Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Electronic Device Recycling Research and Development Act of 2011. Electronic devices--computers, printers, cameras, mobile phones and other technology--comprise the fastest-growing share of our solid waste. These discarded electronic devices fill our landfills and leak toxic chemicals into our soil and groundwater. The most toxic components of these devices are exported in bulk to the developing world where they can be dumped without the safety measures imposed by U.S. environmental laws.

This so called E-waste also contains a high concentration of raw materials that can be reprocessed and reused by American manufacturers. The largest domestic supply of certain

rare materials critical to the manufacture of electronic devices is found in many municipal landfills. Yet our patchwork system of state laws and regulations, coupled with inaction by the federal government, has acted as a deterrent to manufacturers looking to reclaim these raw materials-- the vast majority of which are currently imported from China. This dependence on foreign raw materials by American manufacturers also reveals a major vulnerability to our industrial supply chain-- exposing our domestic economy to the volatility of foreign commodities markets and the whims of foreign governments.

Additional research and development is required in recycling technologies so we can more efficiently sort and process materials. To make recycling easier, products should avoid environmentally sensitive materials and enable re-use or extended use of electronic devices. For consumers, we need to make it easier to recycle and re-use electronics.

The Electronic Device Recycling Research and Development Act seeks to address these critical challenges by:

Authorizing the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, to award grants to reduce the environmental impact of discarded electronic devices and promote the recycling of these devices through research and development projects;

Requiring National Academy of Sciences to conduct a study on opportunities for and barriers to the recycling of discarded electronic devices; and

Authorizing EPA to award grants to colleges and universities for curriculum development in the areas of recycling electronic devices and enabling green design.

This legislation was introduced in the previous Congress by former Congressman Bart Gordon, the Chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, and passed the House of Representatives by voice vote. It is my hope that this commonsense legislation will continue to receive strong bipartisan support. It has the strong backing of environmental advocacy groups and industry, including Best Buy and the Electronics Takeback Coalition--a diverse coalition comprised of more than two dozen national and local environmental, public health and public interest organizations.

This is a green jobs bill. From auto parts to solar voltaic panels, the energy and resource-intensive manufacturing processes that drive our modern economy will benefit from expanded research and development focused on the lifecycle of electronic devices. By giving manufacturers the tools, training and resources to sustainably manufacture electronic devices, this legislation will create jobs, protect the environment and improve public health.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Dr. Nancy Grasmick for her years of outstanding service to the people of Maryland, including her twenty year leadership role as Superintendent of Maryland public schools, the longest serving appointed school chief in the United States. Dr. Grasmick began her career as a teacher of deaf children at William S. Baer School in Baltimore City. In her years as an educator in Maryland public schools, Dr. Grasmick has served as a resource teacher, principal, supervisor, assistant superintendent, and associate superintendent in Baltimore County. In 1989, Dr. Grasmick was appointed by Governor William Donald Schaefer to act as the Special Secretary for Children, Youth, and Families and in 1991, the Maryland State Board of Education appointed her to be the first female Maryland State Superintendent of Schools. All of these achievements are the culmination of many years of hard work, strong dedication, and commitment to the people of Maryland. This commitment has been recognized many times over through many awards, including her induction into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame in 2004.

Dr. Nancy Grasmick has been known for her emphasis on student achievement, teacher quality, parental involvement, and early childhood education. Under her leadership, Maryland has been recognized for its achievements in education, having been named as ``the most consistently high performing state'' by Education Week. Dr. Grasmick has made an enormous impact on Maryland public schools and has changed the lives of countless families in the State of Maryland and beyond.

I was my special privilege to work with Dr. Grasmick for seven years as liaison to the Baltimore City Public Schools. I saw firsthand the amazing work of a leader motivated by compassion and a burning determination to give every child the chance to succeed. Dr. Grasmick's commitment to excellence is unrivaled. She is relentless in demanding the very best of those around her, while always offering the kind word and gesture. In that way and so many others, she is a natural born leader. I could not have had a better mentor or friend. My congratulations to Dr. Grasmick on a brilliant career. We look forward to her continued contributions to the State of Maryland and to our nation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Paul J. Wiedorfer, Maryland's last surviving World War II Medal of Honor recipient. Mr. Wiedorfer passed away on May 25th at the Baltimore VA Medical Center. He was 90 years old.

