Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 1677) to reauthorize the Defense Production Act of 1950, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on this legislation and to insert extraneous material thereon.

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

I rise in strong support of S. 1677, the Defense Production Act Reauthorization of 2009. The Defense Production Act was enacted in 1950 during the Korean War to assure the timely availability of industrial resources to meet national defense needs, particularly in times of crisis.

The Defense Production Act has expanded beyond its original focus on military requirements, as the name suggests, to expand industrial resources to meet other emergency preparedness and critical infrastructure needs, thereby allowing civilian agencies to respond rapidly to crises such as natural disasters or terrorist attacks.

S. 1677 updates the Cold War-era law with 21st century tools and taxpayer protections. In accordance with the General Accounting Office and Department of Homeland Security recommendations, it mandates greater coordination and implementation among Federal civilian agencies to use authorities to prioritize government contracts for our national defense and domestic emergency needs. It modernizes Federal loan and loan guarantee authorities in the act so essential government suppliers that otherwise would have trouble accessing credit can access credit to expand domestic industrial capacity in emergency situations. Such assistance is conditioned on government need, recipients' viability, and specific congressional appropriation.

This new bill would establish a new interagency body called the Defense Production Act Committee that will elevate Defense Production Act policy

discussions to Cabinet-level consideration to advise the President and improve coordination among all agencies delegated Defense Production Act authority. The panel will report to Congress annually on its use of Defense Production Act authorities and provide recommendations for any improvements.

Over the years, Mr. Speaker, the Defense Production Act has been an important tool for meeting national defense and critical infrastructure needs such as mine-resistant vehicles for troops in Iraq and emergency supplies and services for Hurricane Katrina recovery on the domestic side.

I hope my colleagues will join me in voting for the Defense Production Act Reauthorization Act of 2009, S. 1677.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time on this important bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to thank my colleague for his statement and especially remind my colleagues of the urgency of this matter, because this important authorization expires, unless we renew it, at the end of this month. So it's critically important that we pass this bill today.

In a democracy there's always a very delicate balance between taking the time to authorize things and delegating authority to an administration for emergency kinds of situations. I just want to assure my colleagues in the House that the Senate and the administration has scrubbed this bill vigorously to try to find the appropriate balance between giving the administration and folks other than those of us in Congress emergency authority to do things without allowing that authority to be abused.

We saw recently in the responses that the Federal Reserve had to take to the economic downturn last year and this year--we realized that there was some emergency authority in a remote 1933 bill that the Federal Reserve had to take certain steps. It made us a lot more aware of that delicate balance that we are always walking between giving Federal Government agencies the authority to act in emergency circumstances and going through the deliberative process that's needed for Congress to authorize these kind of emergency actions.

So our Financial Services Committee is very aware of walking that delicate balance and the necessity for doing so. And to the extent that this bill could be controversial, it would be in that area of what is that delicate balance. I think my colleagues need to be reassured that we have been very cognizant of walking that balance and trying to find the right levers to make sure that this authority can be used only in emergencies that everyone would recognize as an emergency and not be abused and used without appropriate checks and balances being exercised.

With that, I urge my colleagues to support this extremely important piece of legislation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2097) to require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint coins in commemoration of the bicentennial of the writing of the Star-Spangled Banner, and for other purposes.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2097, the Star-Spangled Banner Commemorative Coin Act, and applaud my colleague, Mr. Ruppersberger, for introducing the bill.

The bill instructs the Secretary of the Treasury to mint and issue $5 gold coins and $1 silver coins in commemoration of the bicentennial of the writing of the ``Star-Spangled Banner.'' The issuing of this coin will would begin during the calendar year. The ``Star-Spangled Banner'' is set to music to a poem entitled ``In Defense of Fort McHenry'' written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key, who wrote the poem after seeing the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland, by the Royal British Navy during the War of 1812. The American victory and the sight of the large American flag that survived the 25-hour British bombardment inspired the poem and the anthem.

In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson ordered that the anthem, which had been popularly renamed the ``Star-Spangled Banner,'' be played at military and naval occasions. On March 6, 1931, President Herbert Hoover signed a resolution of Congress that officially designated the ``Star-Spangled Banner'' as the national anthem of the United States.

