Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, this was not a one-off. It was a long time coming. It was a part of a plan to perpetuate Trump in office.

Trump's campaign strategy was: The election, the only way we can we lose is if it is stolen. It is stolen; it is fake. ``It is stolen,'' repeated by many of his fellow travelers on that side, more than 150 times by Trump over the summer.

Then, they litigated to disqualify voters. That didn't work.

Then, they litigated to throw out ballots. Well, that didn't work.

Then, they attempted to delay the count with State legislatures. Well, that didn't work.

Last ditch, the President called down to Georgia and said: Can't you find me more votes?

And then, one last desperate plea: Stop the January 6 certification. And the President talked about that on September 26. He said: You know, if it goes to Congress, there is one vote per State, and we have an advantage.

So, I think this was part of a plan to disrupt the electoral college of the United States.

Giuliani: ``Trial by combat.''

Trump: ``You will never take back our country with weakness.''

Madam Speaker, last Friday I voted in support of H.R. 2500, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2020.

While I have consistently opposed this legislation in previous years and still have concerns about a number of provisions included in this year's legislation--including yet another spending increase to an already bloated Pentagon budget--this legislation also contains numerous policy priorities that I strongly support and which have not been included in recent Republican-led NDAAs.

First, this legislation grants our men and women in uniform a well- deserved pay raise of 3.1 percent--the largest pay raise for our troops since the last Democratic House majority in 2010. Those who serve in uniform continue to make extraordinary sacrifices for our country and the very least we can do is grant them a pay raise.

I am pleased that this legislation also includes numerous provisions that require the Department of Defense (DoD) to address the existential threat of climate change, including updating military construction standards to promote energy and climate resilience. It also requires DoD to report on its progress towards meeting the goal of 25 percent renewable energy for military facilities by 2025.

Additionally, I am pleased that this legislation prevents the president from diverting defense funding to pay for an unnecessary border wall, prohibits funding for the deployment of dangerous low- yield nuclear weapons, nullifies President Trump's discriminatory military transgender ban, and helps protect our veterans from being taken advantage of by predatory, for-profit colleges. Moreover, it ends the unfair Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP)/Indemnity Compensation (DIC) offset--also known as the ``widow's tax''--which currently reduces spouse survivor benefits by an average of $1,250 per month. I am also strongly supportive of the inclusion of twelve weeks of paid family and medical leave for all federal employees.

This legislation also includes several provisions to strengthen our national security, including requiring the DoD to enhance our election security, countering Russian aggression and election interference, enhancing security cooperation with our allies in Europe and Asia, and protecting against the increasing risk of cyber attacks.

I have always advocated for strengthening Congress's constitutional authority to declare war and limiting the president's authority to engage in armed conflict without the consent of Congress. That's why I voted in support of amendments to prevent the president from using unauthorized force against Iran, to prohibit U.S. support to and participation in the Saudi-led coalition's military operations in Yemen, and to repeal the long-outdated 2002 authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) in Iraq. I am proud that these amendments passed with bipartisan support.

This year I have once again introduced legislation to amend the War Powers Resolution

of 1973 and reassert Congress's constitutional war powers. I have also consistently supported legislation to repeal the 2001 AUMF, which the Pentagon uses to continue to justify the 18 years our troops have been fighting in the Middle East. President Trump has sent troops to Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere without seeking a new AUMF, which in my view is a violation of the War Powers Resolution.

Furthermore, I am pleased that this legislation accelerates closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility by prohibiting new detainees and allowing transfer of detainees to secure facilities in the United States. This unnecessary facility costs almost $450 million each year to house 40 prisoners and has been used as a top recruiting tool by terrorists. The prison at Guantanamo Bay has been a black eye for the United States, eroding relationships with our allies, undermining U.S. missions abroad, and putting U.S. citizens and our troops at risk of retaliation.

However, I believe this legislation could have made responsible cuts to our defense budget without jeopardizing the safety of our troops or undermining our national security. For years, Congress has continued to increase the Pentagon's budget despite overwhelming evidence of its waste and abuse of taxpayer money. This year's legislation--with its outrageous top line defense budget of $733 billion--is yet another example of Congress's habit of increasing the defense budget every year.

I have long supported a financial audit of the Pentagon. Unlike every other federal agency, the DoD has yet to pass a financial audit. In November 2018, the Pentagon spectacularly failed its first full audit, which highlighted numerous examples of waste and abuse. While I am pleased that this year's NDAA requires an annual audit of the DoD in order to help identify waste, it is ridiculous to provide the Pentagon a massive spending increase--as this bill does--when the Pentagon cannot even account for how it spends taxpayer money.

In particular, I have always opposed the DoD's Overseas Contingency Operation (OCO) account, a fiscally irresponsible fund that is not counted in the budget, recklessly adds to our mounting debt, and has no congressional oversight. OCO is a Pentagon slush fund that gives a blank check to fund endless wars that Congress hasn't authorized. That's why I co-led an amendment to cut OCO funding in the bill by approximately 25 percent. I am disappointed that this amendment failed to pass.

The bottom line is that fiscal responsibility and accountability at the Pentagon would allow for funds to be better spent supporting the needs of our troops, meeting our obligations to veterans, and ensuring our legitimate defense needs are prioritized. I strongly encourage my Senate colleagues to keep the strong provisions included in the House NDAA and not water the bill down.

