Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Massachusetts yielded to me, but I don't know what they've got cooking over there.

What I do know is this, Mr. Speaker--and this is abundantly clear: unless we take up the Senate bill, unless we take up what the Senate has passed, we will be in a situation where whatever is put on the floor and passes will have to go back to the Senate. And Harry Reid has indicated we don't have time.

So unless we take up the Senate bill, we are going to head for a shutdown. That means the Republican majority has just shut down the government.

Now we still have time. Reasonable heads can still prevail. But if we do anything other than keep the government open until November 15 vis- a-vis the Senate bill, the Republicans will have done what they did 17 years ago: shut the government down.

This is extremely irresponsible, Mr. Speaker. It's extremely irresponsible because people on Social Security who need to call and get their questions answered--and who might need to get some real responsive answers--won't get them because there won't be people there to man the phones.

Veterans' services will be slowed down, as well as national parks, medical research, and all types of people working for the Federal Government will have a painful payday. They'll have time when they're in suspended animation. No matter what is going on, their lives will be turned upside down, as they don't know what is going to happen.

So we're not taking up the Senate bill, apparently. We don't know what we are taking up, but we're not taking up that. And that is irresponsible and wrong.

Why are we doing this? Is there some big reason? The reason was the deficit. You recall, Mr. Speaker, August 2011, the Republicans threatened to break the debt ceiling and default on America's full faith and credit because of debt and deficit. We're not even talking about that today. It's all now about ObamaCare.

Mr. Speaker, this bill shuts down the government. The Senate passed a clean CR. We could take it up right now, we could pass it, and we could keep the government open.

But if we do something to change this Senate bill and we amend it and send it back, the time that would be needed to avoid a shutdown would be gone. No matter what your views are on these amendments, a vote for them is a shutdown, make no mistake about it.

The Republican majority knows this. They are well aware what they're doing is designed to shut down the government. They're shutting it down. The only question before the American people now is will they continue to tolerate this kind of behavior.

We are here to govern; we are here to look after the American people. We are here to make sure that the full faith of this government maintains, and not just in the financial sense but in the mental sense. People have to believe in us.

When they shut this government down, they do something fundamental. They shake the confidence of this Nation. It is wrong. We should oppose it. Vote ``no'' on all these amendments.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the Record the story of Dorothy, a grandmother from a State very near Minnesota--South Dakota--and she represents the face of hunger. Here she is with her family.

Madam Chair, this bill leads me to ask a question.

Who are we here to protect? The American people, or big business?

If we don't stand up to protect public health, who will? Are we going to trust big oil, gas, and coal companies to look out for the public's health?

This bill is just another give-away to big polluters.

As we just saw with the coal ash bill, this bill would further harm human health by tearing down the EPA. The EPA--not big business--is trying to protect Americans' health.

Take the Clean Air Act, for example. In its first 20 years, it prevented 205,000 premature deaths and 18 million child respiratory illnesses.

The result? Billions of dollars in economic savings from prevented diseases and greater worker productivity.

This bill is yet another attempt to tear down the EPA. It's immoral. I urge my colleague to oppose this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk today about important issues involving climate change going on all over America, all over this world. But specifically today, I want to talk about our urban communities. Global warming is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, like wildfires in the West and hurricanes like Sandy on the east coast, and record drought conditions that continue for another year across the Midwest.

But in urban areas, cities like D.C., or my hometown of Minneapolis, we have something known as an urban heat island. Urban heat islands are a serious problem because urban areas tend to have temperatures 5-20 degrees warmer than rural areas, which is known as heat island effect. Heat islands are caused by a lack of natural vegetation, dark colored, impervious roads and concrete, and exhaust from vehicles and industry. As global temperatures increase, urban areas are warming at double the rate of the average global temperature, so this is a real serious issue.

Heat islands drive people to increase their use of air conditioning, which of course has a vicious effect in terms of just increasing an already serious problem. In turn, increasing the air conditioning drives up energy costs and increases power plant emissions, which contributes to the heat island in the first place.

These emissions not only contribute to global warming, they impact human health, increase emissions of carbon monoxide, mercury, and particulate matter, which leads to increased risks of heart attacks, strokes, and asthma. Particulate matter is very fine pieces that are emitted from coal plants. They go up into the air and come down, and we breathe that stuff in.

