmarks. There are no earmarks in this legislation. No earmarks are allowed in the future. But there is a process to prioritize projects across the Nation, and ultimately, Congress is taking back some of its power to set the priorities for the Nation.

But that crediting that allows the local governments to get started, we are going to want to move that a little bit forward because in my district, because of the austerity budgets and the sequestration, many necessary projects are not allowed to move forward. But with a little tweaking of this language, which I will be working to get done, it will allow some of these projects to go forward. And the local share would then be counted if and when--if and when the Federal Government, the Corps of Engineers, actually decides to make that a national project.

So this is going to be very important. It is probably important in your area, for some of the levees in your area that are maintained now by the local levee districts and flood protection districts.

We spent a lot of time in the House and also in the Senate. We are going to have to work out some of the differences, some of the compromises. Not so much Democratic and Republican, but some regional differences and some differences about how the system should work, so we will work on that.

We have got about another 5, 7 minutes, so if you would like to wrap, and then I will wrap. And then I am going to do something that is not too common here. I am going to take this ball of some of this international trade and I am going to toss it to my Republican colleague, and we will let him bat it around for a while.

Well, this is part of what we ought to be doing, and that is looking at these issues and maximizing the potential and the benefit that comes from a project. Let me give you another example of the same thing, and it is along the environmental line.

Right now the Corps of Engineers, while dredging in the San Francisco Bay area--let's just say the Port of Oakland over here. When they dredge there, they have to use the cheapest way of disposing of the dredging materials, called spoils, mostly sand and clay. They take it out here to Alcatraz, and they dump it in Alcatraz, and the tide takes it out past the San Francisco Golden Gate.

Well, we are saying, wait a minute. That is extremely valuable material to build habitat in areas that have been despoiled over the years. For example, down here in the southern part of the bay, these were great salt flats where the salt industry used the bay and evaporated the bay water to get salt. Well, those need to be restored. And it is quite possible that the material from the dredging could be used in that way or another habitat program, even up here into the delta. But it is not the cheapest.

So we are looking at a little tweak here that would allow the Port of Oakland or the other ports in the San Francisco Bay area and, really, around the Nation to do an environmental project along with the dredging project very similar to what you are talking about on the Mississippi River.

So I see common cause here. I see common cause where we can maximize

the total benefit for the Nation. It could be an additional cost that the port will have to pick up. Okay. But we get a twofer. We get environmental benefits as well as the economic benefits to the port.

Have you got any other things on your list?

General Enyart, Congressman Enyart, or Bill, thank you so very, very much. I really appreciate working with you tonight on this critical issue, the fundamental investment.

Let's remember, this is not new. The Army Corps of Engineers has been around since the very earliest days of our democracy. The Army Corps has been responsible for the waterways of America, and the Water Resources Reform and Development Act is going to be an opportunity for America to really move its infrastructure, particularly the trade.

Remember, just to review, we are talking 13 million jobs immediately depend upon the Water Resources Reform and Development Act. We are talking about 99 percent of our trade travels through our ports and waterways, whether it is on the Mississippi, the Sacramento, the San Joaquin Rivers, or the great ports and the coastal part of America. It is critically important.

And as we do these things, we have the opportunity to reach back into the history of America and remember what the Founding Fathers talked about way back in George Washington's very early days: that these fundamental investments in what they called canals and ports and roads were critical to the growth of the United States at the very, very outset. George Washington and Alexander Hamilton also recognized the importance of international trade and that we get those trade policies correct.

So as we get ready to do the Water Resources Reform and Development Act, which is critical--and the conference committee starts tomorrow, and I have the honor of being on that conference committee--we also think about the way in which the trade of America is dependent upon our work in getting sound policies in place.

And it is also critically important in dealing with the issue of international trade agreements, whether it is the transpacific trade program or the new one that is being worked on with Europe, we have to protect our own jobs. We have to protect the American economy. And in doing so, we must carry out our constitutional responsibility given to us by the United States House of Representatives and the Senators. The Constitution says that it is the legislature, Congress and the Senate, that shall set trade policy, and that requires that we have the opportunity to look at the details of every trade policy and not fast- track trash through the House.

Joining me and taking up, as I wrap up my hour, is my colleague on the Republican side. Why don't you take my last couple of minutes, and then you can have your own half hour.

Well, thank you so very much. And I look forward to working with you on that issue. I know it is going to be coming.

Well, we don't know exactly when. But they are trying to wrap up. Our trade rep, our ambassador is trying to wrap this up and present it to us. And they are talking fast-track. And I am going, time-out, guys. Time-out. We need to review. We need to make sure that it is fair trade. Not just free trade, but fair trade--fair to the American worker, fair to the American manufacturer, farmer, and the like.

I like that word, too. Can we compromise on that?

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Officer Steven Trojanowski who is retiring after more than 35 years of law enforcement service, with nearly 24 years of that service to the City of Fairfield.

After serving five years as a Reserve Deputy with the Placer County Sheriff's Office and six years as a Deputy Sheriff with the Contra Costa Sheriff's Office, he was hired as a Police Officer with the Fairfield Police Department on November 27, 1989. Officer Trojanowski served the community in a number of capacities within Patrol, Traffic, Investigations, and Quality of Life Bureaus.

In addition to routine patrol assignments, he has served as a DUI Enforcement Officer, Detective, Field Training Officer, provided law enforcement support to the City's Quality Neighborhoods Team (QNT), and earned a Lifesaving Award. Some of his most significant contributions to the Police Department have been his knowledge and experience, solid investigative skills, and quality reporting techniques. Officer Trojanowski has been a dedicated team member and a positive representation of the Fairfield Police Department.

He has been a valued employee and his commitment to the community was second to none. Officer Trojanowski was a loyal representative of the law enforcement community and admired for his hard work, dedication, and positive work ethic.

Mr. Speaker, 435 Members of the House of Representatives spent the last 10 days back in their districts. I suspect, like me, they had a chance to meet with their constituents to talk about the issues of the day and to see America's real progress, the progress that is taking place in our communities.

I would like to share some of those experiences that I had over the last 10 days with the Members of this House because they are instructive about what we ought to be doing here in the House of Representatives.

Every person I talk to, probably more than 30 meetings, many of them public in nature, townhall meetings, meetings at manufacturing plants with the workers, meetings at the universities, all of those people had the same agenda. Frankly, it ought to be our agenda because it is America's agenda.

They want this economy to grow. They want this economy to provide the job opportunities that Americans must have. Those good hardworking American families, they want to go to work, they want to have a decent wage, and they want to be certain that when they are sick they have an affordable health care policy.

We hear a lot of rhetoric here about the Affordable Care Act and ObamaCare, but back home people are trying to figure out their insurance programs, just like they do every time at this time of year. Every year it is time to renew your insurance policy and people look at new policies. They put aside the old policy. They get a notice that their old policy, the cost has gone up or the coverage has changed.

Now they are in the same situation, but we have a name for it now. We call it ObamaCare. Americans always in the fall have a high level of confusion as they try to figure out what to do with their health care for the coming year.

At one meeting I attended this last week with a group of doctors and administrators, they said: This will work it out, this is no different than we have seen every year. We know that at the end of this process the health care insurance will go on and people will have coverage. Then they added: But this year, there will be far more people with health care coverage, and in our hospital there will not be as much uncompensated care, that is, people that don't have insurance. So they said: Just keep working at it, let this thing settle down, let it go forward because we know that in California millions of our citizens and our neighbors will finally have health care insurance.

But hey, this is a place of rhetoric, this is a place where we create problems like the new crisis that is going to come up in just 2\1/2\ months. Oh yeah,

we have manufactured yet another crisis. On January 15, we are going to have to go through our quarterly funding of the strongest government in the entire world. Hello, you said. You mean you are actually funding the United States Government once every 3 months? You don't have a full year funding? That's right, we don't. So we have yet one more manufactured crisis.

Be aware, January 15 is coming. Is there another government shutdown? The American people, my constituents in my district, said: Don't let it happen again, don't let it happen again. It hurt us, it hurt us. In our businesses, we had to lay off people. But Mr. Congressman, what we want is a steady, steady policy out of Washington. We want to know what the long-term looks like. We want to know what the long-term tax policy is. We want to know what the funding programs are going to be for the military, for the social welfare programs. We don't want to have to--as one constituent told me as I visited their Head Start program--we don't want to have to lay people off, we don't want to have to tell the children, the 600 in my district that are no longer in the Head Start program: Oh, I am sorry, you can't come to school next week because funding from Washington was cut.

It is time for us in the House of Representatives to settle down. It is time for us to put aside all of our rhetoric. We know we have to work together. It is time for us to come up with some long-term solutions for America's problems. Tonight I would like to talk about how we can build jobs here in the United States, how we can rebuild the manufacturing sector of the United States economy, a sector of the economy that just 15 years ago employed just under 20 million Americans with solid jobs, where the wife or the husband could go to work each day knowing that they would bring home a paycheck sufficient to pay the mortgage on the house, to buy a car, and they had a health insurance policy provided by their employer. Now, we are somewhere near 11 million Americans in manufacturing, and many of those health insurance programs have disappeared.

What we need to do is go back to the basics. We need to go back to those critical investments, both public and private, that have created this incredible economy. Even though manufacturing is smaller, nonetheless the economy of the United States remains the biggest in the world. But if we continue with this 3-month funding of the Federal Government, if we continue to withdraw the critical public investments and the critical inducements to the private sector to make their investments, we will see our economy slip away. We will see the strength of this Nation ebb, and we will wonder down the line what happened.

Well, there are several things that allow America to build these kinds of things. That's a modern locomotive, an electric locomotive destined to be on the Amtrak lines here on the east coast. It was the first modern locomotive made in America, 100 percent American made in probably the last 60-70 years. How did it come to pass that this locomotive and about 77 other locomotives just like it will be on the tracks here on the east coast, 100 percent American made? How did that happen?

Well, it happened with government policy. And so the men and women and children who ride the trains here on the eastern corridor are going to have a new system available to them. Critical investments were made over the years, critical investments in each one of these issues, and these are the ways in each of these areas, in international trade, in tax policy, in energy policy, labor relations issues, education, research, and infrastructure. Oh, by the way, none of this is new. These are not new things. These have been in place in America since George Washington's time. Indeed, George Washington reached out to Alexander Hamilton shortly after he was inaugurated as the first President of the United States, and said, Hey, Alex, I need some help here. I want to build the American economy, Alex, so what can we do?

Well, Alexander Hamilton said, Let me work on it.

He came back about 2 months later with a report. Our reports are usually 2,000 or 3,000 pages. His was maybe less than 50. He said there are things that we can do at the Federal level to grow the American economy, to build the manufacturing sector of America. He called it manufacturers, and he said trade policy. We need a trade policy that protects American manufacturers against cheap imports coming into the United States, against those who would subsidize their businesses to the detriment of American businesses. He said trade policy. We need a trade policy that protects American manufacturing.

That was Alexander Hamilton in his report to George Washington in the first months of the first administration of the United States Government.

Tax policy was also there. He said that in tax policy we shouldn't be taxing ours, our manufacturing products. We should be taxing those products that are coming from overseas. Those are called duties, and so tax policy was part of it.

Actually, energy policy wasn't on the list at the time so we can kind of put that aside, although that is an extremely important discussion for today; but for the purposes of today, we will let that go.

Labor at the time was not such a good thing. There were no laws protecting the men and women who worked, and certainly there was slavery and all the horrible things that went with that; but labor policy was also not part of what he talked about.

But he did talk about education. This was probably a conversation that I'm not sure Hamilton and Jefferson had, but education was very much a part of the early effort in the American Government to stimulate economic growth, manufacturing and the like.