Mr. Speaker, I also want to thank Representative Malinowski for bringing this forward.

Again, I have long expressed concern about the cozy relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia across a number of Presidencies, both Democrat and Republican. For years, we have turned a blind eye toward their human rights abuses at home, their repression of women, and their export of radical Wahhabism, destabilizing the Middle East, Pakistan, and, now, up into the Balkans.

It is long past time for the United States to take action, but Trump has taken the U.S. blind eye toward Saudi abuses to a new extreme. He and Pompeo have cozied up to Mohammad bin Salman, who was, according to U.S. intelligence agencies, European intelligence agencies, and, now, a report from the United States, involved in the brutal murder of a U.S. resident, a noted journalist because he had the temerity to write articles critical of His Highness MBS.

And what does Trump do? He goes to Saudi Arabia. He does the sword dance. He calls them up on the phone and cozies up to them day after day after day.

This legislation here in the House will help to begin to right the wrongs of the past, right the wrongs of this administration, and to send a strong message to the Saudis that what they are doing in Yemen is not acceptable, what they are doing throughout the Middle East and other parts of the world, exporting radical Wahhabism and destabilizing, murder is not acceptable. None of these things are acceptable.

The President wants to arm them. We need to disarm this relationship and hold them accountable.

Madam Speaker, as thousands take part in vigils across Oregon, the U.S., and the globe, I rise today in strong opposition to the Trump administration's inhumane detention policies. These policies and practices have led to families being ripped apart, children dying, and a shameful chapter written in our nation's history.

That's why I voted for the House-passed bill which had strong health and safety requirements for care of unaccompanied minor children, tightened restrictions on detention shelters, created accountability for contractors violating essential standards at detention shelters, and more. Instead, the Republican-controlled Senate stripped these essential reforms from the bill. Congress ultimately passed the weak and flawed Senate version.

I voted against this toothless legislation. If we don't address this crisis head-on with proper oversight standards and commitment to holding this administration accountable, nothing will change and people will continue to suffer. That is unacceptable.

Make no mistake, we can't solve the problems at our border if we don't address the reasons that so many individuals are fleeing their home countries. The Trump administration's plan to cut aid to countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras will only make the situation worse, likely increasing violence and government dysfunction. Instead, we should be investing in a plan similar to the Marshall Plan after World War II to restore safety, stability, and promote economic opportunities in Central America.

We must act--now--to get serious about reforming our broken immigration system by passing bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform. This is the only course of action that will allow us to protect these vulnerable individuals while also producing real, long-term solutions to our immigration crisis.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Can you say ``slush fund''? OCO is basically a slush fund.

The idea was, oh, we went to war--more than a decade ago--and we couldn't anticipate the expenses, so Congress passed an overseas contingency account. It is not very well supervised by Congress, and as you heard earlier, the Pentagon can't even account for the funds that go in there.

But now, here we are. We can certainly anticipate what is going on next year and the year after with the Pentagon. Why isn't it going through the regular process within the Pentagon budget and with full scrutiny by the United States Congress and, God forbid, maybe even auditable? Imagine that.

The only agency of the Federal Government which is unable to pass an audit is the Pentagon.

About a decade ago, I got an amendment on the floor to require an audit, but it got taken out in a conference committee. What are they afraid of in accounting for the dollars they get? And this is the least accountable of all the dollars they get.

This is a modest reduction, and it would restore funding to the 2019 levels. You should vote for this amendment.

Madam Speaker, there were a number of concerns raised about Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers (CCC) during debate over my amendment to the LHHS Appropriations bill, and I would like to respond to those directly.

Contrary to the assertion that the transfer of operations of all U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service Job Corps CCCs to the Department of Labor (DOL) will ``allow more students to engage with the program,'' this move would have forced the immediate closure of nine centers across eight states, quite literally closing off DOL's ability to serve thousands of at-risk youth across the country, while also negatively impacting the rural communities these CCCs are built around and reducing the Forest Service's capacity as both wildfire and hurricane seasons get underway.

During debate, it was also asserted that CCCs produce ``phenomenally bad results.'' Of the nine centers that were slated for closure, seven of them were in top half of Job Corps centers for Performance Year 2017, the most recent program year data is available for. In the state of North Carolina, where at least two CCCs were slated for closure, the Lyndon B. Johnson Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center, the Oconaluftee Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center, and the Schenck Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center rank 76th, 18th, and 4th respectively out of all 126 Job Corps sites. Schenck finished Program Year 2017 as the country's top performing Job Corps center. While not a CCC, the Kittrell Job Corps Center currently ranks sixth overall, meaning North Carolina has three of the top 20 Job Corps centers.

Concerns over the safety and security of Job Corps sites were also consistently mentioned. In highlighting these concerns, no distinction was made between CCCs and regular Job Corps sites. In Program Year 2017, CCCs served more than 14 percent of Job Corps' total residential students and accounted for 13.5 percent of total reported incidents of violence at Job Corps centers across the country. This clearly shows that CCCs are not disproportionately violent compared to other Job Corps centers. It is important to note that the high-profile crimes that occurred several years ago did not occur on a Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center site.

As was testified at a hearing last Congress, the reality is that the mortality rate for Job Corps center students in recent program years was about 4.7 per 100,000. The national mortality rate for individuals ages 16 to 24 during that same time period was 70.88 per 100,000, more than 15 times higher. Students at Job Corps centers are also 19 times less likely to die of a drug overdoes than youth their age outside ofthe program.

