Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Esperanza Community Housing Corporation on the celebration of its 25th anniversary.

Esperanza has been a South Los Angeles institution since 1989, when it was founded as part of a community organizing campaign to keep families in local affordable rental housing. Over the years, it has grown into a prominent social justice and community development non- profit, serving a wide array of needs for tens of thousands of people in the Figueroa Corridor and throughout South L.A.

Esperanza has been a leader in the fight to improve South L.A.'s housing, economic, health, cultural, and environmental conditions. No race, ethnicity, age, or gender is exempt from the organization's outreach. Esperanza has spent a quarter-century establishing partnerships in every corner of the community--building relationships with South L.A.'s residents, community leaders, and local businesses, and bringing them together in common cause to achieve remarkable goals.

The fruits of Esperanza's work are visible for all to see. Esperanza has provided more than 400 community residents with training in grassroots leadership and in comprehensive community health education services. It has promoted local economic growth by creating more than 200 local jobs and providing housing for almost 20 small businesses and non-profits. It has also fought to reduce slum housing, while at the same time developing safe and affordable residential properties that offer housing for 165 low-income families. It developed the Mercado la Paloma, a community meeting place and economic development incubator that has become a first-rate forum for cultural events and community non-profit activities, as well as a home for 13 small family-owned businesses. And on a range of other subjects--from human rights, to food policy, to the arts, to environmental justice--Esperanza has been an unwavering voice for a stronger, more sustainable, and more vibrant community.

Mr. Speaker, as Esperanza Community Housing Corporation celebrates its 25th anniversary, I want to thank and congratulate Executive Director Nancy Halpern Ibrahim, all the remarkable staff, and the organization's visionary founder, Sister Diane Donoghue, for their outstanding record of grassroots service to the residents of South Los Angeles. I ask my colleagues to join me in celebrating all that Esperanza has done to improve the community. Esperanza's 25 years of dogged and productive work have been a model for community development organizations and activist movements across the country, and I wish it many more years of success.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Carl Coan on the end of his tenure as president and CEO of Los Angeles' Eisner Pediatric & Family Medical Center (EPFMC).

In his role as president and CEO since 1990, Mr. Coan has played a major role in expanding the medical center on every front. Annual patient visits have increased from 17,000 to 114,000. Annual operating revenue has gone from $1.7 million to $24 million. Three capital campaigns have raised a combined $17.8 million. The EPFMC has expanded to nine locations, and has been designated as a Federally Qualified Health Center. Meanwhile, its number of services has ballooned to encompass such new areas as family health, round-the-clock hospital care, early child development, behavioral health, speech and occupational therapy, pharmacy, and case management. It has also come to feature such innovative care models as centering pregnancy prenatal care, a foster grandparent program, and an adolescent medicine clinic.

Mr. Coan has also facilitated a partnership between the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine of USC and the California Hospital Medical Center to establish and oversee the USC-Eisner Family Medicine Center at California Hospital, which serves as the main training site for the California Hospital Medical Center's Family Medicine Residency program.

Outside of EPFMC, Mr. Coan is a prominent leader in the local health community. He is the founder and past president of the Health Care L.A. IPA and the Southside Coalition of Community Health Centers, a current board member of the California Primary Care Association, and a former board member for the Community Clinic Association of Los Angeles County and L.A. Care Health Plan.

Mr. Coan also meets regularly with government officials to speak about issues important to the EPFMC and other community health centers. I have personally met with him many times, and he has participated in my annual community health center roundtables alongside other health care providers from my district. I can attest that he is an excellent advocate for the vital role that community clinics and health centers play in our health care system. It is fitting that he received the California Primary Care Association's 2013 Clinical Legacy Award for his hard work in increasing awareness of the importance of these facilities.

