Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to begin by commending and complimenting the gentleman from Wisconsin, Congressman Pocan, for the work that you're doing here in highlighting this important issue. There's so much to be said that one is not sure where to begin. You've provided a lot of the facts and a lot of the information, as have some of the other Members here.

I'd like to just speak to the issue in a more general sense. To be sure, what's happening in this country has to be reversed. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is getting crushed. Corporations and banks are sitting on trillions of dollars.

I'm a business guy. If there's a business opportunity out there, you invest in it; but if the middle class is broke, can't buy the goods and services, you're just going to sit on your cash and you're not going to invest it if there aren't customers there for your product. This is not only good for middle America and for poor people, raising the minimum wage is going to be so important for our whole economy.

When I started my entry into the employment market, the ratio of executive compensation to that of the worker was 25 to 1. I just read recently today that the ratio is 273 to 1. To my point, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. We've just seen some numbers on the percentage

of income that's earned by the upper 1 percent and by the upper 10 percent, and they're earning all the revenue.

I would like to suggest that everybody, if they haven't done it yet, take a look at the Bill Moyers' film that was done in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, following the lives of two families. It was quite remarkable. Hats off to Bill Moyers for his vision in understanding how valuable a film like this could be because he followed two good, hardworking families playing by all of the rules, doing everything right, going to church on Sunday, not living extravagantly, no speedboats in their driveway, living in modest housing in wonderful modest communities.

He followed them as they were entering into the employment market 22 years ago. They had good-paying manufacturing jobs in the $25 to $30 range. They had benefits and retirement. Both families, all the mothers and fathers, ended up losing their jobs, not through the failure to show up to work, but because tax and trade policies had shifted those manufacturing jobs overseas to another country. Through no fault of their own, they found themselves unemployed.

Well, they struggled, and over a period of months they managed to find other jobs. Now they were back down in the $12 to $16 range, and in many cases they had lost benefits, but they were content. They just took an extra job here and there and wherever they could. Wouldn't you know, those jobs ended up being moved overseas because of our tax and our trade policies, and this time they had an even harder time finding employment. You could see all the stresses that--because Moyers was going back and visiting these people every year or two and recording what was happening in their lives, you could see the stress that was being created.

In one of the families--oh, gosh, to see these two young kids in love in their youth and to see the young man go into a tailspin of depression at not being able to provide for his family and the conflict that ended up in divorce. He was hanging out with buddies at the end trying to pick up odd jobs here and there, and his wife is living in a spare bedroom in an apartment with a friend. The other couple, the guy is out picking up garbage. Then he showed what happened. They all lost their homes. It also showed what happened to the entire community. All the homes were boarded up. The neighborhood was in shambles because they had all been foreclosed. It was just a classic example of how we have failed these people.

In my judgment, here's what we did:

In our parents' time, at least my age group and maybe your grandparents, the average life expectancy in this country was 47; today, it's pushing 80. That is remarkable progress, especially for the two oldest guys here in the freshman class. Then we did a whole bunch of things. We looked, and the rivers and lakes were catching on fire; acid rain was destroying the forest and the lakes. I had people in my district whose lives were over. When they were 25 and 30 working in boat factories and for want of ventilation, their lungs were full of fiberglass, and so they couldn't breathe.

Anyway, we did all these things. We set up some good rules for environmental protection. We set up some good rules for health and safety. We insisted on Medicare for our elderly and workers' comp and unemployment comp and Social Security. We put a tremendous amount of burden for all of that on our business community, our manufacturing sector. I know about that. I spent the last 32 years of my life in business, manufacturing.

Then we said to all the manufacturers, Oh, by the way, now you're going to have to go compete with people in countries where they don't have to do any of that. It wasn't fair. It couldn't work. I'm not necessarily faulting corporations for moving overseas, but I am faulting the people responsible for the public policies that allowed that to happen.

The first thing that we have to do here, in my judgment, is to raise the minimum wage. It's not a cure-all, but it's a good beginning to put some money back in the hands of low-income and middle America. There are also so many other things that we need to do.

I just learned in one of our committees they were going to spend $89 billion in Afghanistan this year on infrastructure projects. I read in the Times one project was $299 million. Fifty brave young American men and women lost their lives securing the area for this hydroelectric project. And for every one that is killed, there is another six or seven that are maimed and harmed for life. Well, this project has now been abandoned because the locals kept blowing it up as fast as we could secure the area and build it.

