Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, allow me to thank the gentleman for the time. I thank my dear friend Frederica Wilson from Florida for bringing forth this important resolution.

Mr. Speaker, a number of people across the country who are of the Muslim faith contacted me and Congressman Carson, who happen to be the two Members of that faith in this body, and expressed to us how outraged and offended they were by the actions of Boko Haram. What we did is said, well, you guys write a letter and we will draft it; we will get a lot of signatures on it, and we will send it to Nigeria. And that is what we have done.

It is written in English and in the Arabic language, and we are trying to get it translated into Hausa right now. It has well over 30 leaders in the community. It just reads a little bit this way. I doubt I will have the time to read the entire letter, but it reads:

We urge to you immediately release the young children you

have unconscionably taken. Your actions have shocked Muslims

across the United States and the world and have disrespected

our faith and the teachings of the Prophet (peace and

blessings be upon Him.)

Your justification for stealing these children--that

education for girls goes against Islam--has no basis

whatsoever in our faith. The Prophet Muhammad (peace and

blessings be upon Him) wisely emphasized that every Muslim

man and women has a duty to seek education. You have truly

strayed from the path when your actions betray its first

command ``Iqra,'' which means to read.

You do not represent Islam or what Muslims know to be the

teachings of Islam. Your attempt to transform a central tenet

of Islam into a vile lie used to kill and maim innocent

Nigerians of all faiths is transparent.

You treat children like cattle. It is abhorrent and sinful

to pretend to be a Prophet to whom Allah has spoken.

It goes on. The last sentence reads such as this:

If you would like to follow the teachings of Islam, listen

to the global chorus.

``If you would like to follow the teachings of Islam, listen to the global chorus of voices that are enjoining you to do what is right: return these children to their families and replace the evil in your heart with peace and learning.''

It goes on to be signed by myself, Congressman Carson, and many others.

We join our colleagues, both sides of the aisle, in the demand for the return of these precious children immediately.

Thank you, Congressman Horsford, and thank you for leading this Special Order on Brown v. The Board of Education.

Mr. Speaker, I think it can be safely argued that there is really no more important Supreme Court decision in the history of the United States. I believe it is the most important decision.

The reason is that our country was founded on the idea that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; yet for so many years--243 years--men and women were held in bondage in this Nation that is dedicated to freedom.

American slavery--racial discrimination--stands as an indictment and as evidence of the insincerity of that fundamental promise of America. Then for another 100 years after slavery ended, for Black people to exist in a state of Jim Crow's subordination is further evidence that those original words really were not intended and really were not sincere.

Brown v. The Board of Education was a restoration. It was an attempt to say: Do you know what? We have had an ugly past in this country, and we have not lived up to our values.

We have called on freedom, and we have declared freedom, yet we have given people the opposite of freedom, which is slavery; so with Brown v. The Board of Education, the United States has begun a process of pushing the old, ugly past to the back.

I know very well we could stand up here--and we will stand up here-- and talk about the mission that we have to pursue to stand up for equal education opportunities for all, but if we take a minute just to look back at what we have achieved, Brown v. The Board of Education represents a seminal moment in American history when we rejected that ugly history that was in conflict and in sharp contradiction to the principles that this country stood for.

I think it is also important, Mr. Horsford, to point out that Brown v. The Board of Education was not some gift that fell out of the sky. This case was fought and won by some seriously committed soldiers for justice.

I know we will talk about Thurgood Marshall here tonight quite a bit, but before Thurgood Marshall, there was a man named Charles Hamilton Houston. Charles Hamilton Houston was a brilliant man. He was a Harvard-trained lawyer and was the assistant dean of Harvard Law School.

At an early point in his career, he was offended and outraged by Jim Crow segregation, particularly in schools, so he got an old video camera, and he drove down south in his car.

He couldn't stay in a hotel because Black people were not allowed to stay in White hotels during those days. You had to sleep in your car, or maybe somebody would take you in for the night; but he took that video camera--took film and footage--and showed exactly what African American students were living through--the harsh conditions, the fact that there were all grades of students in the same classroom, the fact that the buildings were inferior, the books were outdated, the facilities were in every way inferior--and that this promise of separate but equal was anything but equal and was inherently unequal.

Charles Hamilton Houston trained up a cadre of lawyers who would take on and fight American segregation. Among those were Thurgood Marshall, but there were others as well--Spottswood Robinson. There were many other great lawyers.

Back in the day, when it was even difficult for an African American lawyer to stand up and do anything, these lawyers stood up and made the case that, in America, the ideals upon which this country were founded demanded that segregation be struck down.

These lawyers, first of all, didn't go straight to the elementary schools. First, they went to the graduate schools, and they desegregated the graduate schools. They fought against White primaries. Blacks, in some States, could vote in the general elections, but they couldn't participate in the primaries, so they had no choice in picking who was the Democrat and who was the Republican.