Paul, the son of a German immigrant, was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1921. He attended St. Andrew's School and went on to graduate from Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. He worked for Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. as an apprentice power station operator, until he enlisted in the Army in 1943.

Serving in a unit from General George Patton's 3rd Army, he experienced his first day of combat during the Battle of the Bulge on December 25, 1944. On that Christmas Day in an operation near Chaumont, Belgium, his company was ambushed. In the fight that ensued, Mr. Wiedorfer darted across an open field of enemy fire and single-handedly destroyed two German machine gun nests, while taking several prisoners. Amazingly, he was unharmed. That same afternoon he was given a battlefield promotion to sergeant.

On February 10, 1945, while crossing the Saar River in Germany, Mr. Wiedorfer was seriously injured when mortar shrapnel tore into his stomach and broke his left leg and two right fingers. While recuperating at hospital, in England, one of the other patients informed Mr. Wiedorfer that the newspaper Stars and Stripes was reporting he would receive the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions in Belgium. Mr. Wiedorfer later told the Baltimore Sun ``To be perfectly honest, I wasn't really sure what the hell [the Medal of Honor] was because all I was, was some dogface guy in the infantry.''

Mr. Wiedorfer spent more than three years in the hospital recovering from his wounds. He was discharged from the Army in 1947, having reached the rank of master sergeant. His other decorations included the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. He returned to his life and job in Baltimore and retired in 1981. Paul and his wife, the former Alice Stauffer, had four children: Nancy Mazer, who passed in 2010, Gary Wiedorfer of Cocoa, Florida, and Randee Wiedorfer and Paul J. Wiedorfer Jr., who both currently reside in the Congressional District I represent.

Mr. Wiedorfer led a fulfilled life. I would like to take this moment to thank him for his service to the United States, and to pass along my condolences to his proud family. He was a true American patriot and a Baltimore treasure.

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

Mr. Chair, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this amendment, and I want to thank the cosponsors: Representatives Hanabusa, Langevin, Loebsack, and Reyes.

This amendment is designed to preserve current law with respect to the service contracts and outsourcing activity of the Department of Defense.

Current law now has in place a requirement that before the Department of Defense can do more outsourcing, can do more privatization of service contracts, they have to do an inventory of the contracting activity that's already in place. And this makes perfect sense. This is really a good government proposition if you think about it. It's important enough that it was included in the 2010 Defense Authorization Act; so it is part of current law.

Unfortunately, the proposed bill, the new Defense Authorization Act, would remove this requirement. And if you remove that requirement, you're really undermining the public's stake in making sure that government is functioning in an efficient manner.

Now, the impetus for having this kind of requirement in place--and the amendment that we're putting forward here today would maintain the requirement that's currently in law--the impetus came from a lot of research that showed that in many instances the costs to the government and, therefore, to the taxpayer of outsourcing these various services of the Federal Government, particularly within the Department of Defense that this is directed

at, the costs did not justify the activity, and in many instances you didn't get better performance when you had this outsourcing. In fact, you got worse performance.

So when those studies were done and that research was done, there was a move to make sure that the Department of Defense would conduct an inventory. The current law says that no further contracting can occur until the Secretary has certified to Congress that a contractor inventory has been developed, reviewed, and integrated into the budget process. That makes a lot of sense. Our amendment would restore this provision and therefore keep current law in place with respect to this contracting activity and inventory.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining?

Well, I couldn't agree with what my colleague said more. I mean, we do want to have a balanced approach. Nobody's arguing--certainly I'm not arguing that we should eliminate outsourcing or the privatization of certain services where that makes sense. In fact, what the amendment that we're proposing here would do is keep in law a process whereby the Department of Defense looks at its contracting activities through a commonsense lens and determines whether continued outsourcing in some instances makes sense, whether additional outsourcing makes sense.

