Floor Statements

I thank my colleagues for their support, the former chairman of the committee and now chair of the Subcommittee on Energy. He is a very important person over there, and there are no words I could convey that would meet the reputation of Mr. Upton. I thank him and Ms. DeGette very much.

They have said a lot of the specific content of this bill. This is a situation where Congress passed a good law. There was a provision in it that needed to be corrected, and, lo and behold, Congress is correcting that provision. It is about these security devices that obviously can't operate on no-power mode. They have got to be on. When the bad guys come in, we have got to be watching. That is really what this is all about.

It is a combination of the bipartisan commitment that we have had to energy efficiency, especially last year. I do give Mr. Upton a lot of credit for this. We have had a lot of debates in this Congress about climate change, about the science, and aside from--we don't need to get into that--to embrace as we have in a bipartisan way, there are enormous benefits to efficiency every single place we can find it.

This efficiency bill originally was applying to all these devices to put them in no-load mode. That was cutting down on use of electricity. It was cutting down on carbon emissions. It was saving people money. But the no-load obviously couldn't apply to security devices.

Last year, Mr. Pompeo, when he was a Congressman, supported this, and now that he is going to be our leader in the CIA, he knows you have got to keep that watching device on when the bad guys are lurking around.

We are back this year. One of our first bills to be passed and hopefully signed by the President is the extension of the correction that we made sometime ago. I am delighted to be here with my colleagues in support of this legislation, getting this House of Representatives off to a constructive start.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Young for being a great partner in the presentation of this bill. Many of us worked together on rural telecommunications issues, from getting broadband to all Vermonters and folks in rural parts of your districts to improving our wireless infrastructure to ensuring we have adequate choice and competition in cable markets. That is because it is our desire, and mine especially, to ensure that rural America has comparable telecom services to urban and suburban America, just as the 1996 Telecommunications Act requires. Making that happen requires constant effort and focus.

We often focus on rural broadband accessibility and affordability so that the next generation of technological innovation does not skip rural America and leave it behind. The promise of innovation, like the Internet of things, should not be earmarked just for urban and suburban America, which is why it is backwards and unfortunate that we are still talking about finding ways to ensure that traditional landline telephone calls can be completed without interruption on a consistent basis, but that is exactly what this bill that I worked on with Representative Young is getting at.

Our bill would require the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, to establish rules that require third-party providers--or least cost routers, as they are called, which is the problem in the call chain--to register their companies, for the first time, with the FCC and, therefore, have to comply with FCC service quality regulations, just like other companies.

This legislation would make it easier for the FCC to hold accountable third-party providers. The FCC will finally know who they are and make them comply with those quality standards.

This is really important in rural areas because we have got companies that do business with urban America. In Vermont, Dakin Farm had rural call completion problems during their busiest times in 2012. That was the Thanksgiving to Christmas holiday period.

It really hurt their bottom line. It put them at a competitive disadvantage. When people call in and the call is dropped, they think it is bad service from Dakin Farm or the company that they are calling, when it is not. Those folks have to then deal with the reputational harm that is caused.

It is important in rural school districts like Camels Hump in Vermont that rely on these calls when there is a snowstorm or ice storm--and there is one coming tonight--to check whether, in fact, they have got to get their kids to school or not. So it is a big deal when they need it.

I appreciate, by the way, the work that Representative Young has done on this. I look forward to this bill passing both Chambers and being signed into law so we can, hopefully, make rural call completion issues a thing of the past.

Mr. Chairman, on probably the most important issue, we are having the dumbest debate. We say the healthcare bill is good. You say it stinks.

We think it is good because we think it is good that kids, until they are age 26, can stay on their parents' plan. We think it is good because people with preexisting conditions ought to have access to health care, and we think it is good that a person who gets sick shouldn't lose their health care.

You say it is bad, even though the plan was based on a Heritage Foundation initiative and adopted largely in Massachusetts by a Republican governor.

Bottom line, you are the majority in the House; you are the majority in the Senate; and you have got the Presidency. You have got some responsibility to show us the beef. Where is the plan?

Now, there is a lot of paper over there, but you haven't shown us a plan. And here is why: because when you put pen to paper, all hell is going to break loose on your side because you have to move beyond the rhetoric to figuring out how you are going to pay to keep our kids on our healthcare plan. You are going to figure out how to pay if we are going to let folks with preexisting conditions have health care.

Those don't solve themselves, and you don't have a plan. We are entitled, the American people are entitled, to have it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I want to say to Mr. Ross, my friend, I agree with just about every single thing you say about the great State of Israel, but I disagree with you about this resolution. Let me explain why.

Israel is a Jewish democratic state. It has been our strong ally. We have supported it through thick and thin, most recently with a $38 billion appropriation for their security over the next 10 years. I supported that. But this question that we face fundamentally comes down to whether we are going to support a two-state solution or move toward a one-state solution.

The bottom line here is that settlement activity, every settlement that is made--600,000 settlers living in the West Bank and Jerusalem-- makes it ever-more difficult to achieve that two-state solution.