That being said, I agree that we must do everything we can to minimize violence at Job Corps centers. In the wake of tragic events in 2015, the National Job Corps Association (NJCA) submitted policy recommendations to DOL in order to improve safety and security. Some of these recommendations have been implemented while others have not. I believe Congress can work together to ensure that CCCs maximize safety while recruiting and retaining a high number of students.

Thankfully, the Trump Administration reversed its decision to end the CCC program. CCCs are an important part of the Forest Service's mission, they play an essential role in the health and safety of Oregon's forests, and they provide critical opportunities for at-risk youth. I will continue to push back against any future attacks and look forward to working with those who want to further strengthen this successful program.

Mr. Chair, this is a ridiculous issue, to put it mildly. This administration has taken two totally contradictory positions on this.

Prior to this administration, if you had a TIFIA loan, you were responsible for paying it back with local funds. It was counted as a local match. It is their obligation. They have to pay it back. They have to pay the loan fees. They have to pay for everything that is involved.

Then, in the first year of this administration, they said it is local. It counts as a match.

Oh, wait a minute, a year ago, they changed their mind. Exactly 1 year apart: June 29, 2017, TIFIA loans will be considered a local match; June 29, 2018, they will not be considered a local match. They will be considered as Federal money, ineligible.

What happened in between? I don't know. I think it had something to do with the Portal Bridge in New Jersey and the Gateway Program, and President Trump being in a dispute with the Democratic leader of the Senate.

This is about politics, plain and simple, rotten politics, for critical infrastructure that this country needs.

If a jurisdiction borrows money--they borrowed it, they have to pay it back--that doesn't count. If they go to a bank and borrow it and pay higher interest rates, putting more burden on local taxpayers, that is okay. But if they got it from the Feds--by the way, the Feds make money on TIFIA loans. It is one of the most amazing programs. We make money on it. There has only been like one default in the history of the program. These are good loans.

They have to pay it back, so why wouldn't it count? Politics, plain and simple. This is trying to return to politics, as opposed to common sense, following preexisting practices and the letter of the law.

By the way, this is just clarifying existing law because of a bizarre interpretation written by the Trump DOT a year ago this June.

Mr. Chair, I certainly wasn't referring to my colleague, who I know is here in good faith on his own terms.

The point is, on June 29, 2017, the DOT stated that TIFIA loans will not be considered Federal funds for the purposes of evaluating how much local share an applicant brings to the table.

What changed in that year? All years prior, that was allowed. In 2017, suddenly, they changed their mind.

That is what I am talking about, rotten politics.

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

Mr. Chair, this is an extraordinary move to suddenly turn trains into liquid natural gas pipelines. Of course, liquid natural gas is not transported by pipeline. It brittlizes metal, and this would be a new and innovative way of moving liquified natural gas.

Now, there are a few problems with this. We had the Administrator into the committee last week. It is going to be moved in DOT 113 tank cars.

I said: Are those puncture-proof?

He said: No, they are not puncture-proof.

I said: Well, what happens?

He said: Oh, we carry volatiles all the time.

I said: You don't carry anything like liquified natural gas.

There is something called the BLEVE; it is a boiling liquified explosive vapor explosion. So the BLEVE has an unbelievable blast impact. And this is just one rail car. These will be six trains a day going through the most populated parts of Florida, 100 cars in each train.

Envision this: Here is Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This is the blast zone. And that is just one--one--of these tank cars. It is likely it will cause a chain reaction and explosion. It is going to be about as powerful as Hiroshima if it goes off.

Now, this maybe will get someone's attention. This is the Brightline high-speed rail line. That is where they are going to run six trains a day with 100 cars of liquified natural gas--never, ever been done before; except in small containers, never been done before.

And, oh, by the way, within the blast zone is Mar-a-Lago. Are they going to allow the trains to run while the President is there?

All you need is someone with a .50 caliber to shoot a hole in one of those tank cars and you are going to have one humongous explosion that goes beyond Mar-a-Lago.

So what is the foolishness?

The Pipeline and Hazardous Safety Materials Agency has not evaluated this. They are the ones who are supposed to do this. They haven't finished imposing laws that we put in place in

2011 for the safe movement of hazardous goods, but now they are rushing this through.

The administration says, oh, no, we want this permit done in 12 months. Well, maybe the President doesn't know he is in a blast zone. Maybe he wouldn't be ordering it be done in 12 months if he knew it was within the blast zone.

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

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

The gentleman referred to trucks. Actually, we are talking about very small quantities in special containers, not massive rail tank cars holding these amounts.

Another thing is that there is no known company. You can't contact them. There is no publicly available contact information, no headquarters, but they have petitioned and they are going through a special permit process with--the gentleman says there is going to be public review and input--sure--to move six trains a day with 100 cars in each one, essentially, a liquid pipeline through these heavily populated areas.

We saw what happened at Lac-Megantic up in Canada with just crude oil in tank cars killing dozens of people, obliterating a town. This is 10 times more powerful than that.

Yet the gentleman from Florida is advocating that this should happen in Florida, and the people living all along the Brightline--Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, the President at Mar-a-Lago--just shouldn't worry their sweet little heads about it: It won't be a target of terrorists; there won't be an accident; it is never going to happen. Well, we have heard that before.