The effect of extreme heat in urban areas disproportionately affects some Americans as opposed to others. It affects anyone who lives in an urban area. But given the populations of urban areas, it affects certain communities more, including communities of color, low-income communities, and the elderly.

This housing segregation that we have in our country in which you have this disproportionate number of some populations in urban areas, concentrates racial ethnic minorities in dense environments, and that's why we see African Americans experiencing some of these heat-related hazards that have to do with everything from asthma and other sorts of issues like that. The low-income, minority, and elderly are less able to adapt and recover from these extreme climate events and are the communities most at risk from heat island effects and heat waves.

These communities are already plagued by higher pollution than wealthy, white communities. Coal plants, bus depots, and trash incinerators are disproportionately located in these areas that I speak of, and the heat island effect makes it worse.

The high cost of air conditioning, the inability to move into special heat wave shelters increases risk. Urban minorities often have more underlying health issues, such as higher rates of asthma, as I mentioned before, which also creates susceptibility to increased pollutants in these heat islands.

In 1995, a Chicago heat wave killed more than 700 people over 5 days, mostly elderly people who couldn't escape. The European heat wave in 2003 killed 30,000 people, although some estimates put that number as high as 70,000. Socioeconomic disparities will worsen through the health and economic effects of climate change.

As global temperatures continue to rise, heat waves in urban areas are increasing in frequency, duration, and intensity; and the effect on my community of Minneapolis, and urban areas all over this country, will be devastating. This is a serious issue that we need to focus on. We need to do something about it. The time is now.

I want to thank the Safe Climate Caucus for organizing Members to discuss this issue for the public today so we can all come to a greater level of awareness about the true dangers of ignoring global climate change.

Mr. Speaker, it is my distinct honor, privilege, and pleasure to introduce Imam Talib Shareef today, who is the resident imam--which is simply a word that means ``leader''--of Masjid Muhammad, which is a Washington, D.C., mosque with a 75-year history.

Imam Talib Shareef is a 30-year veteran of the United States Air Force, and he served our country nobly in uniform for many years. He also holds a master's in business administration from the American InterContinental University and a diploma in the area of Arabic studies and language from the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center. I might also add that the imam is a leader in the interfaith movement and regularly works with faith leaders of all faiths, building understanding, cohesion, and unity amongst all people and all Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to claim time in opposition to the motion.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

My colleagues come here today proposing this new, intensified legislation on the basis that they would like to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon. So do we.

Everything that my colleague, Mr. Royce, detailed a moment ago is something that we are concerned about.

But we have a changed circumstance, a changed circumstance that this legislation does not acknowledge, and that is that the Iranian people had a choice between candidates, and they selected the candidate who decided to reject extremism and actually campaign on the basis of moderation. Why not? At least until Mr. Rouhani has a chance to forestall legislation like this and engage in

diplomacy to reach the goals that Mr. Royce has identified.

Mr. Rouhani ran on a policy of promise to pursue a path of moderation. He promised to pursue a ``policy of reconciliation and peace.'' Obviously, we don't have rose-colored glasses. We don't know. But why don't we wait and see. Why aren't we at least curious to find out whether or not President Rouhani means that he wants to pursue this course of peace. It is what we want--negotiated settlement. Why are we slapping his hand down when apparently the Iranian people are willing to support a candidate who is willing to extend a hand?

The New York Times agrees. It said:

While sanctions are an important element of American

strategy, piling on more at this time and this moment could

harm, rather than advance, the chances for a negotiated deal

with Iran.

In fact, Secretary of State John Kerry warned that additional sanctions at this moment might undermine diplomatic efforts.

The fact of the matter is, why do we want to strengthen the hand of extremists who will say to Rouhani, See, you thought you could work with them. We were right all along.

I say they're wrong. I say let's accept the olive branch extended by the Iranian people who selected a more moderate candidate.

In fact, I would like to submit this document into the Record. The headline reads:

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's Nominee for Foreign Minister,

Seen as Olive Branch to United States.

Let me also acknowledge and put into the Record this letter, dated July 19, by 130 Members of Congress on a bipartisan basis to say President Obama pursued negotiations in this window of time when we have a President who won on the basis of extending a hand for negotiation.

We don't have to do this now. We can do this when we come back after at least Mr. Rouhani is inaugurated into the presidency of Iran.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time, and I do have a number of speakers, when we're ready for that.