They took on restrictive covenant cases. They took on all types of cases. They attacked these standing monuments to segregation and beat them down. Then they got to the famous Brown v. The Board of Education, but Charles Hamilton Houston, a man who died at the age of 54, was not able to see the great work that his student, Thurgood Marshall, had done as they led the team to beat down segregation in public schools, but his spirit was there.

Today, as we commemorate this towering victory of defeating Jim Crow segregation in schools, we have to also commemorate the heroic figures of Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall, Spottswood Robinson, and of many, many more who fought these battles, these Black lawyers who fought these battles and who would not accept the status quo.

I want to commend you, Mr. Horsford, for leading this today; and I certainly hope that Americans all across this country, Black, White, Native American, Hispanic, Asian--of all colors and all backgrounds-- will take a moment and thank those lawyers who fought to defeat segregation in America because what they literally did--and they did this for every single American of every color--is they allowed Americans to stand up and say: we do, in fact, live in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Whereas, if we had not defeated segregation, we would have to say: we live in the land of the White free and the White brave and of the enslaved and segregated everybody else.

That is nothing to crow about. In fact, that stands as a shame on our Nation's history, but the achievement of these brave lawyers restored our Nation's honor.

This is why I think Brown v. The Board of Education is the most important case in history. I thank you for taking a moment to focus our attention on it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of George A. Emanuelson, a World War II veteran who served as an Armed Gunner with the United States Navy aboard the S.S. Mello Franco as well as the S.S. James S. Lawson.

Mr. Emanuelson honorably and faithfully carried out his duties, and our country is indebted to him and his fellow sailors for their heroic service. As a member of our nation's ``Greatest Generation,'' Mr. Emanuelson answered the call of duty during a perilous time of war. World War II was an event that shaped the trajectory of not only our country, but also the entire world. We owe service members like Mr. Emanuelson our eternal gratitude for standing up against fascism that threatened democracy and safety across the globe. Thanks to men and women like Mr. Emanuelson, our democratic ideals have persevered and led us to become the most influential nation in the world today.

Mr. Emanuelson makes Minnesotans proud. On behalf of all Minnesotans and Americans, I recognize Mr. Emanuelson's dutiful service to our country during one of its most dire times of need.

Mr. Speaker, while the Democrats are working hard to address the needs of working Americans, over 2.5 million having been left out in the cold since the Republicans refused to bring up a bill, which is paid for, to extend unemployment insurance. Republicans are busy with yet another partisan, political exploitation of the tragedy in Benghazi.

Yesterday, citizens had to go to the steps of the Capitol to talk about how they have lost their jobs and their unemployment insurance, and now they are at their wits' end and at the end of the family's budget. They need a responsive government to step up. Yet Republicans are announcing a select committee on Benghazi, despite already having had 13 hearings, 25,000 pages of document requests, and 50 briefings.

This is an exploitation of a serious tragedy. We know what happened. But, you know what? It is politics.

Unfortunately, the American people need a responsive government to help them, like the 2.5 million people who are desperately in need of the opportunity for their government to step forward to help them with this unemployment crisis.

We can do more. We have got to do it now. Stop the games.

Madam Speaker, I would like to start out by thanking Chairman Hensarling and Ranking Member Waters. I would also like to thank the people who I have worked closely with on the bill, including my own staff, who did a fine job, but also Congressman Paulsen, who has been my friend of many years; Congressman Duffy, who is away tending to family affairs with a newborn baby; and also Congressman Hinojosa and many others.

The fact is that this is a commonsense good piece of legislation. It is the kind of thing that it would be great if we worked on more of. Both Federal and State regulators have a responsibility to provide oversight over nonbank financial institutions like money services businesses, jewelry merchants, and mortgage brokers. However, Federal regulators have not been able to rely on the information that comes from the State exams for their oversight purposes. This bill changes that. In so doing, it reduces duplicative exams and increases efficiency.

Madam Speaker, I urge support of this bill because it reduces duplication in exams between State agencies and the IRS and makes the system more efficient. One reason I introduced the bill is because I want to see more money service businesses have access to bank accounts. Financial institutions will feel more assured in providing bank accounts because more nonbank financial institutions will now be formally examined.

Groups ranging from Oxfam America to Dahabshiil agree. New Americans know that their ability to send money back to their families in Somalia and elsewhere is literally a matter of life and death. For many Americans, remittances are a lifeline, providing food, shelter, education, and economic development.

This bill is an example of how robust oversight can reduce risk, resulting in greater beneficial activity. This bill received a great deal of support from a wide range of supporters.

Again, I would like to thank my cosponsors for the bill. I would also like to thank the Senate leads on the bill, Senators Kirk and Klobuchar, and finally, again, Chairman Hensarling and Ranking Member Waters for prioritizing the need to improve regulatory oversight, which also meet humanitarian needs.

I urge my colleagues to support the Money Remittances Improvement Act, H.R. 4386.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.