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

Mr. Chair, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself 10 seconds.

Again, this has potential for massive explosions. This has not been done before.

This is not natural gas. It is liquefied natural gas, 600 times as dense, and, if punctured, this is the blast zone. I hope the President is watching.

Mr. Chair, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price), the subcommittee chairman.

Mr. Chair, again, in closing, I think it would be wise to actually conduct a study before this is

permitted. That is not the intention of this administration, and that is why I offer this amendment.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize one of the unsung heroes of public service in Oregon. Mr. John J. Baker has ably served the people of Oregon and the Oregon Department of Transportation for over thirty years. A transportation economist with a deep background in the Federal-aid Highway Program and its formulas, Mr. Baker's work has benefitted major transportation projects and communities across the entire state of Oregon.

Mr. Baker's creative work with federal funding formulas helped support many legislative decisions that resulted in millions in additional federal funding for Oregon. Similarly, his intimate knowledge of federal transportation grants and the federal grant making process has helped bring untold millions in grant funding to the state and to local governments in Oregon.

I relied on his expertise on a number of occasions to ensure that Oregon, with more than

half of its land owned by the federal government, receives a fair share of the Federal Lands Access Program (known as FLAP) so we can continue to enjoy access to our amazing natural wonders. In 2012, the Obama Administration proposed replacing the existing Forest Highways Program with the new FLAP. My office turned to Mr. Baker to provide the analysis needed to ensure that the new program worked as intended, to ensure that Oregon and western states with huge tracts of federal lands would not be disadvantaged, and helped me safeguard program funding for States with the greatest needs.

This summer, Oregon's first Transportation Asset Management Plan will be finalized thanks to Mr. Baker's steady guiding influence. With his deep professional connection to federal transportation policy and funding, it is only fitting that Mr. Baker be recognized here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives for his remarkable career.

The Oregon Department of Transportation will suffer an irreplaceable departure this month when Mr. Baker retires. Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me and all Oregonians in thanking John Baker for his long and dedicated service to the people of Oregon. My home state is an immeasurably better place because of Mr. Baker's contributions. Simply put, Oregon would not be Oregon without people like John Baker.

Madam Speaker, climate change is an existential threat to all of humanity, and it is essential that we start acting--now--to stop and reverse the destructive effects of climate change.

In 2017, Oregon State University Professor Dr. William Ripple published ``World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice,'' which has been endorsed by more than 15,000 scientists from 184 countries. He outlined the irrefutable proof of the damage climate change has caused over the last twenty-five years. He also provided effective steps we can take to combat climate change.

I urge my colleagues to read his report and take action before it is too late.

The Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice

(By William J. Ripple, Christopher Wolf, Mauro Galetti, Thomas M. Newsome, Mohammed Alamgir, Eileen Crist, Mahmoud I. Mahmoud, William F.

Laurance, and 15,364 scientist signatories from 184 countries.)

[Affiliations: Global Trophic Cascades Program, Department

of Forest Ecosystems and Society, Oregon State University,

Corvallis, OR 97331, USA. Instituto de Biociencias,

Universidade Estadual Paulista, Departamento de Ecologia,

13506-900 Rio Claro, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Centre for

Integrative Ecology, School of Life and Environmental

Sciences, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia.(Burwood

Campus). Desert Ecology Research Group, School of Life and

Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, New South

Wales 2006, Australia. Institute of Forestry and

Environmental Sciences, University of Chittagong, Chittagong

4331, Bangladesh. Department of Science and Technology in

Society, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg VA 24061. ICT/Geographic

Information Systems Unit, National Oil Spill Detection and

Response Agency (NOSDRA), PMB 145, CBD, Garki, Abuja,

Nigeria. Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability

Science, and College of Science and Engineering, James Cook

University, Cairns, Queensland 4878, Australia.]

Twenty-five years ago, the Union of Concerned Scientists

and more than 1,500 scientists, including the majority of

living Nobel laureates in the sciences, penned the 1992

``Scientists' Warning to Humanity'' (see supplemental

material). These scientists called on humankind to curtail

environmental destruction and cautioned ``a great change in

our stewardship of the Earth and the life on it is required,

if vast human misery is to be avoided.'' In their manifesto,

they showed that humans were on a collision course with the

natural world. They expressed concern about current,

impending, or potential damage on planet Earth involving

ozone depletion, freshwater availability, marine fishery

collapses, ocean dead zones, forest loss, biodiversity

destruction, climate change, and continued human population

growth. They proclaimed that fundamental changes are urgently

needed to avoid the consequences our present course would

bring.

The authors of the 1992 declaration feared humanity was

pushing the Earth's ecosystems beyond their capacity to

support the web of life. They described how we are fast

approaching the many limits of what the planet can tolerate

without substantial and irreversible harm. They pleaded that

we stabilize the human population, describing how our large

numbers--swelled by another 2 billion people since 1992, a

35% increase--exert stresses on the Earth that can overwhelm

other efforts to realize a sustainable future (Crist et al.

2017). They implored that we cut greenhouse gas (GHG)

emissions and phase out fossil fuels, staunch deforestation,

and reverse the trend of collapsing biodiversity.

On the 25th anniversary of their call, we look back at

their warning and evaluate the human response by exploring

available time-series data. Since 1992, with the exception of

stabilizing the stratospheric ozone layer, humanity has

failed to make sufficient progress in generally solving these

foreseen environmental challenges and, alarmingly, most of

them are getting far worse (Figure 1, supplemental table S1).