Right now, there does not exist a comprehensive inventory of these contracting activities, so how are you going to make a commonsense judgment about where to allocate your resources going forward if you don't have that at your disposal? That's why the requirement was put in place. I think it's very bipartisan in that sense because it's saying let's get as much knowledge as we can so the government can run efficiently and make these decisions in an efficient way, which is very much in keeping with what the public wants to see these days.

So this is about good government. It's about having good information at your fingertips.

We think that the requirement to do this kind of inventory ought to stay in place. The underlying bill right now would remove that commonsense requirement, and this amendment would put it back. That is why we are putting forward the amendment today.

I reserve the balance of my time.

In closing, let me just say in support of this amendment that I am not on the House Armed Services Committee, but what I understand is the report that was approved last week by the committee criticized the Department of Defense for failing to inventory service contracts, which is what we are trying to accomplish here. That is why we are supporting this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Correction of Longstanding Errors in Agencies Unsustainable Procurements (CLEAN UP) Act. This legislation will reform the badly flawed competitive sourcing process--saving taxpayer dollars and reinvigorating our civil service.

Especially in our current era of budget deficits, efficient government is paramount. Over the last decade, we have been much too quick to outsource many of government's most basic functions to the private sector. The desire to do so reflected a political ideology of shrinking the government workforce--even if it meant diminishing the quality or increasing the cost of government services that are overwhelmingly supported by American taxpayers. This course of action negatively impacted everything from national defense and border security to the collection of taxes and the stewardship of our public lands. In many cases, work was outsourced with little or no competition--subverting the public interest and wasting billions in taxpayer dollars.

This bill is not about punishing the contractor community or criticizing the work that they do. The vast majority of these firms want to do the right thing and have performed many important functions on behalf of the government. However, there is some government work that is not appropriately awarded to the lowest bidder. Often this work is about providing a service as a matter of policy without regard to profit. The process by which we make decisions to hire government workers or to contract with the private sector for certain functions must reflect a mature understanding of the real differences between the mission of government and that of business.

More recently, Congress has begun to rein in administrative procurement policy by requiring more robust competition in contracting and ensuring that the core functions of government are performed by government employees. The CLEAN UP Act seeks to reverse the damage that has already been done by requiring agencies to develop plans to bring inherently governmental work back in-house and ensuring that future procurement decisions are made based on the best interest of the government and the taxpayer.

The CLEAN UP Act will make the contracting process fair to Federal employees and accountable to taxpayers.

Congress has heard from Federal workers and advocates in and out of government and their conclusions are the same--the current system is broken. We must develop a clear, government-wide standard for what work should or must be performed by government workers and put in place a fair process for competing all other work.

That is why I have introduced the CLEAN UP Act.

The CLEAN UP Act will:

Impose a uniform, government-wide standard for government work, distinguishing between the functions which must be done by our civil servants and those functions that may be done competently by the private sector;

Incrementally bring work that should be performed by Federal employees back in-house;

Encourage agencies to consider assigning new work to Federal employees if they would be more efficient rather than pursuing a policy of contracting-out, frequently through sole-source or limited competition contracts;

Require agencies to determine where there are or will be shortages of Federal employees and develop plans to address these shortages;

Maintain the existing suspension of the use of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-76 process until OMB determines that the reforms required by this legislation have been implemented;

Direct Agencies to implement an alternative to the A-76 process in order to continually improve and streamline services--developing a more efficient process without the costs and controversies of the A-76 process.

We have some of the best and brightest in our civil service; public servants with a deep and abiding love for this country. They have important missions--to make the next scientific breakthrough; to protect our nation from foreign threats; to keep our communities safe from crime or disaster; to maintain our critical infrastructure. By enacting the CLEAN UP Act, we have an opportunity to support our Federal workforce, save taxpayer dollars, restore good government, and reduce waste, fraud, and abuse.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Martin ``Chip'' Doordan for his nearly forty years of outstanding service to the people of Anne Arundel County, Maryland, culminating in his leadership role as President and Chief Executive Officer of Anne Arundel Health System. Chip first joined Anne Arundel Medical Center (AAMC) in 1972 as a graduate student, became President of AAMC in 1988 and, in 1994, the Board of Trustees named him president and CEO of the Health System. Under Chip's leadership, this downtown Annapolis hospital was transformed into a regional medical center on a 100-acre campus.