We do live in a great country. Thank God people before this Congress, before Mr. Ryan's budget, understood that investing in our Nation's infrastructure was critical to achieving that greatness.

The budget being offered by the Democrats invests in America, we invest in infrastructure. The Ryan budget does not do that. In fact, we go back.

Our country has never been made great. We have never built railroads, never built great dams, never built great things to make this country the wonderful place that it is based on cutting and slashing and redistributing money up toward the wealthiest.

Vote against the Ryan budget. Vote for the Democratic alternative.

Mr. Chairman, our Republican colleagues have been saying for maybe 100 years that if we don't regulate and have fair, good rules for health and safety and financial markets and in other areas of our economy, and if we don't tax people, the wealthy and corporations, then our economy will take off. They have been saying this for years. They didn't just start saying it with Bush or Reagan. They were saying it back in the thirties.

Thank God the American people did not listen to them, because it was in the thirties that we put up the SEC, we put regulations on banks, and we put other sorts of health, safety, and commonsense regulations in place. Because of that, between 1948 and about 1975, we had an expanding economy. Sometimes tax rates were way higher than they are now.

They are wrong. They don't know economic history, and so they continue to repeat Herbert Hoover-type myths that were dispelled decades ago. Oh, but they came back and they deregulated the economy in the late 1990s, and then in the early 2000s they cut taxes on the wealthy, and we have had a dismal jobs economy since that time.

The Better Off Budget is here to present a better alternative that involves investment in our Nation's economy to put Americans back to work. The Better Off Budget puts 8.8 million Americans back to work by doing something that everyone--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents--agrees that everyone needs: we invest in infrastructure. We put $820 billion into fixing our roads, our bridges, and our smart grids, into our transit systems and our wastewater treatment systems. We invest in our Nation's infrastructure.

Just like under the great Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, as we invest in infrastructure, we put people to work building it, and we make our economy more productive as we use it. This is exactly what this version of Republicans--my goodness--doesn't understand, that you have got to invest in the economy in order to reap benefits from the economy.

The Better Off Budget puts 8.8 million people back to work. The Ryan budget puts 3 million people out of work. Vote ``yes'' on the Better Off Budget today.

I appreciate the gentleman for yielding. Congressman Pocan has been just a beacon, a voice for working Americans all over the country. Our States are next to each other, and we share a lot. I am honored to be here with you today.

We are going to talk about fracking, but I just want to set the stage for the conversation. You know, we are in the United States House of Representatives and we have had stagnant wages for 40 years, yet we can't see a way, a bill to raise the minimum wage on the House floor.

We see that unemployment insurance has been stalled since December 28, 2013. Mr. Pocan has made this point abundantly clear, and over 2 million people are now without that unemployment insurance support, and yet we still see no action on the House floor here.

We see our infrastructure crumbling across the United States. In Minnesota, we saw our I-35 bridge fall into the Mississippi River. We have seen water mains break and problems with grids, and yet we see no action here on the House floor.

We all thought we were going to get some action on immigration reform. In fact, even the Speaker, to his credit, said I have some principles out there, let's talk about how we move forward. The Senate already has moved forward. Yet no sooner than the Speaker said he had some principles he wanted to start working on did he come back and say he can't trust Obama so we can't have an immigration bill.

It is outrageous how little substantive work we have done on this floor of the House of Representatives: no to immigration reform; no to unemployment insurance; no to raising the minimum wage; and no to all these key things that Americans really, really need. What is the idea here? What is the idea when we won't do anything other than politically charged bills to sort of make a point? I mean, what is that all about?

Well, today we are going to talk a little bit about fracking, but I ask the question, Mr. Speaker: When are we going to get to some real work around here? We cannot be in this House of Representatives with a responsibility to discharge the duties of the American people, and we are completely unresponsive under this Republican leadership to what the American people want. People are unemployed. People need a raise. People need a better life, and we are not doing anything to help.

In fact, the only time we ever care about NEPA, which is environmental review, is if it is going to block monuments that the President may want to decide to establish. Every other time, it is a ``job-killing regulation.'' It is total lingo, total rhetoric, and it is just really a shame. I am getting to the point, Mr. Speaker, and I want to yield back to the gentleman so we can begin talking about fracking, but it is really getting frustrating.

We know we are here with different political points of view. I am a proud, progressive liberal, absolutely. Just like Hubert H. Humphrey, LBJ, Martin Luther King, I admired them all, and I am not apologizing to anybody for being as progressive liberal as I am. But that doesn't stop me from talking to a conservative Republican as long as we are both trying to solve the problem. But they are not trying to solve anything.

I am happy to talk to Republicans with their conservative views. We will haggle it out, and we will meet somewhere in the middle. It will not be everything I want, and it will not do everything they want, but we will do something.

