Floor Statements

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

I thank the chairman for his kind words for the work I have been doing for a number of years on this issue.

I traveled with the committee last year to Japan to see what lessons they learned from the horrible earthquake 6 years ago, in which more than 15,000 people perished. They did have in place a land-based and near-ocean early warning system, which gave them enough time to shut down the high-speed trains, get people out of elevators in buildings, shut down production lines, mitigating economic losses

and property damage. But, unfortunately, the system was not adequate to predict the height of the tsunami, and 15,000 people died.

They are now deploying a realtime deep ocean system. It is time for the United States to emulate that. The Cascadia Subduction Zone, off the coast of northern California and Oregon, has had at least a dozen massive earthquakes over the last 5,000 years. It is currently well overdue for an earthquake. If we had in place a deep ocean system near the southern end of that fault where they expect the major quake will start, it would give enough warning time for people on the coast of Oregon, and at least those a little further up the coast, to seek higher ground and not be inundated. It would provide more time in the valleys, and up in Portland and up in Seattle for transit systems to be shut down and people to take shelter. So this could save many lives.

This bill directs FEMA to develop a plan to identify the necessary funds and the potential costs to purchase the equipment for an earthquake early warning system. It is basically off-the-shelf technology.

It requires the President to establish an earthquake and tsunami task force. The task force will consist of representatives from potentially impacted areas, as well as earthquake and tsunami experts to develop comprehensive strategy recommendations on how the Nation should prepare for, mitigate against, respond to, recover from, and adapt to an earthquake, tsunami, or combined event in the Cascadia Subduction Zone.

I strongly recommend this bill to my colleagues. We should learn from the disaster in Japan and take action here to save lives and property in the event of this quake in the Cascadia Subduction Zone.

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

Mr. Speaker, this so-called health bill is actually just mostly targeted for tax cuts for the wealthiest among us.

Let's look at it this way: a millionaire will get a $30,000-a-year tax cut. A 64-year-old senior who earns $30,000 a year--that is all he earns, just the tax cut the millionaire gets--they will see their premium go from $1,700 a year, to $15,000 a year. That is half their income.

They are going to have a choice: give up their house so they can buy health insurance or don't buy health insurance, pray you don't have a health emergency, and go bankrupt or die. Those are great choices.

This says a lot about the values of the Republican leadership and their obsession. Instead of fixing the problems with the Affordable Care Act, they want to kill it. It says a lot about their values. They are pathetic.

Mr. Speaker, over the last 7 years, we have heard a lot from the Republicans about repeal and replace. They voted some 67 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which they call ObamaCare.

We have seen their so-called replacement plan. Actually, it is a plan to gut the Affordable Care Act and stuff through massive tax breaks for the wealthy. What is new? That is the number one, two, and three priority of the current Republican majority here in the House of Representatives.

They got an analysis Monday. It was a little discouraging, but not really. The Speaker touted the fact it would reduce the deficit by $377 billion. Sure, if you take away health care from 24 million people, you can save some money on that end, but you lose a lot on the other end with families going bankrupt. The most frequent cause of bankruptcy in America was an uninsured healthcare emergency before the Affordable Care Act.

Small rural hospitals will be closing their doors all across America if this bill goes through. And even the larger hospitals, having to give more uninsured care to people in crisis, will be having to jack up prices, and, of course, that means higher premiums for everybody else. Back to the good old days of freedom to choose. In this case, their freedom to choose bankruptcy, or death, or who knows what else, under this plan.

They have really painted a target on older Americans. They are going to allow the healthcare insurance industry--which, by the way, is exempt from antitrust law, so it is not competitive. They keep saying: Competition and choice. How do you have competition when an industry does, and is, allowed to collude to set prices to exclude certain areas or people from coverage or certain diseases from coverage? They can do that all behind closed doors. It is legal for that industry. And they will not include a provision to take away their antitrust immunity as part of this bill.