The center boasts a highly qualified staff and has grown to include a diagnostics and imaging company, a foundation, a research institute, a freestanding substance abuse inpatient treatment center and many other centers of excellence. Chip also positioned AAMC as a leader in Maryland on joint replacement and started an affiliation with Johns Hopkins for cancer services. In April 2011, Chip opened a new patient tower that expands the emergency department, adds more private beds and has a dedicated pediatric emergency department. All of these achievements are the culmination of many years of hard work and Chip's strong dedication and commitment to the people of Maryland and improving our health care system.

Throughout his career, Chip has been recognized as a quiet and thoughtful leader who strives to find new and creative ways to give back to his community. You can often find Chip walking the halls of AAMC day and night, ensuring that patients are getting the care that they need and staff have the tools to carry out their critical mission. Chip has made an enormous impact on Anne Arundel County and has changed the lives of countless families in the State of Maryland and beyond. I am proud to call him a friend and I thank him for his vision, leadership and commitment to public service.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Israeli Independence Day. Sixty-three years ago this week, the dream of so many Jewish people around the world became a reality. From desert and swampland emerged a nation that is now a leader in technology, medical advances and environmental research; and from the ashes of the Holocaust, a people was reborn.

Israel remains an important strategic ally and the only true democracy in a very unstable part of the world. In the wake of World War II and its tragic legacy for the Jewish people, the United States has considered the existence of Israel a profound moral and spiritual imperative and was the first nation to recognize the state of Israel in 1948.

Even sixty-three years later, however, there are ongoing threats to Israel's stability. It is critical that all parties in the region recognize Israel's right to exist as well as Israel's right to insist on the basic security of its citizenry. Mr. Speaker, I stand here today to honor the men and women who have fought to defend Israel's independence year after year, to those who keep the hope for peace in the forefront

of our minds, and with a strong commitment to seeing that dream become a reality.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I oppose the legislation, which would really open in a wholesale fashion very sensitive areas to offshore drilling. We have to take a lot of care when it comes to doing this offshore drilling, and I don't think that this bill exercises that care.

During the committee's consideration of the bill, I put forward an amendment that would strike that section of the bill that authorizes drilling off the coast of Virginia. I did this because of my concern of the potential impact of a spill in the Chesapeake Bay, which, of course, is a treasure for Marylanders and for all those who live in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The Chesapeake Bay is really the soul of my State of Maryland. It's a national treasure in so many ways.

As for the Virginia parcel, which is called Lease Sale 220 and is a lease parcel that the Republicans would like to put back into play with their bill, when you look at it, about 78 percent of that parcel you have to immediately take off the table because it would occur in areas where military operations would be impeded.

I want to thank my colleague, Gerry Connolly from Virginia, for putting forward an amendment on this bill which would shift the burden and say the Department of Defense has to affirmatively conclude that you will not impede these kinds of military operations in order to drill.

So you take that out of the equation. Then when you take another chunk of it out because you need to keep commercial shipping lanes open, what you're left with is about 10 percent of the parcel that you could actually drill on, and what you could get from that would only supply the demand of the country for one day. So you'd be putting at risk this valuable, sensitive Chesapeake Bay and all of the surrounding areas for getting one day's worth of energy production.

That just doesn't make sense, and I think it undermines the bill on a wholesale basis. It shows that this is not put forward in a way that is sensible. For that reason, I oppose the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce several pieces of legislation to help restore the Chesapeake Bay. Marylanders have a strong tradition of environmental advocacy rooted in a passion for the Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake Bay is our Nation's largest estuary and, in many ways, the soul of my home state. It is a national environmental treasure and an economic catalyst for Maryland's tourism and seafood industries.

