Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to recognize a very special 7-year-old. He is none other than Matthew Rumenapp of Wynantskill, New York. Matty is one of two Winning Kids who have been designated and selected by the Epilepsy Foundation of Northeastern New York to represent all children with epilepsy during the coming year.

Matty is the son of Amy and Derrick Rumenapp. Their 7-year-old attends first grade at St. Jude the Apostle School in Wynantskill and was diagnosed with epilepsy when he was only 2\1/2\ years old.

After 3 months of bravely battling the disease, Matty became seizure free and, to this day, remains so. His courage, positive attitude, and lively spirit gives strength to his schoolmates, his teachers, his sister, his parents, and me.

This evening, I salute Matty's bravery and courage, as well as the strength of his entire family. As a Winning Kid, Matty will help others fight seizures and work to find a cure.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate and honor the service of our Nation's Girl Scouts.

On this week, more than 100 years ago, Juliette ``Daisy'' Gordon Low officially registered the Girl Scouts' first 18 members. Since that time, the Girl Scouts experience has enriched the lives of millions of girls, their families, and our communities.

I am especially proud to highlight the hard work of Felicia Dodge, a Girl Scout from Glenville, New York. Felicia is currently working on her Gold Award project to help create a sustainable sewing program at a local school in Haiti.

Felicia's project empowers the community to clothe themselves and hone the skills to run a sustainable business. Her hard work and certainly her involvement will send over 600 pounds of materials and supplies to the school. I applaud Felicia for her thoughtful and certainly inspiring endeavor.

On behalf of the citizens of the 20th Congressional District of New York, I thank the Girl Scouts of northeastern New York for their commitment and for their service to our communities.

Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to recognize Michael C. Hoffman of Saratoga Springs for receiving the prestigious Flame of Hope Award from the Epilepsy Foundation of Northeastern New York. This award highlights Mike's outstanding dedication and commitment to the Epilepsy Foundation, raising awareness and funds to support the organization's mission of overcoming the challenges created by epilepsy and curing the disease.

Mike is a successful businessowner and has worked for almost four decades to improve the community around him in the capital region of New York. Through his many impressive years as an active member of the Epilepsy Foundation, I am very pleased to see him receive this award.

Again, I thank Michael C. Hoffman for his tireless efforts to improve our communities and congratulate him upon winning the Flame of Hope Award from the Epilepsy Foundation of Northeastern New York.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate John Buhrmaster, who is president of 1st National Bank of Scotia in the capital region of New York, upon his nomination as chairman of the Independent Community Bankers of America, here in Washington, D.C.

The Independent Community Bankers of America represents almost 7,000 community banks across our great Nation, financial institutions that provide opportunity for our local small businesses and family farms to expand operations, develop surrounding economies, and hire locally.

John will provide steady leadership for an 11-person executive panel that draws expertise and know-how from across the Nation to support our small banks.

Again, I congratulate Mr. Buhrmaster on his appointment, and I look forward to working with him to boost small financial institutions and their important role in economic expansion on a community level.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Schenectady Greenmarket on their 5-year anniversary. In the half-decade since they opened their doors to the Capital Region of New York, the Schenectady Greenmarket has worked to prove that our economy and nutrition benefit when we eat local and buy local.

Schenectady Greenmarket continues to find ways to bolster public health by providing farm-to-table meals to our friends and neighbors in the Capital Region and, most recently, partnering with MVP Health Care to build a healthier, more nutrition-focused community.

I had the privilege of attending Schenectady Greenmarket's 5-year anniversary last Sunday, and was pleased to see firsthand the good work and services this nonprofit organization provides our area.

I applaud the many farmers, producers, vendors, certainly musicians, volunteers, and staff who make the Greenmarket successful.

Again, I congratulate Schenectady Greenmarket on their anniversary, and I look forward to celebrating many more milestones to come.

Thank you Representative Garamendi, and thank you for introducing on this House Floor some of the concepts that have been presented by the President in his budget presentation to Congress.

Certainly, I have been waiting with great anticipation as to what the energy portion of this budget might look like. Why?

Because I think it is a cornerstone. Energy policy, energy resources are those cornerstones of rebuilding our American economy, to grow the economy, and to strengthen the prospects out there for job creation in the private sector by creating that partnership, public-private partnership where the private sector will grow those jobs.

Also, I am curious because of my past roles as energy chair, the energy committee chair in the New York State Assembly, a role that I held for some 15 years, and also my leadership in NYSERDA, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, prior to my coming to Congress.

Now sitting on Energy and Commerce as a committee assignment, I have great, great interest in where the President wants to take us on the energy issues, and I am very favorably impressed by some of the down payments that he wants to make.

Certainly, with the $2.3 billion that he is offering for the Department of Energy in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, that effort, I think, is going to launch us into a new series of innovation that allows for job creation and a reduced cost of electricity and, certainly, a drawing us down on this gluttonous dependency on fossil-based fuels as the cornerstone of our energy economy.