We need to start reinvesting in our own infrastructure, our bridges, our roads, our communities, our educational system, investing in our people. We're going bankrupt here on these wars of choice, in this nation-building abroad. We're destroying what made America a great country, a middle class, a place where there was opportunity for everybody. If you showed up and you wanted to work hard, there was a job for you. I submit, in my generation, if you wanted to be a failure, hell, you had to have a plan. There were just so many jobs and so many good-paying jobs and so many opportunities. And that's what we're losing, and that's what we have to get back to in this country. I think we can start by raising the minimum wage.

I am so thrilled to be able to join you and my colleagues in urging the leadership here to bring this measure before the Congress. Let us have the debate. Let us have a vote on it. Let us see if we can't move this country forward. Let us see if we can't do something for the middle class here, and then let's follow that up with a good, healthy debate on what kind of a trade policy we are going to have. Is it going to be totally free, or is it going to be fair trade that recognizes the accomplishments that we've made here with a determination to keep moving that progress forward?

Also, let's have a good look at the tax policies, too. The fact is anyone who has examined it knows that clearly the richest and most powerful people in this country pay a much lower percentage of their income in taxes than the average person. They just did an analysis in Minnesota here a while back. The average person making between $30,000 and $50,000 pays 31 percent of their income in a variety of taxes-- Social Security, income, real estate, gas taxes, the whole works.

The average millionaire is only paying 13 percent. Well, that's not fair. Nobody's suggesting here that we should penalize the rich for their success. On the contrary, we want everybody to be successful in this country, but we also want everybody to pay their fair share. So there's no one easy, simple solution to what we're looking at here, but we can start with raising the minimum wage, and then let's go after the tax policy and let's go after the trade policy. Let's institute some fairness in this country. Let's rebuild the middle class, let's restore the American Dream where there's opportunity for everyone--everyone who's willing to go to work, play by the rules, work hard, and go to work every day. That's the America we grew up with. That's the America that we want to leave behind when we pass on to the big country. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

I am opposed.

Mr. Speaker, my final amendment would protect important tax credits and tax breaks for middle-income families and for small businesses. It will not kill or send this bill back to committee. It will allow us to proceed with final passage, should it pass.

Now, to the heart of what this is really all about, I thought our colleague from California (Mr. Thompson) here a few minutes ago characterized it quite well when he said this should be called the ``40th Waste of Taxpayers Time and Money Act,'' not an alternative to the Affordable Care Act.

The fact is that the Republican opposition here is engaged in their 40th political attempt to undo the Affordable Care Act and offering us no alternatives to the time when 46 million Americans have no insurance, when health care and insurance rates were rising at a rate of 20 percent per year.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, ``no'' is not a plan; ``no'' is not an answer.

President Harry Truman was fond of saying--and forgive me for quoting him

directly, but he used to like to say, ``Any jackass can tear down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one.'' I'm challenging my colleagues: Are you here to tear down the barn or are you here to build one?

Mr. Speaker, I feel compelled to ask, are you really serious when you come before us here and you say you really, truly want to increase taxes on families and small businesses, as this bill would do? Are you really serious when you say you want to take away from students the right to stay on their parents' insurance policy while they're struggling with the difficulties of the increased cost of education? The American people don't want that. What is your plan?

Mr. Speaker, are you really serious when you say you want to deny people with preexisting conditions the right to have health insurance? The American public doesn't want that. What is your plan?

Are you really serious when you want to continue this de facto notion that women somehow, by definition, are living with preexisting conditions and are charged more for the exact same policies as men would pay for? The American people are not. What is your plan?

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues, are you really serious when you want to vote to eliminate free prevention care, which saves lives, which helps save costs in our medical system? The American people are not. What is your plan?

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues, are you really serious when you say you want to remove the cap on insurance companies' liabilities, the very cap that forces people with serious accidents and illnesses into bankruptcy? The American people don't want that. What is your plan?

Last but not least, Mr. Speaker, are you prepared to vote to deny senior citizens the relief from the increased costs in pharmaceuticals as a result of that doughnut hole? The seniors in this country are not. Again I ask you, what is your plan?

Mr. Speaker, that's what's at heart here. We have had 40 attempts to repeal this bill, and we haven't seen one single plan offered forward here.

This is a waste of time. Let us get serious. Let us start to show some bipartisanship. And let's start with it here today by passing my amendment.