Unfortunately, the Bay's health has been negatively impacted by multiple factors, most notably nutrient runoff from our neighborhoods, farms and roadways. The legislation I am introducing today will help restore the Bay by enhancing outdoor recreation, improving access to the Bay, expanding environmental education, rehabilitating vital wetlands and providing incentives for citizens to make their homes more ``Bay friendly.''

The first bill would reauthorize the Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network (CBGN), a program that connects those who live in the Bay watershed to the natural, cultural and historic resources of the Bay and thereby encourages individual stewardship of these resources. This legislation is identical to the bill that passed the House of Representatives by an overwhelming and bipartisan vote during the 110th and 111th Congresses. Since 2000, Gateways has grown to include more than 150 sites and over 1500 miles of established and developing water trails in six states and the District of Columbia. Through grants to parks, volunteer groups, wildlife refuges, historic sites, museums, and water trails, the Network ties these sites together to provide meaningful experiences and foster citizen stewardship of the Chesapeake Bay. For a very modest investment, the Gateways program helps promote citizen stewardship that will be necessary to advance Bay cleanup and maintain the gains we hope to make in the coming years.

I am also introducing the Chesapeake Bay Science, Education and Ecosystem Enhancement Act of 2011, which reauthorizes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Chesapeake Bay Office that provides much of the scientific expertise to support Bay restoration. This legislation also authorizes NOAA's Chesapeake Bay Watershed Education and Training (BWET) program which provides environmental education grants in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Finally, the bill enhances the Chesapeake Bay Interpretative Buoy System (CBIBS), which provides vital scientific and historical information to boaters, scientists and teachers about conditions in the Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake Bay Science, Education and Ecosystem Enhancement Act also passed the House of Representatives during the 111th Congress by a bipartisan vote.

The third bill would strengthen and expand the Army Corps of Engineers' role in Chesapeake Bay restoration--a mission they first began in 1996. It would provide the Corps with continuing authority to engage in this work; expand the Corps' work to all six states in the Bay watershed and the District of Columbia; and provide flexibility for the Corps to work with other federal agencies, state and local governments, and not-for-profit groups engaged in Bay cleanup. The Chesapeake Bay Environmental Restoration and Protection Program, which was established in section 510 of the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) in 1996, authorizes the Army Corps of Engineers to provide design and construction assistance to state and local authorities in the environmental restoration of the Chesapeake Bay. These projects range from shoreline buffers to oyster reef construction.

The final piece of legislation is the Save the Bay Homeowner Act of 2011. This legislation would allow the 17 million citizens of the Chesapeake Bay watershed to become citizen stewards of the Bay and give them an active role in restoring it. The bill directs the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop a ``Save the Chesapeake Bay Home'' designation program that identifies various steps homeowners could voluntarily take around their property to reduce nutrient and sediment runoff and improve water quality in local streams and rivers that feed into the Bay. If a participating home meets certain standards, such as installing rain barrels or reducing fertilizer on their lawns, that home could be designated a ``Save the Chesapeake Bay Home.'' The legislation further directs the EPA to give credit to states and local jurisdictions for nutrient and sediment level reduction based upon the number of homeowners that achieve the ``Save the Chesapeake Bay Home'' designation.

To truly save the Chesapeake Bay, we need the 17 million people who live in the Bay's watershed to become citizen stewards of the streams and rivers in their community. If each individual within the watershed were to contribute to clean-up efforts, even in small ways, the aggregate would yield significant results in moving Bay restoration forward.

Mr. Speaker, these four pieces of legislation will help improve the federal government's role in restoring the Chesapeake Bay. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting each of these pieces of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to re-introduce the Federal Firefighter Flexibility and Fairness Act which passed the House of Representatives by voice vote in the 111th Congress. This legislation would correct a longstanding disparity between professional firefighters who are employed by States, counties, or municipalities and Federal firefighters.