Mr. Speaker, as Carl Coan leaves his position at the helm of EPFMC, I want to recognize his long and distinguished career of providing excellent and wide-ranging medical care to the people of Los Angeles. I ask my colleagues to join me in celebrating the fine work he has done to make Los Angeles a healthier and happier place to live, and to wish him the very best as he moves on to new challenges.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the Florence-Firestone/Walnut Park Chamber of Commerce (FFWPCC) on its seventy-fifth anniversary. Ever since its incorporation in 1939, the Chamber has provided a forum for local merchants, business and property owners, professionals, residents, lenders, and teachers to work together in making the Florence-Firestone community a better place to do business. Since 2006, the Chamber has served the Walnut Park business community as well.

The Chamber was severely shaken by the 1992 Los Angeles riots, but it was kept afloat by Community Development Commission (CDC) funding secured by Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, who was then the Supervisor for Los Angeles County's Second District. This CDC funding has continued under current Second District Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. The Chamber has also benefited from funding under a partnership with the County's First District and its Supervisor, Gloria Molina.

At present, the Chamber gets funding from the Community Development Block Grant program. With this funding, the Chamber supports business development through technical assistance, workshops, seminars, and individual consultations.

The Chamber also uses its community newsletter to spread word about business assistance programs, and to advocate on behalf of the businesses in the Florence-Firestone and Walnut Park Region. Florence- Firestone and Walnut Park are two of the local communities that have faced the most challenges during the recent recession, with unemployment rates exceeding 20 percent. The FFWPCC has aggressively confronted these challenges by seeking and identifying opportunities to enable the creation of new employment opportunities.

To this day, the FFWPCC serves its members by promoting their businesses' products and services and by protecting their interests at all levels of government. This was particularly evident in the Chamber's recent collaboration with Los Angeles County Supervisors and business and property owners to beautify the streetscapes in the business corridor linking the Florence-Firestone area to Walnut Park. The streetscape improvements have made the shopping community much more inviting, and have helped community members and visitors take pride in their walkable and sustainable community.

After this streetscape project was finished last year, the Chamber continued to tackle new challenges. It is now working on another beautification project in Walnut Park, with the help of Los Angeles County Supervisors. The Chamber has also brought new business opportunities to Walnut Park by organizing an annual Summer Fest in the community. Last year's event attracted over 50,000 people, and this year's attendance is expected to be even higher.

Mr. Speaker, in recognition of its seventy-five years of faithful and diligent support of local businesses, I ask my colleagues to please join me in recognizing the Florence-Firestone/Walnut Park Chamber of Commerce for making Florence-Firestone and Walnut Park better places to work and live, and in wishing the Chamber many more years of success.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to bring up H.R. 15 to the floor, a bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform bill to properly address the humanitarian crisis at our border.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this bill.

Sadly, the Republican leadership is continuing to play politics with the lives of innocent children at our border by failing to bring forward a bipartisan supplemental spending bill that can pass the House and be signed into law.

It is unbelievable that the failure to pass their own bill yesterday was not because of its completely inadequate funding level or the fact that it would undercut critical humanitarian protections in current law, but because it was not mean enough or punitive enough for their own Members to vote on.

Working together, as Leader Pelosi offered Speaker Boehner but was refused, we could have come to a reasonable compromise.

Instead, Republicans have resorted to martial law, not because it is in the best interest of our country or these children, but so they can have the time to write a bill that will appease the extremists in their party.

Let's reject this rule and come together in the best tradition of this House to pass a clean supplemental bill that will address the humanitarian crisis at our border in a way that meets our government's urgent needs and upholds our most basic American values.

Mr. Speaker, as a nation, Americans have always valued children and families.

If we pass this inadequate, irresponsible bill tonight, we will be breaking from that tradition and turning our backs on America's enduring commitment to fairness and justice.

Two weeks ago, I visited the border with a bipartisan group of House and Senate colleagues.

There we saw small children as young as seven years old crowded into tiny cells, and

forced to sleep on cold concrete floors and benches.

What I saw shocked me as a mother and disappointed me as an American.

I left that day determined to do everything I could to ensure that these children, many of whom fled horrific violence, are treated with care and compassion.

That's why I'll be voting ``no'' on the bill before us.

Joining me and others who oppose this destructive legislation are faith leaders, anti-trafficking groups, and women's organizations.

