Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak on the importance of passing H.R. 40, legislation which I introduced that establishes a commission to study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans.

Now--more than ever--the facts and circumstances facing our Nation demonstrate the importance of H.R. 40 and the necessity of placing our nation on the path to reparative justice. As I speak, H.R. 40 is cosponsored by 191 Members from all parts of the nation and was marked up and reported favorably to the House by the Judiciary Committee on April 14, 2021. In 2019, when the Judiciary Committee met to discuss this legislation, three overflow rooms were required. Since that time, we have seen a pandemic sweep the country, taking more than 600,000 souls in its wake and devastating the African American community. According to the latest estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Black people get COVID-19 at a rate nearly one and a half times higher than that of white people, are hospitalized at a rate nearly four times higher, and are three times as likely to die from the disease.

Interestingly, a recent peer-reviewed study from Harvard Medical School suggests that reparations for African Americans could have cut COVID-19 transmission and infection rates both among Blacks and the population at large. Their analysis, based on Louisiana data, determined that if reparations payments had been made before the COVID- 19 pandemic, narrowing the wealth gap, COVID transmission rates in the state's overall population could have been reduced by anywhere from 31 percent to 68 percent. Last summer we saw hundreds of thousands peacefully take to the streets in support of Black Lives and accountability for law enforcement. Many of those protesters carried signs in support of H.R. 40 and made the important link between policing and the movement for reparative justice. Tragically, we have also witnessed insurrectionists attack this institution, brandishing symbols of division and intolerance, that echo back to the darkest periods of our nation's history. Clearly, we require a reckoning to restore national balance and unity.

Four hundred years ago, ships set sail from the west coast of Africa and in the process, began one of mankind's most inhumane practices: human bondage and slavery. For two centuries, human beings--full of hopes and fears, dreams and concerns, ambition, and anguish--were transported onto ships like chattel, and the lives of many forever changed. The reverberations from this horrific series of acts--a transatlantic slave trade that touched the shores of a colony that came to be known as America, and later a democratic republic known as the United States of America--are unknown and worthy of exploration.

Approximately 4,000,000 Africans and their descendants were enslaved in the United States and colonies that became the United States from 1619 to 1865. The institution of slavery was constitutionally and statutorily sanctioned by the Government of the United States from 1789 through 1865. American Slavery is our country's Original Sin and its existence at the birth of our nation is a permanent scar on our country's founding documents, and on the venerated authors of those documents, and it is a legacy that continued well into the last century. The framework for our country and the document to which we all take an oath describes African Americans as three-fifths a person. The infamous Dred Scott decision of the United States Supreme Court, issued just a few decades later, described slaves as private property, unworthy of citizenship. And, a civil war that produced the largest death toll of American fighters in any conflict in our history could not prevent the indignities of Jim Crow, the fire hose at lunch counters and the systemic and institutional discrimination that would follow for a century after the end of the Civil War.

The mythology built around the Civil War has obscured our discussions of the impact of chattel slavery and made it difficult to have a national dialogue on how to fully account for its place in American history and public policy. While it is nearly impossible to determine how the lives touched by slavery could have flourished in the absence of bondage, we have certain datum that permits us to examine how a subset of Americans--African Americans--have been affected by the callousness of involuntary servitude. We know that in almost every segment of society--education, healthcare, jobs, and wealth--the inequities that persist in America are more acutely and disproportionately felt in Black America. This historic discrimination continues: African-Americans continue to suffer debilitating economic, educational, and health hardships including but not limited to having nearly 1,000,000 black people incarcerated; an unemployment rate more than twice the current white unemployment rate; and an average of less than \1/16\ of the wealth of white families, a disparity which has worsened, not improved over time. A closer look at the statistics reveals the stark disparity in these areas.

Black household wealth is less than one fifth of the national average. The median black household had a net worth of just $17,600 in 2016. Yet in that same year, the median white household held $171,000 in wealth while the national household median was $97,300. The black unemployment rate is 6.6 percent, more than double the national unemployment rate. Approximately 31 percent of black children live in poverty, compared to 11 percent of white children. The national average is 18 percent, which suggests that the percentage of black children living in poverty is more than 150 percent of the national average.

