Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word. Madam Chair, I rise to discuss section 1746, which would eliminate EPA funding from going to implementation of the Clean Air Act. Over the past 40 years, the bipartisan Clean Air Act has saved…
Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.
Madam Chair, I rise to discuss section 1746, which would eliminate EPA funding from going to implementation of the Clean Air Act.
Over the past 40 years, the bipartisan Clean Air Act has saved hundreds of thousands of lives and improved the health of Americans in every State. It protects the air we breathe. It protects our children from developing asthma and our seniors from developing emphysema. According to the American Lung Association, in 2010 alone the Clean Air Act saved over 160,000 lives. Even since 1990, the EPA estimates the Clean Air Act prevented an estimated 843,000 asthma attacks, 18 million cases of respiratory illness amongst children, 672,000 cases of chronic bronchitis, 21,000 cases of heart disease, and 200,000 premature deaths.
And yet in the irresponsible Republican spending bill, there's an attempt to eliminate all funding from the implementation of the Clean Air Act. It is clear that the Republican majority is doing all it can to stop EPA from carrying out its mission of protecting public health and protecting our environment.
Many will claim that the EPA is moving at a faster pace than any other administration in history. However, the EPA has proposed fewer Clean Air
Act rules under President Obama over the past 21 months than in the first 2 years of either President Bush or President Clinton. That is why in December of 2010, 280 groups, including the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, the American Public Health Association, and others, sent a letter urging the Congress to ``reject any measure that would block or delay the United States Environmental Protection Agency from doing its job to protect all Americans from life-threatening air pollution.''
The irresponsible Republican spending bill is not the place to legislate these types of changes. These policy changes should not be made during this sort of process. The Clean Air Act is promoting innovation and breaking American oil dependence, but Republicans would give big polluters a loophole to roll back our clean energy process and continue our addiction to foreign oil.
The Clean Air Act is good for our economy. Many studies have shown the Clean Air Act's economic benefits to far exceed any costs associated with the law by as much as a 40-to-1 ratio. As President Obama so eloquently spoke of during his State of the Union address, we must out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build our global competitors and win the future. Rolling back a law that protects the air our children breathe to allow oil companies--companies that are already reaping record profits--the ability to spew chemicals, smog, soot, and pollution into the air just to please a lobbyist or a Big Oil corporation is irresponsible and extreme.
The Clean Air Act has been on the books for decades, with positive results for our economy, our environment, and our businesses. Rolling back these protections will only hurt our most vulnerable. We simply cannot afford to go backward.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I move to strike the last word.
Mr. Chair, I offer this motion to speak out against the blatant attack on clean water, which is contained in section 1747 of this Republican continuing resolution--a provision that does not save the taxpayer one single dollar.
As we know, the Clean Water Act became law in 1972 with the stated purpose of cleaning up America's waterways and wetlands. Since then, this landmark legislation has served as a framework for protecting our drinking water from deadly toxins and for preserving the ecological integrity of our waterways.
In my home State of New York, from the mighty waters of rivers like the Hudson to the many lakes of the Adirondacks, this legislation has been absolutely critical, where 95 percent of our population relies on public drinking water in some form. Unfortunately, in the last 10 years, millions of acres of wetlands and thousands of miles of streams have lost Clean Water Act protection.
Healthy streams and wetlands naturally filter and replenish our drinking water supplies. They absorb flood waters and protect coastlines and support local hunting, fishing, boating, and recreation industries. One-third of Americans get their drinking water from the types of streams that are vulnerable to pollution under recent rollbacks; and this bill includes a provision that would ban the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers from working within their legal authority to mitigate that threat.
This is an appropriations bill. According to my colleagues across the aisle, it is a bill with the sole purpose of reducing the deficit--a noble goal. However, the clean water rider in section 1747 of this bill does not save one dime of taxpayer money. It is not about funding. It is about restricting the legal authority of the EPA and the work of the Army Corps of Engineers in an underhanded ``politics as usual'' attack on our drinking water, on our environment, and on the thousands of recreational fishing, hunting and boating jobs that these water resources support.
We may have banned formal earmarks this year, but this rider amounts to a handout to big polluters at the expense of basic public health protections.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I move to strike the last word.
Mr. Chair, I offer this motion to speak out against the egregious cuts that are being addressed here to public education contained in this irresponsible Republican spending bill.
This spending bill cuts over $1.25 billion in education funding that goes directly to States and school districts to support educating disadvantaged students and special education students. Now is not the time to choke off funding to school districts when stimulus money is eroding and when States are cutting their own budgets. I fear we are leaving schools and our Nation's most vulnerable students behind.
These sections of the irresponsible Republican spending plan represent a nearly 5 percent cut in aid to school districts. For title I funding that supports school budgets and teacher jobs in low-income school districts, this means a $693.5 million cut. For Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the IDEA Act, special education funding that supports school districts educating children with special needs and disabilities, this means a $557.7 million cut.