Throughout the course of American history, the ``Star-Spangled Banner'' has played a significant role in the democracy and freedom of this country and symbolizes our enduring respect for those who have fought and died to preserve the future of this great nation.

In the 110th Congress, similar legislation passed the House and had 298 cosponsors. I again urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield to Mr. Ruppersberger from Maryland as much time as he may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I submit the following exchange of letters regarding H.R. 2097.

House of Representatives,

Committee on Ways and Means,

Washington, DC, September 8, 2009.

Hon. Barney Frank,

Chairman, Financial Services Committee,

Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Frank: I am writing regarding H.R. 2097, the

``Star Spangled Banner Commemorative Coin Act.''

As you know, the Committee on Ways and Means maintains

jurisdiction over bills that raise revenue. H.R. 2097

contains a provision that establishes a surcharge for the

sale of commemorative coins that are minted under the bill,

and thus falls within the jurisdiction of the Committee on

Ways and Means.

However, as part of our ongoing understanding regarding

commemorative coin bills and in order to expedite this bill

for Floor consideration, the Committee will forgo action.

This is being done with the understanding that it does not in

any way prejudice the Committee with respect to the

appointment of Conferees or its jurisdictional prerogatives

on this bill or similar legislation in the future.

I would appreciate your response to this letter, confirming

this understanding with respect to H.R. 2097, and would ask

that a copy of our exchange of letters on this matter be

included in the Record.

Sincerely,

Charles B. Rangel,

Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I simply encourage my colleagues to support this historic bill and thank Mr. Ruppersberger for its introduction.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill just under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen).

Mr. Speaker, we have only one final speaker, so we'll reserve the balance of our time.

Mr. Speaker, we reserve the balance of our time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time.

Mr. Speaker, the fact that we are here today debating this bill with such vociferous opposition, to me, is a commentary on how out of whack our whole system has become.

First of all, this bill is a modest bill which gives shareholders the right to make advisory votes, take advisory votes on compensation. Who are these shareholders? They're the owners of the company. They're the owners of the company, and somehow, the opponents of this bill are trying to convince the public that the owners of a company shouldn't have the right to express their opinion to the board about compensation of the officers of that company.

And the bill specifically says, and I'm reading from the bill, The shareholder vote shall not be binding on the board of directors and shall not be construed as overruling a decision of the board. We're just giving them the explicit right to advise the board about compensation.

One gentleman has said that this applies to manufacturers. It doesn't apply to manufacturers. Section 4 doesn't apply to manufacturers. And even if it did, it would apply only to the extent that they could threaten the safety and soundness of a financial institution-- manufacturers are not financial institutions--and only to the extent that they could cause serious adverse effects on economic conditions or financial stability. And that, I would submit, is an appropriate Federal Government role to play, to make sure that we don't get back into the kind of meltdown that we are experiencing and have been experiencing as a result of greed and irresponsibility in the private sector.

This is not the government taking over the corporate sector, either in the financial sector or any other sector of our economy. It is a statement by the American people that it's time for us to straighten up the ship. We should pass this bill today and move on.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1209) to require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint coins in recognition and celebration of the establishment of the Medal of Honor in 1861, America's highest award for valor in action against an enemy force which can be bestowed upon an individual serving in the Armed Services of the United States, to honor the American military men and women who have been recipients of the Medal of Honor, and to promote awareness of what the Medal of Honor represents and how ordinary Americans, through courage, sacrifice, selfless service and patriotism, can challenge fate and change the course of history.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on this legislation and to insert extraneous material thereon.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1209, the Medal of Honor Commemorative Coin Act of 2009. The Medal of Honor was first authorized by Congress in 1861 as the U.S. Navy's highest personal decoration, and other branches of the military followed suit with their own Medals of Honor.

The Medal of Honor is bestowed upon a member of the Armed Forces that conspicuously distinguishes him or herself at the risk of his or her own life above and beyond the call of duty while defending this country against an enemy force.

