Floor Statements

I thank the gentlelady for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, you heard from Representative McCollum as to the dimensions of this, as to how close it is to an existing large bridge, as to why this is really a boondoggle. I wanted to talk about how this fits in the national picture of wild and scenic rivers.

This bill would for the first time waive the requirements of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, which is a law that has protected the lower St. Croix for nearly 30 years and that protects 12,000 miles of rivers in 38 States and Puerto Rico, including the Delaware River in my home State of New Jersey. These are special rivers designated under the Wild and Scenic Rivers law.

When the Resources Committee marked up the legislation before us now, I offered a simple amendment. My amendment would have ensured that any bridge authorized under this bill be designed and located in a way to minimize the direct and inverse environmental effect. It was defeated.

This is really a bridge too far. It's far too large, it is just, you know, far too expensive. Should Congress pass this bill and waive the Wild and Scenic Rivers protection, it's hard to imagine any future bridge project that won't receive a waiver like this issued by Congress.

Madam Chair, I thank my friend from California. And here I join the New Jersey Presidents Council, which represents all the institutions of higher education in New Jersey, in support of this legislation, as well as the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in New Jersey who support this bill, as well as the American Council on Education, which represents 1,600 college presidents around the country in support of this bill.

Clearly, there have been abuses in some businesses and some institutions and those abuses have to be addressed, but this legislation I think makes sure that we go about it in the right way.

I'd like to quote from one of my constituents, President Shirley Tilghman of Princeton University. She writes:

Unlike many nations elsewhere in the world, the United

States has nurtured a vibrant and vigorous respect for

academic freedom. Under such a system, American higher

education has flourished.

She goes on:

But if recent trends continue, in which the staff at

accrediting agencies seek to substitute their own judgments

about what mission an institution should pursue and about how

the institutions can best achieve that mission and measure

success, we risk damaging the country's leading institutions.

In other words, the Department's rules strike at the heart of our excellent higher education. But whether these rules are in effect or not doesn't matter if students can't afford to go to college.

My amendment to this legislation to require Pell Grants be maintained at at least the current level of $5,500 was not made in order. Now, in New Jersey, 213,000 students use Pell Grants to make college affordable.

There's bipartisan agreement on Ms. Foxx's bill, but unfortunately this is a partisan matter.

The Republicans in the House have three times approved a budget that would slash the maximum Pell Grant award to $3,040, the lowest since 1998. Slashing Pell Grants would put college out of reach for thousands of students.

I call on the Republicans, because this is a partisan matter, to protect Pell Grants and not roll them back to their 1998 levels in their budget this year.

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment comes from both sides of the aisle. I'm joined by Mr. Murphy, Mr. Bass, Mr. Gerlach, Mr. Dingell, Mr. Kind, and I see Mr. Dold of Illinois here.

Almost five decades ago, the Land and Water Conservation Fund was created on a sound and fair principle: oil companies who drill on public lands and who therefore are taking a resource that belongs to all citizens of the United States should, in return, out of fairness, give Americans the protection of land so that as they take this resource and refine it and sell it, they preserve these resources-- parks, recreation, direct preservation of cultural and land resources.

The bill before us today aims to increase the amount of oil and gas production in Federal waters as a means to raise revenue for transportation funding. These oil fields belong to all Americans. Just as the revenues generated from offshore oil drilling must be shared with all Americans, a portion of these revenues should be used towards conservation and preservation of public lands that belong to all of us. That has been the principle now for four decades, almost five decades, of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

The LWCF enjoys strong bipartisan and popular support. The program has protected land in every State and has supported more than 41,000 State and local parks and other open-space parcels.

The Trust for Public Land recently conducted an analysis of the return on the investment from LWCF funds. In an 11-year, 12-year period, going up until about 1 year ago, for the $537 million invested in conserving 131,000 acres, $2 billion was generated in economic goods and services. In other words, for every dollar invested in LWCF funds, $4 was returned in economic value. These are not taxpayer dollars that are invested. This is revenue that comes from the oil companies.

Our amendment would stipulate, simply, that nothing in the bill would reduce the amount of revenue from oil and gas receipts available for deposit into the LWCF.

I urge adoption of this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Dold).

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, although the Land and Water Conservation Fund is authorized to receive $900 million annually from oil and gas leasing revenues, Congress must appropriate those funds after they have been deposited from the revenues.