Title I funding has helped school districts with high poverty levels meet State education standards and ensure equal access to quality education for all of their students. More than 50,000 public schools around this Nation depend on these Federal dollars to maintain their educational services.
This cut to title I funding alone would affect 2,400 schools that serve nearly 1 million disadvantaged students. These schools would lose funding for teachers, for tutors, and for after-school programs. It would mean that nearly 10,000 teachers and aides could lose their jobs. Children could see larger class sizes. And, yes, access to quality education would again be threatened.
Not only does this bill cut funding for education for low-income children, but it institutes painful cuts to special education programs funded with the IDEA dollars.
For 35 years, IDEA has supported special education, guaranteeing students with disabilities the right to a free, appropriate public education. Millions of students with disabilities have been able to go to public schools because of the IDEA funding school districts receive, allowing them to provide an individualized education for children with those special needs. This bill cuts over one-half billion dollars out of special education funding to school districts. Cuts of this proportion could force States and school districts to lay off almost 7,000 special education teachers and aides and other staff serving children with disabilities.
Just last week, I met with members of the New York State School Board Association who advocated for full funding for title I and especially for IDEA. They stressed the fact that special education funding has never been fully funded to the amount that was originally promised to our schools. These cuts are giant steps backwards after several years of quality investments in title I and IDEA funding.
Furthermore, these cuts would come at a time when States across this country are also slashing education funding. These cuts come at a time when supplemental stimulus aid is drying up. Cuts mean that school districts in local communities will have to make up the difference, potentially with teacher layoffs, larger class sizes, reduced programs, and higher--higher--property taxes. This is not responsible policymaking, especially while our economy is still in recovery.
The majority in this House is lauding the fact that this bill represents the largest spending cut in the history of our country. If they want to cut funding to satisfy their base, fine, but I will not stand for cutting education funding. I will not support budget cuts balanced on the backs of our Nation's students, our youngest citizens, and, indeed, our future.
Mr. Chairman, I urge defeat of this bill.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
Madam Chairman, I offer this amendment because I am seriously concerned about the effect the irresponsible Republican spending plan will have on our Nation's seniors.
This amendment would stop the cut of $125 million to the Social Security Administration's operating budget. Slashing funding for the Social Security Administration is slashing money out of Social Security, plain and simple. Cuts to Social Security will directly affect our seniors, there is no way around it; and my amendment seeks to avert this impending crisis.
The funding in this irresponsible Republican spending plan is over half a billion dollars less than what Social Security spent in 2010 to process payments to seniors and carry out basic operations. But the cost of running Social Security in 2010 will not suffice for 2011. Our Nation's baby boomers are retiring each month, growing the number of seniors in the system and the number of claims Social Security must process each month. This continuing resolution leaves Social Security more than $1 billion short of what they actually need to help keep checks going out on time to seniors.
This irresponsible Republican spending bill creates an enormous funding shortfall that Social Security will not have to survive on for the remainder of the year. Both Social Security and the Office of Management and Budget have confirmed that these massive cuts would force Social Security to lay off nearly 3,500 employees, furlough other employees, and close their offices in States across the country for up to 4 weeks.
What does this mean for seniors on Social Security? It means that 400,000 seniors would not have their applications processed this year. It means that 290,000 people would not have their disability applications processed, adding months of wait time for newly sick and disabled workers with no other source of income.
It means that 70,000 fewer people will have their appeals heard, burdening seniors and the disabled with wait times of over a year before their cases can move forward and allow them to receive their benefits earned. And it means that there will be 32,000 fewer investigations to root out improper payments, fraud and abuse.
Each month Social Security processes nearly 500,000, half a million, yes, half a million, new applications from seniors and the disabled. Employee layoffs and office closures lasting a month would delay benefits to all those applicants, disrupting seniors' and widows' checks and delaying payments for those trying to live on a fixed income.
Furthermore, closing Social Security offices would create a backlog of applicants, so even when offices reopened they would be dealing with an ongoing backlog of applications affecting our seniors long into the future. Who knows when they would ever catch up on the claims.
Never in the history of Social Security has there been a backlog of retirement and survivors' benefit applications. This bill is certainly precedent setting. Without a doubt, it would create the first Social Security backlog in our Nation's history.
This bill would force the Social Security system to shut its doors for up to a month, something that will affect every person receiving Social Security payments. People will get busy signals or unanswered rings when they call their local offices for help. Seniors will wait weeks for appointments and wait even longer to access their hard-earned benefits. Make no mistake about it, the seniors we represent--the entire body here represents--will feel the impact of these cuts.