Especially troubling is the probability of catastrophic

climate change due to rising GHGs from burning fossil fuels

(Hansen et al. 2013), deforestation (Malhi et al. 2008), and

agricultural production, particularly from farming ruminants

for meat consumption (Ripple et al. 2014). Moreover, we have

unleashed a mass extinction event, the sixth in roughly 540

million years, wherein many current life forms could be

annihilated or at least committed to extinction by the end of

this century.

Humanity is now being given a second notice as illustrated

by these alarming trends (Figure 1). We are jeopardizing our

future by not reigning in our intense but highly uneven

material consumption and by not perceiving continued rapid

population growth as a primary driver behind many ecological

and even societal threats (Crist et al. 2017). By failing to

adequately promote family planning, implement carbon taxes,

incentivize renewable energy, and set aside substantial

swaths of habitat in well-protected reserves, humanity is not

taking the urgent steps needed to safeguard our imperiled

biosphere.

As most political leaders respond to pressure; scientists,

media influencers, and lay citizens must insist that their

governments take immediate action, as a moral imperative to

current and future generations of human and other life. With

a groundswell of organized grassroots efforts, dogged

opposition can be overwhelmed and political leaders compelled

to do the right thing. It is also time to re-examine and

change our individual behaviours, including limiting our own

reproduction (to replacement level, at most) and drastically

diminishing our consumption of fossil fuels, meat, and other

resources.

The rapid global decline in ozone-depleting substances

shows that we can make positive change when we act

decisively. We have also made advancements in reducing

extreme poverty and hunger. Other notable progress (which

does not yet show up in the global datasets in Figure 1)

includes: the rapid decline in fertility rates in some

regions attributable to investments in girls' and women's

education, the promising decline in the rate of deforestation

in parts of the Amazon (which might still be reversed), and

the rapid growth in the renewable-energy sector. We have

learned much since 1992, but the advancement of urgently

needed changes in environmental policy and human behavior is

still far from sufficient.

Sustainability transitions come about in diverse ways and

all require civil-society pressure and evidence-based

advocacy, political leadership, and a solid understanding of

policy instruments, markets and other drivers. A dozen

examples of diverse and effective steps humanity can take to

transition to sustainability include: 1) prioritizing the

enactment of connected reserves for a significant proportion

of the world's terrestrial and marine habitats, 2)

maintaining nature's ecosystem services by halting conversion

of forests, grasslands, and other native habitats; 3)

rewilding regions with native species, especially apex

predators, to repair damaged ecosystems; 4) developing and

adopting adequate policy instruments to redress the current

poaching crisis and the exploitation and trade of threatened

species; 5) reducing food waste through education and better

infrastructure; 6) promoting dietary shift towards mostly

plant-based foods; 7) further reducing fertility rates by

ensuring women have access to education, family-planning

services, especially where such resources are still lacking;

8) increasing outdoor nature education for children; 9)

developing progressive tax incentives for reducing

overconsumption; 10) reducing the consumption rate of raw

commodities by banning planned obsolescence of goods; 11)

devising and promoting new green technologies and massively

adopting renewable energy sources; and 12) estimating a

scientifically defensible, sustainable human population size

for the long-term while rallying nations and leaders to

support that vital goal.

To prevent widespread misery and catastrophic biodiversity

loss, humanity must practice a more environmentally

sustainable alternative to business-as-usual. This

prescription was well articulated by the world's leading

scientists twenty-five years ago, but in most respects, we

have not heeded their warning. It is about to be too late to

shift course away from our failing trajectory, and time is

running out. We must recognize, in our day-to-day lives and

in our governing institutions, that the Earth with all its

life is our only home.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this amendment to preserve the Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center, CCC, program.

Last month the Trump administration, in a shortsighted manner, announced plans to permanently close nine of the centers and hand the remaining 16 facilities over to private contractors by the end of the year.

This is an incredibly successful program. They have a unique mandate within Job Corps to help conserve, develop, manage public natural resources and areas and to respond to natural disasters. The 25 CCCs operate in 17 national forests and grasslands across 16 States and train thousands of at-risk youth every year.

Many of these young adults, being at risk, come from rural communities, and these programs provide them with cutting-edge vocational training and pathways out of poverty in addition to providing critical opportunities to struggling rural areas.

Beyond this, CCCs provide essential capacity for the Forest Service to fulfill its mission. During the height of the 2017 fire season, 1,200 students provided 450,000 hours of wildfire support, and after Hurricane Harvey, the students provided 5,000 hours of support to impacted communities.

This is wrong for our rural communities, wrong for the Forest Service, and it is wrong to abandon at-risk youth by killing this program. Now is the wrong time to be reducing capacity.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Schrader).

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop).

Mr. Chair, may I ask for the remaining time on either side.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself 30 seconds.

I doubt the gentlewoman has ever visited one of these programs. I have, numerous times. I have seen the hotshot teams. These kids are so proud. They were on a bad path, and now they are on a good path.

So, if you want to talk about at-risk youth, if you want to end up having them get on drugs and go to jail, kill the program. If you don't kill the program, we are going to save these kids' lives and make them into productive citizens.

On the plane one day, I sat next to a guy just coming back from one in Idaho. He had learned to cook there. He got his certificate. He was offered four jobs when he came back. Before that, he was a dead-end kid with no high school degree.