So I think that this effort will, within EERE, the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office, provide for that growing effort to promote efficiency. That ought to be our fuel of choice. This investment allows us to accept that notion and then, also, to work on efforts that will enable us to focus our efforts out there that are required for energy.

Renewable energy, no fuel costs with the sun, the wind, the soil, the water, that is part of our environment. Utilizing that in a way that generates electricity and does it in a benign way is a very strong cornerstone advanced by the President in this effort.

And also, the $4.2 billion that he brings forth in efforts to provide for innovation and to create new outcomes for energy purposes not only with efficiency and generation, but the transmission of that energy supply and looking at efforts to expand and make permanent the production tax credits that are so important for renewable energy in this country, so those are two good, very valuable investments.

Let me then just highlight a few others that I believe will be a progressive outcome, if we are to accept this notion here in Congress. One would be to address a clean energy research program, and the President does that with a major down payment for clean energy research.

He also addresses the Advanced Research Projects Agency in the energy capacity, acronymed out as ARPA-E. It mimics DARPA from the Defense Department, and what it does is commit a very laser-sharp focus on research as it relates to innovation in the energy sector.

Will all those outcomes be successful? Perhaps not. In fact, the character--the quality of research is that failure can be the down payment to success. So where the failure will be realized, we will retest, we will recommit our energies to fine-tune and come forth with the success stories that are required.

ARPA-E, in its short 5 years, has proven to be a very valuable investment in energy innovation. The President makes a major investment in his budget for ARPA-E. I was just with over 2,000 representatives from the ARPA-E network who came to town--came to Washington to discuss the future of the program.

I am impressed with the leadership, coming both in EERE and ARPA-E in the Department of Energy, and the President acknowledges that-- recognizes it by making these commitments in his budget.

And finally, if I might, Representative Garamendi, I will talk about the advanced fuels agenda, where $700 million will be invested in the transportation sector, so that we have advanced fuels. We need to be weaned off of this gluttonous dependency on fossil fuels.

So these are very promising investments suggested by the President and the administration, those that will take us into a cutting-edge, new millennium sort of thinking that enables us to continue with that pioneer spirit in this country, which has always guided us and lifted us out of tough economic times.

I am encouraged by these commitments and look forward to the budget work that we need to do here in the House of Representatives and working with our partners in the United States Senate, but I think the President has set a good tone.

He has ushered in some good thinking, and he is looking at a new wave of energy concepts that will guide this Nation in job production, in sound energy policy, and will have benign impacts on our environmental resources. As stewards of the environment, I think that is important for all of us.

So I thank you for leading this discussion this evening, and I am impressed with the energy portion, so I thank you, Representative Garamendi.

Representative Garamendi, just in closing, I would state that three very important underpinnings to a modern economy--a transitioning economy, one that drives innovation--would be the investments in research, the investments in infrastructure, the investments in education; and we begin to see that in this budget.

I think the efforts here are a good challenge and a charge to this Congress to respond accordingly. That will lift us into a cutting-edge thinking that enables us to compete effectively in what is a worldwide race, as it relates to clean energy innovation and high tech.

We need these investments in order to be strong. We won the global race on space back in the sixties because we committed to winning that race, and that was just against another nation, Russia.

Now, there are dozens of nations competing to be the kingpin of the international economy. The President rightfully sees that as the opportunity for this Nation to invest accordingly, so that we can move forward; and again, with his efforts in advanced manufacturing, with the NNMI, the manufacturing initiative, there is great promise there.

That gives you a very sharp focus on specific needs of manufacturing, developing those sorts of intellects and human infrastructure, workforce development, that will give us that cutting-edge technology.

I strongly support the NNMI initiative in the budget that the President had introduced last year. I think it shows us to be in an advanced sort of thinking and is giving manufacturing a shot in the arm. Our best days in manufacturing lie ahead. We need to invest so as to make that possible, and this budget does that.

So I thank you very much, and I look forward to many more discussions on the budget as we go forward in the ensuing weeks.

Madam Speaker, we are in a global competition, a global race on clean energy and innovation. In our efforts to win this race and ensure our place as the kingpin of the global economy for decades to come, we must support a secure, all-of-the-above domestic energy supply that includes both newly abundant traditional fossil fuels as well as clean, renewable energy, energy such as wind, solar, biomass, hydro, nuclear, and more.

We simply cannot continue to rely on a single fossil fuel to power our economy. That is not wise, long-term policy.

Today, I would like to highlight one of these abundant, job-creating clean energy sources: wind energy.

One way to support this critical source of energy for our Nation is the Federal Production Tax Credit, the credit that keeps electricity rates low and encourages development of proven renewable energy projects.

This credit expired at the end of last year and must be retroactively extended to foster job growth and promote a greener and cleaner environment for the next generations.

