Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate Greece on her 188th anniversary of Independence.

The U.S. tradition of democracy was built upon ancient Greek political and philosophical thought. And, the flame that ignited the first discussions of democracy in Ancient Greece, shined luminously throughout the Mediterranean on March 25, 1821.

Fortunately, this anniversary not only marks the creation of a promising, new democratic state, but of a steadfast and loyal friend to the United States.

I am proud to say that Greece has stood by the United States as a strong NATO ally.

A quick and reliable partner in World War II, the Balkans and most recently, Iraq.

And as a leader through its chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

I would also particularly like to congratulate the nearly 15,000 Greek-Americans of Staten Island and Southern Brooklyn whose strong family ties, established customs and tradition of hard work have added to the character and longevity of my district.

These Greek Americans and their relatives in Greece are a tight community. Their relatives in Greece deserve to have the same level of access for tourism and business travel to the United States that most other European countries have. This is why I support Greece's prompt membership into the visa waiver program and look forward to future global opportunities to partner with our friend and ally, Greece.

On this important occasion I would like say once more: Congratulations.

I rise today as a cosponsor of the amendment offered by my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Driehaus) to increase the amount for sewage control grants in this bill to $2.5 billion. I also commend the great chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Congressman Oberstar, for his great work, and commend him for the great spirit of bipartisanship which he's engendered in this room today.

H.R. 1262 provides critical assistance to communities across the Nation for sewage water runoff, watershed restoration, and other water infrastructure projects. As a former New York City councilman and head of the sanitation committee for New York, I know that municipalities rely on these funds.

As the gentleman from Ohio said, there's a backlog of $140 billion worth of projects. Imagine this. In Staten Island, houses were built without sanitary sewers. This needs to be resolved. The Federal Government has to help us.

So that is why this amendment is so important. It will increase support that is so badly needed across this country and in my district.

Madam Speaker, I am here to pay tribute to a religious leader from my district who is a pillar of our community.

Pastor Khader El-Yateem was born in Beit Jala, a town in the West Bank of Palestine. In 1968, after his graduation from high school, he studied at the Bethlehem Bible College, graduated with a Diploma in Theology, and proceeded to study at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo, Egypt, where he received his B.A. degree. He was invited by the ELCA to work as a mission developer among the Arab and Middle Eastern community in the United States. He studied at the Lutheran Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, where he graduated with a Master of Divinity degree.

In February 1999, Pastor El-Yateem was called by the Division for Outreach to start the Salam Arabic Lutheran Church in Brooklyn, which became the first official Arabic Lutheran Church in North America. Civic leaders within the Bay Ridge community requested his assistance in October 2000, to help establish a committee to bring the Christian, Jewish and Arabic communities together in a pledge to live in peace. He opened his church to all and successfully helped the committee bring the various groups together. The inter-faith dialogue continues with great success. This endeavor prompted Pastor El-Yateem to ask District Attorney, Charles Hynes to co-chair a Brooklyn wide Unity Task Force, which has also been successful in bringing together various ethnic and religious groups within the borough.

Pastor El-Yateem continues to contribute to the spiritual well being of our community with the support of his lovely wife Grace and children Rowan, Janette, Naim and Isabelle.

I am honored by the work Pastor El-Yateem carries out in my district and for the people of Brooklyn. I congratulate him and his family for the work they have done to make a stronger community.

Mr. Speaker, I send to the desk a privileged concurrent resolution and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Chairman, I strongly urge all of my colleagues to support the amendment that I have jointly sponsored under the leadership of Congressman Nadler, together with

our other colleagues, to increase transit funding in H.R. 1 by $3 billion. Bang for the buck, nothing will help create more jobs than funding transportation infrastructure.

I have to say that my district has some of the longest commute times in the country, and we need this mass transportation infrastructure badly. People travel on average an hour and a half each way to work.

I urge everyone to support this amendment.

My district has some of the longest average commute times in the country--with people travelling well over an hour and a half each way to work. Meanwhile our MTA is seeking to raise our bus and subway fares, cut service and if you can imagine raise the toll to $14, just to go from SI to Brooklyn and back.

Unfortunately my district is far from unique. Americans are demanding more support for mass transit and that is why I encourage all of you to support this important Amendment and to support this bill.

To the chairman and to my colleagues from New York led by Joe Crowley, Congressman Nadler, Congresswoman Maloney and Congressman Hall and our colleague across the water, Congressman Sires, as well as Congressman McNerney, who hosts this great pilot in his district, I'm honored to cosponsor House Resolution 84 honoring the heroic actions of the pilot, crew and rescuers of US Airways Flight 1549.

When Flight 1549 landed in the cold, icy waters of the Hudson River on the afternoon of Thursday, January 15, 2009, many of us in New York feared the worst. What started out as a routine flight from LaGuardia to Charlotte, North Carolina, quickly turned into a nightmare. Passengers heard a loud bang just after takeoff and were told to brace for impact as the plane ditched into the Hudson.

What forced the plane to make an emergency water landing remains under investigation. But what is clear is that the 155 people aboard Flight 1549 owe their lives to the quick maneuvering and skill of the pilot, Chesley B. Sullenberger, III, commonly known as ``Sully,'' and the flight crew that allowed every person on board to survive the impact.

When both engines failed, Mr. Sullenberger's critical decision to land

in the river and avoid densely populated areas on land not only allowed the people on board the plane to survive, but also saved countless lives of people on the ground. In addition, the crew of Flight 1549 showed the utmost professionalism and training by quickly getting the passengers off the plane and into waiting rescue watercraft.