Interestingly, research wasn't specifically called out; but while they didn't use the term ``research,'' they used the word ``patent,'' ``patents,'' and ``patent policy'' which was also part of this report. While they didn't say ``research'' formally, what they did say was out of the innovative and inventive mind of Americans would come new ideas and there needed to be a patent policy to allow those new ideas to mature and inure to the benefit of the inventor and the entrepreneur.

So way back at the very beginning of this Nation's economic future, certain policies were laid in place that actually led to the extraordinary growth in infrastructure. Hamilton specifically said, and George Washington agreed, that there needed to be a transportation policy for the United States. We are calling that infrastructure today. Then they called it canals, ports, roads. Today we call it canals, ports, roads, airports, we call it Internet, we call it telecommunication systems. It is the infrastructure upon which the economy then grows.

Way back in the 1780s, these ideas were presented to the Congress of the United States, some of them enacted by the Congress, some of them enacted by the various State governments. And over the years, as generations have gone by, as new men and women have come to sit here in the Halls of this great Congress and in the Senate, and new Presidents, there has been a constant drumbeat of critical investment by the United States Government in the foundation of economic growth.

And today, in the debates that are occurring here on the floor of this House and across this Nation, there is a debate about the role of the Federal Government in the future economy of the United States. You just heard part of that debate from some of my colleagues who preceded me here on the floor saying that the United States Government really ought not be involved in health care too much. Okay, they didn't like the Affordable Care Act. They want it to disappear, repealed, defunded or otherwise gone. Well, okay. But there is this thing called Medicare. I don't hear anybody on the floor saying--well, they actually did call for the repeal of Medicare, but that hasn't gone very far.

But the Federal Government is involved in many, many aspects of American life; and in those things that create economic growth, you will find us now involved soon in a debate about trade policy. Should we have unlimited free trade in which the American businesses are open to unfair competition from around the world, from workers that are paid virtually nothing in some of the less developed countries of the world where there are no laws about working conditions, where factories

collapse? Should American businesses have to compete with that kind of competition? I think not. So I would use the words ``fair trade,'' not free trade, but fair trade--trade policies that are fair to the American worker, that give the American worker a chance to compete in the world markets rather than having our business simply run away chasing the cheapest wage rate in the world.

So trade policy is going to be discussed here with the Trans-Pacific partnership program and perhaps a similar one for Europe. We must be very careful, very, very careful as we analyze this that the American worker is not put in a disadvantageous position and situation where they will lose their job to competition, unfair competition from around the world. So it has to be fair trade.

Let me move down here to the infrastructure issue. My district is 200 miles of the Sacramento River Valley. I probably have 1,000 miles of levees that protect farms and ranches and cities from floods. We have had disastrous floods in California over the years and over the centuries. Those levees are critical, a critical infrastructure to protect not only human life and property, but to allow businesses to grow. Right now without proper levees, farmers who want to put in a feed mill, farmers in my district who grow rice who want to put in a rice drying facility and a silo in which to store that rice, or even a cow barn for their dairy, find it difficult and in many cases impossible because the levee that holds back the floodwaters from their farm does not meet the 100-year flood standard set by the Corps of Engineers and FEMA. Therefore, they can't build unless they get insurance, and the insurance program is unaffordable.

So we see right here that the growth in the agricultural sector in my district is retarded from lack of investment in the levees, upgrading and maintaining those levees so they meet the minimum standards. This is something the Federal Government has played a role in forever, it seems. Certainly for the last century and a half, the Federal Government has been involved through the Army Corps of Engineers in building levees to protect cities, whether it is on the Ohio River, the Mississippi, the Missouri, or in California, the Sacramento and the San Joaquin Rivers in that central valley and beyond.

So what are we doing today? Well, we passed a Water Resources Development Act a couple of weeks ago. Good for us. The Senate has passed their bill. We need a conference committee. I understand the Senate has named conferees. The House of Representatives has yet to do so. All of that is good. We will set out a good policy, I hope, one that sets proper controls, provides for prioritization, a policy that would make sure that there is no waste, fraud and abuse, and that efficient and effective policies are the ones that would be funded by the American taxpayer. All good. But there is a problem. The problem is, where is the money to pay for this? It is not there. Why? Sequestration and severe budget cuts.

We are actually seeing a very rapid decline in the amount of money that is available for infrastructure investment and for other programs that the Federal Government has carried out over many, many decades.

So we can put the best policies in place; but unless we have the money to build these structures, then those farmers that want to improve their operation are not going to be able to do so. So we ought to think seriously about infrastructure investment, in this case protection for floods. The same thing goes for the cities in my district and across this Nation. We know there is a big brouhaha going on around here about the increasing cost of flood insurance. Yes, it is a real problem: like quadruple, in some cases there is a ten-fold, increase in the cost of flood insurance in certain communities around the Nation. Everybody goes, We didn't mean to do that. Indeed, we didn't mean to do that; but it did happen. Now we have to back that off. As we back that off, we need to consider the fact that it is not just flood insurance; it is the protection from floods.

And so when Superstorm Sandy comes again, will the east coast be prepared with the necessary flood walls and facilities to repel the flood? Only if we adequately finance the infrastructure investment in this case for flood protection.

Highways and bridges, well, I don't know, there is probably several thousand bridges in the United States that you want to cross very quickly, or you don't want to be on that bridge with a very heavy truck. We have deficient bridges in every part of the United States. We have seen those bridges collapse with catastrophic results, people losing their lives, cars into the rivers, trucks into the rivers. These bridges have to be repaired. And drive on any highway in the United States, you will see some new asphalt, some new concrete, but you are going to see a whole lot more new potholes. You are going to see the deterioration of the highway system in the United States. There is insufficient money even to maintain the repair and good state of those highways. It goes on and on.

Where will we find the revenue? We are continuing to see a decline in the willingness of the Federal Government, us, Members of Congress, to fund these programs.

Infrastructure, critically important in many ways, and I have only dealt with two of those issues here tonight.

I want to pick up the one that is really the genesis of economic growth, and it is research. I mentioned earlier that George Washington, while he didn't use the word ``research,'' used the word ``patent,'' which comes from research being done by some individual or group that created a new product. They got their patent on it so that they could then use that in the commercial marketplace and hopefully make a profit.

Research has been around a long time. Most of the research in the early days was probably mostly in the area of the military, done in part by the military, dating way back, in trying to upgrade their weapons. But beginning in the 1860s, Abraham Lincoln signed a law called the land-grant college program and established, across the United States, a series of colleges and universities who had a specific function of researching for agriculture.

Over the years, that has grown into an extraordinary research capability within the United States. And now, not only do we have the agricultural research--and I must say, with some pride, that I represent the University of California, Davis, which is the largest, most successful, most advanced in total--I am not putting down anybody else--agricultural research program in the world. There are a lot of other great programs out there, but in terms of size and reach, the University of California, Davis is way out front.

What other kinds of research are there funded by the United States Government? The National Institutes of Health. How do we keep people healthy? What about disease? What about heart conditions, cancer? The National Institutes of Health; the National Science Foundation; NOAA, dealing with oceans and atmosphere; NASA, dealing with space. All of these research projects are fundamental to economic growth, and all of them have Federal funding. Some of them have partnerships with State, some with private funding, but these partnerships have created the foundation for economic growth.

I had the pleasure of being at the University of California, Davis earlier this last week, meeting with the heads of four departments, each of them engaged in a different kind of research--earth science research in some cases, water research in others. Everybody knows that California has its water issues, and right now we are in the early stages of what I hope and pray is not a drought.

We have these researchers out there and other research on health issues. All of them are saying that the sequestration and the budget cuts of the Federal Government are severely impacting critical research that was about to mature into a solution for a health problem, into a new way of conserving water or a new energy system using hydrogen or solar. But those projects that they were working on have been stalled and, in some cases, set aside, so the opportunity for economic growth coming from that research is slowed or stopped. We can't allow that to happen. Not only is it immediate jobs, but that is the research that will create future jobs.

I want to give one example of the way in which research actually works out together with regulations, regulations to protect our air, regulations to protect our water--the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and other regulations. Some of them are now dealing with the issue of climate change.

I am a member of the Safe Climate Caucus, and there are many of us that belong to this caucus. We are trying to say we have got global warming. Whether the tragic typhoon in the Philippines was directly caused by global warming--I think it is no accident that we are seeing stronger storms just as predicted. Anyway, our Safe Climate Caucus is concerned that many here in Congress are trying to shut down commonsense Environmental Protection Agency guidelines that are designed to keep our air and our water clean and healthy and to reduce the disastrous consequences of climate change.

These regulations can actually drive technological development and they can strengthen our economy. When those policies are paired with the entrepreneurship, the inventiveness of the individuals and businesses out there, some really interesting things happen and jobs are created.

Last week I visited one such program in California. It is a program put together by Recology, which is a company that operates in my district and in San Francisco. They are a recycling, a composting, and a landfill company, and they have a landfill. They are involved in some very interesting and innovative ways to separate the waste, to recycle, all to the good.

But they have another project. They have teamed up with a company called G2 Energy. It has put in place a facility to take the methane gas that comes off of the landfill that at one point went up in the atmosphere--do keep in mind that methane gas is around a 20 times more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. They put in a project to capture that methane gas, take it out of the landfill, put it in a pipe with a vacuum, run it over to a Caterpillar engine manufactured in America--actually, it is a big marine engine that probably was driving some very large ship, but it now is sitting there next to the landfill, attached to a generator, and producing an extraordinary amount of electricity.

That is innovation, and that is the kind of things that can be done. That methane coming off the landfill into the Caterpillar engine and into the generator will replace more than a million gallons of diesel fuel that was once used to run that very same kind of an engine. That is the kind of innovation that can occur when coupled with research and wise public policy.

There are so many other pieces to all of this, and we will talk about it in the days ahead.

One of the things that I want to just kind wind up with is why it is important. So, do keep in mind trade policy, tax policy, energy, labor policy, education, research, and infrastructure. These are the foundational investments that any economy must make if they want to see sustained economic growth. Unfortunately, we are falling off the power curve on many of these policies.

Here is why it is important. Here is why this discussion is important. Here is why manufacturing and growth in the American economy is important. These are words that Franklin Delano Roosevelt put forward. 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.

We know that after the great meltdown in 2008 and 2009 that millions of Americans lost their jobs. We also know that, in the last 5 years, the economy has come back, that additional wealth has been created. We do know that the gross national product of the United States, which is its wealth, has grown. What most people don't know is where that wealth went. That wealth went to the top 10 percent. About 95 percent of the wealth generated over the last 5 years has wound up in the hands of the top 10 percent, the most wealthy people in America.

So the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt come directly back to a manufacturing and jobs policy for the United States. If we make the critical investments to grow the economy, to provide the infrastructure, to do the research, to deal with the international trade, to think back to what George Washington had in mind as a Founding Father, then we can begin to establish policies that grow the American economy, that reestablish America as the mightiest manufacturing country in the world, and, in so doing, create those jobs for hardworking Americans that go to work every day, want to pay their bills, want to pay their house mortgage, buy the car, see that their kids get an education, see that they have an adequate health insurance program. If we do those things, then these words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt will begin to ring true, and we will begin to add enough for those who, today, have too little. That should be our challenge.

It is not our place to make sure that the superwealthy and the billionaires and others get even more. It is our place that those who struggle every day, many in poverty--and the poverty rate in California is 25 percent or more--that those who struggle every day to provide for their family, that they have a chance of a good education, an opportunity to get that job, that middle class job. If they have that, then this country will prosper and the kinds of divisions that sometimes rake us over the coals and cause us great consternation and trouble will be abated. They will never disappear--I have no illusions--but they will be abated, and they will be less. That should be our goal.