Taxpayers aren't footing the bill for this program. Oil and gas companies fund the LWCF. The amount they pay is less than 1 percent of the massive profits these companies take each year. It's a small token of what we can do to preserve these other resources as the oil and gas resources are used. Preserving open space is more than a narrow environmental issue. It really is a quality of life issue.

As my friend, the chairman, has assured us, there is nothing in the underlying bill that would reduce the amount of revenue available for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. So with that assurance that the legislation here today will in no way harm the Land and Water Conservation Fund, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw this amendment.

I rise to claim time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, you may think that the gentleman from Washington has suddenly decided that he's going to accelerate renewable energy deployment in the United States; but the fact is, no, he has not gotten religion. This is not intended to accelerate renewable energy. It is to remove protections for the environment.

The amendment really is highly problematic. It has very little upside and significant downside, both in terms of protecting the environment and in producing renewable energy. The measure fundamentally changes public lands policy in a way that could be extremely harmful.

Completely gutting bedrock environmental review processes is not something that should be done lightly. It shouldn't be done with a 10- minute debate on an amendment on a completely separate bill. This $250 billion transportation bill is not the appropriate place to debate a fundamental shift of public lands policy. We spent nearly a day debating this in committee, and it deserves a debate at least that thorough here on the floor.

Right now, a renewable energy project that's proposed for Federal lands can get a green light, a yellow light, or a red light from the permitting agency. What the gentleman from Washington would do with his amendment is get rid of the yellow light.

By only allowing consideration of the proposed action and not allowing any no-action alternative, you know what that means, Mr. Chairman? Well, it means--and it should be obvious--it means that projects that could be viable will get a red light. The permitting agency requiring more data, requiring care, requiring additional conditions will have to say yes or no. They're going to say no. Let me state that again. Projects that can otherwise get built if their plans were tweaked would now, under this amendment, be killed. That means fewer megawatts of renewable energy production on public lands.

No, the gentleman has not suddenly gotten religion about renewable energy.

We've heard from the Bureau of Land Management, we've heard it from the Renewable Energy Industry, the American Wind Association, the Solar Energy Industry Association, the Geothermal Industry Association. They have not endorsed this proposal.

The way to ensure that our public land managers are able to expeditiously permit renewable energy projects is not to handcuff them, like this amendment would do, but to make sure that they have the resources to do the job. Now, the Republicans last year did the opposite by trying to take $1 billion out of the Interior Department's budget.

In addition to keeping the land management agencies from doing their job, this amendment would also reduce the ability of the public to participate in the process. If the public is not given meaningful opportunity, say through environmental hearings, you know what they're going to turn to? They're going to turn to the courts. So this amendment would actually lead to more lawsuits, more delays, less renewable energy on public lands.

This is not endorsed by any renewable energy industry group. That should give you reason to pause.

The representatives of the renewable energy industry have testified that this language could have a perverse effect of forcing agencies to reject projects, of sending projects into court, of preventing the actions we should be taking to develop renewable energies.

I reserve the balance of my time.

May I ask the amount, please, of remaining time.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

I hope I made it clear that this amendment would slow things down, would throw things into court, would result in rejected projects.

If the Republicans really want to help renewable energy, you don't need to gut environmental safeguards. Ensure Federal financing tools are available, establishing policies that create a market demand for renewable power in the regulated electricity industry, establish policies that create market demand for renewable power, and support smart-from-the-start policies.

If you really want to help renewable energy, don't raise taxes on the wind industry. Extend the production tax credit. That would save, well, let's say 30,000 to 40,000 jobs. Yes, the production tax credit. That would be the way to help the renewable industry, not to gut environmental protections.

Please, I ask my colleagues, don't support this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, I am one of 285 proud cosponsors of H.R. 1148, the original House version of the STOCK Act, which was introduced by my colleague from Minnesota, Mr. Walz. It is a simple, common-sense bill that would reaffirm the restriction on insider trading by Members of Congress and our staffs, as well as officials within the executive branch. I also heard from dozens of my constituents from across Central New Jersey who support this bill as a necessary first step to restoring the American public's trust in its legislature and in our democracy as a whole.

Unfortunately, despite the overwhelming bipartisan support for this legislation, the majority has brought before us today a watered-down version of the bill that received nearly unanimous support in the United States Senate. While the basic premise of the bill remains intact, I regret that important provisions such as increased disclosure requirements for so-called ``political intelligence consultants'' are not included in the bill before us today.