Where are we at? No immigration, nothing. Where are we at with UI, people are suffering, 2 million strong? Nowhere. Where are we at on raising the minimum wage, which has been sliding as inflation goes up, and we have lower minimum wage than we did since the 1950s when you adjust it for inflation? Nothing. We are just not meeting the needs of the American people.

We have tried to repeal ObamaCare--I even hate that phrasing--the Affordable Care Act, 53 times. This is an outrage.

We shut down the government for 16 days for the one purpose of stopping people getting access to health care, and yet it feels like we are in ``Star Wars,'' Mr. Speaker.

I just had to share those views and just share my thoughts that it is time, high time, for us to get to work, to

stop this party of no business, to stop this obstructionism and bring our values, different though they are, to this debate and come up with something to meet the needs of the American people.

I thank the gentleman for letting me share my views on those matters.

Will the gentleman yield?

If we were the do-nothing Congress of the 1940s, that would be more activity than we have right now. We are the do-nothing Congress. We are the do-nothing Congress. Our goal is to improve the lives of Americans. I would be surprised if it was even half of the 60 that we actually did pass.

It is hard to get a label, gentlemen, to what you would call worse than the do-nothing Congress. I don't know what the label would be to establish to us. It has been a highly unproductive Congress.

What was interesting, at the end of January, I got on the elevator with a Republican who I won't name, and I said: We have been here for two weeks again, and we haven't done anything.

The response I got is: Don't worry. It will get better in 3 or 4 years.

I don't know about you, gentleman, but I didn't come to Congress to wait 3 or 4 years. We have real work to do.

That's right.

If the gentleman would yield about the better-off budget?

All I want to say about the better-off budget is that it is going make Americans better off. That is what the better-off budget does.

The better-off budget toplines 8.8 million jobs--8.8 million jobs--in 3 years. That is what we do by making infrastructures in education and infrastructure, putting people back to work, making sure that public employees, teachers, police officers, people like that, stay on the job. This is what the better-off budget does.

Now, the Republicans are going to come in here with a budget, and they are going to brag about how much deficit reduction it does. We have already been reducing the deficit significantly, by the way; but they are going to talk about what they have cut.

They are going say: oh, we cut food stamps, we cut Head Start, we cut medical research, we cut research on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, and things like that. They are going to brag about how many people they have left behind.

I think that the real thing is that, as we invested 8.8 million jobs, our better-off budget actually has deficit reductions to a tune of about $4 trillion in 10 years because, as people are working, they are paying taxes, and we are growing ourselves out of the debt and deficit picture.

That is why even some conservative groups have said that this is a good budget because we are being responsible about the debt, not because we are pointing straight at it, but because we are pointing straight at putting people back to work, people are working, people are paying taxes, and we are dealing with our fiscal picture. So the better-off budget is definitely worth people reading about. It is an awesome budget.

A few things I just want to mention about the better-off budget, and then we can talk about it another time. We also require in our budget that the amount of money going to our spy agencies, our intelligence agencies, the topline be revealed, not the nuts and bolts and the guts of it, but just in these days of NSA spying and things like that, I think it is important to have budget accountability, so that people really know.

This is something that we hope people will really look at and feel that Congress is actually exercising its proper role in doing oversight with this.

The other thing is there was a huge fight over chained CPI. This is that form of CPI, this measure of inflation, which literally cut benefits for people who are older Americans, people who are on disability benefits, and people who are on survivor benefits. It cuts their benefit over time.

CPI-E, another measure of inflation that actually enhances retirement benefit because it really reflects the real cost associated with making a living in the United States, so we put CPI-E in our budget, which we believe is a far better measure of what is really going on in days of retirement insecurity brought about because of decisions of the Republican Caucus.

It is important that we really invest in making sure that we have some retirement security.

So those are just a few lines on the better-off budget, but I do want to thank you for raising it.

Certainly. I think it is really important for the gentleman to bring us to this conversation about fracking today. It is a lot of courage that you bring to this debate as well.

The interests that are really promoting fracking are powerful, wealthy, energy companies; and opposing them, you know, is something that, I believe, is something that not everybody would do. I think raising real questions about how this is affecting the health and the environment are critical.

I had the occasion of talking with a number of people in my office who came and told me really amazing stories about what their experiences with fracking were. One gentleman actually told me a story about the lighting of the fire coming out of the faucet in the sink.

Another told me a story about how his cows drank the water that was contaminated with the fracking fluid, and those cows died. Another individual told me how, when they made complaints about it, there was just a lack of responsiveness.

These are folks who--before they came to my office, I didn't know them--but they wanted to talk to me about a problem of common concern, so I said: Sure. Share with me what you know.

What they shared with me caused me to do my own research. I was particularly disturbed by the fact that the process, particularly the fluid that is used, is not something that we can know. I think you are talking about injecting a fluid into the ground that is causing the natural gas to come up, and yet, it has proprietary protections.

