Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Fiscal Year 2012 Conference report for the Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, and Transportation-HUD appropriations bill.

However, I regret the process that brought this bill to the floor. A full one third of this bill, the Transportation-HUD appropriations, has never been considered by the House before. This bill was not written in an open process and members were not allowed to offer amendments to improve the bill.

I am pleased that this bill included the funding I fought for to help our local residents recover and rebuild from the flooding which caused so much destruction in New Jersey. This bill provides $2.3 billion in needed disaster assistance to ensure Central New Jersey's businesses and home owners have the resources they need to mitigate the damage and put in place preventive measures in advance of future disasters.

Further, this bill rejects the dangerous attempt by House Republicans to end the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) and provides the program with almost $200 million to help local police departments keep our communities safe despite the local budget constraints. While this represents a steep cut in funding from last year, these funds will help some local departments who are having to make tough decisions about firing police officers for a lack of resources. Going forward, we must do far more to get more cops back on the beat.

In these difficult times, this bill also denies an attempt to reduce funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Women, Infants and Children (WIC). SNAP and WIC help our fellow Americans during their most difficult times with some food assistance to help make ends meet. As millions of our fellow Americans are struggling in this difficult economy, this bill provides $105 billion for domestic food assistance programs, an 18 percent increase from last year, to make sure they are at least able to keep some food on the table.

As a research scientist, I have long supported the important role of federal investment in basic research. I am glad this bill increases funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF) to $7 billion, an increase of $173 million. It also provides the necessary funding to continue the development of the James Webb Space Telescope that will allow researchers to find the first galaxies and help create jobs now. Further, this bill provides the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office a 29 percent increase in funding to ensure that our Nation's inventors are able to get their ideas to market and help grow our economy.

I am also pleased that this bill makes needed changes to ensure that the maximum loan limits for the Federal Housing Administration are maintained at a level necessary for areas with high cost housing like we have in New Jersey. With the housing market still weak, this will help provide some necessary stability and support for prospective home owners.

It is unfortunate that this bill freezes funding for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission which is tasked with implementing many of the commonsense Wall Street reforms we approved last year. Without additional funding the CFTC will struggle to prevent future financial crises, and not have the resources needed to fight oil speculation which is increasing the cost of gas at the pump.

Finally, I regret that this bill contains a number of funding restrictions that will limit our Nation's law enforcement officers from combating gun trafficking and prevent sensible regulations from being established to prevent guns from falling into the hands of criminals. Yet again the NRA has been given an early Christmas present with the inclusion of these special giveaways tucked into this bill without a vote or any debate on them.

This is not a perfect bill but it prevents a looming government shutdown. Further, it provides funding increases for a number of critical programs and rejects many of the dangerous cuts contained in the funding bills that the House previously approved. I support passage of this bill despite its pessimistic view of what America can achieve through ambitious funding of the programs covered under the bill.

Madam Speaker, the right question to ask is not, ``How can Congress create the political will necessary to balance our budget?'' The right questions to ask are, ``What is the right budget to enable a vigorous economy?'' And that is not necessarily a budget in exact numerical equality between income and outgo. And, second, ``How has America balanced its budget in the past?''

Madam Speaker, I took great personal satisfaction during my first term as a member of this body in voting for and helping to achieve America's first balanced budget in a generation. It was not easy to attain. Those members of Congress, myself included, who believe in fiscal responsibility and budgetary discipline, had to make tough choices and cast difficult votes in order to put the federal government's fiscal house in order. The White House and Congress can balance the federal budget without a constitutional amendment.

We needed two things: sufficient income and no unnecessary spending. A revenue base made balancing the budget possible. We also had a recognition that a vibrant economy produces more revenue than an economy in a recession.

That, Madam Speaker, is what is lacking today--not the political will, but the economic fundamentals. America's revenue base was decimated by the Bush tax cuts, which gave away hundreds of billions of dollars to the most fortunate Americans while doing little to

help middle-class families. And America's economy has been devastated by the financial crisis, which has diminished the federal government's revenue base and required us to spend money to sustain the social safety net and to create jobs.