In the healthcare domain, the disparities suffered by African Americans is also troubling. Over 20 percent of African Americans do not have health insurance, compared to a national average between 8.8 percent and 9.1 percent. One in four African American women are uninsured. Compared to the national average, African American adults are 20 percent more likely to suffer from asthma and three times more likely to die from it. Black adults are 72 percent more likely to suffer from diabetes than average. Black women are four times more likely to die from pregnancy related causes, such as embolisms, and pregnancy-related hypertension, than any other racial group. In our nation, among children aged 19-35 months, black children were vaccinated at rates lower than white children: 68 percent versus 78 percent, respectively.

Education has often been called the key to unlocking social mobility. African American students are less likely than white students to have access to college-ready courses. In fact, in 2011-12, only 57 percent of black students have access to a full range of math and science courses necessary for college readiness, compared to with 81 percent of Asian American students and 71 percent of white students. Black students spend less time in the classroom due to discipline, which further hinders their access to a quality education. Black students are nearly two times as likely to be suspended without educational services as white students. Black students are also 3.8 times as likely to receive one or more out-of-school suspensions as white students.

In addition, black children represent 19 percent of the nation's pre- school population, yet 47 percent of those receiving more than one out- of-school suspension. In comparison, white students represent 41 percent of pre-school enrollment but only 28 percent of those receiving more than one out-of-school suspension. Even more troubling, black students are 2.3 times as likely to receive a referral to law enforcement or be subject to a school-related arrest as white students. School districts with the most students of color, on average, receive 15 percent less per student in state and local funding than the whitest districts.

And, of course, we cannot consider the disparities between black and white in America without considering the intersection of African Americans and the Criminal Justice system. There are more Black men in bondage today who are incarcerated or under correctional control, than there were black men who were enslaved in the 1800s. The United States locks up African American males at a rate 5.8 times higher than the most openly racist country in the world ever did: South Africa under apartheid (1993), African American males: 851 per 100,000 and United States (2006), African American males: 4,789 per 100,000

Incarceration is not an equal opportunity punishment. For example, incarceration rates in the United States by race were: African Americans: 2,468 per 100,000; Latinos: 1,038 per 100,000; Whites: 409 per 100,000. African American offenders receive sentences that are 10 percent longer than white offenders for the same crimes and are 21 percent more likely to receive mandatory-minimum sentences than white defendants according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Looking at males aged 25-29 and by race, you can see what is going on even clearer: For White males ages 25-29: 1,685 per 100,000; For Latino males ages 25-29: 3,912 per 100,000; For African American males ages 25-29: 11,695 per 100,000. (That's 11.7 percent of Black men in their late 20s.) Looking at males aged 25-29 and by race, you can see what is going on even clearer: For white males ages 25-29: 1,685 per 100,000; For Latino males ages 25-29: 3,912 per 100,000; for African American males ages 25-29: 11,695 per 100,000. (That's 11.7 percent of Black men in their late 20s.)

And African Americans are more likely to be victims of crimes. Black children die from firearm homicides at a rate 10 times higher than their white counterparts. Overall, one in 50 murders is ruled justified--but when the killer is white and the victim is a black man, the figure climbs to one in six. A handgun homicide is nine times more likely to be found justified when the killer is white and the victim is a black man. Handgun killings with a white shooter and a black male victim exhibit an even more dramatic bias: one in four is found justified. But then again, we knew these inequities existed because for many Black Americans, these disparities are just a part of daily life. Examined in the aggregate, they represent a stunning chasm between the destinies of White America and that of Black America. This is why, in 1989, my predecessor as the most senior African American on this august Judiciary Committee, the honorable John Conyers, a past Chairman of this Committee introduced H.R. 40, legislation that would establish a commission to study and develop proposals attendant to reparations.