The PTC, the Production Tax Credit, also creates jobs. In my district, the Capital Region of New York State, we are host to GE's Global Research Center and Wind Turbine Service Center. In 2012 alone, GE's wind division produced some 1,722 megawatts of power and provided a local capital investment of some $3.2 billion.

If we are serious about helping the private sector create quality jobs that will put purchasing power back in the hands of the middle class, we must support wind power as one part of our overall energy policy and strategy.

Madam Speaker, today, I renew my support for wind power and the almost 2,000 jobs this clean energy source generates in my home State of New York, a number that is growing by the day, and a group whose work every day is helping to grow our economy, clean the air we breathe and the water we drink, and make us truly energy independent.

Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to recognize and congratulate the Albany Symphony Orchestra and conductor David Alan Miller for winning a coveted Grammy Award last night for Best Classical Instrumental Solo.

It is the first accomplishment of its kind for this orchestra. The composition, ``Conjurer,'' was recorded at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, also in New York's 20th Congressional District, and it gave our area yet another reason to be proud of the Capital Region arts and cultural scene. For 84 years, the Albany Symphony Orchestra has been giving a voice to beautifully written pieces of music and enriching our lives in the Capital Region.

I again congratulate David Alan Miller and the Albany Symphony Orchestra for their accomplishments and their victory last night at the 56th annual Grammy Awards.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I and a number of our colleagues in the House asked for unanimous consent to bring up H.R. 3824, the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act, for a simple up or down vote. Time and time again, we were denied that simple vote.

Mr. Speaker, poll after poll shows us that Independents, Republicans, and Democrats support at least a 3-month extension of unemployment insurance. We continue to be in dereliction of our duty every day we let this critical lifeline to our long-term jobless friends and neighbors expire.

Last week, I met with two New Yorkers from my district who paid into this program for years, and they are shocked, as am I, Mr. Speaker, that elected officials in Washington continue to sit idly by without supporting them.

A simple up or down vote, that is all we are asking for, Mr. Speaker. Let's pass this critical lifeline; let's do what is fair and just; and let's get back to the business of growing jobs and our economy.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to bring up H.R. 3824 to end the Republican majority's refusal to extend unemployment benefits that would protect 137,315 workers in my home State of New York, and that number is growing as we speak.

Thank you to the gentleman from California for yielding.

I want to thank you, Representative Garamendi, for leading us in an hour of very important discussion which highlights the efforts of the Democratic Caucus within the House of Representatives. I, for one, am very proud to serve with a group of leaders, women and men, within that Democratic Caucus who have a vision of where they want to take this Nation, how we can address the inequality, how we can empower our economy by reaching to individuals and families across this Nation with an order of economic justice. That, I think, is the moral compass that guides us in that Caucus. I believe that many of these ills within our economy can be resolved.

I, with great interest, listened to the opening of this hour of Special Order, where discussion on the economy began with your quoting President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. As you cited within that quote the contrast between those who have an abundance and those who have little, we know that in that historic time President Roosevelt guided this Nation with a program, and we had reference to his administration being that of a New Deal.

Today, many of the workers, many working families, women, those who struggle in our economy, are given a bad deal. The bad deal is intolerable. The bad deal needs to be discontinued.

So we work, in very progressive format, here on the House floor offering a Democratic agenda, making certain that all people are embraced, are brought into an inclusive sort of politics where we engage in the ills of the past and correcting those ills of the past, studying them, understanding where the empowerment is required.

Certainly, when you look at some of the issues today, there is this greater impact on women in many measurable

ways. We have the minimum wage issue, with two-thirds of those working in minimum wage being in a category of women.

So we need to address that minimum wage. America stands behind that concept. They understand that if you work hard and are trying to raise a family, you need to do it with great remuneration, with social and economic justice, again, and the appropriateness of enabling people to have just pay for the work that is done.

We can address that with a minimum wage agenda here in the House. I believe that those dollars are recirculated into the economy. People earning a minimum wage are going to spend on the basic essentials of life for themselves and for their family members. So it, I believe, is a way to strengthen regional economies, State economies, and this national economy, by being fair to workers and working families.

There was also talk about the efforts to provide for family leave time, for sick leave, and the worthiness of providing for that and removing of the stress factor within families. It is critical. It is important to quality of life, and it is the right thing, the fair thing to do.

Also, I find very incredibly important the discussion routinely on this House floor about the extension of emergency unemployment insurance. Well, that is something that has received a lot of attention of late, but the leadership of the House is rigid in not addressing the extension of emergency unemployment insurance.

Well, let me tell you that that denial of unemployment insurance has impacted women particularly hard, but both women and men, and families in general.

Let me tell you about two discussions I had this weekend. I gathered with some folks from my district who are communicating with us about the need to have this done. Two individuals--they happen to be women-- Laurie, Lisa, and I, and others, had met, along with a local assembly member, Pat Fahey, from the Albany region of New York. We heard their stories.

