Floor Statements

Thank you, Mr. Dicks.

There is something we have to acknowledge, whatever side of the issue we are going to vote on: we are playing with fire. A government shutdown is going to have two consequences: one, the obvious, and that is folks that depend on governmental services are going to be enormously inconvenienced. Contractors who are owed money from the Federal Government won't be paid. Our citizens are going to be adversely hurt. And folks who work honestly and hard every day for the Federal Government are going to be out of a job. That's significant.

But what's really significant in the long term is that this is sending a signal to the world, not just America, that the American political process is fundamentally broken. If we are unable to reach an agreement on a 1-week continuing resolution to keep government going, what are the prospects for us when we face the challenge of a budget next year? What are the prospects for us when we face the challenge that looms ahead of us in May of raising the debt ceiling so that America can honor the obligation that it has to pay its bills?

When the world begins to lose confidence that America's political process can function, it is going to have a very dramatic and negative impact on the economy. Interest rates are going to go up because the cost of borrowing will go up because the anxiety about whether America meets its obligations will increase. We are playing with fire here.

The biggest problem I have with the proposals that have been made fiscally on the other side in my view is that they are designed to fail. It's not that there isn't a legitimate concern about spending and getting our fiscal house in order. You're right about that. We share that. But if we're going to get from here to there, you cannot attack 100 percent of the problem on 12 percent of the budget.

Mr. Speaker, today I stand before you to honor Bob Young, the retiring president of Central Vermont Public Service.

In his time at CVPS, Bob led the company through a cultural, service and environmental transformation to the benefit of its customers and the Green Mountain State. He turned CVPS into a leaner, more responsive company that placed customer service, reliability and corporate citizenship as its cornerstones.

When Bob assumed the presidency in 1995, CVPS faced a host of challenges, from utility restructuring to rate pressures to low employee morale. CVPS was often perceived as out of touch with Vermont values, and regulatory conflicts were common.

Bob put an end, to `business as usual' and transformed CVPS into a world-class utility, recognized by Forbes as one of 100 most trustworthy companies in the U.S. Under Bob's leadership, CVPS won the Edison Electric Institute's Emergency Recovery Award three times. It is the nation's smallest utility to win it even once.

Bob focused the company on reducing environmental impacts, improving wildlife habitats and creating the nation's first manure-to-energy customer choice program. The Department of Energy subsequently awarded CVPS the 2009 Utility Green Power Program of the Year.

Bob made CVPS a model of corporate civic engagement, providing leadership on a host of community projects in Vermont, and organizing blood drives that have broken the New England record three years in a row.

Bob will leave a lasting legacy when he retires on May 3, 2011. Please join me today in thanking Bob Young for his leadership and in wishing him and his wife, Vicky, the very best in the next phase of their lives.

Madam Speaker, I speak today to honor one of Vermont's outstanding civic and corporate leaders. Bob Young is retiring as president of Central Vermont Public Service Company, one of Vermont's largest and most respected companies.

When Bob Young became president, that utility faced many challenges. He faced them directly: rising costs, transmission system upgrades, a customer base that wanted reliable power but green power. Bob Young succeeded in making CVPS an award-winning company. He focused on customer service and environmental concern and stewardship, proving that green power could be reliable and affordable. It was a team effort. His valued employees, his diligent board of directors and his shareholders, all were part of it. But the best part was wife, Vicky, who was not only at his side but oftentimes a step ahead.

You served Vermont well, and on behalf of a grateful Vermont, Bob and Vicky, thank you for your service.

I thank the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, today's legislation is essentially about the very simple sounding act of abolishing the Clean Air Act.

Why? How is it that we are going to do this? The authors in support of this legislation have come to the legislative conclusion that global warming is a hoax. Give him credit. Coming to that conclusion was a big lift. It flies in the face of the unanimous conclusion of American scientists, 97 percent, that global warming is real and it's manmade.

And, you know, when you are going to get to that conclusion, you have to follow a long-established tradition we humans have, and that's the ability to

disregard the obvious and the proven when that conflicts with what our ideology says we want.