Though many thought it a lost cause, John Conyers believed that a day would come when our nation would need to account for the brutal mistreatment of African-Americans during chattel slavery, Jim Crow segregation and the enduring structural racism endemic to our society. I would like to take this moment to personally thank the estimable John Conyers for his work on this legislation for the last thirty years. With the rise and normalization of white supremacist expression during the Trump administration, the discussion of H.R. 40 and the concept of restorative justice have gained more urgency, garnering the attention of mainstream commentator, and illustrating the need for a national reckoning. H.R. 40 is intended to create the framework for a national discussion on the enduring impact of slavery and its complex legacy to begin that necessary process of atonement.

For many, it was not until The Atlantic published Ta-Nehisi Coates' The Case for Reparations that the mainstream public began to reckon with, or even consider, the concept of reparations. Though the Federal government has been slow to engage the issue of reparations, individuals, corporations, and other public institutions have engaged the discussion out of both necessity and conscience. In 1994, a group of California plaintiffs sued the Federal government and by 2002, nine lawsuits were filed around the country by the Restitution Study Group. Though litigation has yielded only mixed success in court, a serious foundation was laid for alternative forms of restitution. For example, in 2005, J.P. Morgan & Company tried to make amends for its role in the slave trade with an apology and a $5 million, five-year scholarship fund for Black undergraduates in Louisiana.

In 2008, the Episcopal Church apologized for perpetuating American slavery through its interpretation of the Bible and certain diocese have implemented restitution programs. In 2003, Brown University created the Committee on Slavery and Justice to assess the University's role in slavery and determine a response. Similarly, in 2016, Georgetown University apologized for its historical links to slavery and said it would give an admissions edge to descendants of slaves whose sale in the 19th century helped pay off the U.S. school's debts. In 2017, my alma mater, Yale University, announced that it would rename Calhoun College--named for John C. Calhoun--would be changed to honor Grace Murray Hopper, a trailblazing computer scientist who also served as rear admiral in the United States Navy. The University's president, Peter Salovey, indicated that removing Calhoun's name was consistent with its values because Calhoun had a legacy of a white supremacist and a national leader who passionately promoted slavery as a positive good. And, in April of this year, students at Georgetown University voted in favor of paying reparations to the descendants of enslaved people who were sold by the university to satisfy its debts.

In 1838, in a practice likely far wider spread than is likely accounted for, Georgetown Jesuits sold 272 slaves who worked on plantations. When the results of the Georgetown poll were announced, the numbers were overwhelming: \2/3\ of students indicated that payments should be funded to descendants of these slaves and would be paid for by a fee that would apply to all undergraduate students. While the vote was nonbinding, it nonetheless represents the first time the student body of a university has voted to implement a mandatory fee to account for reparations. These are only a few examples of how private institution have begun reckoning with their past records. I expect that a growing number of institutions will be forced to examine their histories of discrimination, if for no other reason than increasing public scrutiny will force their history to light.

Since my reintroduction of H.R. 40 at the beginning of this Congress, both the legislation and concept of reparations have become the focus of national debate. For many, it is apparent that the success of the Obama administration has unleashed a backlash of racism and intolerance that is an echo of America's dark past which has yet to be exorcised from the national consciousness. Commentators have turned to H.R. 40 as a response to formally begin the process of analyzing, confronting, and atoning for these dark chapters of American history. Even conservative voices, like that of New York Times columnist David Brooks, are starting to give the reparations cause the hearing it deserves, observing that ``Reparations are a drastic policy and hard to execute, but the very act of talking and designing them heals a wound and opens a new story.''

Similarly, a majority of the Democratic presidential contenders have turned to H.R 40 as a tool for reconciliation, with 17 cosponsoring or claiming they would sign the bill into law if elected. Though critics have argued that the idea of reparations is unworkable politically or financially, their focus on money misses the point of the H.R. 40 commission's mandate. The goal of these historical investigations is to bring American society to a new reckoning with how our past affects the current conditions of African Americans and to make America a better place by helping the truly disadvantaged. Consequently, the reparations movement does not focus on payments to individuals, but to remedies that can be created in as many forms necessary to equitably address the many kinds of injuries sustained from chattel slavery and its continuing vestiges. To merely focus on finance is an empty gesture and betrays a lack of understanding of the depth of the unaddressed moral issues that continue to haunt this nation.