These programs have great results for these youth. Do not be cruel and kill it.

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

Madam Speaker, on June 3, 2019, I missed Roll Call Number 234, On Approving the Journal, due to a longstanding prior commitment. Had I been present, I would have voted Yea.

Madam Speaker, on May 20, 2019, my vote on Roll Call vote 219 was inadvertently not recorded. If it had been, I would have voted Yes.

Madam Speaker, if you listen carefully, you can hear drums faintly in the background. It is not a prayer circle. It is John Bolton down at the White House, beating the drums of war.

This is the same John Bolton who thought invading Iraq was a really, really great idea. In fact, he said, ``I expect that the American role actually will be fairly minimal.'' Minimal? The greatest foreign policy mistake in the history of the United States of America fairly minimal?

Now he wants to do the same thing in Iran.

Iraq was one thing, with Saddam Hussein in a relatively small country. Iran? Really, buddy? He hasn't seen any problem around the world that you can't change by regime change: North Korea, regime change; Venezuela, oh, that worked out really well a couple of weeks ago, regime change; now Iran.

What about Russia? He is kind of quiet about Russia. I wonder why that is. It might have something to do with his boss.

Now, his boss goes back and forth: War, no war. War, no war. I don't know.

We have to hope Bolton doesn't win this debate. He has never repented. He said, in 2019, ``I still think the decision to overthrow Saddam was correct.'' The same guy said, ``I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy.'' Chicken hawk.

Mr. Speaker, 2 weeks ago, the Trump Justice Department filed in court to say that the entire Affordable Care Act should be voided.

The President said: Don't worry. We are going to have a great and better plan to replace it.

Then Mitch McConnell said: No, no, we are not doing that.

Then Trump said: Well, we will run on healthcare in 2020 and promise a better plan.

And his consultant said: No, better not do that.

So now he has a secret plan that will be unveiled after the next election to replace the Affordable Care Act. Twenty-one million Americans would lose their insurance if it went away tomorrow.

We had another guy running for President back in 1968, Richard Milhous Nixon. He had a secret plan to end the Vietnam war. Actually, he didn't have a plan to end the war, but it helped him win the Presidency.

Shame on us if a fake promise to have a better healthcare plan undisclosed will come out after the election.

133 million Americans have preexisting conditions. They would lose their healthcare at the discretion of the health insurance industry, 312,000 in my district alone.

Twelve million Americans would lose their expanded Medicaid, 350,000 in my district.

Medicare would go broke 4 years earlier if President Trump prevails in repealing the Affordable Care Act in its totality.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Graves), the ranking member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on the veto message of the President of the United States to the joint resolution, H.J. Res. 46.

Madam Speaker, today, we will vote to override the President's veto of Congress' bipartisan action to terminate his so- called national emergency declaration. The bottom line is that this emergency declaration is nothing more than an end run around a majority, a bipartisan majority, of both the House and the Senate, in complete disregard of our constitutional system of separation of powers.

There is no doubt that we have a broken immigration system, and comprehensive reform should be a subject of congressional deliberation. But today, in particular, we have a new crisis. It is a humanitarian crisis, but the President has said that this wall will solve that problem.

He also says that this is about drugs. Well, let's talk about that, if we could.

Here we have walls that are static. It is very old technology that has been used for many centuries, as we know. Most recently, when the French built the Maginot Line, the Germans went around it in 24 hours, similar to what the President is proposing. He wants a wall on part of the border.

If the problem were people illegally crossing, they would cross in other areas where there is no wall, but that is actually not the case. He says that this will stop the flood of people who are coming to the border. These are not the historic people who were crossing the border legally to come to the United States for the purposes of work and to remit funds home or those who were illegally smuggling drugs through remote areas. This is a humanitarian crisis.

This is recently in Tijuana, a photo of a flood of people coming to actually two areas where we have walls and fences, wanting to surrender to the Border Patrol and claim asylum, or coming to places where we don't have walls and fences, searching for Border Patrol agents so they can claim asylum.

A wall is going to do nothing to deal with the humanitarian crisis, and we need to take a much more thoughtful approach to that.

Secondly, he says it is about drugs. He makes a big deal about this contributing to the deaths in the opioid crisis, fentanyl, and all that. Of course, the Chinese are shipping in fentanyl in other ways. It is not coming across the Mexican border. Maybe we ought to do something about that.

We have tried with walls to prevent the smuggling of drugs. The drug smugglers are very creative. They have used rather primitive devices. That is a catapult. They have used drones. They frequently use tunnels.

We found out, in the trial of El Chapo Guzman, that their preferred route is not some remote area that is unwalled but, actually, to come across at the legal border crossings here. It is such a big business, they can modify a semi tractor-trailer, put in a fake floor, and send 10 in a day. We only inspect 1 out of 10. Therefore, they get nine through. They lose one truck, millions of dollars' worth of drugs in a truck, and they don't care. It is a multimillion-dollar business.

We need new tools and technology at the legal border crossings. In particular, we need that so we can scan 100 percent of the vehicles. We are going to have to reconfigure the border crossings. We have to bring in the equipment. We have to hire more personnel. These are very expensive undertakings.

Instead, we are going to waste money on a static wall, which isn't going to stop the drugs. Even more than that, the former Commandant of the Coast Guard testified that they have actionable intelligence, they think, on about 80 percent of the maritime drug shipments targeting the U.S., mostly from Central America, some from other Asia-Pacific areas.