As we approach the next fiscal crisis, just 2 months away, we should think about those men and women out there that I saw--and I suspect many of my colleagues saw as they returned home and went to their districts and went to all their meetings--who said: Can you just give us certainty? Can you stop the interminable fighting and the chaos that is causing us such concern, that is causing me not to invest in my business? Just give us certainty. Give us a program that builds a foundation so that my business can grow and prosper. Give us the tax policy that has the proper incentives, not just for those who have great wealth, but for those who are trying to grow their business. Give us a trade policy that is fairer to the American worker, fairer to the American business, that doesn't just give away this great country's wealth to some other company around the world, that doesn't encourage our businesses, our American corporations to go offshore. Put those policies in place so that we can grow the American economy, so that Americans can have a decent job and fulfill their own personal vision of the American Dream. They can get on that ladder, leading wherever they want it to lead, climb as high as they can, that the impairments and the impediments are not there. That should be our goal.

We have about 2 months to avoid yet one other crisis. As we avoid it, I hope we keep in mind those things that create real wealth and real opportunity for all Americans.

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

Mr. Chair, I want to thank Committee Chairman Shuster and Ranking Member Rahall, as well as Subcommittee Chairman Gibbs and Ranking Member Bishop for their hard work in putting together a bill that all of us can support. There are many good things in the bill and a few things that still need some work.

The Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA) is a vitally important bill to my constituents in the 3rd District of California. The levee projects that are authorized will provide life-saving protection for residents throughout California's flood prone Central Valley, while other construction projects will help to rebuild our crumbling water infrastructure and create jobs. The improvements to revitalize our ports and waterways will bolster business development and ensure that products grown and manufactured in the United States will continue to be exported around the world.

I commend Committee leadership for finding a way to authorize much needed projects without violating the earmark ban. The Natomas Levee Improvement Project will be authorized when this bill becomes law, resulting in increased flood protection for thousands of residents in the Sacramento area. However, there is more we could do. There are approximately 15 projects that have Chief's Reports in the pipeline. They aren't yet completed, but should be in the next several months. I urge an expansion of the authorization to include those projects that will have completed Chief's Reports by the end of the Fiscal Year so that important projects like the one in the Sutter Basin can begin work without wondering when we might get around to passing another WRDA bill.

Much needed language was included to instruct the Corps to revise its regulations regarding levee vegetation. Each part of the country is different and it is vital that the Corps have the flexibility to make determinations based on the individual community and what is needed to provide the most protection. As the bill moves forward in the process, I urge my colleagues to be open to discussing changes to the crediting provisions. Crediting is critical to ensure timely investments in public infrastructure and encourage local communities to start sooner than later to respond to flood threats. One slight change I would like to see would be to move the milestone earlier as to when a non-federal sponsor of a project could begin receiving credit. This does not obligate additional federal funds, nor does it guarantee a non-federal sponsor will receive credit. It merely lets local communities begin to address risks to the public safety as soon as possible.

The Committee has taken strides to reform the way money in the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund (HMTF) is spent. Over the next several years, more funding will be funneled back to our ports to ensure those paying into the fund actually receive the dollars back to maintain the infrastructure. Again, more can be done to make sure California gets a fair shake. Most of our ports are donors to the fund, but get little back. The world is only getting smaller and we must do all that we can to ensure American products can get out of our country and into the global market. All of our ports are important to international trade and all should get adequate funding to be the best they can be.

This bill is a milestone in a divided Congress and represents compromise in an era of partisanship. A vote for this bill today is a vote for jobs and for our economy, two things we can all support.

Mr. Chairman, this bill is extremely important, and I urge support of the bill.

There is much in it to like; there are a few things that I think we ought to tweak as we move along. The levee vegetation issue is addressed. It should be modified slightly. There will be an effort to do that later.

The crediting issue is still out and about. It should be modified. It is extremely important to allow projects to move forward with local money, so I urge some modification in that.

Ports are absolutely critically important. There is great progress made in this and the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund being used for its intended purpose. I commend all involved in that.

The Chief's Report issue has been significantly improved. I want to thank the chairman and others for bringing back to this Congress the power that the Constitution gives it. The Chief's Report issue is there. I would recommend that we modify it slightly to give a little bit more leeway on when and where a Chief's Report is.

All in all, it is a great bill. Congratulations, and thanks to all who were involved in writing it.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this presentation. We had one of those very important moments to recognize the long service of one of our colleagues.

As we listen to those eulogies, I think all of us should be reminded of the awesome responsibilities that we share here in the House of Representatives. Bill Young, obviously, felt those responsibilities deeply. He carried them out for an extraordinary length of time--43 years. We are thankful for his service, for his memory, and also for what he has taught us about perseverance and steadfastness and also, as you can tell from the various eulogies, about working across the aisle.

Working across the aisle and finding the middle ground is what I want to spend some time on tonight.

Like my 434 colleagues, when we finished voting last Thursday, we all left this Chamber, I think, in a rather somber mood, realizing that 16 days had passed and our government was shut down and there was the likelihood of damage to America and Americans.

When we got home, I suspect all of us--and I know this certainly was my case--were confronted by our constituents. They were not happy. In fact, they were angry. They were angry that their government--the government of the strongest, most powerful Nation in the world--wasn't operating because

its legislative body had failed. And we had failed to find the common ground; we had failed to protect this Nation and Americans.

It was a grand debate over the Affordable Health Care Act, then it morphed into some other kind of concerns, and ultimately wound up somewhere about the deficit and about the default. At the end of that process, I don't think Americans really much cared what the debate was about. What they cared about was the very nature of our government and whether it would be able to operate.

It was a heavy toll. It was a heavy toll on our Nation. It is estimated it was well over a $24 billion hit to the economy; and I know in my own district, there was a tremendous hit. As I got off the plane here in Washington, D.C., as I was returning today from California, at the airport, ready to fly back to California, was the chancellor of the University of California-Davis. She caught me as I got off the plane, and she expressed her deep concern for the university and its operations.

Research projects that were under way simply stopped.

Sitting next to me on the airplane coming out was a woman who was running a health and nutrition program for the U.S. Department of Agriculture that was associated with the University of California- Davis. It was shut down for 16 days, and just the enormous challenge of shutting down and starting back up, the loss of efficiency and the lost research that took place.

Those kinds of problems are repeated throughout my district. At Travis and Beale Air Force bases, over a thousand civilian employees were furloughed. In Lake County, the county family service center which provides support for victims of child abuse, domestic abuse, and rape had to reduce its services.

As I mentioned, the University of California and the U.S. Department of Agriculture weren't able to operate. Farmers who needed to get loans at the service center couldn't get them--right in the middle of the harvest season. Companies that needed licenses from the Department of Commerce to export advanced technology had all of their orders on hold; and, undoubtedly, some of them were lost.

In the far north of California, the wildlife refuges were closed during the opening of the duck season and also the antelope and deer season. In my own district in Dixon, an annual ``stand down'' for struggling veterans had to scramble for money to cover the Department of Labor loan that was not made available. The Small Business Administration was unable to approve business loans.

The entire economy of the United States lost over $24 billion. The economic growth of the Nation probably lost as much as half a percentage point. And for what?

It is hard to even begin to describe what the argument was all about over the Affordable Care Act--an act that is now providing health care services to over 4 million young men and women who are able to stay on their families' health insurance, for seniors who are getting preventive health care services. It goes on and on.

But here we are, once again. We got past all of that. Where do we go tomorrow?

Well, tomorrow we begin once again the struggle to define this government's future and, really, to define the future of America. I am going to spend a few moments talking about that struggle because on January 15 there will be yet one more crisis point--a focal point upon which the issues of government will be leveraged one way or the other.

We have seen five such crisis points in the last 3 years, and each one a crisis building up to a point where the American economy doesn't know what to expect and therefore does not make the critical investments, does not attempt to grow, because they don't know what the economic and political future will be.

We are going to endure that not just once in the next 3 months, but twice. January 15 will be the first opportunity for the next crisis--a crisis that will be about opening government or not. Because, once again, it will be a funding crisis. Will we be able to appropriate the money to operate the Federal Government? Less than a month later, on February 7, there will be one additional debt crisis. Once again, a default cliff will be reached.

And so the American economy, like a racehorse at a gate, hearing the trumpet, looking for the gate to open, ready to get out there and charge down the track, the American economy will face once again that gate slamming shut on it. Even as it wants to grow, even as that great American racehorse economy wants to head down the track, that gate has the potential of slamming shut. The uncertainty will be there once again.

We have got to end these fiscal crises. It is in the interest of Democrats and Republicans to end these manufactured crises and to put in place a long-term, stable policy that allows this government to make the critical investments to grow the economy, to put in place a tax policy that is sensible and long range and helps to balance the budget, that makes the necessary cuts to those programs that are not essential, and maintains and even enhances those that are essential.

Let me put up on the board just for a moment some of the numbers that we are dealing with over the next couple of months. I don't say this is the best chart. It is actually a bit confusing, but I think we need to try to understand the numbers.

This number, $1.203 trillion, was what President Obama suggested be the Federal budget for the year 2014. Back in 2010, the actual amount was $1.188 trillion. That is what we actually budgeted and spent that year. That was 2010. So there was some growth that the President recommended for the Federal budget.

What actually happened was quite different. What actually happened is down here in these lower numbers.

This year, the House Republican budget, otherwise known as the Ryan budget, called for $1.095 trillion, which is significantly under the President's budget. In 2011, the debt crisis came up once again and the August 2011 compromise said that we would spend $1.066 trillion in the 2014 budget. The Senate actually said we would spend $1.058 billion.

What did we actually do? What we actually did last week was to authorize an expenditure of $986 billion--a huge difference of some $217 billion less than recommended by the President.

What does this number mean? This number means that across this Nation vital programs in the military, vital programs in education, in health care, in agriculture, and in every activity of the government, except those of Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, were substantially reduced. That put an enormous drag on the economy. So not only was the economy faced with a 16-day shutdown, but it was also faced with a shallow and less robust Federal Government, laying off people all across this Nation. For the University of California at Davis, it meant that $40 million of research programs were not funded. Simply stopped.

This kind of effect on the Nation's budget or the Nation's economic activity is going to continue. And in the year ahead, economists predict that it will continue to cause a slowdown in the growth of the economy, lowering tax revenues, actually increasing the deficit, and creating higher unemployment--or at least not reducing the unemployment rate in this Nation.

We need to change that. We need to set in place a different policy. And here is where I want to go with this discussion. What is it that we really need to do to grow the American economy, to make sure all of the rungs on the economic ladder are in place and providing the opportunity for every American to have a decent job?

Hardworking Americans want to go to work. They want to have a job where they can support their family, where they can meet their own personal and family needs and participate in their communities in a meaningful way with a good, middle class job. There are ways that we can do that. One of them is what we call the Make It In America agenda.

The Make It In America agenda involves seven different policies, such as international trade policies. Instead of giving away our jobs to some foreign country, making sure that our trade programs actually encourage economic growth at home, not encourage economic growth in China. Also, that there be a tax policy that ends unnecessary tax loopholes and rebates for those companies that are profitable.

For example, of the top 20 American corporations, about half of them pay little or no corporate income tax. The tax system is set up in such a way that they are able to avoid their fair share of the cost of government.

So we need to make sure that the tax policies of the United States are wise, that they support economic growth, that they don't provide unnecessary tax breaks and loopholes to those individuals and corporations that don't need them. I will give you one example of such a huge tax loophole:

The five biggest oil companies in America together receive somewhere between $4 billion and $5 billion in reduced taxes every year. This is the most profitable industry in the world. Why are they getting subsidies? Why are we subsidizing them? Why is the American taxpayer subsidizing the most profitable industry in the world, the oil industry? This is just one example of tax subsidies, tax breaks, that ought to be removed and seriously looked at. We could significantly increase the revenue to the Federal Government by eliminating these unnecessary, unwise, and quite foolish tax breaks and subsidies that many corporations and some individuals receive.