Now, how can we safeguard the public interest if we don't even know what is in that stuff? If nothing in there is harmful, why don't they want to share what is in that stuff?

At the end of day, there are stories of regular citizens, cropping up all over this country, about dead farm animals, toxic drinking water, fire coming out of the water faucet, and all sorts of things. It has happened to people who thought that they could lead a good life, trying to farm, trying to live in rural America, and yet, the answers just are not coming for them.

I remain very concerned. I believe that we do have a public interest in knowing much more about this process. A few years ago, Mr. Speaker, we were sort of sold that natural gas would be the answer to get off petroleum, but what we didn't know is all the health hazards that were involved with trying to make that conversion.

It is absolutely essential that we, as the American people, get to the bottom of the health risks associated with all of the ingredients of fracking. These same folks who came to my office, Mr. Speaker, made complaints about skin irritation, nasal irritation, eye problems, chronic issues; they talk about farm animals and other sorts of issues that they have lost. It is just something that I think is crying out for real answers.

If Congress does not stand up and say, look, we have got to figure out what the environmental health impacts on fracking are on our citizens, then who is now going to?

Europe has already asked some tough questions about how fracking works. Europe has already said: Well, wait a minute. We need to know a little bit more about this.

In some places, the practice has been banned. I really believe that this is an appalling situation, calling out for answers, and it is our public duty to get those answers.

I appreciate the time to talk about my exposure, my discussions with people who have experienced fracking firsthand.

I also need to mention one other thing that I forgot. One gentleman talked about the frequency of earthquakes near the fracking area. When he tried to figure out and when he asked questions about, well, is the fracking causing the earthquakes because, before you were fracking, there were no earthquakes, he really was stonewalled and didn't get any answers.

It makes sense--you are doing something to disrupt the ground, you are shooting a substance into the ground causing these sort of issues, like tremors in the Earth; and then this farmer who talked to me could not get any answers and could not get much responsiveness.

Again, this is something I remain concerned about and look forward to people Facebooking, Tweeting, and writing regular old emails and snail mails telling their stories about what they are going through, so that we can make a case. The true, real investigation needs to take place, and we can actually look out for the public interest.

I do appreciate the gentleman for going over all of those bills, which, I think, will bring about transparency, accountability, disclosure--all things that are just basic fairness issues.

In the United States, we pride ourselves on having due process and fairness and accountability, and I think every one of those bills has a lot of merit and should be carefully considered because they will allow Americans to make decisions about whether this practice of hydraulic fracking is something that we need to just continue to let happen as it happens now.

There is an idea in economics, which is, if you make the money, you need to pay the cost, right? If you are going to internalize the profits, you should internalize the costs of what you are doing. If you are going to make a lemonade stand, then you should buy the lemons; you should get the water; you should put in whatever sweetener you have; you should clean up after yourself after you make the lemonade; and you should deal with problems that you cause in the sale of your lemonade. Yet, when it comes to fracking, the profits are absolutely internalized, but the cost is forced on everyone else.

How is that good, free market economics to say that we are going to keep the money we make by getting this natural gas but that we are not going to clean up after ourselves and that we are not going to tell everybody what we are doing even though it affects them?

I mean, there is just something very unfair about the way fracking is being done right now. So I think that this set of bills, the frac pack, and this Special Order are really important.

Again, I really urge people, Mr. Speaker, to let their voices be heard because we were told that this is the clean energy future-- fracking, natural gas--that it is much cleaner than petroleum. It is. Natural gas is cleaner. It is still a fossil fuel, though, and there are still social and economic and environmental and health costs as a result of the way we get this natural gas.

Unfortunately, I do have to go to another meeting, but I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that there are other ways to power our world. Let us have a real conversation about investing in renewable energy, in zero waste, in living in societies that have more transit options, that are more walkable so we use less, that we make our buildings much more fuel efficient.

One of the sad days in Washington was when President Ronald Reagan took down the solar panels that Jimmy Carter had put up on the White House. That was too bad. That was unfortunate that that decision was made. Think about if, in the seventies, we had been moving aggressively into renewables. Think about the world we would live in if we truly had recycling, composting, reuse. Right now, according to the scientists, we have put so much CO2 up into the atmosphere that we are changing the climate. So who knows if the action that we take now will be enough. We had better take that action. We dare not avoid taking that action. I just think to myself that these things like fracking are not the only answer. Oil and gas exploration is not the only answer. There are other

things we can do to power our world, and I absolutely urge us to do it.

I just want to wrap up by saying, too, that, when we think about what we are going to use our tax dollars to subsidize, we are subsidizing the fossil fuel industry. Bernie Sanders and I worked on a bill called the End Polluter Welfare Act. We have documented up to about $110 billion worth of subsidies to the oil and gas industry, which is six times the subsidy that goes to renewable energy sources--solar, wind. It is high time we started investing in the wind and in the Sun and in the wave technology and in other forms of technology that can help us power our world that don't have these ugly, costly, expensive externalities.