Fewer than 3,500 Medals of Honor have been awarded to members of the United States Armed Forces, and I commend the bill's sponsor, Representative Chris Carney of Pennsylvania, for honoring some of America's bravest soldiers and most outstanding citizens by introduction of this bill.

Madam Speaker, I submit the following correspondence:

House of Representatives,

Committee on Ways and Means,

Washington, DC, May 11, 2009.

Hon. Barney Frank,

Chairman, Financial Services Committee,

Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC.

Dear Barney: I am writing regarding H.R. 1209, the ``Medal

of Honor Commemorative Coin Act of 2009.''

As you know, the Committee on Ways and Means maintains

jurisdiction over bills that raise revenue. H.R. 1209

contains a provision that establishes a surcharge for the

sale of commemorative coins that are minted under the bill,

and thus falls within the jurisdiction of the Committee on

Ways and Means.

However, as part of our ongoing understanding regarding

commemorative coin bills and in order to expedite this bill

for Floor consideration, the Committee will forgo action.

This is being done with the understanding that it does not in

any way prejudice the Committee with respect to the

appointment of conferees or its jurisdictional prerogatives

on this bill or similar legislation in the future.

I would appreciate your response to this letter, confirming

this understanding with respect to H.R. 1209, and would ask

that a copy of our exchange of letters on this matter be

included in the Record.

Sincerely,

Charles B. Rangel,

Chairman.

Madam Speaker, I am told that Mr. Carney, the original sponsor of this bill, is on his way to the floor, so I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Carney), the primary sponsor of this bill on our side.

Madam Speaker, it has just been a great, great pleasure for me to listen to the stories of Mr. Kirk and Mr. Carney honoring the brave men and women who have received Medals of Honor. I want to thank them for introducing this bill to provide funding to the foundation that is doing, obviously, a great deal of wonderful work in our Nation to honor men and women who have served in the military and those out in the public who have not served in the military. So I commend them.

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

Madam Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 347) to grant the Congressional Gold Medal, collectively, to the 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, United States Army, in recognition of their dedicated service during World War II.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on this legislation and to insert extraneous material thereon.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 347, a bill to award the Congressional Gold Medal collectively to the 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, United States Army.

The 100th Infantry Battalion fought valiantly in World War II in the Italian, French and German theaters. The 100th Infantry Battalion consisted of Americans of Japanese descent that bravely fought for their country at a time when all people of Japanese ancestry, whether they were citizens or noncitizens, were sent to interment camps.

Members of the 100th Infantry Battalion were honored with six awards of the Distinguished Service Cross in the first 8 weeks of combat. And the battalion was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for its actions in battle on June 26 and 27, 1944.

The United States remains forever indebted to the bravery, valor and patriotism of these men who fought fascism abroad and racism at home. They are true American heroes. And I am honored to support legislation awarding members of the 100th Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team the Congressional Gold Medal.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the lead sponsor of this bill, the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff).

Madam Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume, up to the balance of our time, to the gentleman from American Samoa (Mr. Faleomavaega).

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

Madam Speaker, once again, I have been privileged to be controlling the time and have the opportunity to listen to these wonderful stories that are both sad on the one hand because of the experiences that these brave people were experiencing at that time and exhilarating and deserve so much honor and respect on the other hand.

So I want to again thank my good friend from California (Mr. Schiff) for bringing the bill forward and thank the gentleman from American Samoa for his touching personalization of the story so that we can all be more edified.

With that, I urge my colleagues to support this important bill.

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

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time.

I just want to take the opportunity to thank some people. This actually has been the most challenging piece of legislation I have been involved in since I have been in Congress because we have been walking a very delicate balance between the various considerations that we have heard on the floor, making sure that consumers, borrowers, are protected from terrible loans without, at the same time, on the other hand, drying up the availability of capital to fund loans. And it has been inordinately difficult. And a number of people have been working aggressively to try to find that appropriate balance.

The Chair of the Financial Services Committee has been absolutely wonderful to work with. But there are players in all segments of this industry who recognize that change needs to be made so that we don't get back into the situation that we ended up in and we are in right now. They have been working constructively. I have heard some reference to the fact that there are a number of people who oppose this bill. I really haven't seen any letters that say, ``I oppose the bill,'' because we have been in constructive dialogue with all of the players involved in this process trying to find the right balance.