Energy policy is extremely important. We need a wise energy policy. Right now, the United States is in the midst of an energy boom. It is reducing the cost of energy. All across this Nation, we are seeing the effect of this in the coal industry as natural gas is replacing coal- fired power plants, reducing greenhouse gas emissions. All of that is a very, very good thing. Also, we need to continue to move towards sustainable energy, the green energy systems--wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal--and other kinds of sustainable energy policies.

I am going to skip down here to research because this is where we have a real opportunity to tie together the research agenda with the energy agenda. An example:

We know that most of the oil that is produced in the United States and is imported is used for the transportation industry.

Recently, the Transportation Department provided a grant to the University of California at Davis to do some research on sustainable transportation. The world's top scientists have concluded that there really is such a thing as climate change and that it poses a very serious threat to humanity. The most recent report came out less than a month ago and concluded that we are in for some very serious troubles ahead unless we are able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide, a good deal of which comes from the transportation industry.

The good news is that we as the American public, through this government, can rise to the challenge, and communities, like the one I represent in Davis, California, are leading the way. The University of California at Davis has received a cutting-edge research grant for the research into transportation systems that are sustainable and that are not relying as much or at all on the carbon fuels, gasoline and diesel. So what are they--plug-in hybrids? Alternative fuels such as advanced biofuels, hydrogen fueling infrastructure and many other kinds of transportation--batteries and the like--are going to be part of this research.

The Department of Transportation asked the University of California at Davis to lead the National Center for Sustainable Transportation. This new consortium will consult policymakers as they implement real- world strategies to address climate change and other threats. In other words, by combining research and energy, we can move away from the dependence upon oil, particularly foreign oil, reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. So, as you go through this Make It In America agenda, certainly energy policy will be coupled with the research agenda.

Another part of this is labor. Is labor ready to accept the kinds of challenges that we are going to find in the new, modern manufacturing sector?

We need to invest in labor so that we have a well-educated labor force, and we need to invest in the reeducation of those men and women who have lost their jobs. Just two decades ago, we had nearly 20 million Americans in the manufacturing sector. Today, it is probably closer to 11 million. That means some 9 million Americans who once had jobs in the manufacturing sector are no longer employed in that sector. They need to be reeducated either in advanced manufacturing technologies or in other sectors.

The labor force is constantly evolving, and one of the roles of the Federal Government through the Department of Education and the Department of Labor and Commerce is to provide that reeducation necessary as one of the old manufacturing technologies moves, dies out and as new ones come along so that the labor force is able to move into those new jobs. So you see the combination of education and labor. These things work together.

On the educational side, it has been shown many, many times that an education really needs to start prekindergarten; yet one of the effects of sequestration, together with the government shutdown, was a significant reduction in prekindergarten education. In my district, some 6,000 young people were unable to participate in the Head Start program, not just for 16 days but for the many days out ahead, so they will enter kindergarten substantially behind their peers, providing an anchor to the economy as they move through their educational process, quite possibly becoming one of the high majority or the high percentage of students who drops out of high school.

As you move down this Make It In America agenda, we come down to one that is a fundamental investment, and that is the infrastructure system. We have a very high unemployment rate. There is no doubt about it. One of the ways to immediately employ Americans is to build the foundation for economic growth. These are all part of the foundation for economic growth. This is the concrete and steel when we talk about infrastructure. These are the roads, the airports, the railroads, the mass transportation systems, the sanitation systems, the water systems. So infrastructure becomes a critical part of any of the efforts that we need to make to rebuild America, to provide the foundation and to put Americans back to work.

There is some very interesting research that has come out of this, and here is a piece of it: for every dollar invested in infrastructure, $1.57 is pumped back into the economy.

So if, for example, the Federal Government were to undertake the robust infrastructure program that the President put forth a year ago and reiterated in his State of the Union speech this last February and if we passed legislation, as he wanted, to put $50 billion additional into the infrastructure program, the economy would not only be spending the dollar; it would be getting back $1.57 for every one of those $50 billion that the President wanted to put into America's infrastructure. Men and women would be working; the economy would begin to move forward more rapidly; and we would begin to see the kind of economic growth that this Nation needs to have, that the men and women who are unemployed or those who are seeking better jobs would want to have, and we would be laying the foundation for future economic growth.

We must keep this in mind. There are several things that could be done in this regard. One of them you just heard about during the brief interruption when the Rules Committee came here to put before this House tomorrow and in the days ahead the Water Resources Development Act. This used to be biennial legislation that Congress would pass every 2 years to put in place the water, resources, the development of levees, transportation systems, such as the locks and the rivers and the channels, the ports, other kinds of water transportation systems. You had water; you had sanitation systems; you had levees. All of these critically important infrastructure projects are in the Water Resources Development Act.

It has been 5 years since there has been a Water Resources Development Act, but we have a chance now to push forward in this House of Representatives in the next few days an extremely important infrastructure piece of legislation. The good news is there is a good chance we will do it. The bad news is it is inadequately funded. There is not sufficient money in that program to actually build the kinds of things that we must have.

So what are we going to do?

One of the solutions was again proposed by the President in his infrastructure program that he presented to Congress, which has really not been acted on yet--an infrastructure bank, a bank that has been in existence in Europe for almost 30 years now. It is a public-private partnership in which the government invests money and in which private investors can also invest. That money would then be available for those kinds of infrastructure projects that are cash flow projects--for example, a sanitation system, a toll road, a toll bridge, an airport, a water system. All of these kinds of infrastructures have fees associated with them, so there is a cash flow that is generated sufficient to pay off the loan that is made available through the infrastructure bank.

Such a program has been introduced here in the House of Representatives since at least the early 1990s. It doesn't exist--it has never been passed--although, every year, one or another Member of the House of Representatives has tried. I know Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro has introduced this for at least the last 15 years, but it has never been acted upon. You have to wonder why.

This seems to me to be eminently wise that we would create an infrastructure bank. The Federal Government can borrow money today. A 10-year note is just over, I think, 2.6 percent. That is really cheap money. Borrow that money. Put it in this bank. Loan it out at 2.8 percent to various cities, counties, water systems, and build the infrastructure. That is cheap money. It gives us a chance to get the economy growing, to employ people, to build the foundation for economic growth, and to raise taxes, not by increasing the tax rate but by people paying taxes because they are now working. What a novel idea-- people who work pay taxes just as we ought to be doing. So these are a couple of ideas about how we can move the economy forward.

There is another piece of this Make It In America agenda, and it is this: H.R. 1524. I like this piece of legislation. It is one I have introduced. What it basically says is: if we are going to build those clean energy projects--the wind, the solar, the advanced fuel, the hydrogen systems--all of which are subsidized by your tax money, then your tax money must be spent on American made: American-made wind turbines, American-made solar panels. Let's Make It In America.

Why should we spend your tax money to buy steel from China to build the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge?

I am sure your answer would be we shouldn't, but we did--6,000 new jobs in China, zero in America. It was supposed to be 10 percent cheaper. It turned out to be 10 percent more expensive because there were flaws in the steel; the welds were not satisfactory. No, no. That is American taxpayer money. That American taxpayer money should have been used to buy American-made steel and to create a new, high-tech steel mill not in China, which is what happened, but, rather, in America. We ought to be buying American. We ought to be using our tax money to buy American-made goods and services, and that is exactly what this bill does. This is part of the Make It In America agenda.

I am going to show you one other little picture here. Normally, our trains don't run upside down, so let me make it right-side up:

This is an electric locomotive--brand new, made in Sacramento, California, by Siemens, the German manufacturing company, which is one of the world's biggest manufacturing companies. Why in the world are they making electric locomotives for Amtrak in Sacramento? Why are they doing that?

For years, Siemens has had a light-rail trolley manufacturing plant in Sacramento. In the American Recovery Act--the stimulus bill--there was some $600 million for the purchase of 80 locomotives to replace the aging locomotives on the east coast Amtrak lines. Added to that $600 million was a sentence that said, this money had to be spent only on American-made locomotives.

Siemens looked at that and goes: Hmmm, we can make locomotives in America--and they did, in Sacramento, California. Probably a couple of thousand jobs, suppliers from all over the Nation providing the parts-- the electrical systems and the rest--for this locomotive, made in America, with American taxpayer money, because someone in the stimulus bill added a sentence to an appropriation and said, this money must be spent on American-made locomotives.

We can do that with every one of our expenditures--or at least many of our expenditures--using your taxpayer money on American-made goods and services, a very, very wise thing to do, which, incidentally, was first suggested by George Washington and Alexander Hamilton. So if you want to go back to the Founding Fathers, use some of their ideas where they said--Alexander Hamilton in a report to George Washington said that the Federal Government should use its purchasing power to support American industry--buy American, Make It In America, use American taxpayer money on American-made goods and services. Not a bad idea. We need to pass that kind of legislation here.

I am going to take just a few more moments and talk about one of the great challenges that we have. I am going to start with this man who seemed to understand what it took to rebuild and to move the American economy and society forward. This is actually on one of the monuments at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial here in Washington, D.C. When I took my grandchildren down there not too long ago, I read this to them and explained to them why this was important during the Great Depression, and why it is important today.

Roosevelt said during the height of the depression that ``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 is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, but rather it is we provide enough for those who have too little.

Most of us have an image of the Great Depression--the food lines, the hungry, the unemployed. America has gone through something not as desperate, but nearly so--the Great Recession, beginning in 2008. Millions of Americans lost their jobs--well over 8, maybe as many as 10 million. Even more lost their homes, and there was a lot of hurt upon our land.

We have been working now since 2008 to restore the American economy. The stimulus bill was one such way--the proposals of the President--to rebuild the American infrastructure, to educate our kids, and a host of other things, what he called the American Jobs Program--incidentally, not taken up by our colleagues here in the House of Representatives on the majority side. Nonetheless, he recommended different ways to address this fundamental issue.

How do we provide enough for those who have too little? How are we doing? How is America doing on meeting the challenge that Franklin Roosevelt laid out? The answer is seen in this chart and the answer is: not well at all. We are miserably failing to meet the challenge that Franklin Delano Roosevelt laid out during the Great Depression.

Here is what it is: of the economic growth from 2009 to 2012, the fraction of the growth that went to the top 1 percent--this is the new wealth that was generated by the American economy, the growth in the economy, the wealth, the growth in the economy--the top 1 percent got 95 percent of all of that wealth that was generated. The 99 percenters--99 percent of the American people--got to share 5 percent of the wealth that was generated by the economy.

This is a great tragedy. This is an unparalleled tragedy in the American economy. This is not just a 3-year period; this has actually been happening--not at the same horrible distribution that you see here--but it has actually been a phenomenon that has been going on in the American economy where the rich get richer and the great majority of Americans are standing still.

When I am not in my district and I hear people talk about their lives, they are talking about the fact that they are literally standing still economically. Poll after poll indicates that the American public knows and understands this. When asked how they are doing, they basically say they are just

treading water, they are not moving forward, they are just doing the very best they can to hang on, to keep their nose above the water, to not go under.

We have to address this phenomenon. This doesn't happen because of the weather, it doesn't happen because of God or some other mysterious force. This happens because of policy, policy that this Congress, together with the Senate and even the Supreme Court and the President, put in place, a policy that is skewing the nature of the American economy in such a way as to add great wealth to those who already have great wealth and little to those who have very little.

We need to adopt policies to change this. On the floor of the House of Representatives, there should be a piece of legislation to raise the minimum wage. $10 is a bare minimum. California--my home State--did that, raised the minimum wage to $10 and then a couple of steps will go on in the future, a couple of higher steps. That is good, that is good for everyone, even those businesses small and large that are going to pay that higher wage. What it does is to share the wealth that is generated by this economy, providing those at the bottom, those hardworking men and women that are at the bottom, the opportunity to sustain their families, to sustain their livelihood. That is but one.