Though unrelated to insider trading, I do support the provision in this measure to prohibit the payment of bonuses to executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Like many Americans, I was alarmed to learn last year that ten Fannie and Freddie executives were set to receive more than $12 million in bonuses. It is inconceivable that the leadership of these organizations, who profited at the expense of millions of middle class Americans who lost their homes, be further rewarded.

While I support this measure, I remain hopeful that the stronger provisions included in the original House version, as well as the version that passed the Senate last week, can be incorporated as this bill continues to move forward.

Madam Speaker, let's put this in the category of actions have consequences.

Last year the City of Trenton was forced to lay off nearly one-third of its uniformed law officers. My State's capital now has the same number of police officers on the rolls as it did in 1932.

The city had hoped to reduce the number of layoffs through a grant from the Community Oriented Policing Services program, the COPS program. That grant would have allowed Trenton to hire back 18 officers. Unfortunately, because Congress failed to fund properly the COPS program, Trenton got no money to rehire laid-off officers.

In the last year, almost 150 people have been shot within the city of Trenton compared with only 60 the year before. Street robberies, aggravated assaults, and burglaries are up alarmingly. Trentonians tell me these trends are continuing. Clearly, we need more money to rehire police. We need it now before more Americans lose their lives and suffer injury and property loss.

Mr. Chair, when this body last considered legislation to institute a ``line-item veto'' during the 109th Congress, I joined 171 of my colleagues in voting against it. Today, we again find ourselves considering a similar measure, and, once again, I rise in opposition to this latest attempt to abdicate our responsibilities, H.R. 3521, the Expedited Legislative Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act of 2011.

This legislation alters dramatically the balance of power that the framers so delicately established. It is an abdication of our responsibilities as Members of Congress. The separation and balance of governmental powers must be kept. We have heard proponents of this measure come to the floor and speak about how this bill provides us with another tool to ensure that we are spending taxpayer funds sensibly. Why do we need another tool in our toolkit, Mr. Chair? I would argue that if we are seeking ways to cut the deficit, let's do it by sending appropriate spending bills to the President's desk. We are not missing a tool in our toolkit; we are missing the political will to come together as members of this body to produce spending bills that accomplish this goal without prompting from The White House. If indeed political will is missing, this ``line item veto'' will not be the way to find it.

Furthermore, this measure puts us in danger of losing funding for good programs in the midst of partisan bickering. Funding for International Family Planning, funding for public transportation's funding for the arts or any of countless valuable items in our country, could be jeopardized if this legislation is enacted and the political climate is such that the President has other ideological views.

There is no evidence and no good reason to believe that this will actually succeed in reducing wasteful spending. Again, I would urge my colleagues to work together and produce common sense legislation that terminates wasteful programs and evaluate both our revenues and our spending to put our budget back on the right track. We have done it in the past and I believe that it is possible for us to do it again. I urge my colleagues to oppose this measure.

I thank my friend from New York.

This is an important subject. As previous speakers have made clear, birth control is fundamental to women's health, just like cholesterol testing and any number of other things. And decades of evidence show that planned births produce healthier babies and healthier mothers. Anyone who is working as a health care aide or a nurse or working in a religiously affiliated social service agency would want health care provided to them that is not discriminatory, and that includes the range of services that provide for good health.

Purely religious organizations would be, are, have been and will be exempt. But when an institution, even if affiliated with religion, chooses to provide public services and accept public money, they must follow public fair employment practices and not discriminate in hiring or salary or benefits. And now, under the Affordable Care Act, they also may not discriminate against women and women's services in providing health care benefits.

That's what we're talking about here. It's really quite straightforward. Expanding the religious exemption to religious institutions that employ people of all faiths would take preventive services away from millions of Americans, would result in substandard health care for far too many women in our country, and it would allow religious institutions to be able to discriminate against employees of different faiths.

It's only fair. It's only what has become recognized by the courts, by the public, and by general public mores as the right thing to do. And now under the health care act, it would be institutionalized for all agencies except purely religious agencies that hire only in one faith.

So, Mr. Speaker, I think there's been a lot of misinformation about this. I hope tonight's discussion has helped to clarify the matter.

With that, I am pleased to yield back to my friend from New York.

Madam Speaker, last week I voted against the so called ``Welfare Integrity Now for Children and Families Act of 2011,'' H.R. 3567.