I would ask the gentleman to excuse me now, but thank you for hosting this very important Special Order on raising questions around fracking.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 100th birthday of Mrs. Pearl Riley and I join her family members and friends on April 6, 2014, in commemorating this special centenarian birthday.

Pearl was born on April 6, 1914, and raised in Alsuma, Oklahoma, a suburb of Tulsa. Pearl and her husband, the late Alonzo Riley, Sr. were married for 50 years and raised eight children. She is the grandmother of twenty two; great grandmother of thirty nine; and great, great grandmother of fourteen. One of Pearl's great loves in life, in addition to her family and gardening, was the church. Throughout her life, she was a regular teacher of both children and adults in Sunday school, drama, arts and crafts, and choir. She also served as her church's President of the District Missionary Society and was a member of the Deaconess and Mother's Board. Outside the church, Pearl was an active member of her community working as a volunteer for voter registration and serving as a community representative.

Pearl Riley has led an outstanding life, highlighted by her love of family and service to her community. I wish her many more years of health and happiness.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor and remembrance of Abdullahi Charif, a 12-year-old boy who tragically lost his life on March 1st, 2014, as a result of an accident that occurred while swimming during a physical education class at school.

Abdullahi lived a short life but he made a significant impact on his family and community. He was a bright and promising young man who enjoyed life. We must cherish the gifts and lessons he provided to his family and friends during his short time.

The tragic loss of Abdullahi should serve as a reminder that pool procedures in schools must be evaluated and held to the highest standards of safety. We must do all we can to avoid tragedies like this from occurring again.

I offer my condolences to his family and community in this time of loss.

Mr. Speaker and colleagues, please join me in honoring the life of Abdullahi Charif.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to today to honor the life of Ricky ``Rick'' Allen Jauert. Mr. Jauert passed away before his time at the age of 59 on June 2, 2013, after a brave battle with Multiple Systems Atrophy. Tuesday, March 18, 2014, would have been his 60th birthday.

Mr. Jauert was born on March 18, 1954, to Russell and Norma (Olson) Jauert in Luverne, Minnesota. The fourth of seven children, he was raised on a dairy farm outside of Luverne. He lost his father at age twelve. Mr. Jauert was active in 4-H and began his political career while still in high school. After graduating from Luverne High School in 1972, Mr. Jauert was a foreign exchange student in the Philippines. He returned and became the first person in his family to attend college.

While at the University of Minnesota-Morris, he served in a wide variety of leadership capacities including as resident assistant, dorm director and serving as Chairman of the Budget Advisory Committee. He was a vociferous lobbyist for students' rights and student involvement in the decision making of the campus. He graduated with honors from the university in 1976. Soon after, Mr. Jauert moved to Washington, DC to intern in Rep. Rick Nolan's congressional office.

Over the next three decades, Mr. Jauert worked for ten members of Congress in various capacities including chief of staff, legislative director and communications director. He is part of an elite group of people to have worked in so many congressional offices and the only person from Minnesota to have done so. In addition to being a savvy political operative, Mr. Jauert was a great story teller. He always had a witty, wise, and anecdotal story to tell of his childhood or early years on the Hill.

Rick lived on Capitol Hill during his time in Washington, maintaining a three-story townhouse just blocks from the U.S. Capitol. Rick's

welcoming and generous spirit, as well as hundreds of pieces of political memorabilia, drew roommates ranging from members of Congress to college interns from Luverne and Morris, and everyone in between. Rick had no children, but referred to many of his renters as ``his kids.''

I had the honor of working with Mr. Jauert for the last three years of his career. He served as my communications director, senior advisor and dear friend. Mr. Jauert practiced the idea that politics is about improving people's lives--he would always go the extra mile to help someone. He ended every e-mail with this quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ``Not only will we have to repent for the sins of bad people; but we also will have to repent for the appalling silence of good people.'' I have fond memories of Mr. Jauert pushing everyone around him to do whatever they could to make the world a better place, or to at least put a smile on someone's face.

Mr. Jauert moved to back Luverne in 2012 after his diagnosis, but continued to be deeply involved with politics. He was proud to be able to travel to Washington one last time on January 3, 2013, for Rep. Nolan's swearing in ceremony. We are all better off because of his life of service. Mr. Jauert, thank you for your service and the wonderful legacy you left for us to continue fulfilling.

Madam Speaker, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Speaker, if my colleagues who are offering this bill believe that it is a good idea, they should agree with my amendment. We will see.

My amendment is very simple. It just says that if the voluminous number of reports that may be generated by this bill are so burdensome that they shut down and interfere and gnarl up the instrument of government, then it would be legitimate for the Executive to waive the reporting requirements provided in the bill if sufficient funds are not available to generate the increased volume. It makes simple sense to do so.