Madam Speaker, if America truly wants to return to the era of balanced budgets, we don't need a misguided and destructive constitutional amendment. What America needs is to invest in those things that allow and help our people to be productive--education, research, health care, and things that help the wheels of commerce turn, like banking and trading regulations, environmental protection, and freer migration of talented people. We need the wealthiest Americans and our wealthiest corporations to pay their fair share of the cost of running this nation. And we need to act with urgency and compassion to put to work the 25 million Americans who are out of work or underemployed. We need to create jobs in the short-term to stop the damage to our long-term economy.

Madam Speaker, our history of amending the Constitution has been about the enhancement of individual rights or the correction of fundamental structural flaws in the federal government. Politics--not a structural flaw--created our current deficit problem, and political compromise can fix it. We must be committed to reaching the political compromises that are necessary in order to exercise fiscal responsibility and balance budgets consistently.

Madam Speaker, a balanced budget amendment is nothing more than a fine example of political theater. We will debate this amendment for hours, but without any chance to amend it or consider any alternatives. The majority is putting the bill on the floor under a procedure normally reserved for non-controversial measures, despite the very controversial nature of this flawed constitutional amendment. It is bad policy that will not bring us any closer to solving our budget problems, and I urge my colleagues to oppose it here today.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 674. The provisions contained in this amended legislation are a long time coming and I am pleased to see this body finally consider a measure that will have a tangible effect for Americans who are unemployed and underemployed. More importantly, these measures will help a particular group of Americans who I think we all agree deserve our full support: our Nation's veterans. Right now, men and women returning stateside from Iraq and Afghanistan face an unemployment rate of over 12 percent. Nearly a quarter of a million of recently returned veterans are jobless. This is unconscionable. If we can give our men and women the tools they need to succeed in combat, then certainly we must help them succeed when they return home. Moreover, veterans make excellent employees--I know because I have two working for me. Helping our veterans find jobs will put some of the finest men and women in the country into the American workforce. It's a win-win situation.

This measure provides tax credits for businesses who hire veterans-- up to $5,600 if the veteran has been out of a job for more than six months. It also provides a $9,600 tax credit if the veteran has a service-connected disability. It expands Montgomery G.I. benefits for education and training opportunities for older veterans. And it includes provisions to encourage separating service members to seek employment in civilian federal service.

Madam Speaker, it is worth noting that many of these are measures that President Obama proposed in the American Jobs Act. I am pleased that we are considering these specific provisions today, but dozens of other provisions in the Jobs Act would help put an even greater number of veterans back to work: small business tax cuts, supporting teachers and first responders, rebuilding and expanding our infrastructure. We must do more, and by advancing the proposals currently idling in this body, we can do more.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this measure to help put our Nation's veterans back to work.

Mr. Chairman, this is another great example of legislation in search of a problem. Driven by ideological fervor of its sponsors rather than by any practical approach to safety, H.R. 822 would amend existing Federal law to establish a national standard for carrying concealed firearms.

As the sponsors well know, these matters have long been the province of the States. It's fascinating how quickly the majority ignores the 10th Amendment when the gun lobby comes calling. Why needlessly create a conflict, or should I say a shootout, between the Second and the 10th Amendments?

Passage of the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act of 2004, which I voted for, and which permits qualified law enforcement officers to carry concealed firearms across States, makes this essentially redundant and unnecessary.

The bill before us would have the effect of overriding New Jersey's own laws in this area, which police officers and hunters and other citizens tell me work well and keep our citizens safe.

Ask our law enforcement officers. They'll tell you New Jerseyans live well within our gun safety laws. We don't need more lax laws.

Now, others have said today--but maybe it's worth repeating--that this body should be focusing on creating jobs, not passing ideologically driven, special interest legislation that would endanger public safety, subvert the constitutional order, and go against the interests and the declared recommendations of law enforcement officers all across the U.S.