This diverse coalition is united in the belief that children escaping violence and persecution deserve to be protected and treated with basic human dignity.

The influx of refugees from Central America has put a strain on our border and immigration agencies. These agencies need greater resources to handle the heart-wrenching situation at our border in a way that is consistent with our American values. When things get tough, and when our resolve is tested, we must not abandon the ideals that make America so special.

Instead, we must live up to our ideals, and back our lofty rhetoric with meaningful action. Passing a clean supplemental spending bill that addresses the causes and consequences of the humanitarian crisis at our border would be meaningful and effective action, because the Senate would pass that bill and the President would sign it.

The tired, scared, helpless kids I saw in that overcrowded Border Patrol station are counting on us. Instead of playing political games and falsely claiming our borders are at risk, we need to act like Americans and stand up for these vulnerable children.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this irresponsible and shameful Republican supplemental.

Mr. Speaker, this bill isn't just an assault on Dreamers who grew up in our communities and except on paper, are Americans in every way.

It's not just an attack on their parents who raised them and taught them their values and love of this great country.

What it is, is an affront to everyone who believes in the American Dream and our American values. It is an affront to those who uphold and subscribe to the basic notion that America is a fair, compassionate, and welcoming nation.

It is unconscionable that this bill will condemn Dreamers and their parents to second-class status.

It is unconscionable that this bill will cruelly foreclose any possibility that Dreamers and their parents could adjust their status, regardless of how hard they work or how much they contribute to their communities and our country.

If deported, their loss will be America's loss as we will lose the benefits of their talents and their ability to strengthen our economy and enrich our nation.

If we end DACA, our country could lose young people like Paola, a medical student from Los Angeles, to cure the sick. We would lose Andree, a brilliant young woman who is also from LA, who is studying at Harvard and dreams of one day curing cancer.

President Clinton once observed that ``we cannot build our own future without helping others to build theirs.''

That sentiment--the basic awareness that we're all in this together-- is at the center of the American Dream, a Dream which is threatened by the bill before us.

Let's stand up for Dreamers, for their families and for our nation's future by defeating this mean-spirited and destructive legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I enter into the Record the story of seven very young Honduran children who were tortured and brutally murdered after refusing to join a gang.

Madam Speaker, 2 weeks ago, I visited the border and saw small children held in tiny cells and forced to sleep on cold concrete floors and benches. The treatment of these vulnerable kids, many of whom fled their homes to escape extreme violence, shocked me as a mother and as an American.

Unfortunately, this bill contains only 11 percent of the resources the President requested for the Department of Health and Human Services. This paltry amount will only make conditions worse for these vulnerable children by limiting the Department's bedspace capacity and exacerbating delays in transferring children away from the overcrowded Border Patrol stations into the more suitable conditions of HHS.

Unfortunately, insufficient funding isn't the only flaw in this bill. By treating all children the same, the majority means taking away protections and treating Central American children like Mexican and Canadian children who have limited protection under current law.

This legislation sadly undercuts the current critical humanitarian and due process protections for these desperate children seeking safe haven from the horrors of violence in their country.

Without due process, many of these children who would qualify for protection under our laws will be returned straight into the arms of the traffickers or their impoverished violent neighborhoods. That is why, national antitrafficking organizations like the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking strongly oppose this bill.

Madam Speaker, the Republican supplemental is an irresponsible and inadequate bill that does little to protect our borders or address the humanitarian crisis facing our Nation. The bill is a senseless and deeply flawed political ploy that my Republican colleagues know will be rejected by the Senate.

Instead of playing political games, let us act in the best interests of our country and these kids by passing a bill that upholds our American values, honors our heritage as a nation of immigrants, protects our borders, and fully addresses the causes and consequences of the humanitarian crisis on our border.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my colleagues in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, I rise to introduce the Health Equity and Accountability Act of 2014.

The Congressional Tri-Caucus, over the past 10 years, has been tireless in its effort to educate Congress and the country about the disproportionate burden of premature deaths and preventable illnesses existing in our minority communities. Towards that end, the Tri-Caucus developed a national strategy for the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities. The keystone of this strategy is the Tri-Caucus Health Equity and Accountability Act, first introduced in 2003 and every Congress since.