H.R. 3567 would require states to prevent the use of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program benefits in a liquor store, casino, or strip club.

This bill is being disguised as one that would ensure taxpayer dollars are being appropriately spent. In reality, this bill is being brought to the floor to demean individuals who rely on TANF benefits and to imply that they are immoral.

It is ludicrous to suggest that there is a national problem necessitating that Congress stop TANF recipients from spending their money at strip clubs.

TANF is a long-standing program, previously known as Aid for Families of Dependent Children, that is one of the most important parts of our national safety net and that keeps almost 2 million families from the brink of starvation.

What is missing from this bill is any discussion that in many underserved neighborhoods, the closest ATM is located in one of these establishments. Preventing the use of TANF cards at these establishments could result in TANF beneficiaries not being able to access their benefits. Instead of debating how Congress could pass laws that would help with economic redevelopment in underserved communities, we are spending our time vilifying individuals receiving benefits and then sanctimoniously taking credit for preventing any misuse. This is part of the message of those who seek to demean the President by calling him the food stamp President.

Further, this bill would cost money--not save it. In New Jersey, it is estimated that this bill would cost $100,000 to implement and Governor Christie's office wrote to express their concerns about the bill.

For a bill that is supposed to be ensuring that taxpayer dollars are being well spent, this bill would hinder individuals from obtaining their legitimate benefits and cost states more money. Every Member of Congress should have opposed this bill which was more offensive than silly.

H.R. 1173 is another attempt by the Republicans to embarrass individuals who are on hard economic times instead of helping them find a job.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 658, the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act.

Mr. Speaker, we are considering this multiyear authorization after twenty-three temporary FAA extensions since 2007. The men and women who keep our skies safe deserve a long-term authorization. The American people deserve a long-term authorization. But I cannot support the long-term authorization that the conference committee has brought to us today.

There are good provisions included in this conference agreement. This agreement contains language I wrote to support service disabled veteran-owned small businesses in the Airport Improvement Program. I am also pleased that this agreement includes funding for Essential Air Service and Next Generation air traffic control systems, and that it requires airlines to implement emergency contingency plans for passengers who are subject to extended tarmac delays. It also ensures a fair collective bargaining process for our Nation's air traffic controllers.

However, the bill has a number of provisions that are serious problems, and thus I oppose the bill. For example, the bill fails to fundamentally address the transportation of lithium batteries on airplanes. Further, the bill attacks collective bargaining for other aviation employees. This conference agreement dramatically revises a 75-year-old statute that was crafted by labor-management cooperation and should not be changed without the agreement of both employer and employee representatives.

There is no reason for these provisions to be included in this bill other than the majority's desire to attack American workers' right to organize at every opportunity they get. This bill should not seek to change three-quarters of a century's worth of labor protections. The FAA reauthorization is not the place to rewrite federal labor law. And I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing it.

Mr. Speaker, I want to register my opposition to H.R. 3582, the so-called ``Pro-Growth Budgeting Act of 2011,'' and H.R. 3578, the ``Baseline Reform Act of 2011.''

Once again we, Mr. Speaker, spend time on another set of partisan process bills that do nothing to help us reduce the deficit and pay down our national debt. Instead, they do quite the opposite--they make it more difficult.

Mr. Speaker, in the 1990s, Congress balanced the budget. Moreover, we had a budget surplus. It did not require a balanced budget amendment or an overhaul of our budgeting process. It required some sensible decisions by Members of Congress and the President to match our taxes and our expenditures. The

rules aren't broken, Mr. Speaker--Congress has simply failed to follow the rules that we have. In his testimony before the Budget Committee, Former Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, a Republican, said just that. ``It may not be that the budget process is broken,'' he said. ``It may not be . . . that tools are broken, but it may be the fact that the tools are not even being used.''

Any plan for deficit reduction must be comprised of spending cuts and revenue increases, yet H.R. 3582 attempts to hide that fact. It is designed to obscure the impact of tax cuts on the deficit. The majority simply wants to help its case for passing large tax cuts while disguising the actual costs of those cuts. Despite the rhetoric that has been thrown around this body, tax cuts do not pay for themselves.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3578 is just as unnecessary and, frankly, misleading. The majority wants to change the calculation of the discretionary baseline. It wants to include the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest in the permanent baseline for all federal budgeting. This also eliminates the budgetary tools currently in place which account for increased costs in future years, thus resulting in an effective cut of 20 percent from all programs, including military pay, without any thought about need or funding priorities.