You know, Aristotle was the EPA of his day. He was attacked when he said that the Earth was round. The world at that time thought the world was flat, and people argued with Aristotle and about Aristotle for 1,500 years.

Galileo became the EPA of his day when he said that the Earth revolved around the sun. He too was attacked for centuries for being ``wrong.''

Today we have unanimous, near unanimous, scientific conclusion that global warming exists, it's a threat to our planet, it's a threat to our health and, yet, as the folks who attacked Aristotle when he said the Earth was round, as the folks who attacked Galileo when he said the Earth revolved around the sun, the authors, in support of this legislation, deny the proven fact of global warming and wave it away by abolishing the Clean Air Act. This is the wrong step to be taking.

John Adler was in the class just after me, and I got to know him well because the freshman and sophomore classes went through learning how to serve in this Congress together. I also got to know him because we happened to have our lockers in the same section of the gym. And I am stunned, as we all are.

But what was so amazing to me, in my getting to know John Adler, was I learned about his Harvard education, the college and the law school. I had some assumptions about him that he had a much more prosperous early life than he did. He had to earn everything that he got. I also learned about the challenges that he faced. And what was clear to me, as it was to all of us who got to know him, is that he was a person who made a decision that whatever the challenge, he was going to face it with good humor, with optimism, with a sense of doing the work because it was worth doing in and of itself.

I also remember many times asking him about his weekend; and what he always responded with was something about his family. It wasn't about the speech he gave; it wasn't about the press release or a story in the paper on TV. It was always, every single time, about his family. John Adler was a good friend. He will be missed. A wonderful, wonderful servant in Congress.

I thank the gentlelady.

The House passed H.R. 1 with the Republican majority. It can't get it through the Senate. They're frustrated. Their responsibility is to be direct with the people who supported their passage of H.R. 1, and being direct with those folks is telling them they have a problem in the Senate. The reason they have a problem in the Senate is because the Senate has a problem with the bill.

Coming into this House of Representatives as a political gambit to pass a ``let's pretend'' bill: let's pretend if the House passes it, it becomes law, without Senate action; let's pretend that if the House passes it, it becomes law without the Senate or the President signing it. That is misleading and not being straight with the folks who supported H.R. 1. Tell them the truth. They have a problem with the Senate.

Now, there's a reason they have a problem with the Senate. H.R. 1 is a bill designed to fail. It will not address the deficit. It will reduce spending in some areas. If you're low income and getting heating assistance, you will lose some money. If you're an oil company that's making $55 billion in tax breaks from people, you will continue to receive it. If you have the practice of putting our two wars, Afghanistan and Iraq, on the credit card, that will continue. What H.R. 1 did was target low-income folks, middle class folks, and it left all the other aspects of the budget off the table that have to be on the table if we're going to get the fiscal balance.

Number two, H.R. 1 was loaded with political hand grenades that were designed to make this thing blow up. And

that's what's happening in the Senate: things like ending National Public Radio or Planned Parenthood; getting into a debate about choice and abortion. All of those are issues that are vitally important and legitimate to be debated. But why put them on a bill where the objective of the bill is to help bring us into fiscal balance? That's a self-conscious decision, it's a willful decision, and a decision that has implications. And you're seeing it played out in the United States Senate.

H.R. 1 will not succeed in the challenge we face getting us the fiscal balance. And that is the problem that the majority in the House is having with that bill. Coming in here with a bill that's flatly, explicitly unconstitutional by its own language, not what the sponsors say the bill does, but what the bill says it does. Allowing the House by its unilateral action to pass legislation is unconstitutional, it has no merit, and it is simply a way of trying to avoid responsibility.

I thank the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, there is no stronger supporter of H.R. 1 than Mr. Gohmert from Texas, and he made a very simple, very elegant, very eloquent statement of principle about adhering to the Constitution.

This legislation has to be interpreted by its own words, not by what people say is in it. What it explicitly says is that, if the House has not received a message from the Senate before April 6 stating that it has passed a measure providing for the appropriation for the departments and agencies of government for the remainder of the fiscal year--and this is the language of your legislation--the provisions of H.R. 1, as passed by law on February 19, 2011, are hereby enacted into law.