They have been without work for nearly a year. They have been actively pursuing work, sending out resumes, indicating wherever a job is possible that may fit their skill set, and they are not getting the response they require.

So they have talked about it. We wanted to get a personal saga here, a story. We wanted to relate really well so we could be a stronger voice here on the House floor.

Both Laurie and Lisa brought to my attention the fact that their children are watching this. They are watching this whole episode, and they can't understand the insensitivity, the callousness, the cold- heartedness. They thought that government would be there at a time when their parents were struggling for work. They want to work. Unemployment insurance means people have paid into that concept. So when you stumble across hard times, somebody will be there to assist you. They are not getting that assistance.

You look at the discrimination, with many that are calling my office, women and men, who may have been 45, 50, 55 years of age, if not 60- some. They are feeling age discrimination as they go to these interviews. They are being bypassed, they believe, because of their age.

So the work out there that they require, where three people are chasing every available job, we need in this post-recession to continue to be there on their behalf. We have never not chosen to reauthorize and provide for the unemployment insurance opportunities.

In the seven recessions that have followed since 1958, we have always extended that unemployment insurance. Why now? Why now do we say no?

We need to be sensitive. We need to understand that many people, a great number of women, require this reauthorization. A number of people are feeling age-discriminated against, and so the right thing to do is to empower these families.

The dollars come right back into the economy. In fact, it has been stated that for every dollar of unemployment insurance that is paid to individuals out there, $1.52 is realized in the local economy, and so it more than pays for itself.

And when the theories out there, when the many institutes, the economic policy institutes, measure the impact of not doing this, we understand full well that it sets back the economy. Some 400,000 jobs are lost. $400 million was lost in the early stages of not doing the unemployment insurance reauthorization.

So there are many ills that come with a lack of action here. There are many ills that need to be undone that have been decades long, generations long in their impact on women, making certain that, as we empower women, as we empower them, we empower families, we empower this Nation.

There are many things that need to be done, and I, again, am so proud to work with the Caucus that understands it, that gets it, that is trying to be out there speaking the progressive voice of policy reform that will strengthen this economy, grow the economy.

There is no more important issue today than growing our economy, and we do it by a sense of inclusion. With those inclusive politics, women and men, younger workers just entering the workforce, senior workforce members, everyone is empowered when we do the progressive order of reform that enables us to grow this economy.

So Representative Garamendi, I am certainly pleased that you are leading us in this discussion on growing the economy, on doing an order of fairness, social and economic justice that speaks to individuals out there, in many cases, the ills that are borne upon women because of a lack of fine tuning to our policy that needs to be addressed. So I am pleased that you are leading us in this discussion here this evening on the House floor so that we can express the contrast, the difference.

It is not everyone just holding back on progress. There are those who have an agenda that speaks to the common folk, the workers out there, the individuals, the families, the children that are empowered by quality daycare, child care services, that are empowered by a minimum wage increase, empowered by the extension of emergency unemployment insurance, by skills development programs.

There is a package out there, Making It In America, that has been addressed by this Caucus, by the Democratic Caucus in the House, that will grow the economy and strengthen the future and provide a sense of hope.

It has been done. We need to replicate history. We saw what happened when we engaged in issues like Social Security, Medicare, workers' rights, standing up for the individuals out there in order to provide for the remuneration that they require and deserve. That is respect, and that is providing hope for America's working families.

So let's hope we can move forward with a progressive agenda for this Nation's working families.

Absolutely.

Sure. And I thank, again, the gentleman from California for yielding.

The Make It In America program, the concept of that, is a very strong domestic agenda. In and of itself, it has great merit. But let's put that into the context of the bigger picture, and that is the international sweepstakes for the economy, for landing jobs.

Many of us can recall the global race on space in the sixties, and it was critical to win that race. We had come off a failing moment with Sputnik, dusted off our backside and said never again.

So this Nation committed, with passionate resolve, that we would win that global race on space. That was just two nations, U.S. vs. USSR. Who would land on that Moon, stake their flag first? We were determined it was going to be the United States. And a rather youthful President led the Nation, again, with passionate resolve, so that we had dollars for training, for research, for education, for equipment, and we were going to win that race, and we did.

In my first year in Congress, in 2009, we celebrated the 40th anniversary. Neil Armstrong was here to shake the hands of many Members of Congress, thanking him for the poetry of the moment in that July of 1969. It was more than the one small step for man, one giant step for mankind, the poetry of the moment. It was the unleashing of untold amounts of technology that impacted communications, energy generation, health care. Across the gamut of job creation, technology entered in.

Fast-forward to today. A rather youthful President is asking again that we embrace, with passion, our entry into a global race, this time on innovation and clean energy and high tech. But this time, dozens of competitors.

So Make It In America is noble in and of its own right, but it is critical when we place it into the bigger picture of a global race on innovation. And it is not our choice to determine if we are going to enter the race. Our choice ought to be how prepared, how strong, how competitive will we be as we enter that race.