They can only act on one-fifth of the actionable intelligence because they don't have the personnel. They don't have the ships. They don't have the helicopters. They don't have the tools they need to interdict those maritime drug shipments.

We are going to waste money on a stupid, static wall. Meanwhile, the drugs are going to flood in on a maritime basis or through the legal border crossings.

Last year, the Republicans--this is supposedly a crisis, and somehow it wasn't a crisis when the Republicans controlled the Congress up until the beginning of this year. They refused to appropriate funds for the wall. Then the President shut down the government for 35 days, the longest government shutdown in our Nation's history. More than 800,000 people were either denied coming to work or had to work without pay.

Finally, the President agreed to open the government with a short- term continuing resolution, and he said that lawmakers should come up with a comprehensive border security proposal.

Congress did that. A bipartisan group delivered compromise legislation that rejected the proposed border wall as ineffective. Alternatively, it made effective, robust investments in border security. Congress overwhelmingly passed the legislation. The President agreed to sign it. Then he issued a national emergency declaration in order to raid funds from other departments to secure funding for a border wall, which Congress has repeatedly voted against.

As I already said, he has made it about drugs; the wall will be ineffective. He made it about the humanitarian crisis; the wall will be ineffective.

How is he going to pay for it? Well, he is going to take money that the Department of Defense was going to spend on high-priority military construction projects, which will ultimately undermine the training, readiness, and quality of life for our men and women in the Armed Forces.

In fact, General Robert Neller, Commandant of the Marines, has detailed that the ``unplanned/unbudgeted'' shift of funds to deploy troops to the southern border last fall has forced him to cancel or reduce training exercises, delay urgent repairs, posing an ``unacceptable risk'' to our Armed Forces' training and readiness.

Then he is also going to take, ironically, money from the DOD drug interdiction program, which will further inhibit the capability of the DOD in effectively interdicting drug shipments, in favor of a stupid, static wall.

This emergency declaration also violates a number of existing laws. The Military Construction Codification Act only authorizes the Secretary of Defense to reallocate funds for construction projects during a national emergency if the project is ``necessary to support'' a ``use of the Armed Forces.''

Our Armed Forces are not responsible for enforcing our immigration laws. Using these funds in this way is a direct violation of existing law.

The administration would also need to seize thousands of acres of private property by eminent domain to build this wall. This is the party of private property rights and local control, and they are going to support that activity, or some are.

Currently, more than two-thirds of border property needed to build the wall is owned by private parties or relevant States. In 1952, the Supreme Court held in Youngstown Sheet & Tube that President Truman's declaration of a national emergency, even in the midst of an international armed conflict, did not permit him to unilaterally seize private property.

It is unlikely that this thing will get built anyway, but we are going through this process. Because of this likely illegal overreach, the House passed a bipartisan resolution to terminate the national emergency declaration. Even the Republican-controlled Senate passed the resolution, with 12 Republican Senators breaking with the President.

With the President's decision to override this resolution, we must send a strong, clear message to the President that we live in a constitutional, representative democracy, and the President and his administration cannot ignore Congress and existing law when they don't like our actions.

We must stand up and defend our constitutional system, separation of powers, and Article I of the Constitution of the United States.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler), who is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Espaillat).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Castro).

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

Just in response to the gentleman, if he had been listening, he might have heard the gentleman from Texas listing bases in Texas which are going to lose funds for critical military construction projects, yet he launches off into some fantasy about Iraq--I didn't even quite get that part--and also that we are proposing open borders. I am not aware of anyone on this side of the aisle who is proposing open borders.

We are proposing effective, 21st century border security at the real threats to America, like drug importation through our legal ports of entry and maritime drug imports that we can't intercept because we don't have the resources, and we are wasting money on a stupid, static wall.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Barragan).

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

Madam Speaker, I was just looking up that most of the deaths--or many--

are due to fentanyl, and the fentanyl, of course, is all produced in China. Some of it is shipped via UPS, FedEx, and the international postal service. We lack the screening capability to deal with that.

Much of it does go to Mexico and is then smuggled into the U.S., but it is not the classic myth of these people carrying backpacks through remote areas of the desert where, if we only put up a wall, the wall would stop them from getting the drugs into the U.S.

If people had paid attention to the extraordinary trial of El Chapo Guzman in New York, which I did, there was testimony after testimony after testimony that he is bringing and they--his successors--are bringing the drugs through our ports of entry, because they deal in volume and sophistication.

And what are we going to do? We are going to build a medieval wall over here while they continue to flood this country by modifying pickup trucks, passenger cars, and semis to smuggle humans and drugs into the United States of America.

Border Patrol is understaffed. Border Patrol does not have adequate technology. They only screen a very small percentage of the vehicles coming through, sometimes 6 percent, sometimes as high as 8 percent. Wow.

Well, then, you have got a 92 percent chance, if you are El Chapo Guzman or some other scumbag drug person from a cartel in Mexico, of getting your product in in an efficient, volumetric way.

Why would you pay someone with a backpack to go through some remote area when you can just ship them in that way, or you can use FedEx or UPS if you are Chinese.

You can go online and find Chinese selling fentanyl, and they will give you advice about how you should order it from them and how you can get it into the United States.