That's absurd. It's a pretend bill that says, if the House acts and the Senate doesn't, our action becomes law. It's absurd. It says, if the House acts and if the Senate doesn't and if the President doesn't sign this piece of legislation, it's law. That's the document that you've presented to this body to vote on.

Now, Mr. Gohmert took the higher road here. Instead of taking out his frustration with the United States Senate at the expense of the Constitution, he stood up for the Constitution. That's what each and every one of us has the opportunity to do. All of us have had frustration with the other body because they sit on bills and kill them. In the eyes of the beholder, it's a good or bad bill, but it does not entitle us to essentially pretend that the Constitution doesn't apply to the legislation that we have to consider.

Also, if we have the political and practical problem of moving ahead on a piece of legislation in the House, is it right for us, in effect, to mislead the people who sent us here by suggesting that we're passing a law that has any impact when we know it has absolutely no impact? Is that a fair, appropriate

or honorable thing for a Democrat or a Republican to do?

I urge us to vote ``no'' on this legislation.

Madam Speaker, today, I intend to use my 5 minutes to talk about the budget crisis that is before Congress. We have to make a decision whether to continue the operations of government. That's the debate that is now under way with the continuing resolution, and we soon face the question of whether or not Congress will extend the debt limit.

Now, let me start by acknowledging the obvious. America has to get its fiscal house in order. How we got here is debated, but certain things are indisputable. We have two wars that have been paid for on the credit card. We had tax cuts that went to the high-income Americans that are on the credit card. We recently extended them at the cost of $700 billion to the deficit. We had irresponsible behavior on the part of Wall Street that required rescuing the financial system in America so that Main Street could fight and survive another day. And then that led to a collapse in the economy and 10 percent unemployment that required governmental action in order to try the stabilize the economy. We have a long way to go in restoring the economy, but that has to be our first mission.

The Republican proposal on how to address this budget in these continuing resolutions will fail. The reason it will fail is because it fails to do what must obviously be done if we're going to have long- term fiscal stability, and that is put everything on the table. The cuts that are proposed by the Republican majority, unwise as they are, cannot do the job.

The total focus of the Republican effort in its budget plan to restore fiscal balance is to attack 12\1/2\ percent of the budget, the non-defense discretionary portion of the budget. It happens to be programs that are benefiting Americans in many cases, but leaving aside the debate about whether we should cut low-income heating assistance for the most vulnerable Americans or cut Pell scholarships that allow aspiring young people to enter the middle class, we could cut the entire non-defense discretionary portion of the budget and we could continue to have an annual deficit of $1 trillion.

So, if we're going to get to budget balance and fiscal stability, which we can do, we have to put everything on the table, and that means tax expenditures. The tax breaks that have been written into the Tax Code over the years by Republicans and Democrats alike actually cost taxpayers more than the entire appropriations budget, and many of us are asking the question: Why is it that we are going to be continuing $5 billion in tax breaks to very profitable oil companies when oil is now selling at $106 a barrel? Why are we allowing that but at the same time cutting low-income heating assistance and turning down the thermostat of cold Vermonters and cold Americans?

Why is it that hedge fund millionaires and billionaires literally pay a lower tax rate than their chauffeurs, their drivers, their cooks, their secretaries?

We have got to put tax expenditures on the table. We have to put the defense budget on the table. How is it that America is spending over $700 billion a year? How is it that we are putting two wars on the credit card and not facing the fiscal responsibility to tell Americans how we are going to pay for that but are simply putting that burden on generations of Americans that will come after us?

We have to reform health care. The first act of this Congress was to repeal the health care bill. And debate as we might about what's the best way forward on health care, no one can dispute that our first goal has to be to bring down the cost of health care; because whatever kind of system we have, if the cost is increasing two and three and four times the rate of inflation, job growth, and profits, it's not sustainable. And the health care bill that has been repealed by this Congress, this House of Representatives, that is going to add over $200 billion to the deficit over 10 years.