So they are going to allow insurance companies to charge anybody age 50 or

older five times the premium for a younger person. Now, let's look at, say, a modest income of a 21-year-old of $27,000 a year. They will actually pay $250 less for a policy that will cover less. But that is okay, I guess, sort of, maybe.

But for a 64-year-old earning the same amount of money--and there are 64-year-olds out there still working who can't get Medicare yet and don't have a big retirement fund--they are still working for modest wages of $27,000 a year, they will see their healthcare costs go from $1,700 a year to $14,600. So a 64-year-old American working person with an income of $27,000 would have a premium of $14,600. Now, how is that going to work? How is that going to work? More than half of their income would go to pay for a health insurance plan. They have put a target square on those millions of people, and that is absolutely outrageous.

This bill is tax cuts very thinly disguised as the American Health Care Act. The cuts are pretty astounding. If you earn $700,000 a year, you will get a $37,000 tax cut. Now, those people are really hurting. Those people at $700,000 a year are worried about their health insurance. No, not so much. They probably get it for free through their corporate connections, or whatever. And even if they did, with $772,000, they can afford the increase with a $37,000 tax break.

But then how about the most privileged of the privileged of the privileged, those in the top 1 percent whose income averages $4 million a year? They get a tax cut of $207,000 a year under this bill. This bill is tax cuts disguised as an excuse for a replacement for the ACA.

There are a few other tax cuts, again, really deserving and needy folks--the pharmaceutical industry, $25 billion, and the medical device industry, $20 billion. And health insurance companies exempt from antitrust law can, once again, pay their CEOs $5 million or $10 million a year and take a full tax deduction, which under current law they can't.

So here it is, the goodie bag: Tax cuts for the wealthiest among us, tax cuts for the pharmaceutical industry, health insurance industry, medical device manufacturers; and, for the rest of America, the booby prize, which is healthcare plans that cover less and cost a lot more.

Oh, and then a couple of years out, 14 million people will be cut off of Medicaid.

These are really expensive tax cuts, and they have got to be paid for. The Republicans are fiscally responsible. They are going to pay for the tax cuts for people who earn $1 million a year, they are going to pay for the tax cuts for the pharmaceutical industry, but they have to screw a hell of a lot of people to do it.

Mr. Speaker, I will vote against H.R. 1301, the Fiscal Year 2017 Department of Defense (DOD) Appropriations Act.

The legislation includes several provisions that I strongly support, including giving service men and women a well-deserved raise of 2.1 percent. The bill provides much-needed funding to address traumatic brain injuries, PTSD, sexual assault and suicide prevention, and vital cancer research. It also includes funding for Ukraine and Eastern Europe security initiatives to counter Russia's heightened military provocations and annexation of Crimea.

However, H.R. 1301 funds provisions I do not support, including $61.8 billion to the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) fund, an account which is not subject to the budgetary caps imposed on all other discretionary programs, and is used as a slush fund by the Pentagon.

Unlike every other federal agency, the DOD has been unable to complete a financial audit to inform taxpayers how the biggest bureaucracy in the federal government spends their money. In fact, a shocking report released last December exposed $125 billion in administrative waste that the Pentagon tried to bury from being viewed by the public. I refuse to support increased bureaucratic waste at the expense of American taxpayers. A more accountable and transparent department would ensure more taxpayer money is directed towards the needs of our troops and the benefits they deserve rather than buying unnecessary weapon systems, sustaining a Cold War era military force, and giving the President a blank check to fund wars Congress hasn't authorized.

Along with bloated defense spending, the bill prohibits the closing of Guantanamo Bay, which costs more than $100 million each year and has been used as a top recruiting tool by terrorists. Frankly, the prison at Guantanamo Bay has been a black eye for the United States. It has eroded relationships with our allies, undermined U.S. missions abroad, and put U.S. citizens and our troops at risk of retaliation in places where the Geneva Conventions are not followed.