Mr. Speaker, it's no secret; the public has weighed in on this. This Congress is acknowledged by all parties and all spectrums as the most unproductive Congress in the history of this country. That's shameful. Polls show us 25 points behind cockroaches in popularity, 23 percentage points behind--what was the last one?--oh, root canals. We're just slightly ahead of Genghis Khan and the Communist Party in popularity.

It's time that we put an end to this nonsense, put this Congress to work, postpone/cancel this recess. Let's put an end to this nonsense, get America working again, and get this country working again.

Mr. Speaker, there were 87 new Members elected in the last session of the Congress--about half of them Republicans, about half of them Democrats. I'll tell you what, we all got the same message in the last election, and that was that the people in this country had had it with gridlock and partisanship, and they wanted to see some more collaboration, some cooperation, some problem-solving, fixing things, getting things done.

There is so much that we agree on. I mean, our roads are in need of repair; our bridges are literally falling down; the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer; the middle class is getting crushed, and we all want to rebuild this middle class; there are millions of people who are unemployed every day, and there are millions more who are underemployed.

Mr. Speaker, I'm a businessman. I've been a business owner, responsible for the bottom line and for getting things done in my business. I've got to tell you, if we weren't getting the job done, we wouldn't be going on a 5-week recess, vacation--or whatever it is you want to call it. There are so many pressing needs, and we are scheduled to be in session for 9 days in September, and we know what those Mondays and Tuesdays are like. We know what happens here. So we're looking at about 3 or 4 days, and what have we got to deal with? We have to deal with appropriations, the budget, the farm bill, the jobs bill, immigration, transportation, the debt ceiling--and there are Members of this Congress who are calling for a shutdown of the Federal Government.

So I wanted to address just two things today. One is to postpone, or delay, this recess; and let's take up a couple of things. Like I said, our bridges are falling down. Let's take up the SAFE Bridges Act that Congressman Rahall has offered. Let's take up the American Jobs Act that the President has offered. Let's put people to work in this country. Let's support Congresswoman Slaughter's motion to defeat the previous question, and let's amend it to allow for the consideration of the SAFE Bridges Act.

Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, I am calling on the Speaker to cancel or to postpone the August recess until we get our work done here.

As a businessman, the last thing I would ever consider doing is giving my employees a month or 5 weeks off when we're not getting our job done.

Mr. Speaker, you're the boss. You set the schedule, and you put together the work agenda. The simple truth is that this Congress is being recognized as the least productive or accomplished in the history of this country. We have an appropriations bill; we have budget bills; we have the farm bill; we have immigration; we have the President's jobs bill; we have the debt ceiling limit; we have Members of Congress threatening to shut down the government--and we're going on a recess? It makes no sense whatsoever.

It's time that this Congress goes to work, puts the subcommittees to work, goes to work 5 days a week like everybody else in America, and does its job. Put America back to work. Rebuild the middle class. Get this country moving again.

Mr. Speaker, cancel this recess.

Mr. Speaker, first I'd like to thank Representative Pompeo for sponsoring this important legislation. And of course, thanks to our Chairman Shuster and Ranking Member Rahall and to both my Democratic and Republican colleagues on the committee for bringing this Small Aircraft Revitalization Act to the floor of the Congress in such an expeditious and bipartisan manner.

Mr. Speaker, by streamlining and modernizing the rules and regulations that govern our small aircraft industry, we'll be encouraging the investment necessary to generate thousands of new American jobs.

What this legislation does, in effect, is put together a regulatory regime that will be specifically tailored for the small aircraft industry that will allow the industry to develop performance and outcome-based ways of achieving important safety standards. It allows them to put together consensus regulations that are developed by industry, government regulators, and private nonprofit associations, and enables the industry to unleash technologies of the future, creating jobs.

I'm so proud of Cirrus Aircraft in my district in Duluth, Minnesota. They've developed a parachute that is attached to the airplane and, like a skydiver, if the airplane stalls in the sky, you can pull a ripcord and parachute the plane down to safety.

These are the kinds of technologies that have the potential to be released through this legislation. What it does, in short, is enable the designers, engineers, manufacturers, creators, and skilled workers to release all their brilliance, creating the best, safest airplane technologies going forward into the future.