So we have to put everything on the table. That's defense. That's tax expenditures. That's entitlements and how we can reform them so we can maintain benefits, not slash benefits. And Democrats have to be willing to come to the table on the traditional line items in the appropriations bill where we have to kick the tires and find ways to be responsible. If we do that by putting everything on the table, we have a chance to be successful and be on a path to fiscal stability and solvency. Refusing to put everything on the table guarantees failure.

I thank the gentleman.

I'm here to talk about the abandonment of essential air service in rural America.

My problem with this bill, among others, is that this legislation turns its back on rural America. The FAA budget is about providing a transportation system that is going to serve all of America, all of our taxpayers in urban and in rural areas. And this bill is an assault on the $200 million a year that had been available for essential air services in rural America.

How is it that rural America gets left behind? We have needs, we have companies, we have taxpayers, and we have travelers. And we can have that commitment to rural America be continued, not abandoned.

Let me give an example. The Rutland Southern Vermont Regional Airport serves southern Vermont. That county is rural, 63,000 people. There's no interstate access, Mr. Speaker. To help ensure the three daily flights to and from Boston Logan International Airport, the air services are subsidized at $800,000 a year. It's a good and efficient use of taxpayer money. That airport has the fifth-lowest EAS subsidy in the country, but it's had the greatest number of passenger enplanements since 1985.

This relatively small investment has spurred private investment in the region. We've got a GE plant there. We've got the local hospital. It resulted in $25 million in economic impact for the region, and in the past year bookings have risen by 25 percent.

So the question I have is, yes, kick the tires on any program. Make them accountable. But how is it accountable and how is it responsible to rural America when the budget gets smashed, and we're going to leave the Rutland regional airports of this country behind, and we're turning our back on the prospects and hope of rural America?

I thank the gentlelady.

There are really two questions that this bill raises. The first: Is this a way to deal with the serious problem we have in this country, which is the deficit? And the answer is: It isn't.

I salute the Republicans in this Congress for focusing attention on the need to restore fiscal balance. You are right. But the plan you are pursuing to receive it is dead wrong. You cannot, by cutting 12 percent of the budget, the non-defense discretionary budget, achieve the fiscal balance that we need. And why you have a plan where you attack Vermont Public Radio, where you attack Planned Parenthood, where you attack home heating assistance, but you leave exempt tax expenditures for oil companies, a swollen Pentagon budget, that means that this is not going to succeed. Even if we wiped out the entire non-defense discretionary budget, we would still have a deficit of $1 trillion. So, serious budget cutters have a serious plan that puts everything on the table.

Secondly, why have a proposal that destroys institutions? Vermont Public Radio is the link between 251 towns, cities, and villages in the State of Vermont. Farmers listen to it in their barns. Parents listen to it on their way to bringing their kids to school. People at work listen to it for the weather reports, and it welds together the political discussion in the State of Vermont which is vibrant, which is varied, which has people with different points of view having a common reference point. Public radio is an institution that allows democracy to thrive.

And why do we have to have a budget plan that, A, by it's design, will fail; and, B, by its application and implementation, will destroy institutions that democracy depends on? Vermont Public Radio is an essential institution to all of the people in the State of Vermont: Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. We need to preserve it.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues on the other side, America does have a national security interest in protecting American citizens from terrorist attack. But the question before us is this: Is that national security interest being served by 10 years of nation building in the third most corrupt country in the entire world? Is our national security interest being served by sending 100,000 troops and $454 billion in taxpayer money to a country where there are 50 members of al Qaeda? Is it a winning and likely successful strategy when al Qaeda simply moves where we aren't? They move out of Afghanistan into Pakistan, to Sudan, to wherever they can find a safe haven.

Does it make sense to ask our soldiers and our taxpayers to sacrifice when our Afghan partner is so profoundly corrupt? And I mean world- class corrupt: $3 billion in pallets of cash moved out of the Kabul airport to safe havens for warlords; an Afghan Vice President who flies to Dubai with $52 million in walking-around money; when the U.S.-backed Afghan major crimes unit tries to get Karzai to act on corruption and Karzai gets his buddy out of jail. Yes, we have a national security interest in protecting America from attack, but this is a losing strategy.