Congress can make responsible cuts to the DOD budget without jeopardizing the safety of our troops or undermining our national security.

Mr. Speaker, we just heard a lot about competition and better and improved markets. The basic problem the Republicans have-- and they know this very well--is that the health insurance industry is exempt from the antitrust laws of the United States of America, so they can, and they do, get together and collude. They collude to drive up prices. They collude to share markets: hey, if you are pulling out of that State, I will pull out of this State and cut those kind of deals. They can't be prosecuted.

We had a bipartisan vote on the floor of this House when we were originally considering the House version of the Affordable Care Act-- infinitely superior to the thing passed by the Senate which we got stuck with--and it was over 400 votes to take away their antitrust immunity. Is that in this bill? Heck, no. They are the second largest PAC contributor to the Republican Party, so I am afraid we are not going to take away their antitrust immunity--but we are going to have a really free, competitive, and transparent market. You will be able to go out and get your policies, whatever the insurance companies have decided as they colluded behind closed doors.

Now, the other issue here is, for some reason, Republicans seem to have taken and painted a big target on the back of low- and middle- income seniors in two ways. They are going to repeal some very small taxes on people who earn over one-quarter of a million dollars a year. You know, they really need another 4 percent because they are just hurting. Those people who earn $1 million, $2 million a year, they are hurting. We have got to repeal that tax. So that is one of the highest priorities in this bill: repeal that tax.

Unfortunately, that means that the Medicare trust fund will be exhausted 4 years earlier. That is right. The money those very high- income people are paying goes to Medicare, to the trust fund, which is in trouble right now. It is going to be exhausted in 2028. Under their plan, it is going to be exhausted in 2024. So they have painted a big target on seniors. But don't worry, the seniors can go into the competitive--well, not so competitive--insurance market and buy a plan.

But then another little twist and another arrow in the heart of seniors--seniors now, under their plan, instead of a cap of three times the cost of a policy to other, younger subscribers, it is now they are going to jack it up to five times.

Why do you hate seniors so much? What is the deal here? Yeah, the high-income seniors will do fine. But what about the middle- and low- income seniors, those who are struggling to make ends meet on Social Security and others?

Then for some other bizarre reason, they have got it in for Planned Parenthood. They say it is about abortion. Well, guess what? It is not. Federal law has prohibited Federal money from going to abortions for 40 years. It is not about abortion. It is about something

different. It is about breast exams, Pap smears, physical exams, STD testing and treatment, information and counseling about sexual reproductive health, cancer screenings, pregnancy tests, prenatal services, and access to affordable birth control.

Why do they want to kill that for 1 million people, many of whom live in rural areas that are already underserved? They don't have an alternative for those services. But they want to kill that--oh, just for 1 year maybe. Well, actually, they would like to do it permanently, but they are going to say: well, we are just going to do it 1 year and see how it works out, how those million women do.

Then, as my colleagues from Connecticut said, everything around here has to be scored, and it can't add to the deficit--unless it is something they want to do. Now, in this case, this has not been scored. We have no idea what it is going to cost the American taxpayer, this new Rube Goldberg, and they don't have any analysis of how many people are going to lose coverage.

Now, granted, they put off the huge loss of coverage until 2020. They delayed the big changes in Medicaid until 2020. That is when tens of millions of people will lose their health insurance. But there are still going to be a lot of people losing their health insurance a lot sooner, and it would be useful for people to know about that before they vote on it: how much is it going to cost the taxpayer and how many people are going to lose coverage.

Under the ruse of fixing something that is broken that has given 23 million people an opportunity to have health insurance and brought us the lowest rate of uninsured in recent history in this country, they are cutting taxes for wealthy people. By the way, there is a little gift in there for health insurance companies. They can fully deduct their CEO's $20 million salary. Today, it is limited to $500,000. So another tax break for the health insurance industry.

Did they take on Big Pharma? Did they do anything about the unbelievable price gouging that is going on today through the pharmaceutical companies, where someone buys up a generic drug that has been around for 50 years and jacks up the price 1,000 percent?