If we make those critical investments that create economic growth, particularly education and job training, and put in place the programs that enhance manufacturing, we will see this begin to change, and we will see the 99 percenters begin to take their fair share of the wealth that they are generating. It is the men and women that toil, wherever they may be--in the Federal Government, in the State governments, in the manufacturing, in the fields of America--wherever they may be, those are the men and women that are creating wealth. I understand capital. It has a role in this, but capital and labor together. What we are seeing here is the men and women that toil are not getting the wealth that they helped to create.

This is a challenge. Tax policy is part of it. Policy such as minimum wage, the role of the labor unions putting pressure on the system so that the men and women that are working in those businesses are able to share more of that wealth. They are all part of this system, and we need to pay attention to it here on the floor.

So let's keep in mind the 99 percenters, who in the years 2009 to 2012 received 5 percent of the total wealth generated by the largest economy in the world--the American economy. Public policy means a lot.

Over the next several days, this Congress is going to deal with some profoundly important questions. The question of the role of the Federal Government--will we have another sequestration debacle on January 15? We could. The current sequestration, which the military is saying is a disaster for them, the education community, the research community, the transportation community, the health, the social welfare community, all say the sequestration is an unmitigated disaster.

They know, and the American public will soon know, that on January 15 the second shoe will fall and another $105 billion will be taken out of the economy beginning on January 15 unless this House of Representatives and the Senate, together with the President, come up with a viable alternative, one in which the growth of the economy can be assured, in which the continued austerity programs which are holding back an incredibly powerful resource called the American economy are put aside, and we put in place those policies that create economic growth. We have an enormous challenge.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a rather important day today. Sometime today or in the next 24 hours, the United States Treasury will run out of its ability to borrow money, that is, to roll over its debt, to pay all of the obligations that the United States Government has.

I guess, even this morning, we remain the world's biggest economy. We certainly remain the oldest democracy; although, that seems to be somewhat in doubt here on the floor of the House of Representatives where we don't operate as a democracy. We really operate more as a dictatorship, or at least as an oligarchy, in which one or two or a handful of people makes the decision for the majority of the House.

It is a very, very, very important moment that this Nation moves towards, the moment in which it, for the first time in its history, would default on its payments, default on its debt. We have already seen the effects of this. Banks all around the world are selling, that is, getting out of America's short-term obligations or those obligations, bonds, that are due now or in the next week or so. So they are shedding American debt. They are running away from the world's reserve currency.

Why?

Because this House, the House of Representatives, the people's House, is being jerked around, led around by a small contingent of folks who is not thinking clearly, who is not willing to understand the import, the importance, of the soundness of the American dollar, the importance of the full faith and credit of this Nation, of the 200-plus years of history where this House, where this government, where the people of America have always stood behind its obligations. But that group of individuals who is unwilling to be rational, who is the Tea Party faction of the Republican Party, seems to want to take this Nation into a new era, an era in which the world cannot count on the United States of America.

We are also in the 16th day of the shutdown of the United States Government in which the United States Government is only partially operating; in which the national parks, with the exception of just three, are not open; where the Fish and Wildlife Service's refuges are not available to the public, where much of the government is not operating. We are in the 16th day. Why? Why are we in this situation?

When it started 16 days ago, it was to end the Affordable Health Care Act, and then it was to modify it, and then it was to change it, and then it was to delay it, and now it is not even on the agenda.

So why are we still shut down?

There is no reason that is being presented other than what you might see in a preschool class with some kid who is too tired and is down on the floor, throwing a tantrum, screaming and yelling and trying to stop everything. Kid, get your blanket. Get your bottle and take a nap.

We don't need tantrums around here, but apparently that is the only reason the government continues to be shut down, because some 40 or 50 Members of the Tea Party caucus of the Republican Party are throwing a tantrum, led by Senator Cruz.

We don't need tantrums; we need cooperation; we need to work together. We have got serious problems. The shutdown has created even more serious problems and, as we run up to the debt crisis, yet one more problem, because 40 or 50 people are throwing a tantrum.

This is the House of Representatives, 435 of us elected to represent the people of America, to do right by them, to do right by this Nation's economy, by the working men and women. Even those who are laid off because of the shutdown want to work.

It is time for us to end this. It is time for us to go to work on the long-term problems.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Police Officer John D. Cooper as he retires after more than 28 years of law enforcement service, with 25 years of that service to the City of Fairfield.

After serving three years as a Deputy Sheriff with the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office, he was hired as a police officer with the Fairfield Police Department on March 14, 1988. As an officer, Cooper worked in various capacities that included Patrol, Investigations, Youth Services, School Resources, and Field Training. His high work ethic and dedication to police work was evident and he was promoted to Police Corporal on December 31, 1999. Officer Cooper has a genuine attitude of putting public service before himself and as a trainer of newly hired police officers, he taught them to be public servants as well as police officers.

Some of Officer Cooper's most significant contributions to the Police Department have been his ability to remain calm and communicate well during crisis situations. He has assisted with the investigation of numerous major crimes and high profile cases, and his keen investigative skills have contributed to the successful resolution and conviction of numerous criminals. Officer Cooper has been a good representation of the City of Fairfield and the Fairfield Police Department.

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

Mr. Speaker, may I speak on the point of order?

Mr. Speaker, on the question of the point of order-- and I would like to have an explanation about this--why are these rules being interpreted in such a way as to prevent the United States Government from operating? What is the purpose of this rule? Where was it conceived? And why is it constantly being put forward as a way of stopping the Federal Government from acting?

Mr. Speaker, there is a world of hurt out there. All across this Nation people want government to work; they want the parks open; they want the National Indian Health Service operating; they want to make sure that Head Start is up and operating; that the medical services are available; that Homeland Security is functioning.

Mr. Speaker, what is the point of the point of order, other than to stop the Federal Government from working?

Mr. Speaker, October 8. October 8. We are now 8 days into the shutdown of the government of the United States of America, presumed to be the strongest Nation on this Earth, presumed to be the greatest economic power, presumed to be the world's oldest democracy-- perhaps oldest, but not functioning.

Why? Why are we in this situation? Eight days without a functioning government. What in the world is the Republican Party doing to this Nation? And why? Why? It's hard to say why because every day the goalpost changes. Every day a different demand. And today yet a new demand.

But what's the result of all of this? What does all of this mean? It means that this Nation is humiliated by this shutdown.

Speaker Boehner, let your people go. Speaker Boehner, let your people go and vote. Why not? We think there's a majority. Let's see here. There's 198 Democrats that will vote for the reopening of this government tonight. Call us back into session, Mr. Boehner, 198 Democrats. And by the public record, there are 23 or more Republicans that have said they would vote for a clean CR. Mr. Speaker, let your people go and vote.

What does it mean that the government shut down? What does it mean to Americans? I'll tell you what it means in my district. It means that the day care centers, the early childhood education programs, the levee improvements, indeed, even today we've learned that the burials of those brave men and women--men, in this case--that have recently been killed in the war in Afghanistan, their families will not receive $100,000 that's been set aside for them.

Oh, I know we have a vote here. This is the eighth day of the shutdown, and we have, in this House, passed eight bills to appropriate pieces of this government.

These are the 12 appropriation bills. These are the 12 appropriation bills that fund every function of government, whether it's the military, whether it's the farm programs, the day care programs, the health care programs, the Centers for Disease Control. Here they are, more than 1,000 specific items. And in 8 days, our Republican colleagues have put before us eight bills to fund eight of the more than 1,000. At this rate, it will be 2020 before this government fully is functional. How foolish. How stupid. How humiliating for this Nation.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, let your people vote. Let us vote. Let us vote on reopening this government. The votes are there. A simple blackboard will tell you the votes are there. Tonight, call us back to session, and tomorrow morning the people of America, the people across this world will see the strongest Nation in the world, the government of that Nation functioning once again.

How do I go back to my district and tell the people at the Dixon National Cemetery that those burials aren't going to take place? How do I go back to my district and tell them--yeah, maybe we ought to see this.

In California, northern California, it's hunting season, opened on Saturday, but the refuges across this great Nation are closed to hunters, the duck hunters, the men and women that want to recreate in those areas. And if you're not a hunter, maybe you're a fisherman, but don't go to a refuge. Don't go to the Bureau of Land Management fishing areas. Don't try to put your boat in the water at the national parks. You can't do it because this government is shut down.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, let your people vote. Let us all vote. Let us reopen this government.

We have several of my colleagues with me tonight. We're going to cover this issue. How much I would prefer to be here with my colleagues from New York and other States to talk about putting Americans back to work. And I guess we are, in a way, putting the Federal employees back to work.

Mr. Paul Tonko from the great State of New York, thanks for joining us once again.

Thank you, Mr. Tonko, the gentleman from New York.

I would like now to bring to the microphone our friend from the great State of Connecticut, John Larson.

Thank you very much, Mr. Larson.

Mr. Speaker, a vote--that is what democracy is all about. We are asking for a simple thing: the opportunity to vote on extending the operations of the American government.

Now I would like to turn to the gentleman from the great State of Pennsylvania (Mr. Doyle).

Mr. Doyle, thank you so very much. The Republican shutdown has to end. It has to end, and how correct you were about the negotiations just this evening. They put a

proposal on the floor to create some sort of a negotiating committee that did not have all of the issues before them, as you so correctly pointed out, only their set of issues were to be allowed to be discussed by that negotiating committee, none of the issues that we care about on the Democratic side. That's hardly a negotiating opportunity.

I now yield to the gentleman from the great State of New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

Mr. Pascrell, thank you very much. Whether you're from New Jersey or wherever, I'm not about to threaten you. But I would like to welcome to this microphone our friend from the State of Massachusetts, who is probably just as tough as the gentleman from New Jersey, and that's Mr. Capuano.

Mr. Capuano, thank you so very much. I think it's a

tragedy you've waited 14\1/2\ years to be so eloquent in explaining how we got to where we are and the fact that the Democrats have consistently cooperated, compromised, and watched those critical programs that we care so very much about being consistently hacked away at and reduced and, in many cases, all but eliminated.

Now, we are in the eighth day of the shutdown of the United States Government that used to be thought of as the most powerful democracy in the world. At the moment, it's a democracy that's not working. As pointed out by my colleagues, there was an election last November in which these issues were all fundamental in that debate, and the American people voted to fully enforce the Affordable Care Act and to provide the services, whether they're education, transportation, health care, and the rest. Here we are, the minority party in this House and actually a minority of that minority party, driving an agenda that is anathema to those things that I believe we need to do and completely contrary to last November's election.

I would like now to call upon Mr. Ryan of Ohio, a gentleman who often joins us on these evening discussions. We'd like to talk about jobs, and we'd like to talk about rebuilding the American manufacturing sector. We know that can only be done when the United States Government is operating.

I yield to Mr. Ryan.

Mr. Ryan, thank you so much for bringing us just some sense of reality of what is actually happening here.

We're in the eighth day of the lockout. We're in the eighth day of the shutdown of the government of the United States of America. And it appears, from all that we hear from the Republican side, that this may go right up to the debt limit. What a tragedy it would be if we hit that and took down the entire economy.

I think it's time for me to close. I want to thank my colleagues. I would

ask the American people to pay attention.

And finally, Mr. Speaker, let us vote. Speaker Boehner, let us vote on a clean continuing resolution so that we can, once again, start this government. The votes are here. And if you don't believe the votes are here, put us up on the board. Let's see if there are 217 votes to reopen the American Government. We can only find out, Mr. Speaker, if you let us vote.

