John K. Delaney

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to cast my vote on roll call No. 443 through No. 445.

Had I been present to vote on roll call No. 443, I would have voted aye; had I been present to vote on roll call No. 444, I would have voted aye; and had I been present to vote on roll call No. 445, I would have voted aye

Mr. Speaker, this week we have seen firsthand another example of how government inaction is failing the American people.

With preexisting conditions at risk, hospitals are being forced to take on drug companies alone without any action from their Congress, and we continue to have a staggering mental health crisis in this country.

The Kaiser Family Foundation found that 75 percent of the American people want preexisting conditions to be protected, conditions like asthma, mental health, cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer's, MS, Crohn's, colitis, surgery, and pregnancy--yes, pregnancy.

Are we really going to allow women to be charged more for their healthcare because they want to be mothers?

With out-of-control drug prices, 90 percent of the American people agree that we should be allowing the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower those prices and stop the wealth transfer from the taxpayers of the U.S. to the shareholders of these companies. But that is not taking place.

I, for one, am tired of Congress' inaction. This week, I introduced a letter, a bipartisan letter, to ask for additional funding to expand programs for mental health education, treatment, and suicide prevention.

Mr. Speaker, 87 percent of the American people believe more mental health support should be provided to our youth, and the funding requested in this letter will do just that.

I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for joining me in their work and strongly encourage the rest of the Congress to start acting on these important issues.

Mr. Speaker, the scientists have spoken. Climate change is happening, human behavior is contributing to it, and it is a long- term threat to our prosperity and our national security.

But climate change is also the ultimate, very large problem that moves very slowly, which makes it particularly poorly matched with the political system we have today. And what causes me great concern is when wrongheaded resolutions which I oppose--and I oppose the rule associated with it--are put to the floor of this House to discourage this House from proposing the most effective and most successful way of dealing with climate change, which is to put a price on carbon.

We can take all of those revenues and return them to the American people. We can wall them off from government spending. There is a whole variety of approaches we could take to ensure that the revenues generated from taxing carbon pollution are returned to the American people.

As a Congress, wouldn't we rather tax pollution than tax hardworking Americans? That is what a carbon tax will do. I encourage my colleagues to reject this resolution and allow us to have the real debate the American people deserve on this floor.