No, they are not going to do anything about that. We are not going to have more affordable prescription drugs. I don't know if they undid the fix to the doughnut hole that was in the ObamaCare bill.

If they really wanted to do something, they would say: Let's have a national not-for-profit plan offered in a national exchange so that every American can afford health care at a reasonable cost without excess profits to an industry which is exempt from antitrust law, colludes, and pays their execs $20 million and $50 million a year.

Mr. Speaker, let's talk about what this rule didn't do.

First off, ANILCA did not grant the State of Alaska any additional authority to manage wildlife on Federal lands. This rule is totally compliant with ANILCA. ANILCA actually prioritizes conservation of these species we are talking about here today, apex predators, on more than half the refuges in the State.

As required by ANILCA, the rule ensures that national wildlife refuges--that is what we are talking about here, wildlife refuges-- conserve species and habitats in their natural diversity. That doesn't mean you kill the predators so that people who don't have good hunting skills are going to have an easier time getting a caribou or moose. That is not what this is supposed to be about on the national wildlife refuges. It actually prioritizes conservation of these species.

I just heard that something about this will severely restrict hunting and fishing on these lands. Absolutely not true, unless you say shooting wolves and their pups in the den or gassing them in the den is hunting--and we are restricting that.

Bears and cubs would be killed during hibernation, hunters crawling around killing bears during hibernation. No, hunters don't do that.

Brown and black bears would be trapped, snared using steel-jawed traps, wire snares--again, not hunters, not sportsmen.

Luring and baiting grizzly bears? Wow. Now, that is a real sportsmanlike hunter with a lot of skills kind of guy or woman who has to use bait to kill a grizzly bear.

Aerial gunning of bears by State agency personnel, that is hunters? No, not quite.

Sportsmen? No, don't think so.

And using aircraft to track bears and kill in the same day, those are the things that would be prohibited. That is what is prohibited.

Subsistence hunting? Absolutely no impact.

Fishing? Fish? I guess the fishing thing would be the grizzly bears eat the fish, and people who don't have good fishing skills want to catch the fish. So if we kill the grizzly bears, they won't eat the fish. So it does impact fishing, I guess, sort of, maybe. No, it doesn't.

This is absolutely inhumane, unsportsmanlike, and unnecessary. The State of Alaska is doing this just to decrease the natural balance of predation, which actually creates healthier herds of caribou and healthier moose populations.

There was a study done in 2015 by professors from both Alaska and Washington that showed that actually having these predators present increases the health and the diversity of the herds of caribou, because the sick and the lame and the old get killed, but the rest of them flourish and breed. There would be more than enough still to hunt.

Yeah, maybe you won't be able to drive your pickup truck, stick your rifle out of the away, blast away, and get one. You might actually have to get out of the pickup truck. You might actually have to have some hunting skills and track a little bit to get the caribou or the moose.

But if we kill off all of the grizzlies and the wolves, it will be a lot easier. They will overpopulate. Actually, what they will do is they will start going down at the riparian areas, like happened--it is a different ecosystem--in Yellowstone, and then the streams will not be as plentiful with fish.

This is about natural balance, it is about Federal lands, it is about sportsmen and women, and it is about prohibiting the State of Alaska from using its extreme predator control methods. That is what this is called: extreme predator control methods. That is all it prevents.

This is a very sad day in this House if this resolution passes, and it is long-term bad for Alaska.

Mr. Speaker, I have just seen a news report that the President may invade Syria with ground troops.

Now, I criticized former President Obama for his actions in Libya, Iraq, and Syria, without seeking authorization from Congress, and leaning on the weak need that these were somehow authorized back in the AUMF after 9/11. This is far beyond the scope of that resolution, which I helped write, so to have a ground invasion of Syria, without authorization from Congress, will trigger the War Powers Act.