HEAA, in many ways, is unique. First, the bill and its introduction rotates each Congress among the three caucuses. This year, as chair of the CHC Health Task Force, I have the distinct honor of carrying on the tradition by introducing the bill for the 113th Congress.

Second, and most importantly, HEAA outlines the collective institutional knowledge of a diverse group of policymakers, health professionals, and advocacy organizations from throughout the country on what policies are needed to halt, reduce, and eliminate health disparities.

At the beginning of each new Congress, the HEAA working group convenes and several hundred minority and health advocacy organizations meet on a regular basis to discuss the bill and update it based on new research and recommendations to meet the ever-changing needs of our Nation's most vulnerable populations.

Also, just as the bill introduction rotates each Congress between Member offices, the leadership of the HEAA working group rotates among advocacy organizations. In the 113th Congress, this effort was spearheaded by the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, whose members I commend for their deep commitment to social justice and for their tireless work on this bill, which included coordinating the input of over 350 health and minority advocacy groups.

The HEAA is a principled living road map that can be used by policymakers and providers alike. For example, the Affordable Care Act contains many groundbreaking policies first introduced in HEAA, including expansion of Medicaid eligibility, increased resources for community health centers, and institutionalizing Federal efforts to achieve health equity.

Nevertheless, while the ACA has made a significant impact on access to quality health care, many inequities and obstacles remain that prevent the elimination of health disparities in our country. That is why the HEAA of 2014 provides Federal resources and advanced policies to improve health outcomes in all populations regardless of race, ethnicity, immigration status, age, ability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or English proficiency.

The HEAA is made up of ten titles proposing a wide spectrum of health initiatives that address disparities and mental health and specific high impact minority diseases.

The bill also provides guidelines for improving the health outcomes for women, children, and families, and targets resources to communities striving to overcome negative social factors.

Finally, the bill includes recommendations to enhance data collection, technology, accountability, and evaluation; increase workforce diversity; and ensure access to culturally and linguistically appropriate care.

Mr. Speaker, the members of the Tri-Caucus and members of the HEAA working group believe no one's health or life expectancy should be determined by the color of their skin or the Zip Code in which they are born.

The Health Equity and Accountability Act of 2014 is a consensus blueprint of the most comprehensive and strategic plans to eliminate health disparities in our country.

I urge my colleagues to support the Health Equity and Accountability Act of 2014.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to bring up H.R. 851, the Bring Jobs Home Act, to jump-start the middle class, instead of this partisan lawsuit attacking the President.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and was not present for two rollcall votes on Wednesday, July 16, 2014. Had I been present, I would have voted in this manner: rollcall vote No. 415--Fleming of Louisiana Amendment No. 1--``no,'' and rollcall vote No. 416--Gosar of Arizona Amendment--``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Newborn Screening Saves Lives Reauthorization Act. I introduced this bill to help ensure our babies continuing receiving lifesaving newborn screenings.

I extend my sincere thanks to my lead cosponsor, Congressman Michael Simpson, for his support and his long history of championing newborn screening services.

I thank Senators Kay Hagan and Orrin Hatch for introducing the Senate companion bill, which passed by unanimous consent in January of this year.

I also thank the coalition of public health groups--especially the March of Dimes and the Association of Public Health Laboratories--for working with my office over the last 10 years on this critical issue.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not mention Debbie Jessup of my staff, for her outstanding management of my bill, and the work of two exceptional public health fellows, Arianna Baseman and Daphne Delgado, who provided strong leadership in moving the bill forward.

Newborn screening is a public health intervention that involves giving babies a simple blood test to identify many life-threatening genetic and metabolic illnesses before symptoms begin. Newborn screening is one of the great public health success stories of the 20th century.

Prior to the enactment of the original Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act in 2008, only 10 States and the District of Columbia required infants to be screened for a complete panel of recommended disorders, and there was no Federal repository of information on the diseases.