That requires education, higher education, skills development, energy costs, innovation of all sorts. That comes with the passion of reform. So we need an agenda like that presented with Make It In America that addresses the needs of the workers, that speaks to the empowerment that comes with research which equals jobs. For us to have that pioneer spirit, which I believe is in the DNA of America and her workers, we need to embrace that pioneer spirit and move forward.

Now, Representative Garamendi is going to joke that I always talk about the donor area that the 20th Congressional District of New York is and was to the development of the Industrial Revolution in this Nation. But the Erie Canal made a port out of a little town called New York, and then developed into the birthing of a necklace of communities called mill towns that became the epicenters of invention and innovation.

We need that same spirit to be embraced today with this out-of-the- box thinking, where we can bring about the best of America and provide hope for workers, for families across this Nation, and do it in a way that allows us to win this given race, this global race on innovation.

Whoever wins this race, as the President, President Obama, has been quoted oftentimes, will be the kingpin of the international economy. That is an important assignment to this House, the House of Representatives. It is an important assignment to Congress. It is an important challenge to all of us, as Americans, to commit to that agenda of investing, investing in America so that our best days lie ahead. I am convinced that with this sort of progressive thinking, our best days lie ahead, and that we deliver hope to the doorsteps of individuals and families across this Nation with a vision of how we can win this next quarter of global competition.

I will just indicate that not far from the 20th Congressional District in upstate New York is the Women's Hall of Fame. And just recently, our leader, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, was inducted into that hall of fame. We think of the stories of women in the chronicles of American history, the women who embraced sacrifice and struggled to make a difference. Think of what happens when we empower the inexorable outcomes that they have journeyed through over the course of our history. Think of the empowerment that comes. So with the vision of progressive orders of reform, our best days lie ahead; and we can deliver that hope that we are challenged to deliver.

So it has been tremendous speaking with you and our colleagues on the floor here this evening. Let's move forward and provide that hope to America's working families.

Mr. Speaker, with all of the recent reporting on snow and rain events, it is hard to imagine that water scarcity is one of the greatest threats from climate change, but it is. And water scarcity already imposes tremendous costs and suffering on some 1.3 billion people around the world.

A study published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences combined agricultural and water models to gain a more realistic estimate of the impacts of climate change on food production. The results were not encouraging. Agriculture is our largest single use of water, primarily for irrigation; and it is irrigation water that the study's authors project will be reduced significantly, converting between 48 and 148 million acres from irrigated to rain-fed land.

There are substitutes for many materials we use but not for water. We must protect water resources and use them with care. And part of that effort must be to address climate change by limiting the emissions that are threatening our futures and that of our children.

Food supplies, human health, and economic and social progress all require adequate, reliable clean water supplies. We should act now before any more people are forced to endure water shortages.

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

At a time when too many of our citizens are still out of work, our Nation's infrastructure is in need of repair, the Tax Code needs revision, and when the safety net that provides basic necessities for our citizens has a tragic number of holes to close, we are spending our time on yet another bill that is headed straight for the legislative dust bin.

It was the high-profile contamination at Love Canal in my home State of New York back in 1978 that motivated Congress to address the serious public

health threat that existed at many sites across this country. Toxic contamination of air, of water, and of land from the improper handling of disposal of hazardous materials.

Many of us represent districts that have formerly contaminated sites or sites that still remain to be cleaned up.

Superfund is not a perfect law, but it has, in combination with other environmental laws, returned many abandoned, contaminated sites to productive use.

When contaminated, blighted land is transformed, the entire community benefits. A long-abandoned former industrial site along the riverfront in my district was restored to a popular park. The residents of Amsterdam now enjoy a beautiful waterfront area.

H.R. 2279 does nothing to improve public health or create jobs or protect the environment or avoid needless public expenses. In fact, it does the opposite.

Title I of this bill further delays actions that should have been taken years ago. Congress included broad authorities for the Environmental Protection Agency to ensure that businesses that handle hazardous substances were financially able to deal with contamination that might result from their activities. This provision remains essential to protecting taxpayer interests, and it ensures these businesses are acting responsibly.

EPA's goals within the Superfund program should not stop at cleaning up the legacy sites that we have. It should also prevent new sites from being contaminated. It should prevent more people from being exposed to toxic substances, and it should prevent the property damage, loss of revenue, and stigma that communities experience when they are marred by these sites.

H.R. 2279 blocks the Environmental Protection Agency from implementing financial responsibility standards that their inspector general's office and the Government Accountability Office have advised are prudent actions that will avoid unnecessary public expenditures to clean up contaminated sites.

The GAO's last report on this topic indicated that in the 10-year period they examined, Federal agencies spent $2.6 billion to reclaim abandoned hard-rock mine sites on Federal, State, private, and tribal lands.