I thank my friend from Texas, and I thank him very much for setting aside some time for this important issue.

You know, more than a century ago, the Supreme Court described the right to vote as the most fundamental right in our government because it is the preservative of all other rights. Indeed, that's true. And many years later, half a century ago, President Lyndon Johnson said that ``the vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice.''

The vote is the lifeblood of self-government, and it's one of the most powerful ways that citizens can affect change. The integrity of the electoral process is fundamental to ensuring that the voice of the people is heard.

I often say that a self-governing country such as ours works only if you believe it does. And we must make sure that every American knows that every vote counts, that every vote will be counted and that, you know, recognizing how complicated--it's not as simple as we would all like to believe--how complicated it is, that we, at the Federal level and at the State level, are doing everything we can to protect the franchise, to protect the franchise of each citizen to cast his vote. And it's not just that we want to protect this as a right; it's something we should desire for the sake of our country, that we get the diversity of opinion.

Well, what's happening right now is in State after State there's legislation that's intended to exclude some opinions, exclude some individuals, exclude some groups. Of course, this is something this country has seen in the past and worked diligently--yes, through Federal law--to correct. It was known as a poll tax. There were also literacy tests, quite clearly intended to exclude African Americans from not just their right to vote, but from their obligation and their privilege of voting.

What happens if laws are enacted to diminish the integrity and the accessibility of the ballot box for particular sectors of society? What happens if those disenfranchised voters typically vote for candidates representing one party?

Well, I came of age in the throes of the civil rights movement, when our colleague Representative John Lewis, then a young man who had been tapped by Martin Luther King, Jr. to become a leader in the movement, was beaten. I often say he's the only Member of this Chamber who had his skull cracked, literally, to try to earn the right for everyone, every citizen to vote.

In the aftermath of those bloody confrontations, Congress said there is a role for the Federal Government. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, and it's made an enormous difference.

But we can't sit back. We can't rest because right now, in State after State, there is effort to exclude some people. If you require people to jump through a lot of hoops, maybe not a lot of money, but spend some money, to me, that's a poll tax.

That is illegal, unconstitutional. We thought we had gotten away from it. We thought we had gotten away from so-called literacy tests where people had to jump through some truly unreasonable hurdles in order to vote, where prospective voters were quizzed to ask how many bubbles there are in a bar of soap. Hurdles that could not be crossed.

Well, you know, it sounds reasonable when you say you don't want anyone who's not eligible to be showing up to vote. But where are those people? In State after State, these ID requirements are put in place to deal with a problem that doesn't exist, and millions of Americans are being excluded from voting in order to deal ostensibly with this problem of fraud at the polling place.

Now, I don't doubt that in some ways, subtle or otherwise, there is some fraud. But I have not heard of a single immigrant coming across the border, walking through the desert of our southern States so that they could sneak in and cast a ballot some place.

There are tough laws and severe penalties for people who vote fraudulently in the name or address that is intended to deceive. But very few people have been caught doing that. There are very few examples of prosecutions or apprehensions or, for that matter, even suspicions of this happening. And yet all of these laws that are being passed are ostensibly to deal with that problem. It's a problem that doesn't exist in nearly 5 million Americans by estimates from such people as the Brennan Center of the law school at NYU. Five million people might be excluded from this.

So I thank my friend from Texas for engaging in this discussion tonight. Indeed, this is the right that preserves all other rights. What could be more important? It is cynical, it is disingenuous, it is un-American what people are doing in a very systematic way to exclude large groups of people from voting to solve a problem, an imaginary problem that's been trumped up. I believe it's been trumped up just so that they could exclude large numbers of people from voting.

I thank my friend for raising this critically important question.

I thank my friend from Texas.

The history of America has been a history of expanding the franchise, the opportunity, the right to vote. And it's based on this principle that we often talk about in this Chamber but maybe don't pay enough attention to, which is the principle of equality under the law. We're not just saying that, Yes, everybody can vote--well, unless you are disabled, and you can't get into the polling place. Or everybody can vote except, well, if you're 75 years old, 85 years old, you are no longer driving, and you have let your driver's license expire, and, no, you haven't gotten down to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get another one. Or we'll let everybody vote--well, as long as you pay a tax or if your grandfather voted or if you can cross these hurdles.