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

I thank the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) very much. And thank you for pointing out the foolishness, the nonsense, and even the hypocrisy of what's going on here.

My colleague Mike Thompson, with whom I share a good portion of northern California, very eloquently pointed out a real problem. When the duck hunters can't hunt, we've got a problem. Opening day, how many days to opening day? Zero. It was supposed to open today. Mr. Thompson pointed out that the refuges are closed up in the northern part of the State of California.

How about elk hunters? Elk hunters out there, opening day, today. The refuges are closed, and a good portion of the Federal forests also are unavailable.

Let's see, pronghorn hunting in northern California and southern Oregon was supposed to start today. Not on the refuges. They're closed.

Well, if you are a fisherman and you want to fish in the refuges, don't go today. They're closed. And, of course, the hunters. I think I'll just leave this one up here. These are folks that really get agitated. They have every reason to be agitated. This is nonsense.

I really wanted to take a few moments to explain to the American public what is actually happening here. We came up on this shutdown presumably because we couldn't agree to a budget. The House of Representatives passed a budget in March. The Senate passed one in late March, early April. The Senate asked for a conference committee. They appointed conferees. And Speaker Boehner, until 2 days ago, refused to appoint conferees. It was only after the government shut down that he relented and appointed conferees, after the blowup.

And so you want to go to conference? Why didn't you go to conference in April, May, June, July, August, even early September? Why, Mr. Speaker, didn't you appoint conferees when we had the time to negotiate? Why did you wait until after hunters couldn't go to the refuges? I don't understand.

Oh, but you have a solution. The Speaker has a solution. We will open up individual parts of the government based upon what the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) calls ``the whack-a-mole theory of government.'' When something really embarrassing

happens, we'll find a solution, says the Speaker. Wow, how brilliant.

And so what did we do? Oh, we'll open some of the national monuments--not all of them. We're not going to open the fish and wildlife refuges so that the hunters can hunt. But we'll open the World War II Memorial, and maybe we'll open up some of the Smithsonian facilities here in Washington.

Oh, but there's a problem. That's got to go through the Senate. And that's got to have the Presidential signature. And that's not going to happen.

So what's going on here? What's happening? The American public says, What are you guys doing? Well, we're not doing our job. Mr. Speaker, you're not letting us do our job.

We actually have a solution. It's called a continuing resolution, a CR. And that's not a medical procedure. A continuing resolution is actually a process that's been used over 110 times since the first day of President Clinton's--yes, I said that--President Clinton, back in 1993, 110 times we've used continuing resolutions to get passed these unnegotiable periods.

But this time, they added a little deal to it. There will be a continuing resolution when you repeal the Affordable Care Act, when you delay it, when you repeal part of it, when you change it. That hadn't been done in the past. But here we are.

So where are we now with the whack-a-mole theory?

Do you know what these are? Does the American public know what these are? These are 11 of the appropriation bills. Each one is very lengthy. There are more than 500 to 1,000 different items in each one of the appropriation bills, funding individual parts of government, one item at a time.

It's a big government. It's a multitrillion-dollar government. And it does a lot of good things, like, funds refuges so that people can go hunting, so that people can fish, so that there are national parks, camping grounds. At the national forests all across this Nation, camping grounds are shut down. Nobody's camping there this weekend.

These are the appropriation bills. Probably 5,000 or more individual items. In what has got to be one of the most foolish, nonsensical, and stupid actions, we're going to fund the government one item at a time. Yes. Hello, America. This is the Republican solution to the shutdown. We're going to fund the American Government one item at a time.

Let's see, this is day four of the shutdown. Okay. And to date, we have funded four specific parts of the American Government--oh, excuse me. I'm wrong. The House of Representatives has voted to fund four of the thousands of different parts of the American Government, four of them. Let me see, at this rate, it will probably be 2020 before the American Government is up and operating. How stupid is that when we have a solution available to us, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, listen. We have a solution available to us. It's called a continuing resolution. It's passed the Senate. It doesn't have all of the things you may want--like terminating the Affordable Care Act, which is, in effect, modifying it, defunding it, and God knows what else you may want. It's just what is known as a clean continuing resolution that funds all of government--not one item at a time, but all of government. And at what level? At the same level that it has been funded for the last 12 months. Not more funding, not less funding, but a whole lot less funding than what I think is necessary. But nonetheless, it continues the funding of government at the same level as the last 12 months for the next month and a half. And then we go through all this again with another manufactured crisis.

I wonder what the hunters are thinking of us. Mr. Speaker, these men and women want to go hunting. These men and women want to go fishing, camping. They want to go to the national parks. They want to recreate. They want America operating.

Mr. Speaker, please, please end this foolishness. Ronald Reagan went to Berlin, and he said, ``Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.'' Mr. Speaker, open up this government. Open up this government. You have the power. All you need to do is to bring to the floor a continuing resolution to fund the government at the very same level that it's been funded for the last 12 months, continue on for another 6 weeks so that we can establish what apparently you want, a conference committee, and negotiate, as we should do all the time, negotiate a resolution to this manufactured, unnecessary, stupid, dysfunctional crisis.

Mr. Speaker, open up this government.

Mr. Speaker, one would think after all of the hours and hours of discussions that have taken place on this floor that perhaps enough has been said. That may be true, but so much of what was said seems not to be clarifying and providing a clear understanding of what has actually happened here.

We want to take a few minutes here, probably maybe as much as an hour, possibly less than that, and try to gain some clarity as to how we got to this point with a government shutdown, how we can get out of it, and what the impact is on Americans. There are good days and there are bad days and then there are really, really bad days.

About 12:30 last night, as we were finishing the votes here on the floor, it became very apparent that the government had, indeed, shut down and that there wasn't any hope of resurrecting it in the final hours of last night. So today, all across America, government offices are shut down. You just heard a description of the World War II Memorial. And that is but an example.

Now, how did we get here? How did this happen? We have been over the last 3 years now dealing with one manufactured crisis after another. They came to be known as ``cliffs'': ``fiscal cliff,'' ``debt limit cliff,'' on and on. Each time we would come up to some deadline, and it was made into a crisis. Our Republican friends were usually the--well, they were always the instigators of this, at least since the 2010 election.

What has happened is they have used these deadlines, which come and go every year, as an opportunity to leverage in one or another policy changes. That has been going on. I think one of the most noteworthy of these deadlines was the fiscal cliff that occurred in the summer of 2011 in which the United States came up against its debt limit and it was just a moment away from that default.

Fortunately, there were negotiations underway, and it did lead to a settlement. The settlement, of course, was the infamous sequester. It wasn't supposed to happen. Nobody liked it. It was in the bill. It did happen, and now we are living with it. As time went on, we have had even more of these moments of crisis, and yesterday was yet one more. It occurs on a regular basis. Every October 1, we start a new fiscal year, and that's an opportunity for us to look at all of the expenditures of the Federal Government and to make decisions about what should be or should not be funded and at what level it should be funded.

So we had a crisis last night, and the result is the Federal Government is largely unfunded, and monuments across the Nation-- national parks, Veterans Administration offices, Social Security offices, and the rest--are in the process of being shut down, and some are shut down. This is not a good thing. It's a very bad thing. It is bad for this Nation. I was there in 1995 as Deputy Secretary at the Department of the Interior when the Department of the Interior was shut down--national parks, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey. Studies underway about the nature of everything from earthquakes to hurricanes and the like were just put aside for 26 days. We are back in that today. It could have been avoided--it should have been avoided--and had we followed through on the normal process of establishing a budget for the United States, it would have been, or most likely would have been, avoided.

Why didn't that happen?

The House of Representatives passed a budget in March. The Senate passed a budget at about the same time, and the Senate requested a conference committee. From April to this moment, no conference committee on the Budget has been established.

Now, the budget gives the framework in which the appropriations for all of the Federal offices--the Department of Defense, parks and so forth--are funded. It is within that framework of the budget. So, without a framework, we were literally wandering in the dark, and some very, very bad things happened. What happened was we came up against a deadline. The continuing resolution, which continues to fund the government--the first issue was for 2 months, until December 15, and then it eventually came down to November 15. That continuing resolution--sometimes called a ``CR''--actually provided less money than did the Senate's version of the budget. It was $986 billion, which is the sequestration amount that would continue forward.

While virtually every person in this entire House--435 of us--said sequestration was bad and that we will never vote for sequestration again, we were, in fact, presented with a sequestration appropriation, a continuing resolution, that would go for 2 months. The sequestration was, in fact, built into that. Now, the Democrats, in looking at this, said, We don't want a shutdown. We will compromise for 2 months and accept the lower funding level.

So, when people go back and forth here and say there was no effort to compromise, that's not true. The fact of the matter is the Democrats said, to avoid the shutdown of government, we will accept the sequestration level of government, which was, I think, over $50 billion less than what we would have liked to have spent to keep the programs going.

Along the way, our Republican colleagues decided that they would use this moment to terminate the Affordable Health Care Act. We are going to spend some time on that this evening. The termination of the Affordable Health Care Act would affect every American in many, many ways, and we will spend some time talking about all of those ways.

So, by combining the CR, which the Democrats accepted--and had it passed the House and the Senate, there would be no government shutdown--and by joining to that the desire, particularly of the Tea Party Republican caucus members, we wound up with a stalemate. We need to understand exactly what was in the CR and exactly what was the impact of the--what shall we say? There were three different versions of this. One version was to repeal, in other words, just wipe out the entire law--the Affordable Health Care Act, or ObamaCare. Another was to delay all of it. Then yet a third was to delay just a piece of it. So there have been different iterations, but each one would dramatically affect the people of America.

I would like to now turn to my colleague from Texas, Sheila Jackson Lee, who will pick up with this issue.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Talk fast, Sheila.

Ms. Sheila Jackson Lee, thank you so very much.

There is no doubt that this House has the ability at any moment to vote on the continuing resolution that the Senate has sent back here. If that were to happen, the President would immediately have that law on his desk. He could sign it, and government would at that moment reopen. Keep in mind that that CR was not one that we thought was the best. It, actually, is significantly below the level of funding that the Democrats wanted, and it does continue, at least for another month and a half, the sequestration, which we do not like.

I would like now to turn to Ms. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, who spoke here on the floor a few moments ago.

Ms. Kaptur, please share with us your thoughts on the current crisis in America.

Thank you very much, Ms. Kaptur. We should have pointed out in the introduction that you are the ranking member of one of the Appropriation Committees--transportation, the energy programs, all of the research that goes on, and a lot of the projects of, I believe, NASA, also. I know you worked long and hard on that, and I sense a sadness, from your remarks, that all of the good things that are done by those Departments are simply in abeyance now; and given the level of funding that is in the CR with the sequestration, much will not be done.

Let me now turn to my colleague from California (Mr. Honda), who has been serving for a while here representing the Silicon Valley and much of what we were just talking about, the research and the development of the economy. I know you've had a great deal to do with that over the years, really helping to create one of the engines of economic growth in the United States. Mr. Honda.

Mr. Honda, thank you so very much, and thank you for your lifetime of service, your early years in the Peace Corps in El Salvador, the work that you did there, and, as you said, bringing it home and continuing to serve right up through this day and beyond as you continue to represent the great Silicon Valley of California. So thank you very much for all that you have done over these many years.

You mentioned something that I'm going to turn to very quickly. I was the insurance commissioner, and one of the things that we wanted to do in California, but we couldn't get the legislature to pass, was the Patients' Bill of Rights. Some of this we tried to do with regulations, but the Patients' Bill of Rights is now the law of the land.

When our Republican colleagues came forward with a continuing resolution that was actually a sequestration and a low level of funding and added to it the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, I'm going: Wait a minute. You want to repeal the Patients' Bill of Rights?

I'm going to run through this very quickly.

