Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, the American people are still most concerned about job opportunities and economic growth. They're concerned with their checkbooks and family budgets as the winter months and holiday seasons arrive.

All too often, Washington, D.C., makes it harder on the economy and the American people, not easier. Layer upon layer of government mandates, regulations, and taxes suffocate our struggling economy and come down hard upon the hardworking American people.

The House must remain committed to focusing on job creation, economic prosperity, and opportunities for all Americans to succeed. This week, the House will continue our efforts to put more Americans back to work by focusing on pro-jobs legislation that make it easier for our small businesses to access resources they need to expand and add employees.

We will work to pass legislation that builds on hydropower in our country, creating good-paying jobs through continuing to develop our all-of-the-above national energy policy.

Mr. Speaker, the American people want Congress to work together for the

betterment of our entire Nation. We must come together and support these bipartisan solutions that encourage economic growth, better paying jobs, and lead to more economic prosperity for all.

Mr. Speaker, Americans are working hard to make ends meet during this sluggish economy, and a clear and predictable pro-growth energy policy will help to alleviate financial stress on American families as energy costs rise. But most of all, pro-growth energy policies will create jobs and put Americans back to work.

If you are looking for legislation that will create jobs across America, there are several opportunities to vote ``yes'' this week in the United States House.

The Natural Gas Pipeline Permitting Reform Act, Federal Lands Jobs and Energy Security Act, and the Protecting States' Rights to Promote American Energy Security Act are all pro-growth, pro-energy policies that the House will consider this week and will give all my colleagues an opportunity to show whether they are pro-jobs or not.

These bills will promote natural gas pipeline infrastructure construction projects, expand onshore American energy production, and create jobs by passing these bills that will streamline government red tape and eliminate duplicative and costly regulations that only delay safe energy production on American soil.

Mr. Speaker, let's unite on behalf of the American people and support these pro-energy growth, pro-job creation bills.

Madam Speaker, Americans want Congress to support policies that help put our Nation back to work. Creating jobs is the key to improving our economy.

However, too often, government stands in the way of job creation by imposing costly regulations on businesses and municipalities, creating uncertainty and hindering job growth.

I recently visited a wastewater treatment facility in my district. While there, I learned that new EPA mandates, specifically on wet weather wastewater treatment, will increase costs on Johnson County, Kansas, ratepayers by 25 percent.

New EPA regulations on an energy plant in Kansas City, Kansas, will force the board of public utilities to make modifications--$250 million in costs--resulting in a 15 to 20 percent monthly increase in the average electric bill to consumers, families, and businesses in Wyandotte County, who are already feeling the crunch of hard economic times.

These regulations are essentially hidden taxes on Kansas families, many of whom are already pinching pennies to pay their bills.

Madam Speaker, regulations do not create jobs. Let's get government out of the way and let's put Americans back to work.

Mr. Speaker, the American people are looking for results from Washington, D.C. Even though we have a divided government, I still believe we can and must work together to solve the many challenges facing our great Nation.

More than anything, we must work together in the coming months to help put more Americans back to work and kick-start our sluggish economy. We can work together to reform our Tax Code and make it simpler and easier to understand and comply with. We can work together to build a national energy policy that safely utilizes all of America's resources, putting people to work and keeping energy costs down.

We can work together to support education, research, infrastructure, immigration reform. Yes, and even pass a farm bill.

We can work together to reform important programs like Medicare and Social Security so we can preserve and protect them for the future generations while balancing our budget and controlling spending.

Today, our economy may be stagnant, but our optimism and determination have never been greater. Let's work together to renew the prosperity and opportunity for all Americans in our great Nation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of greater accessibility to taxpayer-funded research.

This week is Open Access Week in America, and I am proud to be a lead cosponsor of the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act, better known as FASTR.

Access to scientific research maximizes research investments and improves the quality of science while assuring transparency and efficient use of tax dollars. Simply put, taxpayers should not have to pay for taxpayer-funded research over and over again.

Policies like FASTR have been a tremendous success already at the National Institutes of Health, and some of the best research institutions in America, like my alma mater, the University of Kansas, have helped lead the charge by instituting open access policies of their own.

Now it is time to make open access the law of the land for all publicly funded research. I urge my colleagues to make a real impact on the quality of science and lifesaving research conducted in America, and urge them to cosponsor and support the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act.

I appreciate my friend from Illinois for putting together this hour for us to be able to come down and have a conversation about how we protect the American farmer.

For months and months now, we have been having a debate in the United States House and Senate about how we can put together legislation that will ensure that the men and women who bring in the crops, who tend to the livestock, who create the food source for our Nation and the world have certain policies that are predictable and that encourage farming as a way of life to continue in the United States.