Our history has been a history of saying everybody is equal under the law. And we don't put artificial hurdles in place. The 15th Amendment said you can't deny African Americans the right to vote. In 1915, the Supreme Court said, The grandfather clauses are unconstitutional, which would outlaw exemptions from literacy requirements for voters whose grandfathers had been eligible to vote at the time of the Civil War.

The 19th Amendment said women can vote. The 23rd Amendment said citizens of the District of Columbia could vote in Presidential elections. The 24th Amendment outlawed poll taxes. And in 1965, as I referred to earlier, in the aftermath of the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, the Voting Rights Act was passed, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race or language-minority status. It prohibits the use of suppressive tactics in various poll tests.

I could go on. The 18-year-old vote, the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires equal access to voting places, the National Voter Registration Act, the ``Motor Voter Act,'' these are all based on the principle of equality under the law.

I would be happy to yield.

And continuing to answer the gentleman's question: Who cares? Why does it matter? My friend from Florida has talked about how millions can be disenfranchised, excluded by the photo ID laws. Additionally, State after State has made it more difficult to conduct voter registration drives. So people who are eligible, who should be voting, are prevented from or hindered in their registration. And hundreds of thousands, we expect, would be excluded because of registration drives. And there are other restrictions, too, that I will talk about in a moment.

So I ask the gentlelady, how many other patriotic Americans are going to be deterred from asking their friends, their neighbors--in this case, maybe students--from registering for fear that they'll be prosecuted if they don't dot the I's just right?

And then in other States--who cares, my friend asks--in other States, they're making it harder to cast absentee ballots. So that's going to exclude people.

You know, you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to see behind this a purpose of exclusion. This is not, Oh, we're just trying to clean up the procedures here to make sure that it's all neat and tidy. No, this is deliberate exclusion.

I thank the gentleman.

So, as efforts are made to put hurdles in the way to require proof that is difficult or expensive to get, that is, if offices are closed, and open periods for absentee ballots are shrunk, and early voting is discontinued as it has been in some States--in fact, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia have succeeded enacting bills that reduce early voting--all of this serves only to reduce the dignity of Americans by saying the principle of equality applies except for some people, some people as I said, who might have physical disabilities or might be elderly or might be low income.

But, more than that, it deprives us of a working democracy. The reason, the history of America has been a history of expanding the franchise so that we could have a more stable, productive democracy. We want everyone to vote. It makes this a richer country in every way.

I thank the gentleman for setting aside this time. I can't think of a more important topic to be debated in this great Chamber.

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

I am opposed.

Mr. Speaker, at the outset, I want to make one thing clear, which is that the passage of this amendment will not prevent the passage of the underlying bill. If this amendment were to be adopted, it would be incorporated into the bill, and the bill would be immediately voted upon.

As written, Mr. Speaker, the underlying bill would not prevent potential beneficiaries of this act from doing business with the Government of Iran, whose rogue actions threaten our interests and, through their terrorist

intermediaries, the interests of our ally Israel. It's a gaping loophole that this final amendment would close.

The U.S. has a comprehensive embargo against the Government of Iran. Recent events have reminded us exactly how clever the agents of the Government of Iran can be in circumventing U.S. and international law in an effort to keep funds flowing to the Iranian clerical dictatorship. We saw that in the debate last week over a mining bill, during which a link between an American company and an Iran foreign investment company was discussed at length.

Last week, our colleague from Florida (Mr. Deutch) offered the Republican majority an opportunity to close the loopholes in the mining bill that could benefit Iranian entities. Regrettably, that amendment was defeated on a party-line vote.

I come to offer the majority another chance.