So how does H.R. 2279 address this potential $100 million per year liability? By blocking EPA from taking recommended steps to avoid these potential cleanup costs. We cannot afford to continue this destructive policy.

Under the guise of ``fiscal responsibility,'' the majority voted to expand the list of requirements for applicants to the food stamp program to include drug testing and work requirements in addition to the detailed examination of an applicant's financial assets already required--all this to avoid providing a subsidy of about $1.50 per meal.

Apparently, it is too much to ask that a business, which could expose communities to toxic contamination, leave taxpayers with cleanup costs in the tens of millions of dollars, and result in lost local revenue and loss of property values, provide the government with assurance that it can afford to properly manage or clean up contamination that it created. The inconsistency in these policy choices is, indeed, incredible.

Blocking EPA from instituting basic requirements to protect public health, community vitality, local economic interests, and taxpayer interests provides a massive subsidy to a polluter at great public expense.

Titles II and III of this bill are somewhat of a mystery. I have no idea what problems with the Superfund program they propose to fix, but we have heard from the administration about serious problems this bill would, indeed, create.

The proponents of this legislation claim that title II will provide States more funding, give States a greater role in cleanups, and improve cooperation between States and the Federal Government on site cleanups, but States already have a significant role. Under current law, States can assert greater control over cleanups through a variety of mechanisms if they wish to do so.

The provisions altering the relationship between Federal and State government have a number of serious problems. For example, title III creates situations in which Federal employees could find themselves in a legal mess if caught between conflicting State and Federal direction of a cleanup site. This is an issue that was raised when this bill was considered by the committee. It was not resolved in committee, and it was not resolved before coming here to the House floor.

This is not the first bill this House has considered that demonstrated a disregard for Federal workers. This House has repeatedly turned to Federal workers to shoulder an unfair amount of the burden of deficit reduction.

Our erratic appropriation process has made their jobs more difficult, even as we have reduced their benefits and frozen their salaries.

We shut down the government, creating tremendous uncertainty for their families and barring people from their workplace. Now we are poised to pass a bill that might result in Federal workers being put in jail for doing their job.

Mr. Chair, I have touched on a few of the problems with this legislation. This is a poorly crafted bill that offers nothing for the public. It will not speed cleanups. It will not save money. It will not improve public health. This is bad policy and poorly crafted legislation. With that, I urge my colleagues to reject it.

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I now yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the former chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and a staunch defender in public policy and outspoken word for the environment.

Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the chairman emeritus of the Energy and Commerce Committee and also the longest-serving Member of the House, my good friend from the State of Michigan (Mr. Dingell), who was at the table in 1980 to oversee the Superfund and knows more about the Superfund than perhaps anyone in the House.

Mr. Chairman, before I yield, I would like to make a few comments.

I keep hearing from the bill's supporters that the States need and want this legislation. I am a little confused by those statements. My staff called the Association of State and Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials, and they do not support the legislation. We also called the Environmental Council of the States, which represents the State environmental commissioners, and they have not endorsed the instant legislation before the House. So I am somewhat confused by the statements being made here.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), who has fought for many environmental causes through the committee on behalf of his home State of New Jersey and, for that matter, for this Nation.

Mr. Chairman, while the Environmental Council of the States may have supported some concepts of the bill, they have not moved to endorse the bill. I will stand by my statement.

Next I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), a staunch defender of the environment and a good friend.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison) who has organized the Environmental Justice Advocates of his home State of Minnesota, and is also the chair of the Progressive Caucus in the House.

Mr. Chair, I have no further speakers, and I am prepared to close.

Mr. Chair, H.R. 2279 is a deeply flawed bill that will increase costs, increase litigation, slow down the pace of cleanups, and, indeed, put the public at risk. It will do nothing to make cleanups at contaminated sites more efficient or more effective.

The proponent's intended goals for this legislation are not reflected in the bill's language. We can, and we should, do much better for people living in communities that are dealing with toxic legacies from past failures to deal with hazardous substances properly.

If we want to prevent new Superfund sites from being created and to clean up contaminated sites in their communities and convert them from liabilities to productive assets, we must reject H.R. 2279. I oppose this legislation and urge my colleagues to do the same.

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

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

Mr. Chair, my amendment adds a savings clause to H.R. 2279 to avoid unintended consequences and detrimental impacts on current and future site cleanup efforts.

We certainly know that the actual provisions of the bill trump the intended goals of the legislation. If, as the supporters of this bill claim, it will not increase litigation, it will not increase costs or delay ongoing or future site cleanups, my amendment would have no effect. However, if the administration's analysis is correct--and I believe it is--my amendment will keep current site cleanups on track and ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent efficiently--spent on cleaning up contaminated sites and not spent in courtrooms.

If the committee had taken additional time to do the necessary oversight that would enable us to identify the best options for improving the Superfund program, my amendment would not be necessary, but the many problems with this bill that Democratic members of the committee have raised and that are echoed in the administration's analysis make my amendment truly necessary.