Mr. Speaker, to my Republican colleagues, when you say that we have a fiscal house to get in order, you're right; but when your plan is to focus 100 percent of your firepower on 12 percent of the budget, I say you are designing a plan that will fail.

Why is it that we have added $700 billion to the deficit by extending tax cuts for the top 2 percent?

Why is it that we will cut low-income heating assistance by $2.5 billion and continue $55 billion in tax breaks for oil companies when they're selling oil at $100 a barrel and when they've made $1 trillion in the past 10 years?

Why is it that we are now having a threat by the Republican majority to say ``no'' on extending the debt limit, having America default on paying its bills for past obligations incurred under Republican and Democratic administrations, and playing with fire as to the reputation of the American people, despite the clear damage that it will do to the economy, rather than acknowledging that we have an obligation to meet our obligations?

I thank the gentleman from Washington.

I stand here today to discuss the Yellow Ribbon Program, which is critical in my home State of Vermont, but it's critical in every State that has returning soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq.

In Vermont, we have recently welcomed home 1,500 National Guard men and women from a year-long deployment in Afghanistan. The Yellow Ribbon Program, as you know, Mr. Ranking Member, helps deploying and redeploying National Guard and Reserve members and their families when they get home.

Prior to deployment, they educate members and their families in affected communities on what to expect while their loved ones are gone. After deployment, they focus on reconnecting members and their families with service providers such as TRICARE, the Department of Veterans Affairs and Judge Advocate Generals to ensure a clear understanding of the benefits they are entitled to and they need. In addition, combat stress and transition and how members and their families can address these issues are integral to the post-deployment phase.

In Vermont, we have the fourth highest per capita participation rate in the Nation in the National Guard. These are very valuable services that get to the heart of supporting our troops and their families. I hope to work with the subcommittee to ensure that any unmet needs of this program are addressed as expeditiously as possible.

Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Madam Speaker, I am pro-choice. But that is a question of deep conscience, religious conviction, and of personal importance to every individual and every family.

One of the great conservatives who has served in this institution was Henry Hyde. The Hyde amendment, which has been the law of the land since it was passed by Mr. Hyde, says that there shall not be public funds that are used to pay for abortions. That is true now. It has been true for decades since that law was passed. It reflects a certain mutual respect that we can have differences of opinion, even on matters of profound religious conviction, moral conviction, and moral belief.

This is not about abortion. The Hyde amendment is the law of the land. Federal funds cannot be used under this provision to provide abortions. What this is about is whether primary and preventive care is going to be extended, oftentimes to poor people, but also to vulnerable middle class people by Planned Parenthood clinics throughout this country, including 10 in Vermont that are doing a tremendous job for people who really need this care.

Is this Congress big enough, generous enough that it can allow those with different points of view on this question of choice to coexist as long as we have the separation with the Hyde amendment? It has not been abolished. It is intact. So the question I ask is if we pass this bill, what happens to the 19,000 Vermonters who get services for HIV testing, who get services for breast cancer screening, who get services for cervical cancer, who find out when it's timely to find out so they can be healthy and have a full life? What do we say to them when we pull the plug on them having the access to the care that they need and they deserve? This is not necessary.

This is not about abortion. The real-world implication of this legislation will be to say to 19,000 women in the State of Vermont, from one end of the State to the other, No, you cannot have access to cervical cancer screening, you can't have breast cancer screening, you can't get evidence-based sex education. We are a better Nation than that. We are a better Congress than that.

The Hyde amendment acknowledges that we have profound differences of opinion on this question of abortion, but we can share a common goal that young, vulnerable Americans in every one of our districts can have access to the care that they need.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Offered By: Mr. Welch

Amendment No. 406: Page 273, line 14, insert before the

period at the end the following:

Provided further, That, of the funds made available by this

section, $15,000,000 is for small and rural community

technical and compliance assistance authorized under section

1442(e) of the Safe Drinking Water Act (42 U.S.C. 300j-1(e)).

In providing such assistance, the Administrator of the

Environmental Protection Agency shall give preference to

nonprofit organizations that, as determined by the

Administrator, are most qualified, experienced, effective,

and supported by small community water systems in the States.