There are some people who are saying, ``look, I have some concerns about this provision. I want to continue to work with you as this process moves forward.'' And this is not the end of the process. We have assured everybody that we will continue to work to find the right balance in this bill. This is not the end of the game.

I just want to thank everybody.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I keep waiting on the gentleman to address his proposed amendment. I haven't heard anything about the proposed amendment, but I want to address the points that he addressed since he wants to have a general debate.

First of all, he says he can't support this bill because we didn't deal with Fannie and Freddie. That is kind of like me saying I am not going to vote for the earned income tax credit because it doesn't deal with all of what caused poverty in America.

You can't deal with every subject in every bill. We passed a bill that has dealt with Fannie and Freddie, and it has been over there in the Senate for a long time. And we are going to pass some other legislation to deal with Fannie and Freddie at some point, but it is not addressed in this bill, just like the whole totality of poverty is not addressed when we passed an earned income tax credit or when we passed health care. That is just a non sequitur, as far as I am concerned.

He talks about, we didn't deal with disclosure so I'm not going to vote for the bill.

Everybody in America that got a loan that is in foreclosure now, everybody who is in default now got full disclosures of what the terms of their loans were. And they were ineffective to prevent the kind of predatory lending and policies that this bill addresses. So I don't know what the gentleman is talking about when he says ``we didn't deal with disclosure.''

We intentionally didn't deal with disclosure because we acknowledge that disclosure and telling people that we are giving you a bad loan is not enough to protect them any more than disclosure that a doctor may not be the best doctor in America is going to stop people from going to the doctor.

So now that I have dealt with those, maybe he will want to address the amendment itself.

And I will reserve the balance of my time to address the amendment.

Would the Chair advise me how much time remains.

I will yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Miller).

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

I would now like to address the gentleman's amendment which he still never has addressed. I acknowledged from the very beginning that we walked a delicate balance between protecting consumers and protecting the availability of funds. But the balance that the gentleman would have us address says this, ``no assignee or securitizer of a residential mortgage loan shall be liable under this subsection.''

Let me tell you what that would lead to. I will close a loan one day, I will assign it to somebody the next day, and we will be right back where we are right now because nobody in the chain of custody of that loan, other than the original lender, will have any liability.

That would be as irresponsible as not passing any bill or not doing anything, which is exactly what a number of my colleagues would like to have us do, but which is not an option in this posture at this moment.

So I want my colleagues to be clear. This is a destructive amendment and should be opposed.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition, although I do not intend to oppose the amendment.

I want to just thank the gentlewoman for offering the amendment. We have been saying throughout this process that there are uncertainties and we need to know if we've made the balance the wrong way, and this study would help us determine that in a constructive way.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 1728, and to insert extraneous material thereon.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, today could easily be a day toward a celebration for myself,

as an original cosponsor of this bill, and Mr. Miller of North Carolina, my colleague, who also is an original cosponsor of this bill, perhaps leading to a celebration of final passage.

But I approach this day with two rather major concerns about celebrating. First of all, I approach it asking: What if 6 years ago we had passed the legislation that Mr. Miller and I proposed to the House of Representatives at that time? Isn't it likely that the major meltdown in our credit system would not have occurred, and there's the prospect that had that not occurred, the major economic crisis in which our country finds itself now, trying to dig our way out, may also have been avoided.

So the decisions that we make have consequences. They have had consequences to our credit markets and they have consequences going forward, and have had consequences to our economy.

So this is not a day for celebration. If we pass the bill and the Senate passes the bill and it gets signed into law, we will always wonder what if we had done this when we originally brought forward the bill and dealt with the issue when it should have been dealt with.

Second, my observation is that this has been a very difficult and delicate bill to balance because we have tried to, on the one hand, not to dry up the credit--the money that is out there to be in the market for lenders to make loans to potential homeowners and to current homeowners to refinance while, at the same time, cutting back on the abuses that took place in the marketplace that led to the credit crisis and the economic meltdown that I just described.