My colleagues say they want transparency. They also say all the time that they want to cut red tape, that they want to cut extra reports, that they want to get government out of the way. Their bill is getting government in the way, for sure. If they are sincere about their desire for less government, then I am certain that they would be willing to put in a provision by which we would waive reporting requirements provided in the bill if sufficient funds were not available to deal with all of these reports that they are generating.

But do you know what?

It may just be, Madam Speaker, that, given that we had a 16-day shutdown and given that we just saw the Oversight Committee chairman cut off the mike and given that we have just seen sequestration and the cutting off of government, maybe, right now, what we are seeing is an effort to just bog down government--snarl it, wrap it up, get it twisted up--so that it doesn't really function. Whether you are shutting down or are cutting off or are bogging down, it is all interfering with the American people's government and its ability to serve them.

I would ask for a ``yes'' vote on my amendment because my amendment makes sense given that the general theme around here has been less government, particularly not unfunded

mandates and things like that. We certainly are not sending an appropriation along that is compliant with this bill. We are certainly not sending money along and extra staff to be able to generate the reports that would come about as a result of this bill.

It just seems to me that it would be fair for the Executive to say that that is not a constitutionally implicated provision for which we are using our discretion to either formally or not formally enforce; therefore, we don't need to write a report but for this amendment. Yet, since we don't have the money and since, I am sure, that my friends on the Republican side wouldn't want to bog down government, they should just be able to waive the requirement if there are not sufficient funds to comply.

I want to point out, Madam Speaker, that this particular bill would have the effect of burdening government unless we do have some provision for the Executive to escape it given its overburdening nature. This particular bill would be an undue burden.

I also think it is important to point out--I think it is very important for everyone listening to this debate to know, Madam Speaker--that existing law already requires the Department of Justice to submit a report to Congress when it determines that nonenforcement is recommended because the law is unconstitutional. So, when we need a report, the law already requires that we would get one; but informal? Think about the way this bill is written. It would require a Federal agency to issue a report even in the case of informal nonenforcement.

Does that mean that if somebody decides not to charge out a case that one has to write a report on it? Does that mean that if EPA officials cannot get down to every single polluter because they are dealing with the big ones that they have got to write a report about it? Does that mean that the FBI cannot prioritize the dangerousness of crimes and go after the most dangerous people and work with local law enforcement to deal with the other ones?

This is a ridiculous piece of legislation being offered. It would generate all types of burdens, and in order to meet and comply with it, it would require all types of expenses and extra staff. Since my Republican friends and I agree that it would not be a good idea to just push unfunded mandates on the government, I am sure that I will be able to get a lot of votes from both sides of the aisle that would allow the executive branch to waive reporting requirements.

I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee.

In reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman from Tennessee. I am sure we will get plenty of people on both sides.

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

Mr. Chairman, let me thank our ranking member for the time.

I urge a ``no'' vote on H.R. 3193 today. It is a bad bill, and it is bad for consumers, bad for Americans.

As I listened to my colleagues, one of them mentioned the CFPB offers uncertainty. Well, here is some certainty for you. You cannot cheat consumers. That is certainty enough for me. Another one said, well, you know, the CFPB doesn't offer choice. Here is a choice. You can offer any product that is fair and transparent to consumers.

That is exactly what my friends on the other side of the aisle object to. They don't want average Americans to be able to get a financial services product that is fair, that is balanced, and that makes sense in the marketplace.

You have nothing to fear from the CFPB if you do not offer a product that is designed to bilk consumers. If you do, I can see why you might be quite upset at the activity of the CFPB.

The bottom line is this is a bad bill. It will set our country back, and in fact, I believe consumer protection is at the very heart of the recession that we just went through.

Now, of course, we have heard ad nauseam that it was the housing goals and it was the other sort of measures that caused the recession, but the fact is the recession was caused because large numbers of home buyers were bilked into mortgages that they couldn't afford, that were difficult to understand, with high pressure tactics and were incentivized, even to be guided and steered to products that were more high cost than the ones they qualified for.

Then we packaged these things into mortgage-backed securities that were unsound to begin with. The rating agencies said they were fine, took out a form of insurance on them, and then when the house of cards fell, the whole economy went with it.

Consumer protection is at the heart of the problem. Consumer protection is the solution to this problem, and so this effort to undermine the CFPB today under the guise of H.R. 3193 is wrong.

Mr. Chair, we are at a whose side are you on moment. Are you on the side of Mom and Pop, of the small business owner, of the consumer trying to get a house loan or other form of credit? Or are you on someone else's side who is not in favor of a fair product?

I have said to my community bankers, look, your opponents before the crash didn't have the regulator; now, everyone has one. The CFPB offers a level playing field for all. Now everybody offering mortgage products has a degree of accountability. This is good for the financial services sector, not bad.