In 1985, Congress amended the Fair Labor Standards Act so that firefighters around the country could engage in a practice called ``trade time.'' Trade time allows two firefighters, solely at their option and with the approval of their supervisor, to trade shifts without affecting the pay of either firefighter. The Congress made this change because firefighters work uncommon schedules involving 24-hour shifts and 72-hour workweeks, followed by a period of time away from the firehouse. Trade time enables firefighters to meet personal obligations such as attending a child's birthday or assisting a sick family member without exhausting their annual leave. It also ensures that firehouses across the country can maintain staffing requirements and keep our communities safe.

Federal firefighters are not covered under the Fair Labor Standards Act and therefore have been ineligible for trade time. I am reintroducing this legislation to amend Federal employee labor law to fix this problem.

Federal firefighters work side-by-side with their non-federal colleagues, so this is an issue of equity. Correcting this inequity will help Federal agencies recruit and retain firefighters. Just like other firefighters, Federal firefighters risk their lives on a daily basis. They also accept the irregular hours that their jobs require. This legislation merely gives them some modest flexibility to balance that irregularity and meet their family obligations.

I hope my colleagues will support this bipartisan commonsense legislation.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise in recognition of the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day. Created in 1911 to demand equality, today's International Women's Day is a reminder of all of the glass ceilings that have been broken in the past century. But it is also a day to remember how far we have left to go. Nowhere is this more evident than in the maternal mortality rates in some parts of the world. As many as one in eight women die because of childbirth related complications in some parts of Afghanistan. A full third of women in the developing world deliver without a skilled attendant present. And we lose approximately half a million women every year in childbirth, or one woman every minute.

Pregnancy should not be a death sentence, and on this International Women's Day I recommit to meeting the challenges laid out in the 5th Millennium Development Goal (MDG). The 5th MDG states that the global community is committed to reducing maternal mortality rates by 75 percent by 2015; today we are only a third of the way there, and it will take action from us all in order to succeed. We know how to prevent maternal deaths. Women need a skilled birth attendant present when they deliver. They need access to life-saving and inexpensive medications in case something goes wrong. And they need sanitary conditions to prevent the spread of infection. One organization in my district is committed to making sure that every woman has access to these services when they deliver.

For nearly 40 years and in more than 150 countries, Jhpiego, an international health nonprofit affiliated with Johns Hopkins University, has worked to prevent the needless deaths of women and families. Working with

health ministries, community organizations, and USAID, Jhpiego prepares local health care workers with the latest in maternal and newborn health skills, building sustainable local capacity that will stay on the ground long after they leave.

Together with partner organizations, Jhpiego helped develop the national midwifery education program in Afghanistan that has educated and graduated more than 2,000 skilled midwives. When the 2010 earthquake devastated Haiti, Jhpiego was on the ground to ensure that pregnant women had access to the care they needed. And, Jhpiego is leading the way in finding innovative solutions for the developing world's most pressing medical problems--like an inexpensive way to diagnose cervical cancer in places that lack electricity and access to lab tests.

I commend the work of Jhpiego and others who are working day and night to end the dangers of childbirth. Childbirth is one of life's great moments, and together we can ensure that more women survive that day and live to see the 101st anniversary of International Women's Day.

Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

I wanted to speak to the underlying CR, H.R. 1.

Madam Chair, in particular I want to speak to the fact that the American people have been very clear in their understanding that what we need to do is rebuild the country and that we need to rebuild America. Yet everything that is being proposed by the Republicans in this continuing resolution undermines that goal.

Rebuilding America means rebuilding our infrastructure, and we can talk about that infrastructure in a number of different ways. We can talk about rebuilding and investing in our physical infrastructure. That's roads, bridges, tunnels, highways, and building up the strength of our physical infrastructure, which we all know we have to do. All you have to do is look at the newspaper or watch television, and you will see examples every day of the crumbling infrastructure out there. So we have got to commit to that, but the Republican budget would undermine that objective.

We have to rebuild the civic infrastructure of this country and keep it strong. What do I mean by the ``civic infrastructure''? I am talking about service programs like AmeriCorps and the Corporation for National and Community Service, which creates an infrastructure that says to those people who want to volunteer and serve their country--1,000 points of light--we are here to partner with you in doing that. Yet the Republican proposal would zero out that civic infrastructure.