Today, 44 States and the District of Columbia require screening of at least 29 of the 31 core treatable conditions. Today, professionals and parents have centralized access to newborn screening information when their baby is diagnosed with one of these disorders.

Since the passage of the original bill, newborn screenings have improved, and new screenings have been added. These screenings are critical for the approximately 12,000 babies who, each year, test positive for one of these treatable diseases.

Fifty years ago, before newborn screening tests were developed, the conditions of these babies would have gone undetected until symptoms appeared. As a result, they would have unnecessarily died or suffered from their lifelong disabling disorder.

Today, because of newborn screening, they have an opportunity and they have hope for a relatively normal life.

The ability to rapidly identify and treat these disorders is making a difference between health and disability--and even life or death--for the children affected by these severe diseases. Unfortunately, critical gaps and challenges still remain.

Due to existing discrepancies in the number of tests given from State to State, each year, approximately 1,000 infants tragically die or are permanently disabled from otherwise treatable disorders.

The passage of the Newborn Screening Saves Lives Reauthorization Act will help avoid these preventable tragedies by providing States with the resources they need to improve their newborn screening programs and to uniformly test for all recommended disorders.

It also provides States with assistance in developing followup and tracking programs. These provisions will help our financially burdened health care system by saving billions of dollars over the life of these children.

In addition, this bill renews the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Heritable Disorders and requires the CDC to ensure the quality of laboratories involved in newborn screening.

The bill also continues the Hunter Kelly Newborn Screening Program, which helps NIH researchers develop better detection, prevention, and treatment strategies.

Mr. Speaker, the Newborn Screening Saves Lives Reauthorization Act will continue to help parents and health providers to be knowledgeable about the importance of newborn screening tests, and it will help ensure all our newborn babies receive the comprehensive and consistent testing they need to have healthy, happy, and productive lives.

Where a baby is born should not determine its chance to have a healthy future.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the passage of H.R. 1281.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to provisions in this bill that undermine nutrition standards for school meals and the WIC program. Nutrition programs that support balanced diets are vital tools in protecting against childhood hunger and reducing childhood obesity.

While I appreciate Chairman Aderholt's efforts to fully fund childhood nutrition programs, I strongly oppose this bill because it weakens, unnecessarily, Federal child nutrition standards; rather than allowing USDA to work with schools to help them meet healthier nutrition criteria, this bill undermines the national school meal program by allowing a blanket waiver to any school that says it can't meet the new standards.

In addition, the bill adds white potatoes to the WIC food package, ignoring research findings that white potatoes are already consumed above recommended levels and should not compete with other fruits and vegetables for limited WIC vouchers.

Mr. Chairman, we have an obesity crisis in our country, and our Nation's children and families are best served when Federal nutrition standards are guided by science. Now is not the time to lower the benchmarks that protect our children's health now and in the future.

I urge my colleagues to support amendments that remove these damaging riders to the bill.

Mr. Chair, while I extend my appreciation to Chairman Latham and Ranking Member Pastor for their hard work on the FY15 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Bill, unfortunately, it is another example of the inadequacy of the FY15 budget allocation, and I regretfully rise in opposition.

The bill before us fails to address our nation's growing infrastructure and transportation needs, and the critical housing needs of the most vulnerable among us.

On paper, it looks like the THUD allocation is nearly $1.2 billion higher than last year. But as we've heard, due to a discrepancy in FHA receipt estimates, this bill is actually $1.8 billion lower than the FY 2014 bill.

This means that funding for McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance grants falls $20 million short of what is required to prevent vulnerable residents from being evicted from their current housing. It also means federal efforts to end chronic homelessness by 2016 will be stalled, despite evidence homeless assistance grants have contributed to a significant drop in the number of homeless people with serious disabilities and mental illness.

In addition, this bill does nothing to restore the 40,000 Section 8 Housing Choice vouchers eliminated by sequester cuts. Yet the demand for affordable housing is acute. In Los Angeles County alone, at least 490,340 more affordable housing units are needed to ease the housing burden on the county's poorest residents.