Let's be clear: The Constitution says, once we are at war, the President runs the war as Commander in Chief. But it is only the United States Congress that has the power to declare war, authorize war, which this essentially would be.

So the President must come to the Congress and ask for a new Authorization for Use of Military Force before launching any ground invasion of Syria.

Mr. Speaker, candidate Trump talked a lot about the need to invest $1 trillion in our crumbling infrastructure, and President Trump, on Inauguration Day, referenced again the need to invest in our infrastructure. There has been little progress since that point and no major proposals.

Last week, I talked about surface transportation. I am running a clock on the costs to the American economy and the American people of not investing in roads, bridges, highways, and transit. That clock started at noon on the 20th of Inauguration Day, and it is now up to $11 billion. That is the cost to the American people, to the economy, of not investing.

This week we have seen a dramatic new example in a different area of infrastructure of the costs of not investing: the evacuation of 130,000 people below the Oroville Dam in California. This shouldn't be happening. Federal and State officials warned that the dam didn't meet current safety standards in 2005, yet no investments and no improvements were made.

I wish this were an isolated example. Unfortunately, 96 percent of the dams in America are owned by State, local, and private entities, and many are in need of upgrades or a complete overhaul. Fifty years is the estimated lifetime of a dam. There are 50,000 dams that are past that lifetime, and some of them are safety critical, that is, if they fail, people will die.

The American Society of Civil Engineers gives us a D. They say by 2020, 70 percent of our dams will be over 50 years old. There are 2,000 that are classified as a high hazard today--those whose failure, by definition, or misoperation will probably cause loss of human life.

We need about $53 billion to repair these dams. That is a lot of money, but think of what a life is worth. Think of the cost of the damage that is caused when these dams fail. Most everybody downstream has Federal flood insurance.

Instead of the Federal Government partnering and working with communities and States to improve these dams and prevent a disaster, until last year, the only program we had was one to mitigate after the disaster. But luckily, we moved forward last year in the Water Resources Development Act with an amendment offered by our colleague Mr. Maloney that would authorize repair and rehabilitation of non- Federal dams and provide proactive maintenance and repair.

Obviously, it is much more cost-effective than waiting until failure and then mitigate the property loss downstream and declare an emergency to rebuild the dam. We will have the sad loss of life when we don't make those investments.

There are many examples that I could cite. A dam failure in Hawaii killed seven people. It had never been inspected. It was a 100-year-old dam. In 2 weeks, we will mark the 35th anniversary of the Buffalo Creek Dam failure in West Virginia. It killed 125 people, 1,100 were severely injured, and 4,000 people were homeless. The dam had received safety violations, but there was no follow-up.

So, this is another aspect of infrastructure in America that needs investment. President Trump was pretty much spot on with his estimate of a trillion dollars. If you look at surface transportation--roads, bridges, highways, and transit--if you look at infrastructure for water treatment--think Detroit--or if you look at the thousands of communities that need to upgrade or rebuild their sewer facilities and other aspects of infrastructure, a trillion dollars would just about do it.

If we made those investments, we would put hundreds of thousands of people to work in this country, make America more efficient and more competitive in the world economy. But many of my Republican colleagues on the other side of the aisle think that we shouldn't be making these investments publicly. They classify any kind of spending as a deficit, even if it is a capital investment that will last for a hundred years or a capital investment that will save lives and mitigate losses for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Flood Insurance Program.

It is penny wise and pound foolish not to make these investments. We can and should. We need to move forward and rebuild our country.

Mr. Speaker, last week, President Trump traveled to Philadelphia to address the Republican Conference. He talked about his pledge to spend $1 trillion on our crumbling infrastructure, and he expressed frustration that it is not part of the first 100 days' agenda of the Republican leadership. I share that frustration. It is never on the agenda for the Republican leadership to invest in American infrastructure.

We did manage to pass a bill through the last Congress--the FAST Act--that was a decent continuation of our investments, but it lacked funding dramatically, and at the end of 5 years, our infrastructure will be in worse condition. So I share the President's frustration.