Mr. Speaker, these bills constitute solutions for problems that do not exist, and will only serve to make things worse. They will not solve our debt and deficit problems and they will not create a single job. Moreover, the current system works--it has worked for us in the past, and it can work for us again now if we stop the political gamesmanship and come together to find commonsense solutions to get our fiscal house in order.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 3835. This bill is yet another example of the Republican majority's desire to play political games instead of promoting commonsense legislative solutions to our Nation's problems.

Madam Speaker, I believe this is exactly the wrong time to raise salaries for me and my colleagues in Congress. We shouldn't get it. But I do not believe that millions of hardworking Federal employees should be punished. They already gave $5 billion with their salary freeze over the past two years.

One of my top priorities in Congress is protecting the rights of middle class families, which includes many millions of Federal workers. I have the utmost respect for the hard work and public service that Federal civilian employees perform each and every day, and I believe they deserve to be compensated fairly. Federal workers are not overpaid. Comparison studies show that for the educational level and job category, they are paid less than others. In fact, Federal workers with a professional or doctorate degree earn 23 percent less, on average, than their private sector counterparts. In order to attract the most talented men and women to Federal service, it is imperative that we offer competitive salaries and benefits. This legislation sends the wrong message to the millions of men and women who serve the American people. It tells them that we may value the work that they do on behalf of the American people, but not enough to compensate them fairly.

Madam Speaker, this bill is a game. It is not a serious attempt to address the deficit or debt. It is ``gotcha'' politics. Pay for Federal workers did not get us into a deficit--two unpaid wars, a prescription drug benefit, and several tax cuts for the rich blew a hole in the budget. But rather than address those root causes, the majority today is blaming hardworking Federal employees.

Madam Speaker, rather than this phony bill, I am a cosponsor of Ranking Member Van Hollen's legislation to extend the pay freeze for Members of Congress through 2013 without affecting the salaries of the men and women of our Federal workforce. Members of Congress should not get a pay increase this year. This is something we all agree on, Mr. Speaker. When the legislation to forego a cost of living pay raise in 2011 came before this body in April 2010, it passed by a vote of 402 to 15. Bring this bill to freeze Members' pay through 2013 to the floor and I will support it. So would most of our colleagues, I believe.

Madam Chair, I rise today in opposition to the so called ``Fiscal Responsibility and Retirement Security Act of 2011'', H.R. 1173.

H.R. 1173 would repeal the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act, which was included in health reform.

The CLASS Act would make it easier for people to save for long-term care services. This program would give working adults the opportunity to plan for long-term care needs by providing cash benefits that can be used to purchase non-medical services and supports like home health care. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the CLASS Act would reduce the federal deficit and Medicaid spending.

Our nation is facing a long-term care crisis and repealing the CLASS Act does not help. Over ninety percent of Americans do not have long- term health insurance coverage. This crisis becomes more serious over the next two decades, when the number of Americans 65 and older will be 71 million--making up around 20 percent of the U.S. population. Long- term care is expensive: nursing homes can costs over $70,000 a year and home health care costs hundreds of dollars a day.

Instead of debating how to help Americans pay for long-term care, we are spending our time repealing the only program that is trying to help.

I oppose H.R. 1173 and urge my colleagues to vote no on this piece of legislation.

I thank the gentleman from Maine for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, this is a simple motion. We want to ensure that unemployment funds are used for those who are unemployed. We want to make sure that unemployment funds, as promised, are given to those who are unemployed. It shouldn't be a partisan issue. There are unemployed Republicans. There are unemployed Democrats. There are unemployed Independents. Our motion says to them, We're not turning away from you, but evidently, it seems to be a partisan issue.

Let me repeat in clear English what this means when they talk about waivers. In clear English, it means that this bill, the House Republican bill, would allow States to divert unemployment

funds for other purposes. States already have ample flexibility. They say they need flexibility, but ``flexibility'' really is a euphemism for denying benefits. It's an invitation to deny benefits. Right now, States are required to spend unemployment insurance funds solely on unemployment benefits. They must pay the benefits when they're due. They may not condition eligibility on issues beyond the fact of unemployment and cause a person's unemployment. Unless we accomplish what the gentleman from Maine is trying to accomplish here, this legislation would circumvent these basic protections.