So I join my colleagues here, those from down in southern Illinois to--we just heard from my colleague, Dan Benishek from Michigan, who believes passionately in agriculture and protecting farmers. We are here together today united, standing on behalf of the farmers in our country.

So I call on my colleagues to help us get a farm bill done. Farmers have been waiting a long time for Congress to work together to find a solution. We are obviously divided on a lot of things, but we ought to be united on helping protect the American farmer and our American food supply.

In Kansas, farming is not just a means to make money, and certainly, it is a significant part of the Kansas economy. Along with several other parts, farming and agriculture is a key component of the Kansas economy. But it is also a way for Kansans and Americans to put food on the table for the world. Kansas is the number one wheat producer in the country, wheat that ends up feeding hungry Kansans, hungry Americans in all 50 States, and on most continents. They put in long, hard hours to bring in millions of bushels of grain, grain that will end up on the tables of the entire Nation and the entire world.

But it is also a way of life. Now farmers at home right now--I just spoke with a farmer earlier today. Farmers are bringing in--they are harvesting their soybeans. Some are still picking corn.

For generations, people have come to States like Kansas and Illinois and California and Michigan, and they have come to build a way of life. They have taken, in the case of Kansas, a prairie--it was undeveloped-- and they came out there, and they brought their families and they took risk, much risk to carve a lifestyle out of the prairie. And through that hard work, through that determination, through that sweat off their brow, they tamed the wilderness and, in the process, they helped build the greatest nation the world has ever seen. And along the way, they asked for little in return. They built a nation with great bedrock values, good schools, good communities. It was all centered around the small family farmer.

So that is one of the things we are down here to protect and to talk about is continuing that American tradition of the small family farmer. And so they have worked hard. They work long days, sunup to sundown. Sometimes farmers will work through the night, 24-hour shifts even, to bring in the crops when the time has come.

I grew up on a farm myself. I remember going out, my dad going out in the middle of the winter and bringing a round bale to our cattle and ensuring that the livestock could have feed. And that meat that they produced, we produced and farmers produce all across the country, that ends up taking care of Americans everywhere.

So now those farmers, they are counting on us. When they plant their fall crops, they need predictability and

they need certainty. It is time to move past short-term bills. It is time to move past short-term promises. We need to move towards long- term policies that will create stability, that will allow farmers to plant, allow farmers to go back to doing what they do best: growing food, feeding a hungry Nation.

This fall, Kansas farmers are hard at work bringing in the autumn harvest, and they are planting the 2014 crop. They have patiently waited for Congress to act on a farm bill. Now is the time to move forward.

The farm bill provides farmers with crucial safety net programs that allow them to protect their operations from uncertainty and the sudden downturns that can occur when growing crops and raising livestock. These programs are essential in providing farmers with the certainty they need to be successful.

So as we have this larger debate about how to solve the debt crisis, I think farmers have been admirable in this debate. Farmers came forward and said, Look, you know, we receive direct payments. We know that is a burden on the Treasury. We know there are a lot of burdens on the Treasury. We hope that we can all pitch in to help solve our national debt crisis. We are going to voluntarily, we are going to give those things up.

And every other group that comes before Washington, most groups give up nothing. They want more. In fact, in Washington, when you don't get more than you got last year, it is a cut.

Farmers said, We are willing to take a cut. We are willing to take billions of dollars of cuts because we want to do our part to ensure that we are helping resolve the national debt crisis.

So they were first in line to give up support, and some of that support was very crucial to farms and has been crucial to farmers to keep them from ending up in bankruptcy or farms from going under. They are giving that up. No more direct payments. Those are the kinds of reforms we need to do.

Now, what they have asked for in return is a little protection of risk. The expense today to put out a field of crops like corn, soybeans, milo, or wheat, in Kansas, creates a tremendous amount of risk--risk that banks won't cover unless there is some sort of protection in the event of a flood, hailstorm, or a drought, and sometimes all of the above. You can wipe out a single crop overnight.

These farmers have invested their entire livelihood. They don't have a 401(k). They don't have a pension. They don't have some corporate plan to protect their retirement. Their future is in the crop they're laying out in that field, and the proceeds from that crop are going to go to investing in the next crop. And so if that crop goes under and there is no crop insurance, there is no protection for those farmers, then those farmers go under, they go bankrupt, and that way of life ends.

And so my heart goes out to those farmers that that may happen to, but it is a larger issue than just the farmers. Without crop insurance, without that protection, those farmers lose those farms and that means we don't have a food supply that we can count on. That means that the world doesn't have the food that they need to feed the hungry. I know most people get food from the grocery store these days, but it comes from the fields of Kansas and Illinois and places in between.