It's about investing in human infrastructure and building up human capital. That's education and health care and job training and innovation and technology. That's what human capital and human infrastructure is about. Yet we can look through this budget and find examples of cutting those priorities as well.

How does that build up America? That tears America down. It doesn't build it up.

As for the last piece of this, if you're going to make America strong and keep it strong, you've got to preserve the natural resources of this country. I

looked at a couple of the numbers here in terms of what's being done that would hurt our environment under the proposal. I'll just mention a couple of them.

Cutting the Environmental Protection Agency by 29 percent, a $3 billion proposed cut. Now, how are you going to protect the environment if you cut by almost a third the agency whose mission it is to do that? That's essentially giving a free license to the polluters of America. That's an unconscionable proposal.

I come from Maryland. We care about the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. It has been a national commitment to preserve this national treasure, the Chesapeake Bay. Last year, through an executive order, the President made it a priority. There are partnerships at the Federal, State and local levels and with the private sector to try to save and protect the Chesapeake Bay, but these proposals would undermine that.

Cutting over $1.7 billion from the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds. In Maryland, that would cost 1,000 jobs. This is an important source of financing for people to implement best practices to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. Why would we undermine that?

There are other elements with respect to our natural resources. We've got to enforce pollution standards. The EPA is in a position to do that, but not if we cut their funding. This would endanger rivers and streams that feed the Chesapeake Bay.

The last observation I would make, and this is sort of the overarching concern that I have, is that I really believe in the idea of citizen stewardship, in the idea that ordinary citizens step forward every day and decide they're going to commit themselves to cleaning up the environment. Our young people are committed to that, the next generation; but they want to see that the Federal Government is going to be a real partner in that effort. If we abdicate that responsibility, then there are going to be a lot of young people, a lot of ordinary citizens, who are going to get disillusioned in terms of their own commitment to cleaning up the environment.

We need to step forward. We need to stay strong and be a partner in protecting our environment; but what the Republicans have proposed in this continuing resolution would completely undermine that.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of National Telework Week.

Beginning on Monday, February 14, thousands of Americans will perform at least one full day of work from their homes or alternate work spaces rather than their traditional offices. It is estimated that about one- third of carbon emissions in the United States are transportation- related, yet the U.S. embraces workforce management practices that encourage long commutes and excessive travel. This pragmatic, commonsense workforce management strategy will provide meaningful relief to workers in the national capital region and across the country.

Late last year, Congress made the United States Government a leader in the movement toward flexible workplaces--significantly expanding telework opportunities for most Federal workers. On December 9, President Obama signed into law the Sarbanes-Wolf-Connolly Telework Enhancement Act of 2010. The product of over three years of bipartisan, bicameral cooperation, the new law requires all Federal agencies to establish a uniform telework policy, ensuring that most employees who wish to telework are able to do so. The Telework Enhancement Act requires Federal agencies to develop training programs for teleworkers and managers, to include telework in continuity of operations plans, and to designate a Telework Managing Officer to lead the telework program at each agency.

This new law will not only increase efficiency in the Federal Government, it will strengthen our national security. By including telework in continuity of operations plans, we can ensure vital services continue in the event of an emergency. The best evidence of this was last year, when a snowstorm shut down the Government for nearly a week. During that period, Federal employees with the ability to telework were able to continue to operate. According to John Berry, the Director of Office of Personnel Management, the Federal Government saved approximately $30 million per day that would have been otherwise lost.

Telework provides numerous benefits to strengthen our economy and enhance employee work-life balance. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office features a robust telework program and has seen substantial increases in employee productivity and morale since its inception. By implementing an agency-wide telework program, the Patent and Trademark Office has avoided securing $11 million in additional office space and has developed a more competitive recruitment process. Telework now enables the agency to draw from a talent pool of qualified candidates living anywhere in the country.