[From HuffPost World, July 31, 2013]

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's Nominee for Foreign Minister, Seen as

Olive Branch to United States

(By Marcus George and Paul Taylor)

Dubai/Paris, July 29, 2013 (Reuters).--If Iranian

President-elect Hassan Rouhani wanted to signal his

determination to rebuild relations with the United States and

strike a ``grand bargain,'' he could hardly do better than

pick Mohammad Javad Zarif as his foreign minister.

Iranian news agencies reported on Monday that Zarif, a

former ambassador to the United Nations and Tehran's leading

connoisseur of the U.S. political elite, is set to be in the

cabinet Rouhani will announce after taking office on Sunday.

A source close to Rouhani confirmed Zarif will be nominated

as foreign minister.

A fluent English speaker who earned his doctorate at the

University of Denver, Zarif has been at the centre of several

secret negotiations to try to overcome 35 years of

estrangement between Washington and Tehran, diplomats said.

Those talks failed because of deep mistrust on a range of

disputes from Iran's secretive nuclear programme and support

for anti-Israeli militants to U.S. sanctions and hopes of

engineering ``regime change'' in Tehran.

Zarif's elevation, however, suggests the moderate new

president is keen to make another try at breaking the

deadlock.

``He was always trying to do what was possible to improve

relations in a very intelligent, open and clear way,'' said a

senior Western diplomat who had repeated dealings with Zarif.

``This is someone who knows the United States very well and

with all the frustrations of the past is still someone they

know in Washington,'' he said.

The usual caveats about Iran apply: under the Islamic

Republic's complex institutional set-up, Supreme Leader

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calls the shots in foreign and

security policy and controls the nuclear programme, which

Western powers say is aimed at developing atomic weapons.

The foreign minister ranks roughly fourth in the foreign

policy pecking order, after Khamenei, the head of the

National Security Council, who also serves as Iran's chief

nuclear negotiator, and the president.

Nevertheless, assuming he is confirmed by Iran's prickly,

conservative-dominated parliament, Zarif's appointment would

be a strong gesture of positive intent towards the United

States.

The two countries have had no official ties since 1980

after Iranian students occupied the U.S. embassy in Tehran,

taking 52 diplomats hostage in protest against Washington's

admission of the former Shah after he was toppled by the

Islamic revolution.

contact book

Zarif's Washington contact book includes Vice President Joe

Biden, Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel and a who's who of

U.S. national security officials on both sides of the aisle.

The soft-spoken career diplomat resigned from the nuclear

negotiating team after hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

was elected in 2005.

In 2007, he returned from New York after five years as

Iran's permanent representative to the United Nations and

found himself out of favour as his country turned its back on

the notion of seeking better ties with the West and

Ahmadinejad sidelined English-speaking diplomats.

Since then, Zarif has been in a holding pattern, nominally

senior adviser to the foreign minister from 2007 to 2010,

then from 2011 international director of Islamic Azad

University, a network of educational institutions established

by ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, his political

patron.

Rafsanjani, who is also Rouhani's mentor, has long favoured

a pragmatic rapprochement with the United States, but

Khamenei has stamped on all such efforts since he succeeded

the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah

Khomeini, in 1989.

Dennis Ross, a veteran U.S. diplomat who served as

President Barack Obama's top Middle East adviser until 2011,

said Zarif had shown a willingness to negotiate in good faith

and his appointment would be seen in Washington and Europe as

an indication that Rouhani wants to ``do business'' with the

West.

But he cautioned that the question remained whether this

would translate into an easing of Tehran's resistance to

curbing its nuclear drive. ``Zarif is not someone who does

favours for the United States,'' Ross said. ``He fits the

category of a sign or signal until you see Iran actually

doing something.''

Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to President

George H.W. Bush, described Zarif as ``reasonable'' but said

much would depend on how much leeway he is given.

Western diplomats said Zarif was a central negotiator in

the last major effort to negotiate a ``grand bargain''

between Tehran and Washington that began after the Sept. 11,

2001, attacks on the United States and foundered in mid-2003.

U.S. newspapers published in 2007 the bare text of a draft

agreement, put together in secret talks in Paris, Geneva and

New York, that would have established negotiations between

the two countries on all outstanding issues.

While the draft fell short of an agreement on substance, it

noted both sides' expectations on issues such as assurances

that Iran's nuclear programme has no military capability, and

assurances that the United States would act against anti-

government People's Mujahideen activists based in Iraq.