He also said, ``fix it first.'' Last week, I talked about harbors. It is easy to take care of the harbor issue. All you have to do is spend the tax for the purpose for which it has been collected, but the Republicans don't want to do that.

Today I am going to talk a little bit about rail--in particular, the Northeast Corridor. We had a report by Amtrak that assessed the needs on this corridor, which is shared by freight and rail and carries a phenomenal number of people and goods every day. Over 2,200 Amtrak commuter and freight trains work some portion of this route every day. However, it is in a state of serious disrepair.

One of the most critical areas is in Baltimore, the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel. It was an investment made by the Government of the United States of America. It began during the Civil War and finished just after. It has held up. That is a pretty amazing amount of time, but it is at the point of failure now, and if that tunnel fails, it will choke off all of the movement of goods and people from Washington, D.C.--points south--to the northeast. It is a major economic engine--a hugely populated area of the United States of America.

The tunnel fix has gone through an environmental impact statement; so they can't drag out with, ``Oh, it is those darned regulations and environmental restrictions. We can't get it done.'' No. We can get it done. We have got a plan. We have got an engineering design. All we need is the money--the investment--by the Government of the United States. Now, we have a Speaker who says, ``Oh, if it is worth doing, the private sector will do it.'' No. This is an asset which serves both private and public interests, and it needs a Federal investment. That is $4 billion.

If you go all the way up to Boston, you are looking at over $30 billion: bridges--critical bridges--that are 100, 110, 120, 130 years old and that are falling apart. It is time for some action here.

If we go a little further north, up to New York, we have the Hudson River tunnel, which is another engineering miracle. The Hudson River tunnel was completed in, oh, 1909. Then, of course, even though that has held up pretty well, it was flooded during Hurricane Sandy, and the salts that got in there are accelerating the erosion of that tunnel, and it is near the point of failure; so we would no longer be connected to New York City through the Hudson River tunnel. There are 200,000 passengers who use that every day. That would be a blow not only to the New York and regional economy, but to the national economy should that tunnel fail.

Other countries are making these investments. I was in Japan last year. They have a rail system that they built 40 years ago. It has run on time for 40 years. It has had no accidents for 40 years, and it travels at about 200 miles an hour. We, the great United States of America, can sometimes get trains up to 20, 30 miles an hour--at critical sections of this rail infrastructure--but we do not have time for that. First, we have to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Then we have to cut taxes for the wealthiest among us, and maybe they will build the tunnels and bridges and name them after themselves. I don't think so. They will be buying more super yachts and expensive places to go on vacation.

It is past time for this Congress to act in making critical investments in America's infrastructure. Yesterday, I unveiled a clock which tracks the cost of delays and congestion to the economy and to the people of the United States on a daily basis because of deteriorated infrastructure. The clock is ticking. It is time to stop that clock and rebuild our country.

Mr. Speaker, I have been involved for 28 years on the Natural Resources Committee on these issues.

What we are talking about today is simple here. Yes, it is cheaper. If you blow the top off a mountain and you dump it in the valley and you bury a stream, it is cheaper. Okay.

Is that what we are all about here? The most destructive, least environmentally responsible, but cheapest way of doing things?

If we are going to set the precedent here, I can think of a whole lot of other areas that relate to clean water, clean air, and things that are important to the American people and the sustainability of our environment that will go away because it would be cheaper. If we can just dump the waste out the back door of the factory, that is cheaper.

If we can just put whatever we want up the stack and people wear gas masks, that is cheaper. That is the major argument we are hearing today. This rule, a 100-foot buffer--a 100-foot buffer--for toxic materials around streams is too expensive. It is cheaper to blow the top off the mountain, get the coal out, and take all the overburden and other assorted stuff and dump it in the valley and bury the stream.

The only problem is then it rains. What happens when it rains? Well, you can either cap that whole thing and make it impermeable and then have big runoff downstream or, as it generally happens, the water percolates down through all the waste and becomes a toxic flow.