So I applaud the committee and my colleagues in Congress for bringing this forward in such an expeditious manner, and I strongly urge all my colleagues to support this important piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks in strong opposition to the farm bill rule and the underlying bill because it violates a decade-old principle uniting urban and rural interests together in feeding hungry people.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the bill because it violates a decades-old principle that has brought rural people and urban people together to help protect them from the vagaries of life and weather and circumstances. It brought farm producers together to help meet the food and nutrition needs of hungry people here in this country and all over the world. It is one of the best things we've ever done. And this bill violates that fundamental, noble principle of bringing people together for a noble cause, feeding hungry people and encouraging the production of food and nutrition.

Mr. Speaker and members of the committee, please vote this bill down.

Mr. Speaker, I stand here today with the Ranking Member in opposition to the split farm bill before us. Setting a closed rule on this midnight-hour, backroom deal is not the way the American people elected us to govern.

I am privileged to sit on the Agriculture Committee. During the markup of the farm bill earlier this year, my colleagues and I discussed and debated and deliberated for ten hours on every provision of this bill.

That bill included critical reform of the dairy program, reauthorization of the Rural Broadband program, as well as important provisions for organic producers, beginning farmers and ranchers, conservationists, and the forestry industry.

We reached a bipartisan consensus and 36 of us--myself included--cast a vote in support of the legislation.

Then, on the floor, the legislation was systematically dismantled, piece by piece, until it was barely recognizable as the same farm bill that came out of committee. It was no surprise that this bill failed.

Rather than going back to committee to work on a better compromise, we are here voting on a more-than-600 page bill that only became available late last night.

This bill is even worse than the one that failed, and now the process itself has been poisoned. The American people did not elect us to conduct their business behind closed doors at midnight.

Mr. Speaker, it's time that the Congress get to work and stop this doubling of the interest rates on our student loans.

I'd like to take this moment to remind my colleagues here in the House that our generation was able to graduate from universities and enjoy great success for the most part debt free because college costs were less and we were able to get a combination of grants and scholarships.

What we're doing to today's generation is unforgivable; it's unconscionable. They're expected to graduate with $30,000 in debt, on average. We were able to start building families and homes and businesses and buy cars. Our generation that we're handing over to is expected to pay loans. We just simply cannot allow this to happen. It's not right.

We all have an obligation to pay forward. This country has been so good to our generation; it's time for us to pay back. Let's step up, get to work, and stop this increase from taking place.

And last, but not least, let's put it in perspective. For what we spent on the war in Iraq, $1 trillion, we could have sent an entire generation of young men and women through college and let them graduate debt free.

Let's get our priorities in order, Mr. Speaker.

Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

I rise in support of the Kelly-Duffy amendment, which would prohibit expanded uses of the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund at the current appropriations level.

Let me be clear, the needs of the Nation's ports and harbors are great, and they are largely unmet today. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has made a valiant effort to maintain these facilities, which are essential for American manufacturers and the business community, to access markets around the world. We're talking about jobs. We're talking about business income here in every State, in every congressional district in this country.

Beginning in 1997, however, as Mr. Kelly just pointed out, both Congress and the administration since that time have fallen short of allocating the entire balance of the harbor trust fund moneys to a current rate of less than 50 percent of the total revenues received. Tragically, as a result, we've fallen seriously behind in our essential harbor maintenance. If we were to restore full funding today, the Army Corps estimates it would take 5 years to catch up on the backlog in our Nation's busiest ports and another 5 years to catch up on the Nation's smaller ports, which are nevertheless essential to local and regional economies.

Channel dredging is the most critical factor in maintaining our harbors. To be sure, there are other needs. In 2011, the Army Corps suggested that this fund could be used to increase harbor security. Certainly access roads and other harbor facilities need constant maintenance. But if we expand the use of these funds without expanding the total funds appropriated, we will simply add to our current backlog, choke off future commerce, and cost the American economy the jobs that we desperately need.

The port of Duluth in my district is already restricting outbound shipments to 80 percent of the capacity because of this backlog in maintaining proper channel depth. How can we justify forcing our merchant fleet to operate at less than full efficiency?

I urge my Democratic colleagues to support this amendment and help us prevent a bad situation from getting worse.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentlewoman yield?

Madam Chair, I thank Representative Kaptur for yielding, and I would just add that it's costing business and commerce throughout the country and the Great Lakes billions of dollars. This is critical, essential infrastructure; and we look forward to working with you to find a way to release that trust fund for what it was intended, which is the dredging of our harbors. It is so critical to our commerce, our businesses, our jobs, and our economies.

Madam Chair, they are already neglecting the needs for dredging in our harbors. To divert funds from existing appropriations that are available would only make the situation worse, which is why I rise in support of the gentleman's amendment.

I know Mr. Duffy wishes to speak to the amendment as well.

Madam Chair, today, as the House of Representatives debates the five-year Farm Bill, I am hopeful that my colleagues can come together on issues that touch all Americans. This bill makes great strides for energy programs, the forestry industry, the organic sector, and rural areas.

I have always supported family farmers. They need protection from the vagaries of pestilence, drought, flooding, and the like. A five-year Farm Bill will offer them the certainty they need to make planting decisions.

I do not believe this Farm Bill is perfect, but I also do not think that perfection should be the enemy of the good.

In the Agriculture Committee last month, we spent more than ten hours debating amendments. That is how the legislative process should function. After it was all said and done, Chairman Lucas and Ranking Member Peterson felt this was the best product they could get through the House. I commend them for their hard work in pulling together a bipartisan compromise.

I will vote for passage of this bill because I have confidence that the conference committee can merge the House and Senate bills in a way that provides for family farmers without gutting the SNAP program.

Again, I will not claim that this bill is ideal--but we need to respect the work of our colleagues and advance this process.

Mr. Speaker, as you can see, I am wearing a yellow ribbon here today. I do so to recognize the newest Minnesota Yellow Ribbon Networks being officially proclaimed at the National Guard Camp Ripley, near the community of Little Falls in north

central Minnesota, which is also in my district.

Yellow Ribbon is a truly remarkable program that eases the transition of our soldiers to civilian life by providing job training, counseling, and all kinds of support for servicemembers, veterans, and military families.

So I want to say a special thanks to Morrison and Crow Wing Counties in Minnesota--and to the communities of Little Falls, Motley, Royalton, Swanville, Sobieski, Harding, Buckman, Upsala, Randall, Pierz, Bowlus, Elmdale, and Lastrup, all in my district--for supporting our returning servicemen and -women as Yellow Ribbon communities.

We thank and honor all our military for their service to our great Nation.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the McGovern amendment.

Mr. Chair, I rise in support of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and in opposition to some of the arguments we have heard against the program.

First, I want to point out that the average SNAP recipient receives assistance for less than one year. And, more importantly, the

people who do depend on assistance for a longer period of time are populations such as the elderly, children, or the disabled: people who can't work their way out of poverty as easily.

The SNAP program faces a great deal of criticism, but I believe much of it is undeserved. The program is not perfect, but a few bad actors should not give us reason to push millions out of the system. The simple fact is, SNAP is not an isolate acronym. It represents real children and hardworking families who are just trying to make ends meet.

About 1 in 10 Minnesota residents receive SNAP benefits. That might be below the national average, but for those Minnesotans who do receive benefits, they are absolutely critical. In my state, more than 68 percent of all SNAP participants are in families with children. More than \1/4\ of all SNAP participants are in families with elderly or disabled members. And finally, 44 percent of all SNAP participants in Minnesota are in working families.

Now is not the time to rip assistance away from those who need it most. I will join Congressman McGovern in voting to restore funding for

Mr. Chairman, I offer the amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today on a matter of the highest priority critical to the future of our great Nation and our people. It is time to put an end to the wars of choice and nation-building abroad, and to start rebuilding America. Daily we are reminded of our Nation's fiscal crises, massive deficits, and unemployment, and shortage of revenue for the things that we know we need to do. The simple truth is, the trillions of dollars spent on the wars of choice and nation-building abroad are the primary cause of our current financial crises, not Social Security and Medicare as some would have us believe.

The sad fact is our own bridges are falling down. Our infrastructure is crumbling, and our education system is struggling, while millions more middle class men and women are unemployed or underemployed.

Mr. Chairman, I strongly support a strong national defense, but I also agree completely with my Republican colleague, Congressman Mo Brooks of Alabama, who recently said:

I don't believe America can financially afford to be the

police cop on every street corner in the world. We no longer

have the financial resources to do that.

In fact, the $652 billion we spent on the military last year amounts to 57 percent of our discretionary budget. Mind you, education is at 6 percent; agriculture at 1 percent; transportation at 2 percent.

Moreover, that $652 billion spent last year accounts for more than the next 10-largest military budgets in the world combined--China, Russia, U.K., Japan, France, Saudi, India, Germany, Italy, Brazil--we spent more than all of them combined. This $60 billion cut that is proposed in this amendment, or a 9.4 percent cut that I propose, is not an unreasonable amount. In fact, it is exactly the same amount the Commission on Wartime Contracting estimates to have been wasted through fraud and abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Understand that my amendment is not an across-the-board cut from every line item as in sequestration, which makes no sense at all. My proposed cut is a cut from the bottom line that would give the Appropriations Committee the authority to decide where the cuts can most prudently be made. And to me, those categories are crystal clear. We want to cut our excessive network of military bases in every nook and cranny of the world. We need to cut the failed infrastructure and investments in nation-building abroad. We need to cut assistance to the armed combatants in every sectional and civil war in the world. We need to cut discretionary funds to initiate new programs not authorized by the Congress. We need to cut funds for the extravagant compensation of CEOs for giant defense contractors. We need to cut military weapons systems that were not requested by our military. We need to cut funds maintaining unnecessary facilities in Guantanamo, and we need to cut funding maintaining out-of-date weapons systems and naval vessels.

Now, let me be clear where we must not cut. We must not cut veterans benefits. We must not cut the National Guard. It's our most efficient bang for the dollar that we get in our national defense. We must not cut compensation

to soldiers and their families. We must not cut assistance to Israel and our other strategic allies. We should not cut funds to the teams and other elite units that can respond to crises abroad. And we cannot cut efforts to fund reform of military justice and reduce sexual assaults in the military.

Moreover, it is my recommendation that the savings achieved here can be used for deficit reduction and used for investment in our own infrastructure--our roads, our bridges, our ports, our education, and the unmet human development needs in this country. We can use this money to improve the quality of American lives, to stimulate our economy, to strengthen our power as a Nation, and to help restore America's confidence in the future.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, my amendment is entirely consistent with the spirit of the bipartisan Budget Control Act of 2011, which recommended $1 trillion in defense cuts over the next decade, and consistent as well with the significant cuts recommended across the spectrum by liberal policy groups such as the Center for American Progress, as well as conservative and libertarian groups.

Mr. Chairman, we all support a strong national defense. We support our troops, and we are committed to our veterans. This amendment is not politics, it is commonsense economics.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chairman, I rise in support of the Gibson-Garamendi amendment. I'm using this time to express my regret that a resolution that I presented to the Rules Committee requiring the Congress to decide on whether or not we should send arms and troops to the rebels was denied an opportunity to be heard today.

The fact is, this is a centuries old conflict between the Sunnis and the Shiites. We have no friends in this fight. Believe me, I've lived in the Middle East, I've done business in the Middle East, I've studied the language, I've studied the culture. We have no friends in this conflict. The rebels--make no mistake about it--are the al Mazraa affiliated with al Qaeda.

Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, I rise in opposition to the rule and the underlying bill. I lament that fact because I'm one of those who supports the Keystone pipeline for the many reasons that have been stated here.

I know people have concerns about oil sands, tar sands or oil production processes, but that's a Canadian decision. The fact is that these oils are going to be moved by tens of thousands of railroad cars or trucks through the States or through a pipeline to the west. Pipelines are a proven environmentally safe and sound way to move oil around North America and the country.

I am in opposition to the bill because, in committee, it became apparent that the bill relieves a foreign corporation from all of the same obligations that domestic corporations are expected to honor. They are exempted from having to comply with the EPA, with the Army Corps permits for construction and maintenance. They are relieved of the responsibility to pay taxes on the oil flowing through those pipelines. They are relieved of responsibility for cleanup in the event of accidents. That is a prescription for nothing but trouble and disaster.

Mr. Speaker, those are the reasons that I speak in opposition to this rule and to this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to set the record straight here with regard to Social Security and Medicare:

First of all, neither one of them are responsible for the debt and the current fiscal crisis that we find ourselves facing;

Secondly, neither of them are entitlements. They're earned benefits that people started paying for the very first day, the very first hour they went to work, and they have every right to expect those benefits;

Thirdly, there are some long-term problems with both, and they should and need to be fixed, but they can be done, clearly, without reducing the benefits.

Let me remind all of us that nothing has done more in this country to lift more people out of poverty than Social Security, and nothing has done more to add more life and more years to life than Medicare.

Mr. President, my fellow Members, we must stand up for Social Security and Medicare and protect those benefits going forward.