While it might be convenient to assume that we can address the current divisive racial and political climate in our nation through race neutral means, experience shows that we have not escaped our history. Though the Civil Rights Movement challenged many of the most racist practices and structures that subjugated the African American community, it was not followed by a commitment to truth and reconciliation. For that reason, the legacy of racial inequality has persisted, and left the nation vulnerable to a range of problems that continue to yield division, racial disparities, and injustice. By passing H.R. 40, Congress can start a movement toward the national reckoning we need to bridge racial divides. Reparations are ultimately about respect and reconciliation--and the hope that one day, all Americans can walk together toward a more just future.

We owe it to those who were ripped from their homes those many years ago an ocean away; we owe it to the millions of Americans- yes, they were Americans--who were born into bondage, knew a life of servitude, and

died anonymous deaths, as prisoners of this system. We owe it to the millions of descendants of these slaves, for they are the heirs to a society of inequities and indignities that naturally filled the vacuum after slavery was formally abolished 154 years ago. The Judiciary Committee hearing held in the 116th Congress was the first time in history that the House of Representatives held a hearing on H.R. 40, we held another earlier this year on February 17, 2021, before marking up this landmark legislation on April 14, 2021. It was fitting that the first hearing occurred on the 19th of June, also known to many in this room, as Juneteenth--the day that, 154 years ago, General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas and announced the freedom of the last American slaves; belatedly freeing 250,000 slaves in Texas nearly two and a half years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

Juneteenth was first celebrated in the Texas state capital in 1867 under the direction of the Freedmen's Bureau. Juneteenth was and is a living symbol of freedom for people who did not have it. Today, Juneteenth now is both the oldest known celebration of slavery's demise and the nation's newest national holiday. It commemorates freedom while acknowledging the sacrifices and contributions made by courageous African Americans towards making our great nation the more conscious and accepting country that it has become. Let me end by noting that the recently passed 400th commemoration of the 1619 arrival of the first captive Africans in English North America, at Point Comfort, Virginia. With those dates as an historical marker for today's hearing, let us proceed to the work of repair with free hands, full hearts, and a passion for achieving justice. Let us also do the work in the spirit of reconciliation and understanding that H.R. 40 represents.

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak on the fierce urgency of preserving the precious right to vote by passing H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, H.R. 1, the For The People Act. I will continue the dialogue at a future time, when I discuss the importance of passing H.R. 40, legislation which I introduced that establishes a commission to study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans.

Madam Speaker, the serious damage to the precious right to vote occasioned by the right-wing, conservative majority on the Supreme Court demands that Congress exercise its powers under Section 5 of the 15th Amendment to restore the extraordinary reach and effectiveness of Section 2 and Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. As an aside, Madam Speaker, on the objection of VRA opponents to states subject preclearance having the burden to bail themselves out, I have long said that the states that were subject to preclearance under the Voting Rights Act earned their way in, so it only fitting that they earn their way out.

Madam Speaker, June 25, 2021, marked the 8th anniversary of the Supreme Court's infamous decision in Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), which immobilized the Department of Justice from subjecting discriminatory voting and election law changes to prior review and approval, or ``preclearance.'' It was predicted at the time by me and other defenders of the precious right to vote that the Court's misguided and naive decision would usher in a wave of state and local initiatives intended to suppress and nullify the rights of black Americans, persons of color, young adults, and marginalized communities to exercise the most basic act in the political process: voting. As we have seen in recent months, this prediction has tragically come to pass.

Not to be content with the monument to disgrace that is the Shelby decision, the activist right-wing conservative majority on the Roberts Court, on July 1, 2021, issued its evil twin, the decision in Brnovich

Madam Speaker, I am here to anchor this Special Order on the fierce urgency of preserving the precious right to vote by passing H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and legislation like H.R. 1, For The People.

I am delighted to be co-anchoring this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order at the request of our tireless leader for justice, Congresswoman Joyce Beatty of Ohio, and to be joined by my co-anchor, Congressman Ritchie Torres of New York, and many other members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Fifty-six years ago, in a century that was close to a hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation and the rendition of the 15th Amendment, the very right to vote, there we were fighting with this beloved Member of Congress, who challenged us to get into good trouble, fighting in 1965, pursuant to the collapse of the understanding of the 15th Amendment, fighting for the right to vote again.