Now, you say, well, these are only seasonal streams. Well, seasonal streams run into other streams. What happens when you get those toxic flows is you kill the other streams. I am seeing this actually in my district, not from a coal mine, but from a foreign corporation which improperly mined and went bankrupt and left us with the waste. I have seen the miles of stream that are killed from the toxics that are leaching out from the overburden from the mining that is done. This is an absurd place to say we are overregulated.

Madam Speaker, the clock is ticking. Not that clock, but the new clock that I put up on the Democratic side of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which is the cost of congestion clock.

The President has proposed $1 trillion investment in infrastructure. He went to the Republican Conference last week and said: Fix it first, and we want it in the first 100 days. I am with him on that, we should do that, and I have proposals to actually fund a way to get there. Not to $1 trillion, but a good part of the way.

So this clock indicates, from the day he was sworn in, noon a week ago Friday to today, the cost of congestion for American commerce, the movement of goods, and the American people. It is $438 million per day.

So the clock is ticking. Let's get America moving again, and let's invest in our infrastructure.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Abby Bernstein, a passionate advocate for the rights of the aviation safety inspector and technician workforce of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Abby is retiring from the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS) union this month after 33 years of service. I am confident that and all of my colleagues who have worked with her, will miss her wise advocacy and kind demeanor.

Abby's career with PASS began in 1984, when she was the union's first, and only, employee. She remained PASS's only employee and ran the union's legislative and membership departments singlehandedly for many years thereafter. Throughout her career, Abby has fought to ensure safety inspectors and technicians are able to do their important work on behalf of the American people in keeping our aviation system running safely and smoothly.

For years, Abby has fought tirelessly for increased aviation safety inspector staffing and improved FAA oversight of the aviation system, and I hope she will retire knowing that the flying public is safer as a result of her work. She was pivotal in joining my colleagues and me in key legislative efforts at various points in the 2000s to improve the FAA's oversight of maintenance, repair, and overhaul work performed on U.S. airlines' fleets at foreign repair stations. She also worked relentlessly to preserve the inspector workforce from unnecessary delegations of authority to the private sector.

Not only has Abby worked to improve aviation safety, but she has also vigorously protected the rights and interests of PASS's members at every turn. When Congress exempted FAA employees from Federal personnel and procurement rules in 1996, Abby fought hard, and successfully, to preserve the rights of FAA employees to organize and to bargain collectively. From the 1990s to today, Abby has been a key ally in efforts to prevent the privatization of FAA air traffic control jobs. She has remained steadfast in her belief that the employees who safeguard the safety and efficiency of the aviation system must remain Federal employees. I would be remiss if I did not note, in particular, Abby's invaluable assistance in the last Congress to counteract, once again, ill-advised efforts to privatize the air traffic control system.

In my own work with Abby on important issues of aviation safety and policy, I have come to know her as a thoughtful, inquisitive, and intellectually curious advocate. In fact, she has such a strong desire to learn and expand her horizons that, having graduated from the University of Maryland in 1981 with a bachelor's degree in management and consumer studies, she returned to her alma mater and obtained a second degree eight years later in computer and information sciences.

Abby's retirement will mark the end of an era for PASS and, indeed, for all of us who have collaborated with her over the years in pursuit of a safer, better aviation system. Although we will miss her, I hope my colleagues will join me in helping send Abby into retirement with all of our very best wishes and most of all, with tremendous thanks for a job well done.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, January 30, 2017, I was not present for votes due to illness. Had I been present, on Roll Call vote 66, I would have voted YES, and on Roll Call vote 67, I would have voted YES.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 724 would repeal Trump's overreaching executive order that purports to make America safer. It is time to restore American values. What are the Republicans afraid of? If you support his action, bring up the bill and vote against it. If you don't support his action, we are giving you an opportunity to restore the lawful rights of Congress representing the American people.

Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the Pacific Northwest Earthquake Preparedness Act, a comprehensive bill to address the earthquake risk facing the Pacific Northwest.

The Pacific Northwest is at extraordinary risk of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake on the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) followed by a tsunami. The question is no longer if, but when, this event will occur.

The CSZ stretches from northern California up into British Columbia. Historically, the Cascadia Subduction Zone slips every 300 years or so causing major earthquakes. The last quake was in 1700 and evidence suggests it was a magnitude 8.7 to a 9.2. Thursday is the 317th anniversary of the last major Cascadia earthquake.

Experts agree that Oregon is due for another major earthquake. Some forecasts suggest there is a ten percent chance of a magnitude 8 to 9 quake on the CSZ in the next thirty years, while others predict a thirty-five to forty percent chance of a major quake on the south end of the CSZ in the next fifty years.

The Cascadia Subduction Zone is a minor image of the subduction zone off the coast of Japan that caused the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and triggered the devastating tsunami in 2011. That event caused an estimated $300 billion in damages and killed over 15,000 people.

We can expect similar, if not more, damage in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. The United States Geological Service estimates that over 22,000 people live in Oregon's tsunami inundation zone and even more enter the zone daily for employment purposes. The State of Oregon predicts thousands of deaths and injuries plus approximately $32 billion in infrastructure and economic damages in Oregon alone. Hundreds of thousands of survivors will be displaced, some possibly for years.

The next big Cascadia quake will likely cause massive damage. Critical lifelines, such as power, natural gas, and petroleum lines, roads and bridges, water and sewer systems, buildings, and communication systems over large parts of California, Oregon and Washington will likely be damaged, complicating response and recovery efforts. It may take years to fully restore utility services. State and local economies will be decimated.

It is important to note that this is not just a Pacific Northwest issue, this is a National issue. Yes the impact of an earthquake and tsunami in the CSZ will be felt the most in Oregon and Washington, but there will be Nation-wide effects. Seismic shaking is expected to be felt as far as Sacramento, California. Most infrastructure in the United States as a whole has not been constructed to withstand seismic shaking of the magnitude that scientists predict has a high likelihood of occurring.

The national economy will be impacted by this event. Fortune 500 companies, such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Nike, are headquartered in Oregon and Washington. International ports used to export U.S. goods and to import foreign goods could be closed for months or longer. In fact, the ports of Portland, Oregon, and Seattle and Tacoma, Washington accounted for a combined 75 million tons of goods in 2012. Major highways and other thoroughfares used for interstate commerce will be damaged and rendered unusable.

This a not a question of if an earthquake will happen, only a matter of when. We need to start taking this threat seriously and begin to prepare for the event. There is a saying that ``earthquakes don't kill people, buildings do.'' This means we need to start investing in the Nation's infrastructure to ensure it can withstand seismic activity and minimize potential damage and economic disruption.

My bill proposes to address the earthquake risk in several ways. First, the bill proposes to save lives, reduce injuries, and minimize infrastructure damage by requiring FEMA to prepare a plan to fund the purchase and installation of an earthquake early warning system for the Cascadia Subduction Zone. It also clarifies that FEMA may use hazard mitigation funds to improve the earthquake early warning system.

An early warning system can send alerts to trigger automatic shutdowns of trains, manufacturing lines, and close bridges. An earthquake early warning system worked during the 2011 Japan earthquake and it can work here.

An earthquake early warning system is only the first step though. The bill also directs the President to establish an Earthquake and Tsunami Task Force to develop a comprehensive strategy and recommendations on how the Nation should prepare and plan for, mitigate against, respond to, recover from, and more successfully adapt to an earthquake and tsunami in the CSZ. This will ensure that Federal, State, local, and tribal governments as well as individuals begin preparing now for a smarter response and recovery.

If we want to save lives and mitigate the damage, we cannot afford to wait. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill and taking the threat of a catastrophic earthquake seriously.