As the administration's statement of policy points out, H.R. 2279 severely reduces the Federal Government's role in the cleanup of Federal sites. The Federal Government's ability to set a ``worst first'' prioritization agenda for site cleanups is eliminated. The Federal Government pays the vast majority of the costs for site cleanups on Federal lands and sites on the National Priorities List. The Federal Government certainly should consult with the State on sites within its borders, but especially in cases where Federal land, Federal tax dollars, Federal employees, and Federal operations are concerned, the Federal Government should have the last word.

My amendment provides a prudent insurance policy to ensure that we do not use limited Superfund resources to litigate rather than to mitigate. My amendment ensures that we move forward. It ensures that we clean up these sites and convert them from revenue liabilities to revenue enhancements. It ensures that we reduce public health risks from contamination. With that, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, our colleague and my friend from Ohio indicates that this bill will not increase litigation or increase costs or delay ongoing or future site cleanups, and so my amendment would not affect the measure before the House. So it really is a statement in support of the amendment. There is no just reason offered to not support the amendment.

With that, again, I would encourage my colleagues to support the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Thank you, Representative Garamendi, for leading us in this discussion for an hour of focus on solutions that are possible out there, within our grasp, easily within our grasp. As you and the gentleman from Nevada (Representative Horsford) have highlighted with a very, very strong context placed in terms of the human impact here, and the great compassion with which you spoke, I couldn't help but think that we are challenged in this given moment by a very daunting series of questions, most notably: Do we reject our history, or do we respect our history?

Our history, replete with success stories, perhaps in some of our darkest, deepest, painful hours, should inspire and direct and challenge us, guide us in a way that enables us to embrace the progressive voices of the past and use that in an instructive measure to move forward with the socially correct thing to be done so as to respond to those needs of the many, the bulk of the middle-income community that beacons us to be there and to be there in such a measure. Do we respect that history? Representative Garamendi shared the words of President Franklin Roosevelt. Are we willing to add to those who have plenty? We were challenged by President Johnson in his message addressing the war on poverty.

Today, as all of these statistics were exchanged by my two colleagues, I couldn't help but recall the fact that we are reaching some of the greatest measures of productivity in our business community, in our industrial settings today. Where is the sharing of success? Where is the sharing with the middle-income community, the workers who have produced that sort of productivity? So let me understand this. The growth of the top 1 percent, the top income strata of our society, has been exponentially strong, all while we have seen a diminishing of the growth, the potential growth of our middle-income community or a flat-lining, all while we have been most productive in our industry and business settings. Where is the economic justice? Where is the sharing that allows for us to enhance that purchasing power of the middle-income community? That is the economic engine of this Nation.

So as we are faced with these given statistics, as we are challenged with these economic times in the post-recession recovery, the moral compass should guide us, if not our history, replete with success stories. Do we respect our history or do we reject our history?

I would suggest those progressive voices of the past that led us through our darkest hours envisioned an outcome that strengthened everyone in the equation, not playing toward favorites, because, in my opinion, catering to a small percentage of the population is a dangerous outcome for them. In order to succeed, in order to continue to grow and survive, you need to have that strong purchasing power.

We know, we know from statistics, we know from past history that we should be guided by those economic reforms that enable social and economic justice to take hold. I look at the impact in New York State: 127,000 people affected when I look at the 20th Congressional District. In all of the statistics, the numbers swell from 127,000 to another series of 133,000 that will be affected. As it has been stated earlier tonight, some economic consequences of $400 million and 200,000 jobs lost. Are we willing to endure that simply by our lack of professionalism here? The willingness to walk past those who, through no fault of their own, are unemployed. Three people pursue every one available job, and that statistic also is accompanied by the requirement that you must actively pursue employment. It is part of the program.

I was visited today, Representative Garamendi, by Vice President Biden in the 20th Congressional District. He and our governor, Governor Andrew Cuomo, and our State leadership, Shelly Silver, speaker of the Assembly with whom I had the pleasure of serving, who has been a great leader for New York, as has the Governor, and the Senate majority leader, Dean Skelos, all of whom have shown an interest in infrastructure, all gathered today in New York in the 20th Congressional District, specifically at Albany, our State capital. It was about Superstorm Sandy and the impacts of storms Irene and Lee that in 2011, for Irene and Lee, and in 2012 with Superstorm Sandy devastated various regions of New York State. Yes, we need to rebuild, but you need to do it

intelligently and with an order of academics, and certainly with a strategic planning that accompanies all of that effort that is effective, efficient, smart government. The Vice President spoke to the wisdom of investing in infrastructure because commerce requires it.

Across this great Nation, talk to the midland of America. Without the appropriate infrastructure, they can't send forth their agricultural produced products or their manufactured goods. They cannot ship forward, and so commerce is crippled by our lack of investment in infrastructure.