Since the CFPB was created following the financial crisis, it has received, Mr. Chair, more than 250,000 consumer complaints. Mr. Chair, who are these 250,000 complaints supposed to be directed to but for an agency that is responsive to them? Who would my friends on the other side of the aisle have these people go to to try to get their problems solved? We know that they weren't being listened to before the CFPB.

Now that the CFPB exists, a quarter of a million complaints and untold numbers of complainants have come forward to say, Please help me. Half of these complaints have been in the mortgage servicing area alone. Of the 3,135 complaints from my own State of Minnesota, 1,320 have been related to mortgage issues. This bill threatens to turn off access to these consumers, and I will not stand silently by while they do this.

This is a bad bill.

Mr. Chairman, this is a bad bill. Among the CFPB's many accomplishments, they have refunded more than $3 billion--billion with a ``b''--to more than 9 million consumers. That is good fiscal stewardship.

Now, the CFPB oversees industries that previously were not regulated by the Federal government, including credit reporting agencies, nonbank mortgage providers, debt collection agencies and payday lenders. All of that consumer protection would end if this bad piece of legislation were to pass.

Say no, resoundingly. Vote ``no'' on this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member.

I only rise for one simple point, and that is to correct the Record when it comes to this claim that the CFPB engages in massive, excessive data collection of consumers' information. It is not true.

Anyone listening to this debate, Mr. Chairman, should know that the CFPB does not monitor the accounts of particular consumers and does not track the financial behavior or activities of any individual customer.

The CFPB is already prohibited by law from collecting personally identifiable information in the course of its market-monitoring responsibility. Although the Bureau does collect certain information as part of its responsibility to identify and monitor market trends and proactively address emerging consumer credit issues, this information is deliberately depersonalized and aggregated to ensure consumers' sensitive information is protected.

Now, this is critically important because speaker after speaker is trying to scare consumers into believing that somebody is looking at their personal data. It is not true. It is not true, and I think it is important for people listening to this debate to know that.

Requiring the Bureau to seek consent on an individual level in order for it to access aggregated or anonymous data is not only a hindrance to the CFPB's core mission of regulating the entities that offer consumer financial products or services, but it is a burdensome requirement and, of course, intended simply to slow down, gum up, undermine, and break down the institution itself.

It is not true. People's data is safe. Looking for aggregate trends and proactively addressing emerging problems, as would have been very helpful as we got closer to the financial foreclosure crisis just a few years ago, is what the CFPB is doing.

It is doing what it is supposed to do. It is doing it well, and I don't know why any fair-minded person would be against that.

Mr. Speaker, trade of course can be good for Americans and our economy, but we cannot afford bad trade deals. Bad trade deals exacerbate inequality. It makes the ladder of opportunity harder to climb for working people.

Twenty years ago, Washington passed NAFTA, and the results have been devastating to our economy for working people. Over 850,000 U.S. jobs left for Mexico, and our trade deficit skyrocketed from $100 billion to $700 billion. Before fast track authority, the U.S. had a trade surplus.

Fast track and the Trans-Pacific Partnership are not right for the American people. We must have more transparency. We must have more disclosure. We must have good trade deals that reflect the fact that the United States workers produce great services and products.

The trade deals need to reflect that, not have a race to the bottom for which we go to the cheapest markets around the world to compete with good American workers who make fair pay. It is not the right thing. I am for trade, but not bad trade agreements that are conducted in secret.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of the Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vanska to congratulate them on their Grammy award in the category of Best Orchestral Performance for their recording of Sibelius' first and fourth symphonies. The Minnesota Orchestra is a source of great pride for Minnesotans and is one of the institutions that makes our state's artistic culture so rich.

The Minnesota Orchestra began in 1903, the eighth major symphony orchestra to be established in the United States. Since then, it has represented Minnesota across the globe, performing in over 661 cities worldwide. Renowned composers Aaron Copeland and Igor Stravinsky have both guest-conducted the Orchestra.

Since its early years, the Minnesota Orchestra has been a great asset to our state, producing landmark recordings and touring ambitiously to critical acclaim and full houses. Under the leadership of former musical director Osmo Vanska, the Orchestra has grown to elite, world- class status. In 2010, The New Yorker wrote of their March 1 performance at Carnegie Hall, ``the Minnesota Orchestra sounded, to my ears, like the greatest orchestra in the world.''

I felt great sadness, then, when the Orchestra suspended its season two years ago. From October 1, 2012 to January 14, 2014, the Minnesota Orchestra musicians suffered the longest lockout of any American orchestra in history, leading to the resignation of esteemed conductor Vanska and significant hardship for the musicians who went without a secure salary or benefits. This was a painful period for Minnesota arts. That's why I was thrilled when both sides were able to reach a contractual agreement earlier this month, and I look forward to seeing the Orchestra return to the stage in February.

The Orchestra has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to artistic excellence and integrity, and this Grammy is well-deserved. I appreciate all that the Orchestra and Osmo Vanska have done and continue to do for Minnesota, and thank them for their exemplary achievement and service.