In 2009, then-Governor Tim Kaine instituted Telework Day in the Commonwealth of Virginia. For one day, more than 4,000 pledged to telework. Pledges collectively removed more than 82 tons of pollutants from harming our environment, saved more than $124,000, and avoided driving 140,000 miles--all in just one day. As of February 11, 2011, more than 34,800 people have already pledged to telework at least one day across the Nation. These pledges will collectively save more than $2.3 million in commuting costs and remove more than 1,595 tons of pollutants from the environment.

In his State of the Union address, the President challenged us to reinvigorate America's competitiveness. He set the goal of ``connecting every part of America to the digital age.'' Telework allows us to leverage today's technological advances, developed by America's pioneering companies, to enhance our Nation's efficiency, improve the environment, ensure our safety, and elevate our quality of life. As we struggle through another winter marked by agency closures, unprecedented traffic jams and millions of dollars in lost productivity, National Telework Week should serve as a clarion call to the administration to expeditiously implement the new Telework law and as a demonstration of the incredible benefits of a robust Federal telework policy.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

In the last few days, I have run into scores of people of my district, the Third District of Maryland, who have expressed their shock and their sadness at the events that occurred in Tucson last weekend. On their behalf and for myself, I want to express our deep condolences to the families of all those who were victimized by this tragedy.

A word about Gabby Giffords, our colleague. She and I came in together in the same class. We began in January of 2007. She is everything that a Representative in this body should be. She is thoughtful. She is hardworking. She is compassionate and, to a fault, she is attentive to the concerns of her constituents. That is why she was there at that supermarket last Saturday.

We pray for her speedy recovery. We pray for the recovery of all those who survived this terrible event. We mourn the loss of those who perished, and we send our thoughts and prayers to their families.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I rise in strong support. It's a privilege to rise today in support of S. 1275 and its companion, H.R. 4322, which is an act to create the National Foundation on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition, which is designed to support the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition.

I want to thank the many cosponsors of this legislation. It's a bipartisan bill. We have strong support from both Republicans and Democrats and have done so all the way through this process. I want to thank Congressman George Miller for his efforts in moving this from the Education and Labor Committee, and I want to salute his staff for working so closely with us. And of course Senator Mark Warner, who is the sponsor on the Senate side of this legislation. I, too, want to salute former Congressman Tom McMillen who has been just a tireless advocate for establishing this foundation which can support the mission of the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. This council was first established, as has been indicated a couple of times, by President Eisenhower back in 1956, who understood that we needed to create a focus here at the Federal level on the issue of healthy lifestyles, on fitness, on physical activity, and getting people outside into regular activity. And today we have the council with the same mission, a very important mission, more important I think than ever before.

You have heard the discussion about the increasing incidence of obesity among the next generation, the importance of encouraging regular physical activity, of paying attention to nutrition. I, myself, am very focused on research that shows that the average young person today spends about 7\1/2\ hours a day on television, video games, Internet, and handheld electronic devices, and about 4 minutes a day-- that's minutes a day--outside in unstructured physical recreation. That's a real changeover from the way things used to be, and it means that we really have to focus our young people on engaging in regular physical activity. And there is a lot of attention on that, and that's what the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition is all about.

Now, as was mentioned, the Federal dollars that are available to support the President's council are relatively limited, and I think we can expect that that is going to be the case going forward. Luckily, though, there are many people in the private sector, private citizens, others, who are ready to step forward and contribute to this effort because they understand how critically important the mission of the President's council is. So they are ready to do that. They are, in fact, very excited about the newly appointed commissioner to the President's council and I think the outpouring of support that that is going to generate. And they are ready to step forward and help.

Unfortunately, up until now, up until the creation of this act, of this foundation, there hasn't really been a mechanism by which private parties could step forward and support the mission of the council. And that's exactly what this legislation is designed to do. The foundation that is created by this bill makes it possible for the foundation, upon behalf of the President's council, to solicit, receive, and administer private contributions. So this is going to give people a chance to step forward and say, This mission is a critical one, and we want to support it with our private dollars.

This is a very accepted model. We have seen it work with the National Park Service, with the National Institutes of Health, with the Centers for Disease Control. And I think it's a wonderful opportunity to strengthen the council's mission going forward. For that reason, I urge support of this bill.