Balancing those two interests has been difficult and, unfortunately, those interests were balanced inappropriately in the past because credit obviously was made too readily available to too many people who could not afford to pay it back, who are now in foreclosure proceedings, now in bankruptcies, and we are seeing the negative consequences of an unrestrained market.

So, obviously, the balance was not drawn appropriately in the past, and now we face the argument from a number of my colleagues that, ``Well, we can just leave this alone and let the market take care of itself and we shouldn't be doing anything.'' We're going to hear those arguments throughout today's general debate and, no doubt, on tomorrow when we start dealing with the amendment process.

That's a laissez-faire attitude that I would remind my colleagues is the same laissez-faire attitude that we faced 6 years ago when we first introduced this bill which, I would suggest to you, if we had acted then, we wouldn't be here.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the lead sponsor of this bill, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Miller).

I yield the gentleman an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time in an effort to equalize the time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the Chair of the Capital Markets Subcommittee of Financial Services, the subcommittee that has responsibility for making sure that there is money available, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois, a member of the committee, (Ms. Bean).

Mr. Chairman, would you advise how much time remains on each side.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to a valued member of the Committee on Financial Services who has been involved in the process throughout, Mr. Al Green of Texas.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from California, chairwoman of the Housing Subcommittee of Financial Services, Ms. Waters.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, my colleague from North Carolina identified a whole list of things that had gone awry in the lending community that formed the basis for this bill, and we have tried to address them by requiring lenders to assess the borrower's ability to repay the loan by requiring borrowers to at least make sure that the lender is getting some kind of tangible benefit out of a loan that they make to them, by requiring lenders to verify the income of people that they are making loans to, and by setting up standards for appraisers to do responsible appraising and by creating broker responsibilities.

Nobody can argue with those things and nobody should argue with those things. And if you support them, you should be supporting this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

We have a closing speaker. So if the gentleman is ready to close, he can go ahead, and we have one more speaker.

Mr. Chairman, I recognize the chairman of the full Financial Services Committee for a closing statement and yield him the balance of our time.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I think he's yielding to me because I made this point in the committee markup that credit card companies were engaging in negative conduct in the interim before this bill gets implemented, and Mr. Frank made exactly the same commitment to me at that point, and we're certainly going to push them on that.

Will the gentleman yield?

I neglected to address the gentleman's amendment, Mr. Chairman.

I want to urge my strong support for the gentleman's amendment from a personal experience. I was the administrator of my brother's estate after he died more than 2 years ago. I'm still getting bills that I have paid off to credit card companies out of that estate. So it's a serious problem and I am glad he's addressing it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time and for reserving this time to bring this important resolution forward.

About 2 weeks ago, following the death of our good friend, John Hope Franklin, I witnessed something that I had never witnessed in this body before. People were lining up to introduce resolutions honoring Dr. John Hope Franklin. And the Congressional Black Caucus was saying, John Hope Franklin is our honored person who has been so important to us.

Representative David Price from North Carolina, in whose district John Hope Franklin lived at his death, said, I want the honor of introducing a resolution. Individual Members were all intent on introducing their resolution. And I modestly tell you, Mr. Speaker, that I ended up being the lead sponsor, only after a period of negotiation between people who were anxious to be in this position. And I am honored to have been kind of negotiated into the position of being the lead sponsor.

But out of that process, something important became apparent to me, and that's this: That if 100 of our Members had introduced resolutions honoring the life and times of John Hope Franklin, that still wouldn't have been enough to give him the kind and sufficiency of honor that he deserved.

And if 100 different resolutions had been introduced, I can imagine that they would have covered 100 different aspects of his life. They would have said, he was a scholar, because when John Hope Franklin was researching African American history in this country, there really was no written African American history in this country. And he had to beg his way into the Library of Congress, into places where nobody African American had ever really spent any time to try to find the history and place African Americans in a particular reserved place, tracing their ancestry all the way back into Africa, and giving us the due that we were entitled to have as part of this, the history of this country.