Of course, it's fine for States to innovate and to pursue innovative ideas to help people get jobs; but for heaven's sake, don't experiment with the livelihoods of people who have lost their jobs. It's called unemployment insurance. No, it's not taking money from hardworking Americans. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard that here on the floor. Insurance is for those people who never expected they would be unemployed. I'll show you thousands of people in New Jersey--and I'm sure my friend here could show you thousands in Maine--who never thought they'd be unemployed for a week or a month or 6 months or 99 weeks. There are more people who have been unemployed for 99 weeks in the past year than at any time since the Great Depression.

Taking money away from hardworking Americans, I couldn't believe it. I never thought I would hear this on the floor.

Unemployment insurance is not welfare. It is provided to people who have worked hard. In effect, they've paid into an insurance fund. They've lost their jobs through no fault of their own, and they have to actively seek work to be eligible. Unemployment insurance also helps the public at large, the economy at large. It's not just helping those families--and it certainly does help those families: those spouses, those children. As my friend from Maine pointed out, the unemployment insurance money isn't stashed under a mattress. The family spends that money, and it helps the economy at large.

Even with the minuscule improvements in the economy recently, long- term unemployment remains up around record levels. There are millions of fewer jobs in the economy today than before the recession started.

Jeffrey from Plainsboro, New Jersey, wrote me:

I was wondering if the extension for unemployment benefits

will be extended. My wife has been unemployed for close to 2

years, and despite trying to get a job, we see her 99-week

deadline fast approaching. I am a car salesman who works on

commission, so you can imagine, business is down. Please let

me know if there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks.

Now, I think he would be outraged if he knew that somebody here on the floor was associating his wife with drug abusers, who shouldn't get the unemployment insurance benefits that she deserves.

Robert from Somerset wrote to me to say:

I am an unemployed Vietnam vet who received my last

unemployment check last week. What can I do about this? If

you have any suggestions, I would appreciate it. Why is it so

hard for you and the other Members of Congress, our

Representatives, to help us by voting for the extension of

unemployment benefits? Banks do not have to beg, but we do. I

don't recall any of the bank management risking their lives

for our country.

If they're interested in experimentation for how to do things better, why don't they experiment with maybe denying the banks and investment banks some of the benefits they've gotten? I think this veteran would be outraged for somebody to tell him that the government is subsidizing his unemployment and destroying his motivation to work.

Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, I rise to mark the passing of Donald Malcolm Wilson who spent a lifetime in communications during some of the most historic occasions of the twentieth century. Until his death on November 29, 2011, he was the last surviving member of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM), the ad hoc group formed by President John F. Kennedy, which informed U.S. policy during the most dangerous days of the Cold War--the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. At the time, Don was deputy director of the U.S. Information Agency, second only to the legendary Edward R. Murrow, who was the director.

Because Mr. Murrow was ill at the time, Mr. Wilson states in his book, The First 78 Years, he was asked to join EXCOMM, whose other 17 members included Vice President Lyndon Johnson, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Under Secretary of State George Ball, and Gen. Maxwell Taylor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Then 37 years of age, Mr. Wilson was one of the youngest people in the room. It was his job to get the American side of the story out to the world.

The Crisis grew from the U.S. discovery that the Soviets had secretly built missile bases in Cuba. Evidence for the bases was collected photographically by reconnaissance flights, which some members of the administration did not want to release because they would reveal the scope of U.S. secret aerial activity. However, Mr. Wilson argued persuasively that release of the photos would convince skeptical allies that the bases actually existed. The photos were released as Soviet ships headed toward Cuba to deliver ballistic missiles to the formerly secret locations.

EXCOMM members were divided on two options: an invasion of Cuba or a U.S. Navy blockade of the island to prevent the Soviets from delivering the weapons. President Kennedy decided on the blockade. On Thursday, October 24, 1962, described by Robert Kennedy as the day in his life that was, ``The most trying, the most difficult, and the most filled with tension,'' Soviet-bloc ships approached the U.S. Navy ships surrounding the island. Much to the relief of the nation and the world, on orders from Premier Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet ships reversed course and the danger of what would surely have been a nuclear war was averted.

Dean Rusk famously remarked of that incident that, ``We're eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked.''

On the day President Kennedy was shot, Mr. Wilson was again at the helm of the USIA, working to reassure the nation's people that the democratic process would continue as described in the Constitution of the United States and that their lives and safety would not be altered by the assassination.