Why aren't we doing something about that? The President is making a big deal about getting tough on China. They are producing all the fentanyl, and it is coming in here in many, many different ways, and this wall will do nothing--nothing--to deal with that.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Speaker of the House.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, may I ask how much time remains.

Madam Speaker, I won't use that much. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would like to have a quote here from someone who, I think, is quite prominent: You go under; you go around; you go through it. What they need is more manpower and more technology.

That was the Acting Chief of Staff for the White House, Mick Mulvaney, when, perhaps, he was a little more independent as a Member of the United States Congress. That was August 25, 2015.

I would ask: What has changed since then? Well, he now works for the President. That is a change.

Donald Trump, during his campaign, was real hardline on immigration, but he kept forgetting to mention immigration in some of his speeches. So his staff came up with a mnemonic. They said: Well, he is a builder. If we say ``wall,'' he will remember it.

And the President did. It was just an afterthought. It was: How are we going to get him to give his hard line on immigration during his campaign speeches and get rousing going. Let's use the wall.

The wall then became a life unto its own, as a campaign promise, not as something that is effective.

As we have talked about before, the drugs, use a trebuchet or a catapult. Use a drone, tunnels--really common, tunnels--and, of course, legal border crossings.

This is an end conclusion to a campaign promise for his base but not what is in the best interests of the United States of America in terms of preventing the shipment of illegal drugs.

Now, I don't know where the gentleman came up with that new statistic that three times as many drugs were intercepted outside the ports of entry, unless he was using the Coast Guard, which he may have been, because the Coast Guard intercepted more drugs than every other agency of the Federal Government, combined, in the maritime route.

Unfortunately, as the former Commandant of the Coast Guard said: We can identify 80 percent with our intel, 80 percent of the drug shipments coming in on a maritime basis, but the Coast Guard only has the resources to intercept 20 percent.

So I guess that is probably where that statistic came from.

The Coast Guard is doing a great job with inadequate resources. In the bipartisan compromise, they got some additional money for air and marine assets, three multi-enforcement aircraft. They could use a heck of a lot more.

Why don't we get that 80 percent? Why don't they have resources to get that 80 percent that they know about, and then let's get better intel and get the other 20 percent.

And then let's scan 100 percent of the vehicles coming across the border. I have been at the border, when, through intuition, a Border Patrol agent found drug smuggling. I just happened to be there that day. I mean, it was just sort of a: Whoa, Congressman, you might like to see this.

The guy drove up to the border. He had a birthday cake and a bottle of tequila on the seat. The Border Patrol guy said: Hmm, something is suspicious. Take the truck over there.

They scoped out the gas tank. They found big blocks of drugs in the gas tank.

Was that because we had sophisticated technology and when the guy pulled the truck up we could use that technology? No, it was the intuition of the Border Patrol agent.

I said: How did you know to go and really search through that guy's vehicle?

He said: Well, there was nothing on his key ring. There was only one key in the ignition. He was a throwaway.

The cartel was probably paying him 10,000 bucks or something to drive that stolen or purchased pickup truck across the border concealing drugs, and the human element caught that guy.

There aren't enough Border Patrol agents. They have openings. They are not adequately compensated. They weren't paid during the shutdown, but they were still working at the border. They are the first line of defense.

But they also need new technology. We can't install all that technology to scan 100 percent of the vehicles coming through unless we invest a lot of money in improving the border crossing because we will have trucks backed up 100 miles back into Mexico because of the amount of commerce that comes across.

So what are we going to do? We are going to build a stupid, static wall over there and over there, and we are still going to let, probably, 85 percent of the vehicles go through without applying technology.

Guzman, sitting in his jail cell, is probably just chortling over this. He is saying: Boy, are those Americans stupid. Why don't they get the technology they need to scan the cargo that we are hiding in very sophisticated ways in tractor trailers, in pickup trucks, in individual passenger vehicles? Why don't they intercept the drugs that are coming in through the oceans that they even know about and they are not intercepting them?

No, we are going to build a dumb wall.

And, by the way, when the Republicans were in charge, we had a vote on that and it failed. If this was such a crisis and such a great idea when the Republicans controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House, why didn't they make it a priority?

Well, they didn't make it a priority because they thought it was a stupid idea. But now it is a political thing. This is a victory for the President. It excites his base. It energizes his base. He has to have it, so he declares a national emergency.

The emergency is political. It is not national security. It is not drugs.

We have a humanitarian crisis at the border--yes, we do--and what is a wall going to do about that?

They come to the border. They stand there and they say: We want to apply for asylum in the United States.

If they come across in a remote area, they hope they come across a Border Patrol agent because they want to surrender at the moment, right there, and get some shelter and get medical care. They are now organizing busloads to come up from Guatemala and Honduras.

We are not dealing with the root problems down there, and we are not dealing with the smugglers who are now hiring very nice, luxury buses as opposed to the old ride on that killer train that people used to take to come up, when there were smugglers who would often rape them, kill them, rob them, whatever else. Now they have converted to: Oh, let's put them in a luxury coach and they will have rest stops and everything else.

This has become big business. Why aren't we doing something about that? The wall will do nothing about that--nothing.

Why, why, why are we going to waste billions of dollars on a medieval fortress that won't work?

I urge my colleagues to vote and override the veto of the President of the United States; restore the integrity of the Congress of the United States and the appropriations process under Article I of the Constitution of the United States.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question.