Madam Speaker, here we are today, 2021, now 56 years after the 1965 Voting Rights Act, fighting for the right to vote.

I want to make sure that I pay tribute to Our Power, Our Message, led by the Honorable Joyce Beatty, who does not only speak her words, but she acts on her words, how proud we were. But I am sure pride is not what she wants us to feel as she walked down this difficult road here in Washington, D.C., to be able to express, with Black women and others, that we have a fierce sense of urgency, and was arrested, just about two weeks ago, in the name of voting rights.

So let me, for a moment, read to you out of the book that has just been published by a dear, beloved friend, ``Carry On.'' I use this book in the Rules Committee, when there seems to have been a challenge to helping the impoverished. I concluded my remarks, when I was giving amendments, to help the impoverished to carry on.

But on the issue of justice, these are his words: ``We must practice what we preach. If we believe in life and liberty, then we should not defer the dream of equality and justice''--the right to vote--``under the law for people of color. We must use the system of government to improve our laws and to make our society fairer and more just. While no one bill can right the many wrongs, we can stitch together partial solutions to deal with the complex societal issues that lead to systemic bias and inequality.''

That is why we stand here today. We are stitching together a response to the collapse of voting rights in America. We are stitching together laws that will deal with the mass of suppression laws being passed in State legislatures across America. We are stitching together a response for those brave Texas Democratic representatives who are here in Washington, D.C., who are begging us to pass H.R. 1 and S. 1 and of course we have passed H.R. 1 and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

Let me just briefly say that serious damage to the precious right to vote occasioned by the rightwing conservative majority on the Supreme Court demands that the Congress exercise its powers under section 5 of the 15th Amendment to restore the extraordinary reach and effectiveness of section 2 and section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The 15th Amendment said that no law, no State legislature should abridge the right to vote on the basis of discrimination of race and color and ethnicity and that the Congress should stand up and provide the relief and the answer.

Did you hear, Madam Speaker? The Congress. And the Congressional Black Caucus has said that, not only with their words but with their bodies. Hank Johnson was just arrested last week, Congressman Hank Johnson.

So the objection to the VRA and their opponents is without substance. I have long said that the States that were subject to preclearance under the Voting Rights Act earned their way into so doing by discriminatory laws.

Madam Speaker, June 25, 2021, marked the eighth anniversary of the Supreme Court's infamous decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which immobilized the Department of Justice from subjecting discriminatory voting and election laws to the preclearance.

On August 6 will be the commemoration of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. 56 years. And look at the predicament we are in.

Later on in this debate I will recount all the times we voted for the Voting Rights Act. Madam Speaker, it was bipartisan. It was across racial lines, regional lines, because we knew it was the right thing to do.

So tonight we stand on what is right. We stand on good trouble. We stand on making the decision that not the

Shelby case, not the Arizona case. The Arizona case is Brnovich v. DNC that dashes section 2, and frankly says, by one of the justices, that a little bit of discrimination is okay. Not on the watch of the Congressional Black Caucus and all of my colleagues, because voting rights belongs to every single person in this Congress and to their constituents.

Why would they want to deny the implementation and the substance of the Constitution and the 15th Amendment?

So here we are tonight to be able to explain to the American public and our colleagues that we cannot wait any longer for H.R. 4 or H.R. 1, S. 1, S. 4, and we are here tonight to tell our story.

It is my pleasure and certainly my privilege, as we continue to tell our story, and as I continue to weave in that story, to yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Beatty), who, again, has spoken with her actions, not just her words, the Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, senior member and chairwoman on the Financial Services Committee, and, again, someone who showed the Nation that it is both our message and our power by being arrested in the name of the fight for equality, getting into a little good trouble.

I am sure John Lewis, rest in power, is looking down on us.