Children with preexisting conditions, young children at birth or in the early years that have developed some serious medical condition before the Patients' Bill of Rights which now is in effect this day, children cannot be denied coverage, period. There are thousands upon thousands of children across this Nation that find themselves in this situation.

Young adults at the age of 18, prior to the Patients' Bill of Rights--and this has been in effect for more than a year now--at the age of 18, they were off of their parents' coverage and they were out there on their own, often unable, particularly if they were a woman, to be able to get insurance. But the Patients' Bill of Rights allows them to stay on their parents' insurance until they are 26; and there are more than 6.6 million young Americans 18 to 26 that are now on their parents' health coverage as a result of the Affordable Care Act.

Women have the right to health care coverage without discrimination for all kinds of things--breast cancer, pregnancy, and other kinds of illnesses that women might get. Prior to the Patients' Bills of Rights and the Affordable Care Act, there was heavy-duty discrimination against women. They couldn't get insurance. If they could, they would pay substantially more. We're talking that half of the population of America, at one time or another, women--actually, more than half--were facing this discrimination, but no longer with the Patients' Bill of Rights.

Seniors have a right to affordable medication and also to an annual wellness visit, which actually has dramatically reduced the ongoing inflation rate in Medicare, bending the curve.

And then finally, this one down here, every American has the right to health care coverage without a limitation on the annual amount that you could spend. A family with a cancer case would blow right through the limitation. They'd be on their own. And this is what led to the enormous number of personal bankruptcies, more than 50 percent of which were caused by health care problems.

So the Patients' Bill of Rights was, according to our Republican colleagues, to be repealed along with all of the Affordable Health Care Act. Needless to say, those of us on the Democratic side said, This is wrong. This is not good for America. It's not good for Americans, individuals, children, or adults. And we fought the fight.

We're not finished with this yet. Although as of today, it appears as though our Republican colleagues have dropped the issue of defunding, delaying, or repealing the Affordable Health Care Act as far as the continuing resolution is concerned.

I will come back. I will cover some of these things again. I would like now to turn to our new colleague from San Antonio, Texas, Joaquin Castro. Please join us. You have a great background in that city. And you come with an extraordinary reputation, well earned, as a scholar and as a great citizen of San Antonio.

Mr. Castro, thank you so very, very much. You spoke of your Senator, Senator Cruz. I suspect in 5 years, you're going to replace him, and I would like that.

It's time for us to go back to our East-West Show, which we have done here many, many nights. My colleague from the State of New York, Paul Tonko, who has represented for 5 years now the area where the Industrial Revolution began, along the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers.

Right now we're in a fix here in Washington. The government is shut down. All of the things you've talked about over these many years, about building the American economy, manufacturing, the research that you were responsible for for the State of New York--and it's all shut down.

Share with us your thoughts if you would, please.

If I might just add to the exposition that you laid out: the

two budget proposals, the Senate and the House budget proposals both passed. The Senate appointed conferees. To this moment, the House has not appointed conferees to the budget conference committee.

So the Republican leadership refused to establish the conference committee by refusing to name the conferees.

Well, there you have it. And we have a shutdown.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time we have left.

Mr. Tonko, let us split that time. Would you like to close, or would you like to continue on?

Mr. Tonko, thank you so very much for joining me once again.

I'm going to wrap this up with a note of sadness. The American Government is shut down. It is shut down because of the conflict that has developed between the Democrats and the Republicans here in the House and on the Senate side.

It's a conflict that didn't have to happen. We could have worked this out in a conference committee, had Speaker Boehner chosen to appoint conferees. It didn't take place.

A continuing resolution--the Democrats compromised seriously and accepted a continuing resolution at the sequestration level, far less money than we think is necessary, but we wanted to keep the government running.

We refuse to abandon the Affordable Care Act and the millions upon millions of Americans that have benefited from that and are benefiting today as the exchanges are going into place.

California's had an enormous success, and it will work. And as it works, I think we'll find that those Americans, some 40 million that do not have health insurance, will, in the next months ahead, get their health insurance at an affordable cost. And this is already bending the cost curve for American health care. It's a good thing.

But it's also a very sad day. There is absolutely no reason that this government was shut down, except for the intransigence of our Republican colleagues demanding the repeal of things like the Patients' Bill of Rights, demanding that we go back on a promise that America has tried to have for some 60 years now, providing health insurance to all Americans. We're moving towards that with the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare.

It's a sad day, but it's also a hopeful day. It's a hopeful day because the exchanges are working. There will be computer glitches, and there will be some error in the mathematics; but across this Nation, the exchanges are working.

And the American public that is uninsured, not the insured, but the uninsured, they're going to the exchanges and they're saying, let me shop; let me shop in a rational market where I can compare prices and quality and providers. They're doing that in California, in New York, and in Texas, all across this Nation.

So it's hopeful. It's a hopeful moment, even though we have spent the last week battling out the fundamental question, Is America going to move forward and stay in business, or is the government going to shut down?

Republicans chose to shut down the government.

Are Americans going to get health care?

The Republicans said no, the Affordable Care Act must be repealed.

The Democrats said no way, no how.

It's in place, folks. The Affordable Care Act is in place, and the exchanges are working, and millions of Americans will find an opportunity to buy insurance in a competitive market, free market, not a government market, but a market structured by government so that the private sector can display its insurance policies, what their price is, what their quality is, which doctors they can go to.

It's a sad day, but it's also a hopeful day.

Mr. Speaker, with our 54 minutes, we thank you for the opportunity to explain this, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, 18 years and 3 days ago, I was Deputy Secretary at the United States Department of the Interior. It was a vibrant place. The attorneys were doing their work. The accountants were busy. The national parks were open, and the rangers were at the gates. They were explaining the great wonders of this land. The Fish & Wildlife Service was caring for those creatures that we care so much about. The researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey were doing their thing, and then Congress failed to pass an appropriation bill. The next day it was silent. The entire building was empty. The rangers shut the doors to the national parks. The research ceased.

To this day, I don't believe there's a person in this room or in this Capitol that can remember what the fight was about, but America can remember the shutdown of the government. And here today, we're in it once again. And the question that the American people will ask is: What is this all about? And the end result of it is that the status of this House will diminish once more.

Mr. Speaker, the one result of all this will be a further diminution in the status of the Congress.

There's a way to resolve this, but it's not to resolve it by delaying for 1 year all of the good that is in the Affordable Care Act, all of the insurance reform--and I was the insurance commissioner and I can tell you how important it is that the insurance reform is there--and all of the Medicaid programs and the millions of Americans that have the opportunity, all of those children that are now being covered. For what? For the 42nd, 43rd time, another failed effort, instead of sitting down and working to solve the problem.

It's a tragedy that we are about to go through this process. For what? So that some of the wealthiest, most profitable business in America can have a $30 billion tax reduction? I suppose that's important. So that you can say once again the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, is wrong?

I remember the days when the Nation shut down its government. It was bad.

Mr. Speaker, we just heard a remarkable hour of problems that were so overblown as to be really not worthy of much discussion. But I think the American public really needs to understand what this last hour was all about. In fact, the Affordable Health Care Act is working. And it's actually working very, very well for millions upon millions of Americans.

I just want to read some facts and then move on to what is really going on here, which is an effort to try to leverage the necessity of funding the Federal Government, which is something we must do every year to provide the money to continue all of the work of the Federal Government. They're trying to use that as a lever to gain something that they've been unable to do in a Presidential election year.

The last Presidential election year, the issue of the Affordable Health Care Act was front and center, and the American people heard more than a year of debate about the Affordable Health Care Act, whether it was good or not so good, all the benefits and all of the problems that it might be. At the end, in November of last year, the American public decisively said that the Affordable Health Care Act and President Obama should continue. That was the decision by Americans.

In the House of Representatives we gained seats on the Democrat side, and I think about 2 million more voted Democratic than they voted Republican. Although, because of the redistricting and the gerrymandering, the House remained in Republican hands.

Just understand what's going on here. What could not be achieved in the democratic process of an election is attempted to be achieved in two absolutely critical moments in the annual processing of the Federal Government.

The first moment, which comes up on October 1, is the necessity to provide money to carry on all of the tasks of the Federal Government-- the Social Security Administration, the National Parks, and on and on. Nearly every aspect of the Federal Government has to be funded every year. That is a moment that is now being used as a lever to try to achieve what could not be achieved in an election. After all, America is a democracy. We make our decisions through the electoral process, not by trying to lever, using a critical moment, basically, the funding of the American Government.

Now two or 3 weeks beyond October 1 there will be yet another moment of critical importance, and that is the ability of the American Government to continue to pay its bills. It's called the debt limit. Until 2011, this was a routine process in which the Congress would continue to say, Okay, we will increase the debt limit so that we can pay our bills.

It was done during Democrat and Republican administrations routinely. There was always some discussion about the debt and the deficit, as it should be. In fact, the President, Mr. Obama, when he was in the Senate, railed against this issue of deficit. Now he's on the other side of that. That often happens.

But the fact of the matter is that in this process, these two moments of time are now being used as a lever to achieve in the legislative process what could not be achieved in the electoral process. So much for democracy.

Just a few facts about the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, as it's become to be known.

Nearly 13 million Americans have benefited from over $1.1 billion in rebates from insurance companies. I was the insurance commissioner in California in 8 years. And I knew then, as I know now, that the insurance companies were overcharging the public for their health insurance policies. However, I did not have any authority under California law to order rebates.

The Affordable Health Care Act sets up a system that requires the insurance companies to pay at least 80 percent of the premium dollar for medical services. If they don't, they have to do a rebate. It's the law that they want to repeal. That's $1.1 billion.

Also, 105 million Americans, including 71 million Americans in private plans and 34 million seniors in Medicare, have received access to free preventative services. Do you want to hold down the cost of medical services? Do prevention.

The Affordable Health Care Act requires that every insurance policy, including Medicare, provide a free medical checkup every year. Guess what has happened? The cost curve has bent downward. Why? Because serious illnesses are either treated or delayed. Diabetes, strokes, and heart conditions are analyzed early and treated, reducing the cost of health care and, far more important, keeping people alive and healthy.

Moving on. Thirty million women are receiving free coverage for comprehensive women's preventative services, including a well-woman visit and diabetes screening. They want to repeal that: 30 million American women receiving free diagnostic care. They want to repeal it.

Seventeen million children with preexisting health conditions can no longer be denied coverage. I was the insurance commissioner. I cannot tell you the numbers of times that I begged for a law that would require insurance companies to continue or to provide insurance for a newborn child that had a serious illness, time after time, in California. Insurance companies would insure the mother for the delivery. And the moment that child was delivered, the child had no coverage. Bankruptcies and lack of medical care ensued. Seventeen million children will be denied health care coverage if they are successful in repealing the Affordable Health Care Act. That's 17 million children.

Also, 6.6 million young adults to the age of 26 have taken advantage of the ObamaCare law, the Affordable Health Care Act, to stay on their parents' health insurance plan. Do you have a kid in college or a kid that's graduated from college that's 21 or 22? They can stay on your plan. Before the Affordable Care Act, before ObamaCare, they had very little opportunity to get insurance. They would have to go out and buy their own policy. They were able to stay on their parents' policy. That's 6.6 million young adults that will not be insured if they are successful in repealing the Affordable Health Care Act.

Also, 100 million Americans no longer have a lifetime exclusion. Previously, most health insurance policies in the United States set a limit on the amount of coverage that a person could have during their lifetime or in a given year. Now, 100 million Americans no longer have a lifetime exclusion, and 100 million Americans are able to get comprehensive coverage for the duration of their illness. They want to affect the well-being of 100 million Americans.

You've heard about the senior doughnut hole, the drug coverage. Written into the law in 2003, providing drug coverage for seniors-- Medicare part D--was a doughnut hole. You got the first couple of thousand dollars covered. After that, 100 percent of the cost had to be paid by the seniors.