So it is my hope that Democrats, Republicans, House, Senate, and the President will work together in the coming days to put a farm bill on the floor that we can all get behind that can go to the President's desk and receive his signature. We've got a lot of divisions, but we would be united today--all of us--in protection, in fighting for the American farmer.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and recognize the National Day of the Republic of China. October 10 marks the beginning of the Wuchang Uprising which led to the creation of the Republic of China in 1912.

The Republic of China, or Taiwan as it is more commonly known, has worked tirelessly to become a global player both politically and economically. With a thriving economy, Taiwan already plays a critical role in the global supply chain and serves as a major innovator in the technology industry. I am proud to represent Garmin Ltd. in my district which is an

exemplary company conducting business internationally based in both Kansas and Taiwan. The Taiwanese community is a strong contributor to Kansas's 3rd Congressional district.

In light of these contributions, it is my belief that Taiwan should be included in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Taiwan currently plays a major role in ensuring U.S. interests in the Pacific. For decades we have enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship based on trust. It is my hope that we can continue and strengthen this relationship going forward. To achieve this goal, I look forward to working with the Administration to see that a bilateral investment agreement is signed between our countries.

Lastly, as long standing allies, it is time for us as a Congress to reconsider our diplomatic relationship with Taiwan by welcoming high- level officials from Taiwan to meet with their American equivalents in Cabinet level positions.

I commend Taiwan on its National Day, and look forward to a continued partnership.

Mr. Speaker, the American people understand the importance of making tough decisions and balancing their budgets.

According to the Federal Reserve, over the past 3 months, Americans have worked to pay down their credit card debts by more than $6 billion; yet the United States Government continues to operate in the red, as it has operated in the red 55 of the last 60 years. Our national debt now stands at $17 trillion. Now the administration is asking Congress to increase our debt by trillions more.

Mr. Speaker, Americans do not want to raise the debt ceiling again unless they see a path towards paying down the national debt and balancing the Federal budget. American citizens cannot take out a loan without a plan to pay it back. How can our Nation continue to borrow money without any plan to pay it back?

Mr. Speaker, let's stop the culture of debt and despair in Washington, D.C. Let's put a plan in place to pay down our debt, and let's get our country back on solid financial footing.

I thank the chairman from Kentucky for his work on this legislation to help provide funding for Head Start kids to have an opportunity to realize all the opportunities that life presents.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask us to work together and set aside our differences for the good of the American people.

We are divided. We have an ongoing dispute about whether Congress should receive special treatment and whether individuals should be given the same exemptions that businesses have been given under the Affordable Care Act. That is in dispute.

Why can't we go forward with legislation and policies and things that we all agree on? The Senate has a position and the House has a position, and we can go on and on with this debate about whether we should fund special treatment for Congress, businesses, and labor unions under ObamaCare; but there are unnecessary casualties to that debate.

Today, we have an opportunity to take Head Start off the table--a program that serves 1,146,468 kids nationwide; and 1,436 of these young students are in Kansas' Third District. These vulnerable students need our help. These are kids with little opportunity, disadvantaged by poverty and circumstances that put them behind from day one. Head Start for low-income children is a ray of hope, coming at a critical time when these young learners are developing their young minds.

Head Start works for students, Head Start works for families, and Head Start works for the American taxpayer. So why can't we come to an agreement as to the funding for this portion of government? We can't come to it for every portion--we get that--but we are in agreement that this shutdown is unnecessary and that we can fund Head Start today.

For some, this is a philosophical debate, but for the young learners at Head Start of Shawnee Mission, Kansas; Olathe, Kansas; or the Children's Campus in Kansas City, these are real lives and real futures at stake. They are counting on us. Surely we can take our partisan hats off for a moment and fund a bill to get each of these kids a chance to succeed.

Let's pass a clean bill that funds Head Start today. Let's put aside our differences. Let's find common ground. We have the power today to take Head Start kids out of this debate and ensure their funding.

Let's show the American people that today, on this issue, on these kids, there is no disagreement.

Mr. Speaker, it is no secret that there is plenty to disagree about in Washington, D.C. The House majority continues to believe that funding special treatment for Members of Congress in the Affordable Care Act is wrong. The House majority continues to believe that the American people need a reprieve from the new government insurance mandate for 1 year--the same reprieve that has been given to businesses, unions, Congress, and other groups. We should all be treated equally and fairly under the law, and Congress should have to follow the same laws it dictates to the rest of America.