The majority is lauding the fact that this bill represents the largest spending cut in the history of our country. If they want to cut funding to satisfy that base, fine. But I will not stand for cutting Social Security. I will not support budget cuts balanced on the backs of our Nation's seniors and middle class that bail out the rich and comfortable. I urge defeat of this bill and the adoption of my amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Point of Order
Madam Chair, I rise to speak against the point of order.
My amendment eliminates the extreme and irresponsible budget cuts to Social Security. These cuts will create massive gaps in Social Security's operating budget, leading to even larger costs in the future. My amendment averts this shortsighted downfall, creating a net budget savings that addresses the gentleman's point of order.
These cuts pose real threats and force to Social Security Administration and senior benefits.
Madam Chair, I ask that this point of order be waived. And on behalf of seniors in my district and seniors across this country who rely on Social Security, I ask that the gentleman withdraw his point of order. We cannot blindly cut Social Security in the name of reducing the deficit without regard to drastic consequences.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I offer this amendment because I am seriously concerned about the effect of the irresponsible Republican spending bill on our Nation's seniors and most specifically on our Social Security system. If my amendment does not pass, $500 million will be stripped from Social Security. In this nearly 400-page irresponsible Republican spending bill, which has held no hearings, which was written and debated through the night and is being rammed through this Chamber, Social Security is put at risk.
The bedrock and foundation for so many of our Nation's seniors and retirement is Social Security; and yet this bill would steal half a billion dollars from the program. This is money that helps keep the lights on, the doors open, and the checks going out to those who earned it--those who worked hard and play by the rules. It goes to those who have rightfully paid into the system and deserve their return on investment. And it should not be taken away in the dead of night.
Nearly half a billion dollars, if stolen back from Social Security, will be devastating. In fact, we might as well put the sign on the door of Social Security now: Sorry, we're closed for business. That is because a cut of $500 million will lay off employees that process and mail these checks to seniors. It will furlough every Social Security Administration employee for a month or more this year. Every worker that works for the Social Security Administration could potentially lose his or her job for at least 1 month this year.
Most of my constituents might say, Well, I don't really know anybody that works for the Social Security Administration. What does that mean for me? Unfortunately, it means 400,000 people across these United States will not have their claims processed this year. Think of it. You're finally eligible for
Social Security. Your plan for monthly income and budget based on this program is disrupted. Perhaps it even allows you to retire completely after a long and productive life of work. You walk up to the office to apply, but you are greeted with a dark and empty building. Or perhaps you called to ensure your payments will soon be processed, and all you get is a dial tone. Nobody is there to answer.
This is unthinkable. Even more egregious, 290,000 disabled workers would wait months for their claims to be processed, threatening already vulnerable people with further insecurity. Or imagine you want to appeal your funding amount or there's an error in your payment. What do you do?
Something my office prides itself on is helping these appeals get heard and settled to give Social Security recipients their due payment and peace of mind. Under this irresponsible Republican spending bill, which will cut half a billion dollars to Social Security, some 70,000 appeals cases would cry out but nobody would be there to listen, nor would the Social Security Administration be able to clean up cases of fraud, abuse, and improper payment. This cut could actually cost the government more than it saves.
It is no secret that the majority in this body seeks to privatize Social Security. Their top budget-maker has already proven that in his plan. This provision in the irresponsible public spending bill is simply another brick laid along the path to Social Security's destruction.
President Bush proposed privatizing this program in 2005, and Americans said ``no.'' We were right to say `` no,'' as Social Security would have trillions in the stock market during the meltdown of the Bush recession lost. Instead, Social Security did not lose a single penny. That bears repeating. In the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, Social Security did not lose a single penny.
We must protect Social Security from being raided for short-term political gains. Without it, almost half of all our seniors would be living in poverty. It makes up 76 percent of the total income for middle- and low-income seniors. But it is not just the seniors who depend on Social Security. Families who have lost loved ones are able to survive on their loved one's benefits, including about 6.5 million children. Raiding Social Security would hurt them, too.
In 1934, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt uttered a quote that is as true today as it was 76 years ago. He said, ``We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my Social Security program.''
With that, Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
Point of Order
Madam Chair, I rise to speak against the point of order.
I want to be clear so that everyone in this House and everyone watching knows what a $500 million cut to Social Security will do.
On the point of order, Madam Chair, my amendment eliminates harmful budget cuts to Social Security, which actually saves more money in the long term than what is cut by the bill.
Madam Chair, on the point of order, the Social Security Administration has said that an additional cut in their funding would lead to many local offices closing their doors, stopping all claims processing, and not being able to answer the phones for a month.
Madam Chair, on the point of order, I am disappointed that the other side submitted a rule that doesn't allow an amendment to save this funding for Social Security and guarantee that checks go out on time; but they can right this wrong right now. My amendment will ensure that checks go out on time. It will ensure that we continue to save billions by allowing Social Security to continue to go forward.
Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.