In addition to the heroes on the plane, the passengers and crew owe their lives to the quick actions of ferry boat operators and the first responders in New York and New Jersey who evacuated everyone from the downed plane and rescued those people who had fallen into the frigid water. Today we honor and commend the crews of the New York Waterways ferry boats, other commuter lines and the numerous boats from the New York City Fire Department, the New York City Police Department, the Coast Guard, practically every city, State and Federal agency that patrols the waters around New York for springing into action so fast, and of course all the heroic men and women who work so hard every day in our hospitals.

It is nothing short of a miracle that everyone on US Airways Flight 1549 survived. The families of the passengers and crew and all of us owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the extraordinary work and heroism of people that helped save lives, from the skill of the flight crew and air traffic controllers who performed a near perfect landing, to the crew, who evacuated the cabin and cared for the passengers, even giving their own clothes off their own backs to keep passengers from developing hypothermia, to the first responders and good Samaritans on the commuter ferries who helped bring people to safety, and to the pilot who did not even leave the plane until he walked the aisles of the cabin twice to be sure everyone had been evacuated. The rescue demonstrated to the world once again the bravery and goodness of our people, the best of New York and the best of America.

I urge my colleagues to enthusiastically support this resolution and offer my personal thanks for the hard work, courage and kindness that saved so many lives and brought a happy ending to a story that could have turned out so much differently.

Madam Speaker and my colleagues, as my eloquent colleague from California just pointed out, the United States is the only developed Nation in the world that does not provide health care for all of our children.

Today, millions of children from modest-income families are not regularly seeing a doctor because they are

not enrolled in the Children's Health Insurance Program even though they are eligible. Today, this Congress has an opportunity to change that by passing legislation that will expand the program to 4 million additional kids.

At a time of rising unemployment, passing this legislation is more important than ever. In this economic recession, more and more parents are having difficulty finding affordable health insurance for their children. The need for this legislation grows every day. And this legislation is fully paid for so it will not increase the Federal deficit.

It is especially important for my home State of New York which has 402,000 uninsured kids. Imagine that. Nearly 10 percent of the national total. And I therefore thank the sponsor, Congressman Frank Pallone, and the Chairmen Waxman and Miller for their work on this bill.

Madam Speaker, this legislation has received strong bipartisan support in the past for a reason, and I urge my colleagues to vote for it today.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I rise today as a cosponsor of H.R. 11, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The Supreme Court's Ledbetter decision has made it significantly harder for women and other workers to hold employers accountable for pay discrimination. The Court's reasoning lacks common sense about the realities of workplace discrimination, and completely disregards the intent behind our robust civil rights laws.

Now we in Congress must correct this injustice, and H.R. 11 seeks to do just that.

As a father and husband, I think it's shameful that by 2009 we haven't been able to close the gender wage gap. Should my wife, who was recently elected to serve as Staten Island's first woman Supreme Court justice, receive a lower salary than her male counterparts simply because of her gender?

I worry about my high school-aged daughter and hope that when she enters the workforce, she will have the same opportunities as her male colleagues. As asked by the majority leader, if she were elected to the House today, should she be paid $145,000 while the men receive $165,000? I say, No.

Is this America's promise to our young women? To my wife? To my daughter? Enactment of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act will ensure that when women face discrimination in the workplace, they will be able to fight for and protect their rights to fair, equal treatment.

I recently visited Wagner College in my district and met with the next generation of working women. I made a promise to all of the young women of Staten Island and Brooklyn that I would work hard in Congress to change the practices that permit women to earn only 77 cents on every dollar made by men.

I thank the House leadership, and especially the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) for allowing me to be part of this historic moment here today. Let us put to rest the age-old problem of sex-based discrimination.

I urge my colleagues to vote yes on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, H.R. 11, and on H.R. 12, the Paycheck Fairness Act.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 34, this bipartisan legislation sponsored by our Congressional leadership and to stand with Israel and its efforts to protect innocent Israeli civilians against attacks by Hamas.

No country would permit attacks against innocent people, regardless of the political agenda or concerns that motivate such actions, and we in the international community cannot do so here.

We all know Israel as a country of peace, and the only way Israel and its neighbors will be able to enjoy a true and lasting peace will be through the agreed upon process working toward a two-state solution. We cannot let a group of terrorist extremists derail the hard work that our President, Israel, and leaders throughout the region have worked so hard to achieve.

In their oath of loyalty, members of Hamas declare that ``death in the cause of God is their supreme desire.'' And since Hamas unilaterally decided to breach its agreed upon truce and renew its attacks on Israel on December 24, we have seen the horrors that occur when this extreme ideology is put into effect against innocent people-- both Israeli and Palestinian alike.

Residents of Israeli communities near Gaza have endured over 6,000 rockets crossing into their borders, threatening their lives, and breaching a 6-month cease-fire.

Hamas continues to concentrate its bases of operations close to Palestinian residential neighborhoods and humanitarian centers-- sometimes even firing rockets from rooftops of school buildings.

And while there are some who say that Hamas is merely a problem just for Israel, Hamas' utter disregard of innocent human life ultimately affects us all here in the United States, and all peace-loving people around the world.

In the face of increasing international terror, we in the United States must condemn the actions of Hamas. Hamas refuses to employ peaceful methods in dealing with Israel and refuses to acknowledge its right to exist.

The unyielding disregard for human life that Hamas displays is not only a terrorist strategy against Israel, but an ideology that Hamas strives to spread to others in that region and to the global community as a whole.

Israel has an absolute right to defend its citizens and borders. I therefore urge my colleagues to support House H. Res. 34, stand by our friend and ally Israel, and condemn Hamas for obstructing the basic human rights of both groups and the road to a peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians.