Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, this morning we learned that Senator Mark Kirk suffered a stroke over the weekend. I know all of my colleagues here in the House join me in expressing our thoughts and prayers not only to Senator Kirk but to his family, his friends, and his staff for a quick and speedy recovery.

As many of you know, I succeeded Mark in this body. He served here for 10 years before moving on to the Senate. He has been a friend and a mentor and still is to this day.

One thing that I know about Mark is that Mark is a fighter. Mark fought for 10 years to represent the people of the 10th District of Illinois, battling human rights violations around the globe, battling for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, battling for the environment, battling for hardworking American taxpayers. As a Senator, he's doing that for the people of Illinois.

As a commander in the United States Navy, he's fought to protect our borders and our way of life. Today he is fighting to make sure that he can come back to the United States Senate to work on the things that he holds dear.

I join with all of my colleagues in hopes that he will be back here shortly, and I welcome the opportunity to walk across the aisle down here across the Capitol and welcome my friend back.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 5, I was unavoidably, detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Speaker, as a small business owner, I know that it's tough to get access to capital. If a company doesn't have the resources it needs to grow and expand, then it's virtually impossible to hire new workers.

Yesterday, the Financial Services Committee had a hearing where we examined a bipartisan bill, H.R. 3606, which would make it easier for companies to access capital markets and ease the overwhelming regulations that these young businesses encounter. This is exactly the type of bill that both sides can agree on, and I certainly urge my colleagues to support it.

Without a doubt, by allowing companies access to the markets, we give them the opportunity to succeed, and, in turn, they will have the opportunity to create additional jobs, which is what we desperately need.

Bill after bill has been passed out of this body and gone over to the Senate. Over two dozen bills wait on the Senate, of which each and every one of them are bipartisan and would create additional jobs. With an unemployment rate of over 8 percent for the past 34 months and at least 9 percent for 28 of those months, it's about time that we moved forward on the jobs package that we're trying to push in the House. We need to step up and get America back to work.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 934, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. Speaker, yesterday it was announced that a small business in my district will be closing two locations in Illinois and transferring those jobs out of State. I believe at this time, they are taking them to Texas. But we have seen this story over and over again, whether it be taking jobs to Wisconsin, whether it's taking jobs to Indiana. I believe this speaks volumes about the economic situation not only in Illinois but in our Nation and the policies that I believe that this body must put in place in order to empower small business owners and job creators all across the land to be able to have confidence, invest in their business, and grow jobs.

You see, the difference in the State of Illinois is that in Illinois we raised taxes on businesses over 45 percent this last year. It put enormous pressure on small businesses throughout the State, and I would argue all job creators throughout the State. What is even worse, Mr. Speaker, is that those companies that have more employees and a little bit higher clout have been able to rattle the saber and call the Governor and say we're going to pick up and leave the State of Illinois and take jobs elsewhere. While we want to make sure that we keep those jobs in Illinois, the unfortunate thing is we have got some crony capitalism going on, so the State is going to bend over backwards to make sure some of the larger employers stay in the State of Illinois.

The problem is that small businesses, the ones that I talk to each and every day, when they call the Governor, they don't get their phone calls returned. It, indeed, puts a greater burden on small businesses. And as you know, Mr. Speaker, two-thirds of all net new jobs are created by small businesses all across the land. This is the economic engine that we need to make sure that we are supporting, to make sure that we are putting more Americans back to work.

There are 29 million small businesses in our Nation. If we can create an environment right here in Washington, D.C., and you hear me say it's creating an environment, it's not creating jobs because the government doesn't create jobs; it's the private sector that does.

But what the government can do is create an environment, whether it be through regulation, whether it be through comprehensive tax reform, whether it be through a variety of measures that enable those 29 million small businesses in our Nation to create a single job. If half of those businesses created a job, Mr. Speaker, think about where we would be then.

This is why the American people want Congress to act, and I think we've got a responsibility to reach across the aisle and find common ground. We need to get rid of the crony capitalism. We need to create a level playing field where businesses all across the land can compete and can win because this is an opportunity for Republicans and Democrats alike to put forward comprehensive tax reform, something that has been touted by the Simpson-Bowles Commission, touted by the President and touted by others.

Well, it's time for action. We want to make sure that we move forward with this. We want to make sure that businesses can open their doors and create a level playing field. At the end of the day, it's about finding that common ground. It's about having government get out of the way and enabling the private sector to move forward so that we can all see America get back to work.

Mr. Chair, on rollcall No. 906 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Amendment No. 2 Offered by Mrs. Christensen

I want to thank the gentleman for yielding and certainly for taking this issue up, which I think is so very, very critical not only for just the State of Illinois but for facilities all across the country as we look at how we can best store the used material from the nuclear facilities--the spent fuel rods, more specifically.

If you'll notice here in Zion, which is just north of the district but certainly affects the district just north of Chicago and the 10th district which I represent, it's right on the shores of Lake Michigan. The Great Lakes, 95 percent of all fresh surface water in the United States is from the Great Lakes.

When we look at the amount of drinking water that the State of Illinois uses, it's an enormous percentage. It's coming from the Great Lakes. Yet, in our infinite wisdom we've decided that we want to store the fuel rods just a sheer several hundred feet from the shores of Lake Michigan, 5 feet above the water table.

If we take a look at Yucca Mountain, the reason why Yucca Mountain was chosen was Yucca Mountain is uniquely suited as the premier place. If we were to store any place spent fuel rods, this would be the ideal location. A thousand feet below the ground. A thousand feet above the water table. A very dry, arid environment. And correct me if I'm wrong: Where are the nearest inhabitants of Yucca Mountain? Is it 100 miles?

This is absolutely critical for the country. When we look at just the State of Illinois, the State of Illinois has got 13 commercial reactors at seven sites across the State of Illinois. Our neighbors to the north have three commercial reactors operating on two different sites, both of those on Lake Michigan.

So when we look at the 8.5 million people that rely on the drinking water, much less the recreation, the fishing, all of the different forms of commerce that happen on our Great Lakes, this is something that I think is critical.

The Senators from both the State of Illinois and the State of Wisconsin have all been in favor of trying to utilize this facility out at Yucca Mountain, and it just makes sense.

Why would we want to store, Mr. Speaker, over a thousand metric tons of nuclear waste hundreds of feet away from the greatest source of fresh surface water in our Nation? It is indeed the jewel of our ecosystem. This is something that we need to protect, something that we need to have a long-term vision for.

Yet what we don't need to do is have scattered sites all across our country of nuclear waste that has a greater potential for disasters to happen. They're being stored right now in casks that are about 5 feet above the ground water, above the water table, and what we'd like to do is take it a thousand feet above the water table, a thousand feet below ground.

This is something that makes absolutely perfect sense, and I welcome the gentleman's colloquy in terms of talking about not only this site, and I thank you for bringing it up week after week, trying to make sure that we try and get through to our colleagues on the other side of the building to make sure they can move this commonsense piece of legislation forward.

How much have we spent already at Yucca Mountain? I think it's in the $14 billion range.

It seems certainly like common sense to me, and I certainly applaud the gentleman's efforts and thank you for giving me the time. I just want to make sure that this isn't just important for the folks in the State in Illinois and the folks in Wisconsin, and the people in Michigan that are surrounding the Great Lakes, and specifically Lake Michigan; it's all the Great Lakes. And it's not just in Illinois. There are nuclear power facilities all across the country.

We need to have a safe, secure way to be able to store these spent fuel rods, and I think Yucca Mountain has been

proven to be the place to do it. And I think we should move forward on it.

The Zion Power Plant has actually been decommissioned at this point in time. So right now they are putting it in mothballs, they are taking the spent fuel rods, they're in casks, they are being transported to a location that's on the site. It's just literally a few hundred feet away from the beaches there, and probably about 20 to 30 miles north of the city of Chicago.

This is not the place that we want to be storing spent fuel rods.

Zion was a great source of electricity for the people around the area and has been decommissioned over the last 2 years. So it is now sitting idle, and they're trying to go through the process of dismantling it.

It's 40 miles from downtown Chicago. So, obviously, in the greater Chicago area, you probably have about 6.5 to 7 million people. It's certainly not what we want to have in terms of this nuclear waste disposal.

I thank the gentleman for allowing me to have some time with you today and, again, for talking about this very important issue.

Madam Speaker, as a small business owner, I understand firsthand the implications of the government adding additional red tape and additional regulations. One clear example of this is the Dodd-Frank bill.

The Dodd-Frank bill was supposed to impose clear rules and regulations on the financial industry so that another economic disaster could be averted. However, this single piece of legislation has imposed more uncertainty into the marketplace. The bill imposes literally hundreds of new rules and regulations, most of which haven't even been written yet. As a result, businesses are not growing and they're not creating jobs, and this is in large part because they don't understand what tomorrow will bring.

I did have an opportunity to talk to a smaller bank back in my district that said, We're not growing, with the exception of adding people into our compliance department to cross the T's and dot the I's, but not a single person was hired in order to try to get additional liquidity into the marketplace and help small businesses.

Rather than pile on rule after rule, we should implement smart regulations that truly protect consumers. The last thing we want is another financial disaster, so we should examine the implications of the rules and regulations and ensure that the right regulations are in place and get America back to work.

Mr. Speaker, despite the supercommittee's inability to come to a bipartisan agreement recently, we cannot stand idly by and hope that someone will fix the problem. Rather, we must come together to find common ground today.

In the President's address before this body just a short time ago, he called for the removal of burdensome regulations on small businesses. I certainly hope that that's something that both Republicans and Democrats can agree upon.

As a small business owner, I know that the economic uncertainty facing job creators today is largely based upon the threat of thousands of pages of new regulations that are coming out day after day. What we need to do is implement smart regulations and repeal duplicative and burdensome regulations that stand in the way of job creation.

We can all agree that we want clean air, clean water a healthy environment, and consumer protection, so let's come together and implement smart regulations and get rid of the redtape and excessive regulations that are keeping our job creators and entrepreneurs from growing and expanding their businesses and hiring more workers.

Let's get America back to work.

Madam Speaker, as the largest manufacturing district in the country, and as part of a jobs plan that I think is important for our country, I'm focused on manufacturing throughout not only the country, but specifically Illinois' Tenth Congressional District. That's why I have been focused on science, technology, engineering and mathematics education, or STEM, so that those that are currently unemployed, or those students who will soon be entering the work force can learn new skills and go into a field with good, high-paying jobs.

In my district, I'm working with high schools and manufacturers on recruiting students to go into STEM fields. We're working on connecting students with manufacturers who are looking for employees.

I want to recognize the efforts of Medusa Consulting, Illinois Worknet and Manufacturing Careers, Incorporated for their leadership in bringing a manufacturing jobs fair to the District 214 Field House in Arlington Heights this upcoming December 5.

I want to encourage my colleagues to support STEM education and to work with their local businesses on hosting these important jobs fairs and manufacturing workshops. This is absolutely critical if we want to get America back to work.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Sandy Perl for

receiving the AJC's prestigious Judge Learned Hand Human Relations Award. The Learned Hand Award is presented to leaders in the legal profession who display the highest principles and ideals of humanitarianism and betterment of the community.

In both his professional and community activities, Sandy Perl has shown that he carries on in this proud tradition. A native of the 10th District of Illinois, Sandy has served in a number of leadership roles at his firm and is consistently recognized as one of the top lawyers in his industry.

But what makes Sandy stand out for this well-deserved recognition is his commitment to civic and charitable causes. Through his active leadership in organizations such as the Jewish Federation and the Golden Apple Foundation, which recognizes excellence in teaching, and through his work on global issues with the Chicago chapter of the AJC and with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Sandy has dedicated himself to improving his community and fighting for important causes worldwide.

I want to congratulate my friend Sandy Perl on this tremendous honor, the Learned Hand Award.

Mr. Speaker, the American taxpayer is facing a struggling economy, skyrocketing debt, and political partisanship here in Washington. While every American family must balance the budget, the Federal Government does not have to do the same.

Additionally, publicly traded companies are required to provide financial statements for their shareholders, whereas the government is not held accountable to the American taxpayer. That is why Representative Mike Quigley and I are introducing bipartisan legislation that would require the Federal Government to prepare and publish online periodic financial statements that are independently audited and that accurately reflect the government's true financial condition.

In the short time that I've been in Congress, I've focused my efforts on creating an environment that fosters job creation and gets our economy back on track. Part of that effort involves America's fiscal house getting in order, and that is why I've worked to curb out-of- control government spending.

Moving forward, I believe that we must also reform the way our Federal accounting methods are conducted to make the budget process more transparent and accessible to every American so that they, as taxpayers, can truly know how their money is being spent and what our government's true liabilities are. That is why I'm introducing the bipartisan Truth in Government Accounting Act, H.R. 3332.

To protect private-sector shareholders, the Federal Government requires each publicly traded company to file periodic GAAP financial statements that are independently audited and that accurately reflect the company's true financial condition. By contrast, the Federal Government's own accounting practices substantially conceal and confuse the Federal Government's true financial condition, especially with respect to long-term unfunded liabilities and year-over-year spending.

To protect taxpayers as much as the private-sector shareholders, the Federal Government should similarly require each Federal agency to file periodic GAAP financial statements that are independently audited and that accurately reflect the agency's true financial condition. The Truth in Government Accounting Act would require the Federal Government to do so, to make the resulting Federal Government financial statements easily available online, and to require zero-baseline budgeting.

This bill will require all Federal agencies to provide three quarterly and one annual consolidated financial statement, just as the private sector must do, using the fair-value accrual accounting method on all their assets and liabilities, including unfunded entitlement liabilities. These statements will be audited by a single entity, the Government Accountability Office, an independent, nonpartisan agency that reports to the Congress. These audited statements will be put online, in terms of a searchable Web site for all Americans to use and to see easily.

As incredible as it may seem, there's not a simple way for the American public to easily view our national budget with all of its liabilities, current and long term. What exists now is a system where information is scattered between Federal agency and government office Web sites. Our bill creates a simple and accessible Web site that can be a one-stop shop for all information related to our Federal budget, based off of Web sites that we know currently exist, like recovery.gov.

Americans deserve a transparent way to see where their tax dollars go and what they are on the hook for in the future. The bill will require the Congressional Budget Office to use current year spending as a baseline for estimating future mandatory and discretionary changes to determine whether the future legislation would increase or decrease Federal spending. It will be measured against current year spending and not against previously anticipated and hypothetical future year spending.

The American people deserve an open and transparent budgeting process, and the Truth in Government Accounting Act provides just that. By requiring

agencies to provide quarterly financial statements, auditing those financial statements and putting that information on a comprehensive Web site, as well as implementing the zero-based budgeting, we will greatly improve our Federal budget practice and enhance the public's ability to know how their tax dollars are being spent.

We expect and demand that companies conduct their business in a transparent manner. We should expect and demand no less of our Federal Government.

I want to urge my colleagues to cosponsor this legislation. The American taxpayers deserve true accounting of how their money is being spent.

I certainly want to thank the gentleman from California for yielding the time.

One thing that I am very pleased about today is that we're talking about some bipartisan legislation that does focus in on the number one issue that we face in our country today, which is jobs and the economy.

As a small business owner, I can personally understand that access to capital is critical in sometimes determining the factor between success and failure for small businesses. Small businesses do represent two- thirds of all net new jobs created in our Nation. Businesses, especially small businesses, must raise capital to create and maintain jobs, to invest in research and development, to sell and market goods and services, and generally to expand their businesses.

Debt financing is very difficult and sometimes impossible in today's market, especially for smaller businesses like my own. Equity financing is also very difficult, with enormous transaction costs and very expensive and time-consuming SEC regulation requirements. Our capital markets, both debt and equity, are struggling and are expensive for small businesses, so we need to find creative ways to reduce the regulatory costs and burdens.

This legislation, this commonsense legislation, I would add, would do just that. It would give companies greater access to capital to grow and to create jobs while still protecting the less sophisticated investors at no cost to the American taxpayers. Specifically, this bill removes the ban on small companies from soliciting equity financing from accredited investors. It expands the pool of those that we can go out to to help raise dollars, to help raise resources so that we can invest in our businesses and so that we can grow them.

There are 29 million small businesses in our Nation. If we can create an environment here in Washington where half of those businesses can create a single job, think about where we'd be then. This is the kind of bipartisan legislation we talk about with regard to jobs and the economy, and we are doing things in the United States Congress.

I certainly want to thank the gentlelady from California for her leadership. I want to thank Chairman Bachus for his leadership, certainly want to thank Chairman Garrett, because this is the kind of bipartisan legislation that can get our economy moving again and our focus back on jobs.

Will the gentleman yield?

The gentleman raises a great point. In Zion, just a sheer couple of miles from my district, right along the coast of Lake Michigan, next to 95 percent of the fresh drinking water, surface fresh water in the United States, and we're storing just literally yards off the shore of Lake Michigan spent fuel rods. That is obviously not the place to be doing that; and it's my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, at Yucca Mountain we're talking about 1,000 feet underground, 1,000 feet above the water table, and at least 100 miles away from most of the individuals and inhabitants that are around. A perfect place. And we've spent $14 billion constructing it. It seems like common sense that we want this waste not around fresh water, not around some of the urban areas, but in a place specifically designed, as Yucca Mountain is.

Will the gentleman yield?

You've talked about the forgotten 15. I'm just wondering if the jobs bills that we passed on the floor just moments ago would add 16 and 17 onto that list.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I still am just thinking about the regulations from this week, and the week is not over. We've still got another day of regulations that are going to be coming out.

And we hear time and again from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle that it's been 10 months and still no jobs bill. We hear it time and again with the 1-minute speeches when we open up session; the other side says ``still no jobs bill.''

Well, I beg to differ. We've got jobs bills. We talk about the forgotten 15. We've got several more. We passed some tonight.

Part of our plan is to empower the private sector. Part of our plan is to make sure that we're eliminating some of the uncertainty that's out there. And let me just tell you, the week of regulations, just 1 week of regulations that are out here that literally shakes the desk when you drop it is certainly not creating more certainty.

Now, the one thing that I am pleased to say is that I believe that we were sent here to be able to work with those on the other side of the aisle to move our country forward. I am pleased to say that we passed bills today talking about access to capital for job creators, like many of us here coming from the private sector--broad bipartisan support.

The President of the United States came and spoke before the Chamber here in a joint session talking about a jobs plan. As opposed to saying no, I don't want it, what I tried to talk to others about, and I know many agree, is what are the areas that we agree on?

Let's talk about free trade or the trade agreements. We agree. We passed those. That's about 250,000 American jobs, increasing our bottom line in terms of our GDP by $10 billion this year alone with South Korea as the only one. We add Colombia and Panama and that number obviously rises.

The President talks about the burdensome regulations. We agree. We need to make sure we have regulations. As the gentlelady from Washington noted, we want them to be smart regulations, not just more of them. I mean, my goodness. How much does it cost us to even print these?

The long and the short of it is that we need to create an environment, we need to create an environment for the private sector out there with broad bipartisan support. And I believe that if we ask those on the other side of the aisle what's the biggest issue facing our country today, it's jobs and the economy. We just have a different view of who should be creating those jobs.

I believe it should be the private sector. I believe the private sector, entrepreneurship. The United States of America has been and continues to be the greatest force for hope the world has ever known. We have 29 million small businesses in our Nation. If we can create an environment where half of them can create a single job, think about where we'd be then.

Let's just take a look at this because these are some bold points, and I think if I asked the gentleman from Illinois to talk to me about empowering small businesses and reducing government barriers to job creation, I guarantee you he can give me a couple of things that we're doing right now here in this Congress.

If I talked to the gentleman from Colorado about fixing the Tax Code to help job creators, I know that he'd come up with some things because we've already done it. We passed a budget.

We're at 918 days in the United States Senate. 918 days, and still no budget. Yet, the law requires the Congress to come up with a budget every April 15. And yet that responsibility--by the way, it's against the law--has been shirked by the United States Senate.

We're going to hear more about this ``Do-Nothing Congress.'' And I want to make sure that the American public knows that we are here passing what we believe is commonsense legislation, in a bipartisan fashion, to move the country forward.

We realize that unless things pass the United States Senate and go to the President's desk for signature, we're not going to be able to move the needle.

The American public is frustrated. We're frustrated too, because I believe that the American Dream is at stake. The American Compact that we all came to Congress to deal with, that we leave the country better for the next generation than we received from our parents and grandparents, I believe, is in jeopardy today. That, to me, is completely unacceptable.

I yield to the gentlewoman from Alabama.

I thank the gentlewoman for commenting on that. There's no doubt. Look, bipartisanship can be done. The American public is frustrated because they don't think that we're working, and, in some instances, we know that Washington can be broken.

We want to work together because we know we've got to move the ball down the field. We know we've got to get people back to work. We've got a 9.1 percent unemployment. What is it in Wisconsin?

About 9 percent? In Illinois it's at 10 percent. In certain areas of the 10th District in Illinois we've got areas of 20 to 22 percent. I can tell you that jobs right now, absolutely number one priority, and that's why I'm willing to work with anybody here in Washington that's willing to listen, that's willing to reach across the aisle to come up with solutions. And I want to let you know, people are saying that we don't have a plan--we've got a plan: Jobs.gop.gov. I welcome everybody to go get it.