``The texts are authentic,'' said a Western diplomat who

was involved in the back-channel talks, confirming that

Khamenei had given the green light for negotiations to go

ahead.

hostage negotiator

Years earlier, as a junior diplomat Zarif was involved in

negotiations to win the release of U.S. hostages held by pro-

Iranian gunmen in Lebanon, according to the memoirs of former

U.N. envoy Giandomenico Picco. Even though the United States

did not make a promised reciprocal goodwill gesture at the

time, Zarif remained committed to improving ties.

In Washington, Trita Parsi, president of the pro-dialogue

National Iranian American Council, said Zarif has been

involved in multiple U.S.-Iranian negotiations, including

talks on Afghanistan after the U.S.-led 2001 invasion, and

Tehran's 2003 proposal for a ``grand bargain'' with the

United States.

``Based on my interviews with him, (Zarif) was involved in

the drafting of it,'' Parsi said of that offer of a

comprehensive new start, which then President George W.

Bush's administration spurned.

Veteran U.S. diplomat James Dobbins, the U.S. point man at

a 2001 Bonn conference that formed a new Afghan government

after the overthrow of the Taliban, credited Zarif with a

pivotal, positive role in the diplomacy--and with a sense of

humour.

Dobbins--now the State Department's special envoy for

Afghanistan and Pakistan--recalled in 2007 testimony to the

U.S. Congress how Zarif, then a deputy foreign minister,

persuaded the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance to drop its

demand for control of an outsize proportion of Afghan

ministries.

The Northern Alliance delegate ``remained obdurate.

Finally, Zarif took him aside and whispered to him for a few

moments, following which the Northern Alliance envoy returned

to the table and said: `Okay, I agree. The other factions can

have two more ministries. And we can create three more, which

they can also have.' We had a deal,'' Dobbins recalled.

``Zarif had achieved the final breakthrough without which

the (Hamid) Karzai government might never have been formed.''

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional minute to the gentleman from North Carolina.

May I inquire as to the time we have remaining.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott)

(Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chair, on rollcall Nos. 367, 368, 369, I would have voted ``yes'' on 367; ``yes'' on 368; and ``no'' on 369.

Amendment No. 15 Offered by Mr. Tonko

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks in strong opposition to the farm bill rule and the underlying bill because it increases hunger in America.

I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. Speaker, young people often say, I'm interested in politics; I'm interested in public service. Who might I look at to model myself after?

I can think of very few people who would be better than someone like Mr. William Gray, Congressman Gray, Reverend Gray. He held so many titles.

I did have the pleasure of meeting him. Of course, I never served with him, but I did get to know him, and I got to know him in a strange way. He just called me up at my office. I said, Bill Gray is calling me? I was a brand new Member. I was just happy to be here. But Bill Gray thought, Hey, you're a Member of Congress. I'm welcoming you to this institution, and I want to have a relationship with you.

I sat down with him, got to know him, and he actually spent his time and gave me the honor of his presence on many occasions. I thought to myself, Bill Gray is an excellent role model because:

One, he has a spirit of optimism. He was always, whenever I was around him, happy, smiling, upbeat, and believing it can be done;

Two, he was never too important--though he was very important--to give his time to people. No matter who those folks might be, even a freshman Congressman like I was when he called me;

Three, he's a person who had a certain sense of self-possession. He was sure that a college education for kids was right. And because he was sure that he was right about it, his enthusiasm for the subject kind of infected people around him it. It doesn't surprise me that Bill Gates would write the check, because he's talking to Bill Gray.

And so if you really want to be successful, look and study Bill Gray. None of us are going to be here forever. May we all leave the legacy of a great man like Bill Gray.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the McGovern amendment.

Mr. Chair, cuts to SNAP will devastate the most vulnerable in our communities.

550,000 Minnesotans rely on SNAP to put food on their tables.

Cuts to SNAP take away benefits for 32,000 Minnesotans.

While the FARRM Bill gives hundreds of billions of dollars to producers and processors at the very top, it balances these benefits on the backs of America's poorest citizens.

These cuts are not just statistics. They are the stories of real people in my District.

Jessica, a single mother whose SNAP benefits are essential in keeping her children clothed, fed, and in school while she takes online classes towards a degree, and works as a housekeeper. She would be living on $47 a month without the help of SNAP.