The Affordable Health Care Act is shrinking the doughnut hole every

year. And in another 2 or 3 years, that doughnut hole will be closed, providing an extraordinarily important benefit to seniors. I know this problem in my communities. Before the Affordable Health Care Act, before ObamaCare, seniors would reach that doughnut hole threshold and they could not afford to continue to buy their pharmaceutical products. So what did they do? Their blood pressure went up, their diabetes was not treated, and they became seriously ill.

They want to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act, and the doughnut hole will not be closed if they are successful.

Shall we continue on?

In California, on October 1, 4 million Californians for the first time will have access to an insurance exchange, a marketplace, a free marketplace--which we talk about all the time. But one does not exist in California until October 1, where the uninsured in California, including this Member of Congress, will be able to go to a rational marketplace that lists numerous health care policies, five different levels of coverage, all of them uniform, all of them priced, where I and 4 million other Californians can select the policy of our choice-- not a government policy, but a private insurance company policy; a marketplace, a free market solution to the 40 million Americans that are not insured and the 4 million in California that are not insured today.

We rail back and forth, Democrats and Republicans alike, about the necessity of a free market. For the first time ever in this Nation, a free market, rational market system is established, not only in California, but in every State in this Union. And thirty-three State Governors have refused to set up a free market rational system called an exchange--called an exchange in which insurance companies will lay out their policies, lay out their price, lay out their coverages, exclusions and the rest; and the public will be able to have price information, quality information, and make a choice. That's what's called a free market. And they want to repeal it. So what are those people to do?

You know, 435 of us represent the people of America. I spent an hour listening to some 20 people who may, in their own mind, believe that they're representing their people. But I know, from my experience as insurance commissioner in California, that for the first time across this Nation, we have the opportunity to have a market system, a health insurance market system that is rational, that is sensible, in which prices are available, in which quality and multiple products are available--not a government-run health system, but rather a market system established by this government so that the people of this Nation can pick and choose which private policy they want.

If you're over 65, you can get your Medicare; and you will continue to get it with the additional benefits that are in the Affordable Care Act. If you're not yet 65 and you happen to have been unemployed at the age of 50, prior to the Affordable Care Act you were in the deepest of trouble. You were virtually uninsurable. Why? Because you were 50 years of age. You were entering that period when you were expensive; you were likely to get health issues. Insurance companies routinely discriminated against you. If you happen to be a woman, you were in even deeper trouble. Those days are gone--unless the Republican Party succeeds in repealing, delaying, and defunding the Affordable Care Act.

The American people have an opportunity today to get insurance--or they will on October 1. Exchanges will operate across the country, some run by States such as California and New York, where the Governor said this makes sense to the people in my State and we're going to do it. Others, like Texas and Montana, the Governor said, oh, we don't care about our people; therefore, the Federal Government is stepping in to set up exchanges.

Whatever you may have heard over this last hour about a government- run health care system, it is not true, except if you happen to be on Medicare. Medicare is a government-run health insurance program in which the delivery is not provided by the government, but provided by a multiplicity of health care providers. Individual doctors, groups of doctors, hospitals, big health care medical centers such as the University of California-San Francisco. Yes, Medicare is a government health insurance system; it is not a delivery system. There is one, however; it's called the U.S. military. Military hospitals and veterans hospitals, those are government delivery systems.

So whatever you may have heard about the government takeover of health care, not true unless you happen to be in the military, a veteran, or on Medicare. Even the Medicaid program is State run, not run by the Federal Government.

Oh, there are so many falsehoods. You could fill this entire room with the falsehoods that we've heard over the last months. But the reality is that the Affordable Health Care Act is good for America. It is reducing the inflation rate in health care. We've already seen the lowest inflation rate in the last 3 years, since the enactment of the Affordable Health Care Act, over the last 25 years.

So are we going to shut down government so that the opponents who failed in an election, who failed in Congress in 2010 to stop the Affordable Care Act, failed in the Presidential election, in Senate elections, are we going to shut down government so that they can leverage something that they could not achieve in an electoral process? I don't think so. I don't think the American Government will stand for it. I don't think the American people will stand for it.

I wanted to talk about jobs. I wanted to talk about my district. I wanted to talk about the necessity of a farm bill so that there will be food on the table for the poor, so that there will be a program that the farmers in my district will know what they will face as they begin to plant their winter crops. That bill languishes because of this process that we're seeing.

I wanted to talk about a transportation bill that we must write and fund so that we can build the infrastructure, so that we can put people back to work. But, no, we're caught up here in this process.

There are things that we need to do in America, and here we are. Here we are. This is not good for America. The Affordable Health Care Act is good for Americans. And when we provide health insurance for every American, we will be a much more just society, and we will have a stronger economy. This road is out ahead of us.

I'm going to be joined by my colleagues. I yield to my colleague, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wilson).

Thank you very much, Ms. Wilson. Thank you for laying out the way in which the Affordable Care Act will benefit and how people can use that act, how they can access the exchanges and the benefits that are found in it.

I would like now to call on one of my colleagues from the Midwest, Mr. Ryan, if you would care to join us.

Thank you very much, Mr. Tonko.

In previous weeks, you and I and Mr. Ryan and Mr. Castro have had the pleasure of talking on this floor about putting people to work, about jobs, about creating the infrastructure, the education, the training that's necessary to move Americans, but this week, we find ourselves caught up in this leveraging of the necessity of funding government and of paying our bills--the debt limit--and using that as

a lever to destroy a very important law that provides real benefits to every American.

Mr. Castro, we thank you for joining us. We know that Texas was much discussed in the previous hour. I am sure that you have some thoughts about all of this, so please join us. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Mr. Castro, and thank you for pointing out that one junior Senator doesn't represent all of Texas. I know you represent the heart of Texas--that is, the people of Texas.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.

Very good.

We are joined here now by our distinguished senior Member from the State of New Jersey.

Mr. Pallone, thank you so very much for your comments about New Jersey.

Mr. Ryan, I think we have maybe 2\1/2\ minutes left if you'd like to close, and I'll take the last 30 seconds and then we'll thank the public for their attention.

Mr. Ryan and Mr. Pallone, thank you so very much for joining us on this discussion about the Affordable Care Act and the way in which the Republican Party here in the House is using its repeal as a lever to really shut down government. It's not a good situation.

We normally spend our time here on the floor talking about jobs, infrastructure, how we can move this committee and this Nation forward. We hope to get back to that next week. We've got a critical vote coming in the next couple of days, or tomorrow or the next day, about the health care of America and more importantly about the way in which this government should operate.

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

Mr. Speaker, several things. We just heard our colleague who is supporting this bill talking about American history, that this is an icon of American history. In fact, it was American history that created the law that requires all vessels that are over 90 and more than 50 people to actually be fire-safe.

It is, sir, American history that has put in place the law that you're trying to waive. That history is one of disaster after disaster, in which thousands of people have lost their lives in boats that were not safe, that were made of wood.

Now, I happen to know the Delta King, the exact twin of the Delta Queen. It's parked on the Sacramento River, not more than a half mile from the Capitol, and I've been on it many, many times; and it does overnight a few guests. But it is a fire trap, and that's why it's not going up and down the Sacramento River.

By the way, the law that you said only applies to the sea applies to every river and every lake in the United States. So it's a little incorrect to say that this is only oceangoing vessels that are applicable to this particular law. It's not. It's all vessels. All vessels that have more than 50 people on board overnight have to meet these requirements.

We ought not do this. Regular order was completely set aside to move this bill rapidly through the Transportation Committee; and by the way, there was opposition, and he's talking right now, opposition to a waiver of a fire safety law that is intended to protect the public.

Yes, the Delta Queen, like the Delta King, is historic; and like the Delta King, the Delta Queen is a fire trap.

We ought not be passing this law. And we ought to be following regular order, and we ought to be listening to the Coast Guard that says, don't do this. Don't do this. That's what the U.S. Coast Guard says, because it is not safe.

Now, this boat can operate. It can operate with 179 people or more on day trips. It can tie up to a wharf, and it can have 49 people on board going up and down the river, or even more, they can get off, they can go to a hotel, as they have for many years. This is still a viable operation.

But under no circumstance should this body, 435 of us, say not to worry about fire safety; it's not going to be an issue. After all, somebody's watching 24 hours a day, as required on every vessel.

Let's keep in mind that the fire suppression system that was mentioned by our colleague in support of this legislation does not work and is not in the public spaces. The staterooms, where people are sleeping, the dining rooms, the other rooms on board, will not have fire suppression, that is, sprinkler systems.

This boat will not be upgraded in a way that will make it safe. We simply ought not do this.

And, yes, you can guarantee that this side of the aisle is seriously concerned about jobs, and we're seriously concerned about the men and women that work on this boat, that they work in a fire-safe environment. This boat will not be a fire-safe environment.

And so those men and women that we are concerned about having jobs ought to have jobs in a safe environment. They will not.

Very simply put, this is a bad piece of legislation. This is not about jobs. This is about saving lives, or, in the case of this bill, about putting lives at risk. Is that what we want to do?

I don't think so.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have available?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay).

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the esteemed gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. Esty).

May I inquire as to the time I have available?

Mr. Speaker, I think we have no further speakers here, which gives me 4 minutes to lay out the case, which may be quite sufficient, and I yield myself the balance of my time.

With regard to regular order, I haven't been around here long enough to know that regular order does not, apparently, include a hearing. There's been no hearing on this bill. The bill simply came to the full committee and was up or down for a vote. I had the opportunity to object at that time--and continue to object at this moment.

Yes, this is about jobs, but it's also about safety. There's a reason why the law was passed, and that is protect those men and women that are on the body, presumably to enjoy, in this case, the Mississippi or Ohio Rivers. But if this bill were to become law, they would not know that they are actually in a very dangerous situation.

It's been said that we're not to worry; after all, we're not at open sea. We're miles and miles from shore. But I would remind those who care to think about safety that the Concordia was 900 feet off the Italian coast when it sank--quickly--and 30 people lost their lives only 900 feet from the coast. Now, it was saltwater, to be sure. Nonetheless, they were near the coast. There are plenty of places on the Mississippi that are more than 900 feet from the coast.

And I want you to imagine a fire breaking out on the front part of the ship, which is the only way to escape. By the way, this ship has had 15 mechanical failures in the last 20 years. These were mechanical failures that, if they were to continue, would cause the fire extinguishing system not to work, even though it's not in the staterooms and the public areas but only in the nonpublic areas. We really ought not be doing this.

A lot has been said about whether it's an earmark or not. This bill applies to one ship. It only applies to the Delta Queen. It applies to no other ship. There's a financial benefit to the owners of this ship. If this were to happen, they would be able to travel up and down the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, perhaps others, without having to meet the normal fire safety requirements. That's a financial benefit. And not with 49 passengers, but with as many as 170 or 179. That's a financial benefit. That meets my definition of an earmark--when it goes to a single private entity for their financial success.

What are we concerned about here? Jobs. Yes, we're concerned about jobs. They are the men and women that would be able to get those jobs. They are the people that I care about and that I met with yesterday about jobs in the maritime industry throughout this Nation. But nowhere in the discussions we had yesterday in Oakland, California, was the issue of jobs less important or more important than safety.

I just think we ought to be very careful here. We ought to be very, very careful because we're talking about life safety issues. I would pray and I would hope that all 435 of us that are going to deal with this bill shortly in an up-or-down vote would never have to face the moment at some day in the future over the next 15 years, should this become law, where a fire breaks out on this ship, because if it were to break out, there would be a great deal of sorrow. I suspect there will be a few amongst us who vote for this measure that would say, I made a very, very bad mistake.

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

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