And so with great sensitivity the Vice President spoke, spoke to the infrastructure needs of New York and that we will utilize these efforts with the guidance of New York State, with the Governor and the legislature, to make certain that it is not merely replacing infrastructure damaged by the ravaging of Mother Nature, but rather restructuring and reorganizing how we respond to that.

Much of our energy infrastructure, our water-sewer treatment infrastructure, our manufacturing infrastructure, are along water's edge, either intercoastal systems or the coastal system itself. We extended our land into the coastal system and now Mother Nature is saying, whoa, push back.

But that urgency that came with those storms has us now struggling with infrastructure investment. Is that what we require in order to invest in infrastructure? So we need to go forward and make certain that these down payments on the future strength of this Nation are made and made sensibly and made in an order of investment, not spending but investing, where reasonable expectation, justified expectation, of a return on those hard-earned tax dollars is there. We will see that with the infrastructure improvement. So much can be done.

I will close with this--not close with this, but----

Take a break, as they say.

You can't have it both ways. You can't deny all these legislative bills that are advanced to the Congress or initiated by Members of the House that would speak to job growth. The President has sent forward on behalf of the administration a number of bills that would grow our economy, grow the climate to enhance job growth.

You can't reject that agenda and then not reauthorize the unemployment insurance benefit package. If you are going to do that, if you are not going to reauthorize, then you need to do the jobs packages that have been sent here. But to do both, to reject the job packages-- the legislation that would grow that climate--and also reject the reauthorization of unemployment insurance, reject minimum wage, reject the SNAP programs, that is harsh. That is not being guided by a moral compass, and that is not America at her best.

So I would implore with my colleagues on this floor this evening, with Representative Garamendi, Representative Horsford, I would implore the leadership of this House to pursue that agenda that provides for job creation and that speaks to economic justice and that responds with insensitive measure to those who are unemployed through no fault of their own who are actively searching for employment.

We need those job-training programs. We need the assistance programs, so as to maintain the economic comeback from the recession.

Thank you, Representative Garamendi.

Quickly, the infrastructure issues are heavy duty. It is not just traditional

roads and bridges. It is airports and rails and subway systems, it is mass and public transit, but it is also communications, it is also the energy grid.

We have a system that was designed for regional activity with monopolies, and now we are transmitting electrons, wheeling electrons from region to region, State to State, nation to nation. So upgrades are essential. An infrastructure bank bill could assist in great ways to make that all happen.

Today, again with the visit of Vice President Biden to the 20th Congressional District of New York, specifically to Albany, the history of the Erie Canal was addressed. In the early 1800s, a huge effort was made, a difficult task, to sell an idea in very difficult times. But it was again in those difficult times that we had our shining moment, and what we did was create out of a small town a huge port. We developed a New York City that we know today as a robust area, metropolitan area. And the corresponding result: a necklace of communities dubbed ``mill towns'' that became the epicenters of invention and innovation that allowed for a manufacturing boom to take hold. While we addressed quality of life to people, not just in New York, not just in this country, we inspired a westward movement, and we affected the quality of life of people around the world.

Often-times--often-times--that growth, that innovation came from blue collar workers who gave it their all and who suggested to management, here is a new idea, here is something we can produce in addition to our ongoing ordinary business.

So what that strikes in my mind is the need to invest in R&D, research dollars that translate into jobs, taking that innovation, that intellectual capacity of this Nation, taking all of that brain power we develop through education and higher ed investment and putting it to work and allowing us to grow our energy independence by innovation, by producing energy supplies here as American power and delivering in more effective, efficient ways where there isn't line laws, where perhaps there is grid system activity that is localized close to the source that requires that electricity. Many, many things that we can respond to if we open ourselves to the innovation, the reform that is essential, and if we attach to that tax reform policy that is so long overdue.

It has been a pleasure to join with my colleagues here this evening.

The Vice President mentioned it too.

I thank the gentlelady for yielding. And absolutely, those benefits have been exhausted, and I think that needs to be very clear here.

Mr. Speaker, while this budget compromise is not perfect, I would like to highlight a provision that will reduce our deficit.

Since 2011, I have fought to change a little-known statutory formula for capping the maximum reimbursement for Federal contractor executives and employees. Due to a flaw in this formula, taxpayer-funded salaries have spiraled out of control in recent years.

Just this month, OMB announced that it was required to raise the cap to over $950,000 per year--$950,000--while we debate our ability to afford essential services for our most vulnerable citizens, for extending unemployment insurance. We are paying private sector executives nearly million-dollar salaries. This agreement sets the cap at $487,000. Personally, I would have preferred the cap to be set at $230,700--the Vice President's salary--as it is stated in my legislation, but this is an important step and sensible compromise to restoring sanity to taxpayer-funded salaries.

Just a sampling, GAO, within the Department of Defense, found just 7 percent of their contracts when reduced to this level would save hundreds of millions of dollars.

I again thank the gentlelady for yielding.