A resolution might have talked about his being the first, because there's a whole list. We could take 20 minutes on our side just listing the things that John Hope Franklin was the first to do; the first to be an African American head of a Department of History, the first to do this, the first to do that.

We could devote a whole resolution to him as a historian, because the wonderful work that he authored, ``From Slavery to Freedom,'' helped to define the role of African Americans in this country.

We could do a resolution listing just the honors that he received, the number of honorary doctorates and prizes and awards that he received for his scholarship and his participation.

We could do a resolution on his commitment to growing tulips. Here's a man that has had an tulip named after him because he took a liking to tulips, and really went in and probably has the best understanding and the best collection of tulips of any individual in America.

We could do a resolution on his landmark participation, the fact that he was part of the research team that did Brown v. Board of Education; that he was part of the research team that made it possible for me to continue to serve in this body.

He was part of the team that did the research on the Voting Rights Act that resulted in the Supreme Court upholding the congressional districts that many of the members of the CBC now occupy in this body.

We could do a resolution on his involvement in President Clinton's Race Initiative.

But I tell you, if I were doing a resolution, if I were writing it myself, I'd do it based on this humble genius, the mentorship that he provided to me, the friendship that he provided to me and my family as we grew up in politics, as we came out of the South and assumed the role that I have in this body today.

This is a great, great, great, great man that had so many different ingredients to his greatness. Time doesn't give us enough time or enough resolutions to do appropriate honor to this man. I am grateful that we have this time, but I'm more grateful that we had him for 90- plus years on this Earth.

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentlelady from Ohio for organizing this Special Order for an extremely special person who actually spent most of his time in North Carolina even though he was born in Ohio. So we all claim ownership of John Hope Franklin.

I will be brief because we have other colleagues here who are anxious to express themselves about their memories and our memories of John Hope Franklin. And because the Congressional Black Caucus will be introducing a resolution, which I hope to have the opportunity to speak on, and because in conjunction with the Senator from North Carolina, Senator Hagan, who has dropped a resolution on the Senate side, and Representative David Price on the House side, we have dropped or are in the process of introducing another resolution to honor John Hope Franklin.

It, perhaps, would be best stated in this way, my reaction, when on Friday of last week, a proposed wording of a resolution that was planning to be introduced by my colleague, Representative David Price of North Carolina, honoring the life of John Hope Franklin, was forwarded to me in North Carolina for my review and approval. And I wrote back this to the person who sent it to me on my staff: I said, ``No words could ever do justice to the greatness of this man.'' And that's kind of the way we all feel about John Hope Franklin.

Among all of his wonderful accomplishments and his education and mentorship of all of us in our community--not only African Americans but for the Nation as a whole--to make them understand that the history of African Americans is an integral part of the American history that we should honor and cherish.

Among all of those accolades, he was first and foremost a wonderful, wonderful friend to me and to my wife and family. And we had the wonderful pleasure of spending time with him and just sitting and talking to him on occasion. You could get mesmerized in those conversations because there was not a single thing in history that he didn't already understand all of the historical trappings and connections that went with it. But then he would break it down and give you his own personal relationships to it and how he interpreted it in today's modern times, the implications that it had, the significance for young people, the significance for older people. He would just mesmerize you with his conversation.

No words could ever do justice to the greatness of this man.

We will miss him. We honor his memory. And the thing that I am constantly consoled of is that he died at age 94 and there was not a single day that he cheated life. I mean, he used every single day of it contributing wonderful things to our history, to our humanity, to others, and to me to a friendship that I will always cherish.

I thank the gentlelady for reserving this time and for yielding me the time to express my sentiments this evening.

Mr. Speaker, I am privileged today to welcome and say words of welcome on behalf of the House to the wonderful bishop and minister who delivered our prayer for us this morning, whom I am privileged to have as a constituent in my congressional district.

He is not only a leader in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church but has been a leader in our community of Charlotte, North Carolina, and in our State for a number of years. He has served on our school board, he has been a corporate leader serving on boards of distinction, and he is an outstanding family man as well as, of course, a religious leader of our community.

We are delighted to welcome Bishop Battle today, and wish him well. His wife is just recovering from surgery, and we wish her well also on behalf of the House.