Furthermore, this bill cuts funding for the public housing capital fund by $100 million to $1.775 billion, which is a level not seen since the 1980s. These cuts add to the already chronic capital underfunding of deteriorating public housing and the living conditions of the more than one million families who live in public housing.

Unfortunately, the FY15 THUD bill also significantly underfunds critical transportation and infrastructure programs.

The bill cuts the funding for the TIGER Grant Program by 83 percent. That's a $500 million cut to a crucial tool for investing in our nation's deteriorating transportation infrastructure. Without robust funding for Tiger Grants, many critical transportation projects will go unfunded and infrastructure needs will be unmet.

The Federal Transit Authority's Capital Investment Grant Program is cut by $252 million. The program funds projects that create jobs and encourages future growth and sustainability for my district and for cities across the country. Unfortunately these cuts will severely limit investments in new projects and have a detrimental effect on current projects and jobs.

Amtrak's capital grants program is cut by $200 million. This will impact both current and future projects. People rely on Amtrak to commute to work, shop, visit family and friends and travel to other cities. These cuts to critical infrastructure investments will leave my constituents and thousands of transit dependent Americans with limited and unreliable transportation.

Transit research is cut by $28 million, or 65 percent. This is unacceptable and must be fixed. We have now learned that there has been a significant human contribution to climate change, and without more reliable and accessible public transportation, we will never be able to combat this very real and very serious problem which will negatively affect many generations to come.

Mr. Chair, this bill is grossly underfunded in almost every regard. The programs that meet the most critical needs in our country have been stripped to unacceptably low levels. I urge my colleagues to support the people and communities who need these programs the most, and vote no on the FY15 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the TELACU Education Foundation, a non-profit organization based in my 40th Congressional District. The Foundation has been transforming educational outcomes for thousands of Latino students over more than three decades.

TELACU, The East Los Angeles Community Union, is a pioneer in empowering and revitalizing communities in our great State of California and throughout our Nation. More than 30 years ago, in response to crisis-level dropout rates for Latino students in college, TELACU created the TELACU Education Foundation. Working in partnership with a vast network of colleges, universities, corporations, and individuals, the TELACU Education Foundation has awarded millions of dollars in scholarships to thousands of deserving students.

As the centerpiece of the Foundation, the College Success Program annually provides scholarships to 500 college and graduate students who are the first in their families to access higher education. Realizing that financial resources alone cannot fully meet these students' needs, the program provides these scholars with comprehensive academic and career guidance to ensure that they graduate.

The Foundation also serves an additional 1,600 middle and high school students, nursing school students, and veterans. Through comprehensive educational programs, these scholars are not only inspired to pursue higher education, but are also equipped to meet the

rigorous expectations of college. As a result, 99% of TELACU's high school students have earned their high school diplomas and continued on to pursue post-secondary education, and 99% of TELACU college students have earned, at minimum, a bachelor's degree.

TELACU Scholars are recruited from the poorest neighborhoods in Southern California, Chicago, Texas, and New York. In many of these neighborhoods, young African Americans and Latinos are more likely to be arrested by their 18th birthday than to graduate high school. Yet year after year, TELACU Scholars have proven that it doesn't matter where you were born, what the color of your skin is, or what language you speak at home--if you study and work hard, you can become anything you want to be in our great United States of America.

And hard work is what TELACU Scholars are all about. Scholars like Priscila Papias leverage all the resources provided by the TELACU Education Foundation to advance not only themselves and their educations, but their communities as well. As part of the Foundation's internship program, Priscila partnered with local universities, food banks, and farmer's markets to help provide regular nutritional screenings and high-quality nutritional care for residents of TELACU's senior housing complexes. I thank Priscila Papias and all of her fellow TELACU Scholars for their hard work and contributions to our communities.

Mr. Speaker, in recognition of the thousands of students they have served, empowered, and advanced to achieve self-sufficiency, I ask my colleagues to please join me in recognizing David and Priscila Lizaarraga for their exemplary leadership and commendable efforts to support our young people and our communities, and wish them and the TELACU Education Foundation many years of continued success ahead.