Proud of the fact that the USIA had become an integral part of U.S. foreign policy during his tenure, Mr. Wilson left the agency in 1965 to return to his first employer, Time Inc., where he became general manager of Time-Life International.

He took a leave of absence in 1968 to work on Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign and was 50 feet behind Kennedy when he was shot. At that point, Mr. Wilson wrote, he decided not to be involved again in government service. Speaking for himself and his wife Susan Wilson, he stated, ``Two assassinations, which had broken our hearts, were enough.'' Nonetheless in 2000, at the age of 74, he made a brief return to the political arena during the primaries to support Bill Bradley's campaign for the presidential nomination.

In 1970, Mr. Wilson was named Vice President for Public Affairs at Time Inc., a position he filled for the next 19 years, where he initiated internal and external communications programs, including the school program, ``Time to Read,'' matching contributions for employees who donated to charity, and the development of a new and modern Time Inc. logo. News tours took him to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.

He was at the helm in 1984 when Israeli General Ariel Sharon sued Time magazine for libel. Although Time won the case, it lost the public relations war, Mr. Wilson states in his autobiography. In retrospect, Mr. Wilson believed that the case should have been settled before it went to court. Another explosive story in 1971 was a test of Mr. Wilson's skill in public relations. An authorized biography of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes was scheduled to be excerpted in Life. Before being exposed as a fraud by Hughes himself, the author Clifford Irving provided material he said was handwritten by Howard Hughes that experts deemed authentic. The story unraveled before the excerpts were published.

Don Wilson was born in Montclair, New Jersey, on June 27, 1925. Republican Calvin Coolidge was president and the George Washington and Golden Gate Bridges had not yet been built. Mr. Wilson's interest in politics began at an early age, and he was avid in his support for Franklin Roosevelt, despite the fact that his father was a Republican. He attended Montclair Academy, Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts. In 1943 he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps and was commissioned a second lieutenant as a B-17 navigator. Before World War II ended, he flew six missions over Europe with the 303rd Bomb Group.

He then finished his education at Yale University, where he gravitated to journalism and wrote a column for the Yale Daily News. Upon graduation, Mr. Wilson was hired by Life magazine as an office boy and worked his way up through the ranks from researcher to reporter to foreign correspondent. He covered the Korean War and the French Indochina War before becoming Washington Bureau chief in charge of coverage of the U.S. government. In 1960 he joined the Kennedy presidential campaign and became deputy director of the USIA in 1962.

In 1957, he married Susan Neuberger, a researcher at Life magazine, who, he states in his autobiography, impressed him immediately with ``her crisp questions and easy sense of humor.'' In 1978, she was appointed to the New Jersey State Board of Education and subsequently devoted 23 years to the Network for Family Life Education, now Answer, a nonprofit organization that promotes education on sexuality. She and Don are the parents of three children, Dwight M. Wilson, Katherine L. Wilson and Penelope Wilson.

In the 1960s Don and Susie Wilson moved to Princeton, and when Mr. Wilson retired from Time Inc., he and George Tabor, formerly Time magazine's business editor, launched NJBIZ, a business paper covering the state of New Jersey. He co-founded the nonprofit Independent Journalism Foundation in 1991 with James Greenfield, a former New York Times editorial board member. Following the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union, the IJF sponsored training programs for journalists in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. He was a member of the Century Association and the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City.

Don Wilson died at peace in the arms of his beloved wife, Susie, shortly after a Thanksgiving celebration filled with tributes from his children and grandchildren.

His interest in politics continues to live on in the Donald M. Wilson Fellowship at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights. His legacy as an imaginative and innovative communicator continues on.

Madam Speaker, from the beginning of this debt debate last summer, I rejected the notion that America's creditworthiness should be used as a bargaining chip. Americans from all walks of life are wondering why Congress can't do the job that they sent us here to do: putting Americans back to work and revitalizing our economy. Now, here we are again, only two days into the new session of Congress, and the Republican majority is still playing political games and still trying to have us default on our debts. This resolution may have no chance of becoming law, but those who vote for it are nonetheless voting for default.

I urge my colleagues to make the responsible choice: pay our bills, and pay them on time. Instead of engaging in partisanship and manufacturing crises, we should be coming together to fashion effective and bipartisan solutions to the jobs crisis.