President Obama, in his abstention on that veto, was acknowledging what has been the policy of this country. Ronald Reagan was opposed to settlements. You know, you get a family that settles anywhere, but in the West Bank, they put down roots. They are good people. They have a belief that the West Bank belongs Biblically to Israel. That is their view. Many politicians, including Netanyahu, appear to be embracing that. That is not the international position. It is not the unified position in Israel. Many folks in Israel think the settlements are a threat to the possibility of achieving the secure borders and the security of Israel and the maintenance of it as a democratic Jewish state.

Mr. Speaker, there is another issue. With 600,000 settlers, with 4.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and also living in the State of Israel and 6.5 million Jewish members of the State of Israel, the demographics, long term, are going to reach a tipping point where there could be more Arab voters than there are Jewish voters, and then the State of Israel will have to make the decision Jewish or democratic. I want the State of Israel to continue to be that Jewish and democratic state that it is, and that is why I oppose this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time, and I thank our chair of the committee and our ranking member.

I am here to stand with Israel. The question of the best way to do that is one of legitimate debate. It is a debate that we are having here in the House. It is a debate that the folks in Israel are having there. There is no question that the resolution before us is not the one that everyone would have written, or the one that was before the U.N. was the one everyone would have written. There is no question that there is fault on the side of the Palestinians with respect to coming to the table for peace.

But here is the question that is starting to really make an impact on the possibility of achieving the two-state solution that both sides by and large believe is essential, and that is something that is within the control of the Israeli Government: Will it continue to intensify the support for settlements in the West Bank? If it does, as it has been, there are 600,000 settlers now between the West Bank and east Jerusalem. If it continues to do that, it makes as a practical matter it virtually impossible the land-for-peace swap that we know is essential to get to a two-state solution. That is the practical challenge that we have.

We are all friends of Israel. All of us here believe in a Jewish state and a democratic state.

The second issue of major concern that is discussed in Israel as well as here is the fact that demographics are going to catch up and cause a real crisis in Israel to maintain that Jewish identity and that democratic tradition. There are 4.5 million Arabs who live between the West Bank and in Israel proper. There are 6.5 million Jewish citizens. If there is not some resolution, at some point a decision has to be made to maintain the Jewish character at the expense of democratic ideals or compromise democratic ideals in order to maintain that Jewish identity.

The Israeli State has a proud, strong tradition of being democratic, of being reliable, of standing up for civil and human rights. Many there, and some of us here, believe settlements are an impediment to that tradition.

Thank you for doing this.

One of the things that we have to recognize in Congress is that policies really make a difference.

Wages have stagnated; people haven't had a raise in 15 or 20 years; and there are a lot of reasons for that. Some of it is globalization. A lot of it has to do with the weakening bargaining power of unions that were so helpful in improving living standards for everyday Americans, not just for the members of the union but for others who benefited by the commitment of unions to good jobs, good wages, and safe working conditions.

There are pressures with globalization that have reduced bargaining power. It has made things cheaper to buy but has really helped contribute to lower wages. The bottom line is that we need policies in order to focus attention, as you are saying, on the middle class and improving their purchasing power, giving them what the middle class has always had: a wage or a salary where, at the end of the month, they can pay their bills, set aside a little money for college, set aside a little money for a vacation, set aside a little extra money for retirement. That is a basic contract that we should be making.

We have got a variety of things where we have created policies and undercut the capacity of the middle class to sustain itself.

The tax policy is out of control. It is really outrageous when we have been passing these Bush tax cuts that are skewed very heavily toward high-end folks with the notion and the assertion that it will create jobs through trickle-down economics. It hasn't worked.

When we have entered, in some cases, into trade agreements, it didn't take into account the environmental and labor standards that are so essential to having a level playing field. American workers are willing to compete, but it has got to be on a level playing field.

Then basic things that a confident nation always invests in, even in tough times, like education and the future. We grew up, and those ahead of us had the GI Bill. They came back from serving their country and got a free education. But you know what? They paid it back, and then some, with their productivity.

We established Medicare and Social Security that has provided a safety net for older people. We are trying to make inroads now into providing a secure health care system for everybody through the Affordable Care Act, but we have a big challenge in bringing down those costs.

We have an opportunity to invest in, as you were saying, not just the higher education, but job training for people so that they have the skills that we need to compete in a modern economy.

And the infrastructure that you mentioned, how is it that in this country, where we have extraordinary engineers, extraordinary needs, and bipartisan agreement that we have to rebuild our roads and our bridges, extend broadband throughout the country, including in rural areas of Vermont and, by the way, rebuild our schools, rebuild our hospitals, all of these are institutions that are essential to the well-being of local communities that are where the middle-class people live, so I really appreciate your focus on this.

What is frustrating, I think, for America and for a lot of us in Congress is that our focus on policy is how many more tax cuts should we give to folks who don't need them, how much more should we spend on things that don't reward investment and hard work, and for how long are we going to continue this disinvestment in science, in research, in medical research, in infrastructure, and in education.