The bill on the floor today would leave the door open to similar abuses. This final amendment would close any loopholes in the embargo by targeting intermediaries--those who run Web sites or act as broker- dealers--who are seeking to provide help to unaffiliated issuers to do business around the globe.

This final amendment mandates that those who want to benefit from the provisions of this bill must not have any interest in doing business with the Government of Iran. Furthermore, they cannot be affiliated with any person who is doing business directly or indirectly with the Government of Iran.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, this is a serious amendment.

This final amendment is really a commonsense safeguard measure. We all know that money is fungible, including securities. We all know that Iran's dictatorial regime is feeling the pinch from the sanctions the United States has already imposed. The radical clerics that control Iran's government are constantly searching to get the money and goods they need to stay in power and to threaten our interests and, through their terrorist intermediaries, threaten the interests of our allies in Israel. Without this final amendment, this bill would provide them with a possible opening to do so. This final amendment to the bill will help slam shut the door for that option.

I urge all of us to support this final amendment to the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Is the gentleman seeking to yield time to me?

If this is such a noncontroversial amendment, I ask the gentleman to accept it.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I am troubled and disappointed that this duplicative and needless resolution reaffirming ``In God We Trust'' as the official motto of the United States is being considered today. It is a solution in search of a problem and it comes at the cost of addressing the jobs crisis in our country. With 25 million people out of work, job creation must be our top priority and we should be working every day to help get Americans back to work.

Does anyone seriously believe that ``In God We Trust'' has come under attack? It is my experience that the American people do not need to be told to respect the symbols of our nation and our national motto. They already do.

Some have raised questions about whether the national motto violates the First Amendment protections against the establishment of religion. Supreme Court Justice Brennan answered those concerns when he said, ``The truth is that we have simply interwoven the motto so deeply into the fabric of our civil polity that its present use may well not present that type of involvement which the First Amendment prohibits.''

Finally, one of my constituents wrote to remind me prior to 1956 ``E pluribus unum'' or ``Out of many, one'' was the de facto motto of the United States. I can't help but wonder whether it wouldn't be a better motto again today. As we face great challenges, we should always remember that we are all in this together.

I thank my friend and colleague from Ohio.

I am pleased to come to the floor tonight to talk about a serious issue: whether the voice of the people will be heard. As citizens of this Nation, the voting franchise is not just our constitutional right; it is the right through which all other rights are secured, our primary voice in how this country is run. And right now around this Nation, there are people who are working actively to disenfranchise specific sectors of our citizenry.

How is this happening? Well, this year, in 38 States, there is legislation being considered or, in some cases, already approved to make it more difficult for citizens to register to vote, making it impossible to vote early, and to require identification that serves to eliminate or restrict voting for large numbers of people. Restrictions on voter registration have placed such burdens on groups organizing community-based voting drives--such as the League of Women Voters--that several organizations have suspended voter registration drives in some States due to the onerous nature of the legislation.

Now, if there were a threat of voter fraud as the proponents of these laws assert, it might make sense, but there is no threat of voter fraud. Are there rampant cases of impersonation, voting as someone else? No. Voter fraud is not rampant. There are not numerous cases of impersonation. There may be isolated instances, sure, of alleged voter fraud, but to disenfranchise millions of people because there are a few cases is really contrary to the American system of government.

In 23 States and the District of Columbia that allow voters to show both photo and nonphoto ID, such as a utility bill or a bank statement, there is no evidence of voter impersonation, no evidence that fraud is occurring. It's a phantom menace of fraud that is the basis for a well- funded movement around the country making it difficult for eligible voters to cast their votes.

Are photo ID laws prohibitive? Yes, they are. A recent report by the Brennan Center for Justice of NYU law school concluded that the newly enacted State laws affecting more than 5 million eligible voters will disproportionately disenfranchise young, low-income, elderly, and minority voters. In 2006, the Brennan Center completed a nationwide survey of voting-age citizens and found that African American voters are more than three times as likely as Caucasians to lack a government- issued photo ID.

Restrictions on registration, limits on early voting, and photo ID requirements at the polls all serve to discourage young, low-income, minority, and elderly voters from participating in their constitutional right to vote. Should they reach the polls and successfully cast their ballot, of course we have to ask whether their vote will be counted accurately.

In the past, literacy tests and poll taxes were used to selectively allow certain citizens to vote and to exclude others. Those laws were and are illegal. We should make sure that they remain illegal in the 21st century. 21st century poll taxes, which, in effect, these restrictions are, seek to suppress the voices of people who have a right to vote and whose voices should be recorded because we need their wisdom at the polls.

Now the motto should be, ``Everyone Counts.'' And there's much to be said--and we'll say this at another time--about making sure that every vote that is cast is counted. Election auditing can be used to ensure that voting errors are minimized, performing a check on the results recorded by electronic voting machines against a verifiable record, paper record of the vote.

But tonight we want to talk about the systematic disenfranchising of people who are citizens, who should be voting, and whom we should want to vote.

I am pleased that my friend has taken this time tonight, and I am certainly pleased to join you.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 358, the Protect Life Act.

Our first priorities in the House of Representatives must be helping to foster job creation and supporting middle class families. We are now 280 days in this Congress without passing a jobs plan.

Instead, the Republicans have chosen to continue their radical assault on reproductive health care in the guise of preventing the use of federal funds to pay for abortion procedures. These bills and amendments are as unnecessary as they are offensive. Federal law already prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for abortion services except when a woman's life is endangered or she is a victim of rape or incest.

H.R. 358 would impose unprecedented limitations on comprehensive reproductive health services that go far beyond current law.

The bill would force health plans to drop comprehensive coverage in state health insurance exchanges. The bill would allow hospitals to refuse to provide life-saving care to women--even if they are facing an imminent threat of death. Further, the provisions in this bill are so broad that it would allow states to prohibit access to birth control, including providing emergency contraception to sexual-assault survivors.

This bill claims that it would protect life. But the bill could end the lives of women who are in need of life-saving emergency care. Sadly, we have all heard of the stories of women who are faced with the heart-wrecking decision to terminate their pregnancies when they are told that their baby will not survive to term. This bill will prevent women in that difficult situation from receiving needed health care services even if they are facing a life-threatening situation themselves.

This bill goes farther than ever in an extreme attempt to limit health coverage for American women, and make a legal, constitutionally protected medical procedure inaccessible to women.

Instead of debating how to put Americans back to work, we are again spending our time debating a bill that would result in substandard health care for millions of Americans.

I strongly oppose H.R. 358 and urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this dangerous piece of legislation.

Madam Speaker, this year a number of States are taking steps to make it more difficult for citizens to register to vote, to limit early voting, and to require photo IDs at the polls. The proponents of these new laws argue that they are designed to combat voter fraud. Clearly, we don't want people voting illegally, but these new laws are a solution to a problem that does not exist, and these steps will create serious problems.

A recent report by the Brennan Center at NYU shows that these new laws would affect more than 5 million eligible voters and would disproportionately disenfranchise young, low-income, and minority citizens.

In the past, literacy tests and poll taxes were used selectively to allow certain citizens to vote and disenfranchise others. They were and are illegal, and they should remain so. So we must oppose 21st century poll taxes which seek to suppress the vote of eligible voters and deny them their constitutional rights and weaken our democracy.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the so-called Protect Life Act. Our first priorities here now must be to help to foster job creation and support middle class families.

We are 280 days into this Congress without even having a jobs plan from the majority. Instead, the Republicans have chosen to continue their radical assault on women's health and health care in the guise of preventing the use of Federal funds to pay for abortion procedures.

This bill is as unnecessary as it is offensive and inhumane. The bill would penalize private insurers that offer comprehensive plans; would allow hospitals to refuse lifesaving care to women; and would prevent access to birth control, including providing emergency contraception to sexual assault survivors.

Instead of debating how to put Americans back to work, the majority party is spending our time on socially divisive bills that are going nowhere.