But as we continue to negotiate over this divide, let's start funding the things we agree on. Let's fund veterans programs. Let's fund the NIH clinical trials. Let's fund Head Start, WIC programs. Let's open up the World War II Memorial. Surely, even in the divided times we live in, we could set aside our differences and start reopening the doors of government. This shutdown is wrong and the American people are hurting.

Let's please start working together, getting past our differences, finding points of agreement, and let's forge ahead together united as Americans.

Mr. Speaker, today we pause to remember and reflect upon the heartbreaking attacks our Nation suffered on the morning of September 11, 2001.

We remember the lives lost at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon, and the passengers on hijacked planes.

We remember the bravery of all the first responders who charged towards the flames and smoke to help their fellow Americans reach safety.

We remember the courageous service of the brave men and women in our Armed Forces and their families as they rose to the moment, responding with force to the cowardly attacks suffered by our great Nation.

We remember a proud and strong United States of America, torn apart

by terror attacks, but united by unyielding and unbending resolve.

Today we honor the determination of our Nation, which rose from the rubble to rebuild not just buildings, but our American spirit.

Mr. Speaker, on today's anniversary, we remember to honor the legacies of those we lost that day. We remember the best of the American patriotism and unity in the moments and days immediately after. And we remember to always keep our servicemen and -women in our best thoughts and prayers.

God bless the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to enter into the record my support for H.R. 850, the Nuclear Iran Prevention Act. Unfortunately, I was not present for the rollcall vote on this bill. Please let the record show that I am a cosponsor of this legislation and that had I been present I fully intended to vote: ``yea.''

The message should be heard loud and clear from America: Iran must abandon its nuclear ambition. H.R. 850 is the vital next step in toughening sanctions on this brazen nation. Iran is an existential threat to Israel, our strongest ally in the Middle East, and a threat to peace throughout the world. Our steadfastness and resolve for peace and stability in the world will see this through.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate an American hero, a true public servant in every sense of the word, and a man with whom Kansans are proud to share the Sunflower State as home.

Senator Bob Dole, a Russell, Kansas, native and proud Jayhawk, celebrated his 90th birthday yesterday, and has spent his entire life giving to make his country a better place for future generations. After courageously serving his country in World War II, Senator Dole continued to fight for the future of his country by serving in Congress, the Senate, and as a Republican Presidential nominee.

Like many Americans, I've been inspired by his exceptional leadership, his encouraging and positive personality, his quick wit, and his endless and selfless giving for his fellow man.

Mr. Speaker, as we wish Senator Bob Dole happy birthday, we look ahead toward many happy and healthy years with our great friend, and to a bright future in America because of the work of Senator Dole and the values and ideals he has personified and the qualities he has instilled in so many of us.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Like many of my colleagues here today, I think the future of our Nation lies in the quality of education that our young Americans receive. Americans expect and deserve the very best from our public schools and from our schools all across the Nation so that their children have the tools to handle the challenges of the 21st century.

For far too long in this country, we've tried a one-size-fits-all, top down, Federal approach to educating our bright learners. Yet intuition tells us and experience shows us that local communities are better suited to make the right decisions when it comes to local public schools.

That's why I am proud to support the Student Success Act--to return and restore local control back to our public schools. I know that teachers, parents, neighbors, and families are better suited to make decisions regarding their children's educations than bureaucrats and government officials in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Chairman, let's put our communities back in charge of our future. Let's eliminate the top-down mandates, the strings-attached approach that Washington uses to educate our kids, and let's put teachers back in charge of the classroom and put our families and neighborhoods back in charge of our schools.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to thank a truly remarkable

American--a Kansan--who came within inches of giving his life in the service of his country, but who has made an unthinkable yet not unbelievable recovery.

I first met Spring Hill native Army Sergeant Zeke Crozier 2 years ago. He was with the 158th Aviation Regiment out of Gardner, Kansas, and he was set to deploy to Afghanistan. After being in Afghanistan for only 41 days, the Chinook helicopter Sergeant Crozier was flying in crashed violently, and he suffered a severe traumatic brain injury.

Defying all odds, Sergeant Crozier has made a miraculous recovery, and even walked into my district office in Overland Park, Kansas, yesterday. Sergeant Crozier's recovery efforts are inspirational. They are also a reminder that we must always keep our commitment to our Nation's veterans. There are over 530,000 veterans benefit cases on backlog at the VA. This is unacceptable to me and to the men and women willing to serve our country bravely and honorably, especially those that now need our help in return.

To Sergeant Crozier and to all those who have served, a grateful Nation thanks you for your sacrifice.