I am pretty amazed, as I know you are, that young people getting out of college, on average, have a $30,000-plus debt. Many have accumulated debts in the range of $100,000, and a lot of those debts are shared by their parents who have cosigned. They pay higher interest rates. A lot of those parents who have finally paid down their house and were looking forward to maybe taking a 2- or 3-week vacation, maybe a cruise, suddenly find themselves saddled, along with their kids, with these very high monthly payments for education.

So there is a bipartisan desire, I think, to help the middle class, but we are in a debate about what the solutions are. Essentially, one argument is that no taxes, no regulation, will somehow lift all boats. I don't think I have seen evidence that that is the case. Another argument is you have got to make sensible, prudent, disciplined decisions about how and where to invest in the future of this country.

So, Mr. Garamendi, I salute you for your advocacy here and for speaking so eloquently on this issue that I think is the issue of our time.

That is exactly right.

If I may, Mr. Garamendi, you are so right. One of the upsides of this really tough economy is that interest rates have gone down, and a lot of folks have been given a little breathing room by being able to reduce their interest rates on their mortgage from 7 or 8 percent down to 3\1/2\ percent. That is real money in their pocket.

Why not allow students and parents who have cosigned on students loans that same opportunity to save a few bucks? They will pay those loans back.

So I salute you.

Well, I thank you for your leadership.

Mr. Speaker, because of flight cancellations due to inclement weather, I was unable to vote on Roll Call 2, Election of the Speaker. Had I been present, I would have voted for Representative Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Section 4:

``The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.''

Mr. Speaker, at the heart of this issue are two questions: First, is climate change real? Is it a threat to our economy, to jobs, to our environment, and to our security?

Speaking for Vermont, climate change is real. In the past 5 years, Vermont has had 10 Federal disaster declarations from severe weather, including Tropical Storm Irene that did nearly $1 billion worth of damage. Our farmers, ski area operators, and maple sugar producers are all trying to contend with the changing climate.

Also, we know that that oil is the same. This is not sweet Texas crude. Tar sands produce about 20 to 40 percent more carbon emissions than that Texas oil, and extracting it is going to produce about 27 million metric tons of carbon emissions.

The second question is this: Should Congress now or should Congress ever pass a major piece of legislation without any committee hearings, particularly when that legislation is only about oil going through our country, not to our country?

And this legislation includes a special provision that exempts a foreign corporation from contributing to an environmental cleanup fund all our domestic corporations are required to pay into.

On the issue of jobs, these are good jobs, about 2,000 jobs. But if this Congress would do its job, we would pass a surface transportation bill that would create 200,000 jobs and put those 3 million men and women in our labor unions to work on good things that are going to rebuild this country.

Mr. Speaker, this is the wrong bill, it is passed in the wrong way, and at exactly the wrong time.

I urge a ``no'' vote.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlelady.

One of the big challenges that this institution faces is to restore its credibility with the American people. This process that we have gone through, where, at the end of the negotiations between our House and Senate negotiators, two provisions of great significance were inserted into the bill--one that would provide relief from Dodd-Frank provisions to Wall Street banks, the other which would allow individuals to increase donations to $2.5 million per cycle--had no hearings. They had no debate. No one has had any input on what the implications are of these actions that are very significant when it comes to campaign finance and when it comes to the integrity of Dodd- Frank.

We must legislate in the light of day and not use a piece of legislation that is of vital concern to the American people to attach provisions that have nothing to do with that particular bill. It is why so many people--Republicans, Democrats, and Independents--think that the political process is not on the level.

So why put these provisions in? We could pass these bills without it. These provisions would then be allowed to have hearings in committee, and then we would be responsible to vote ``yes'' or ``no'' on the campaign finance provision, on the Dodd-Frank provision, where our constituents would be able to hold each and every one of us accountable as to what our view was.

Mr. Speaker, I support this, and I can't add to the excellent words of my colleague from North Carolina.

It is an amazing thing when we are naming post offices to hear about the brave lives--in this case of a very young woman with a bright future who gave her life for her country. So I am delighted to join in Representative Wagner's legislation to make this name permanent so that we can all remember and revere the memory of this brave soldier.

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

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

Again, it is a combination of humility and pride when we hear about the lives of these brave young Americans. That is the second wonderful person from Missouri, but all of us, in our States, have people that have served America this way.

What strikes me here is Sergeant Fisher went from Iraq to Afghanistan--he didn't have to do that, but he had a need to serve--and the inspiring story about his selfless commitment to serving this country when he had behind a loving family and a wife, and he sacrificed all.

If he were here and were asked the question, ``Was it worth it?'' you know he would say it was because he loved his family, he loved his country, and he was willing and did give his life for his country.

So as a person here standing on the floor, as an American hearing about the bravery of this young man, I want to thank Representative Wagner for bringing this to the collective attention of the House of Representatives, and we fully support this legislation. It is a small honor for a large sacrifice.

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

Mr. Speaker, I fully support this legislation.

At this time, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Florida, Representative Wilson, and I thank her for sponsoring this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I am in full support of this postal naming.

At this time, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from California, Representative Capps, the sponsor of this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I support this legislation.

At this time, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from

California, Representative Hahn, the sponsor of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), my good friend who is the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee.

I yield back the balance of my time.