Justina and her husband, a homeless couple in Minneapolis, are both unable to work due to disability and are expecting a child. Justina relies on SNAP to stay healthy and strong throughout her pregnancy, and could not afford adequate nutrition without the help. Justina's life and the life of her baby depend on this program.

Lashonda, a mother of three who works hard at a minimum wage job and still lives below the poverty line. Without SNAP, she would have to choose between food, heat, and electricity. She depends on the SNAP program to keep the lights and heat on in her small apartment, and without it she could not provide for her family.

SNAP is good policy. SNAP works. SNAP saves lives. Do not cut funding for this program.

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

Mr. Chairman, my amendment is simple. It would simply ask us to learn more. It would ask us to know more than we know now about an important subject affecting our society and, indeed, our whole world.

In fact, my amendment would simply require a study to review climate impacts of the Price Loss Coverage program. I can't understand why we wouldn't want to know the effects of such a program. I think learning more so that we can do better is a good idea.

Climate change is a defining issue of this century. It is negatively impacting our economy, our health, and security. There is an international consensus that climate change is real, is caused and influenced by mankind, and is affecting our world in a negative way.

Decisions Congress makes on this day, Mr. Chairman, in this farm bill, in fact, will have a direct impact on greenhouse gas emissions in the United States; and, of course, this world doesn't know the borders that these nations do, so it will affect the entire globe.

Agriculture does contribute to climate change. In fact, 8 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture. Agriculture also brings great gains to humanity as well.

We need to understand what greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture mean so that we can formulate better policy and utilize better technology. The emissions from agriculture result from fertilizer application, livestock, land use, soil management, farm equipment, and rice production.

The new Price Loss Coverage program provides farmers raising major crops with subsidies if the crop prices drop below current historic levels. Farmers are already plowing up marginal lands and native grasslands in response to record crop prices and crop insurance subsidies; 23 million acres of natural land were plowed up between 2008 and 2011. Almost 20 million of these were corn, soybeans, and wheat alone.

The Price Loss Coverage program will further incentivize increased crop production.

Converting land to cropland releases millions of tons of CO2 in the United States every year. Converting more land to agriculture will increase greenhouse gas emissions. But, Mr. Chairman, we don't know how much, we don't know the extent, we don't know the effects. It is important that we do know so that we can incentivize more green-friendly agriculture production methods so that we can know the impact in our world, and we can know why it is important to take action now in this farm bill today.

A study shouldn't harm anybody, and I urge support for this amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I come before the House today to talk a little bit about the food stamp program. I want to talk about it because it is proposed in the farm bill that we'll be talking about soon that there will be a $20 billion cut from the program.

Now, I just thought that I would come before the House today, Mr. Speaker, to talk about the realistic implications for regular people, and maybe even to try to stand against some of the misconceptions that people may have about the food stamp program.

Last Monday, I was in my district and nearby there in St. Paul, and I and Betty McCollum sat down with a number of our neighbors and friends and colleagues to talk about the food stamp program. And we had three groups of people who were talking to us.

One was a group of people who are using the food stamp program. One of them was a senior citizen, and she was working, she was in her early sixties, got sick, couldn't work anymore, and was hoping to get to the age where she could retire and get her Social Security, get other benefits, but she wasn't quite there yet. She got sick before she did, and she needed the food stamp program.

Now, personally, as a taxpaying American, I've got no problem helping this wonderful lady meet her food needs.

Another was a young mom. Actually, she didn't have any money for child care, so she brought her baby to the meeting, who was across her shoulder in a sort of a wrap. And this young mom explained how she tried to get the best options for her baby, wanted to get back to work, but, while she was in the middle of trying to find work, needed to have good nutrition for her child.

We also talked with a person who was a young adult, 19-year-old guy, didn't get any food stamps until he passed out one day because he hadn't been eating.

And then we talked to a person who was not a food stamp recipient, but who was a health care professional in Hennepin County. She explained that the food stamp program was essential for good health because she had had a number of people, she talked about one woman in particular named Mary, who was complaining, was not taking her medication. And her doctor said, Mary, you're not compliant on your medication. Mary said, well, it hurts my stomach.

And so when the doctor talked to her more, he found out she wasn't eating, so the medication was sitting on her empty stomach. When she got some

food in her stomach, she was able to take her medication and be in compliance and stay well so that she could stay out of the emergency room.