Mr. Speaker. I rise in opposition to the pending free trade agreements with Columbia, Panama, and Korea we are considering today.

I do not support these agreements for one simple reason: I remain completely unconvinced that they can create jobs in the short term. Job creation must be our principal objective. That is what nearly everyone in New Jersey tells me is their concern. Given the tough economic times we face and the high rates of unemployment and underemployment, we need to take steps to help create jobs now. In my view these agreements fail that job-creation test. Instead of advancing these steps that might possibly start producing some jobs years from now, we should be passing immediately legislation that creates jobs now, legislation that helps homeowners now, and legislation that helps the middle class now.

Mr. Speaker this week the House of Representatives considered two bills that continue the Majority's assault on public health and the environment. The so-called ``Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act'' and the ``EPA Regulatory Relief Act'' would delay or eliminate air pollution safeguards for industrial incinerators, boilers, and cement plans. Should these dangerous bills become law, the air we breathe would contain more mercury, arsenic, lead, and acid gas.

These misguided pieces of legislation would undermine the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to enforce the Clean Air Act and significantly limit the federal government's ability to ensure that the air we breathe is safe and pollution-free.

Sadly, these bills are just the latest in a long line of bills from the majority that put big polluter profits before the health and safety of the American people. From the Dirty Air Act that would remove EPA's statutory authority to regulate carbon pollution to legislation that exempts offshore drilling operations from having to control their pollution emissions and legislation that would allow power plants to emit more and more toxic air pollution, the majority seems intent on rolling back programs that preserve our environment, protect our public health, and grow our economy.

For forty years the Clean Air Act has been successful in protecting public health and preventing deaths from respiratory disease because it was written to follow science as science evolved. The success of the Clean Air Act is because its regulations are based in science. Legislators shouldn't pretend to be scientists.

I urge my colleagues to vote no on these dangerous bills.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the TRAIN Act. This misguided legislation would undermine the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to enforce the Clean Air Act and significantly limit the federal government's ability to ensure that the air we breathe is safe and pollution-free.

Some in the Majority have used the title of this legislation to refer to EPA's so-called regulatory train wreck. Well, the TRAIN Act amounts to a wrecking ball for public health protections.

Sadly, the TRAIN Act is the latest in a long line of bills from the majority that puts big polluters before the health and safety of the American people. From the Dirty Air Act that would remove EPA's statutory authority to regulate carbon pollution to legislation that removes accountability for offshore drilling operations, the majority seems intent on rolling back programs that preserve our environment, protect our public health, and grow our economy.

For forty years the Clean Air Act has been successful in protecting public health and preventing deaths from respiratory disease because it was written to follow science as science evolved. The success of the Clean Air Act is because its regulations are based in science. Legislators shouldn't pretend to be scientists.

I urge my colleagues to vote no on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, nearly two-thirds of Americans say that job creation should be Washington's top priority. But no one here needs an opinion poll to learn that. I am sure all my colleagues are hearing what I hear by mail, fax, e-mail, Twitter, phone calls, Facebook, and passersby on the street. Everyone is saying, ``Congress, get on with it! Make jobs! Get America to work! Get my husband, my cousin, my daughter to work.'' And, yet again, the Republican majority in the House is playing political games--wasting time debating a senseless resolution when we could, and should, be doing the work that the American people sent us here to do: creating jobs and revitalizing our economy. I recently visited several manufacturers in Central New Jersey to hear directly from job creators about what the federal government can do to promote growth. The political circus surrounding the debt ceiling negotiations was not mentioned once. With 25 million Americans either unemployed or underemployed, it's time to stop the political shenanigans and focus on the task at hand: putting America back to work. The debt ceiling debate this summer already wasted months that could have otherwise been spent focusing on job creation. In the end, the government made the responsible choice to pay its bills--case closed. Instead of further exacerbating the partisan divide on Capitol Hill, we should be coming together to fashion an effective, bipartisan jobs bill that the American people expect and deserve. How much time must we waste before we get serious about putting America back to work?