So we talked with these folks. Then we talked with people from the faith community--Jewish community, Christian community, and Catholic community--and all of them said that, look, you know, we do a lot of food aid. We're trying to make sure that folks have enough to eat; but if the government steps away from nutrition assistance, then that's just going to leave a bigger hole for us.

They talked about how their food shelves were already being used a lot, and how they already were struggling to meet the needs of the folks who came to them. So at the end of the day, they said, look, you know, we're not going to be able to step in where the government steps out.

And so at the end of the conversation, it was clear to me that, aside from statistics, aside from all the numbers, there is a human face on the food stamp program; and the cuts that have been proposed will be devastating.

Let me just tell you this, Mr. Speaker. If there was a program which said that it would improve children's math and reading scores, it would prevent diabetes, asthma and depression, it would contribute to healthy babies with fewer developmental problems, it would decrease health care costs and lower the poverty rate, would you support it?

That's the food stamp program. It needs to be supported.

Madam Chairman, allow me to thank the ranking member and the chair of the committee.

This graphic I have in front of me, Madam Chairman, was taken in Tahrir Square a few years ago now when the people were peacefully demonstrating to overcome the Mubarak regime which had oppressed them for so many years. They're holding up tear gas, and it says ``Made in America'' on it.

When our government transferred those riot and anti-riot materials to that government, I believe we didn't have any reason to know that it would be misused by a tyrannical regime to oppress and down press peaceful demonstrators. I propose, though, that when our government has reason to know that there is a tyrannical regime using repressive techniques to put down their peaceful demonstrators, that our government should withhold exports of that nature.

The fact is that the tyranny that people lived under under Hosni Mubarak was not made in America. It was made by Hosni Mubarak. But we should not be implicated in the kind of oppression if we know about it, and therefore I think we should have the authority in our government to withhold those kinds of transfers when they come to our attention.

So the young man holding up this tear gas canister that police fired at the pro-democracy demonstrators is labeled ``Made in the USA.'' This is a misrepresentation because it was Mubarak who oppressed his own people, but we should not be implicated in this, particularly if we have reason to know.

Madam Chairman, this is not the message we should be sending. Whether it's being sent deliberately or not, it's not the message we should send to the people who are seeking nothing more than what we want in the United States, which is to democratically control their own country. It's not in our interest, and we should have the authority to stop it.

The United States should not supply tear gas to governments that use it to repress democracy, and my amendment helps us to move to that goal.

Mr. Speaker, I am loath to turn attention away from this critical topic, and I agree with all of my colleagues on it. But also part of this rule is H.R. 1256, which is entitled the Swaps Jurisdiction Certainty Act. This is a closed rule--they're not allowing any amendments on it--and it is bad policy. I urge members to vote ``no.''

This bill reminds me of the old adage that's often said that ``the past isn't dead. It isn't even past.''

I'm referring to the global crisis--the global financial crisis--that a few years ago had every Member of this body absolutely on razor's edge as we wondered what was going to happen to the American economy, and we ended up seeing the TARP passed and all types of things to try to avert collapse.

$13 trillion in lost wealth, Mr. Speaker, and still here we are looking at a bill--in a closed rule, mind you--that would allow offshore derivative swap trading to be beyond the jurisdiction of American regulators.

Let me just cut straight to the chase.

Congress granted the Commodity Futures Trading Commission explicit authority in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to oversee all derivatives transactions with a direct and significant connection to the U.S. economy.

That's a good idea--a $223 trillion industry. I think we need to protect our interests. Vote ``no'' on this closed rule.

Mr. Speaker, I will get right to the point: AIG, Citibank, and Lehman are recent examples of institutions where the U.S. parent was hurt by those firms' problems abroad. Lehman had 3,300 subsidiaries at the time they declared bankruptcy, and its London subsidiary had more than 130,000 outstanding swaps contracts, many of them guaranteed by Lehman Brothers Holdings, headquartered in the U.S.

Bank of America, for example, has more than 2,000 subsidiaries, with 38 percent of them in foreign jurisdictions. Bank of America's books its derivatives not only in the U.S. but also in the U.K. and in Ireland.

Now, a very simple fact, Mr. Speaker, is that Dodd-Frank, the bill that has been deconstructed before our very eyes, while the ink is still wet on the page, requires that all foreign or U.S. firms transacting with U.S. persons comply with derivatives market reform. We're taking that apart right now. That's a shame, and it's going to put that guy who wants to buy beer in Texas at risk for his job and his house and everything else.