Madam Speaker, I thank the Chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus for her powerful words. And, yes, thank her for acknowledging the women who stood in the gap, including Melanie Campbell and Reverend Barbara Williams Skinner and Clayola Brown, and Tamika, who has been at the forefront as well, and many, many others that have, likewise, been at the forefront. We are pleased to be able to join in their leadership as well.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, let me ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the subject of this Special Order.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Torres), a gentleman who now walks in history, who knows his history, and who is prepared to fight against that history that should never be repeated, my coanchor, who has eloquently articulated what was in General Granger's Order No. 3, and that is the equality of rights.

Madam Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from New York for opening the pathway. We may have him continue to explore that journey, which I will take up, and that is the question of the filibuster. Someone described it as busting things up and busting good things up.

We know that there has to be a solution to those who have argued that, in fact, they are about the institution of the other body; they are about the integrity of the other body. I would argue that where blood has been shed so that people have died so that people might vote, it is not the integrity of the institution. It is the life and death of voting rights, not only for people of color, but for this Nation.

A man who has argued eloquently about the filibuster and a resolve of our next steps, but also recognizes historically, not only the civil rights journey but the fundamental right of voting that should not be hindered or undermined is our majority whip, and we are very grateful for his leadership and his historical perspective and his current understanding of how we have to get the job done.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn).

Madam Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina for his comments. He clearly acted, as I indicated, and that is, he presented the history, but he brought us to the 21st century and 2021. I think the challenge that we are now offering to the American people, incredulously, how can anyone try to undermine the votes of any American, and particularly those Americans of color?

As I yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina, let me at least just depict for a moment the uniqueness of our history, for this picture is a picture

of a whipped, beaten back of a slave. That means that we had extraordinary conditions, extraordinary circumstances. In the 1800s preceding and around the Emancipation Proclamation, I will just read these words as I yield: Congress put forward the 15th Amendment and it made it very clear that:

No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or

standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied

by any State or political subdivision in a manner which

results in a denial or abridgement of the rights of any

citizen of the United States to vote on the account of race,

or color, or language minority status.

This was coming out of slavery when they had the 13th Amendment that eliminated slavery but didn't eliminate stigma and institutional racism, gave due process, and then gave the right to vote out of the history of what is depicted here. That is why this is so serious that an institutional rule cannot survive over the right to vote, and the big lie cannot supersede the right to vote.

It is my pleasure to yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Adams), who is a historian and professor in her own right and spent her life's work teaching at historically Black colleges which were born out of the seeds or born out of the quagmire and the fires of slavery but born to make a difference. She has been a champion for the HBCUs and understands what the denial of the vote and voting rights means to that constituency.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her pointed message about North Carolina and her district. I think I join her. My district is a voting rights district, so we know what it is to be at the edge of surviving.

The only way that we have survived is with the protection of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. We are living testimony that it is crucial to the vast diversity that has been created in this House on behalf of the American people.

Madam Speaker, let me now take the pleasure of yielding to another distinguished Member who has had her own history in a very unique State.

Someone asked the question: Is it Southern? Is it Northern? I think you only have to hear her--and, of course, the President of the United States, who is a very forthright leader. President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris have been forthright in confronting issues that have been meant to help the American people heal and unite. She has been right in the mix and, as well, has been a leader on labor issues, a leader on healthcare issues. But one thing she knows is the depth of disparity that plagues a community when voting is extinguished.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Delaware (Ms. Blunt Rochester).

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for mentioning Bob Moses.

For those of us who care and know about history, we know about Bob Moses, and it makes this night even more significant because if you are losing the peaceful warriors who helped organize and put themselves on the line, then we must carry on. I thank the gentlewoman from Delaware.

Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining.

Madam Speaker, let me make an argument regarding where we are, and then I will be happy to yield to my coanchor and happy to conclude.

Madam Speaker, I wanted to reemphasize where we are today and reemphasize that, unfortunately, a bill that had been passed as bipartisan for years has been ``upheavaled'' by the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, a Supreme Court that, as my friend from New York described, is an activist Supreme Court--the Shelby Court and now the Brnovich Court, absolutely wrongheaded decisions.

In Shelby, I believe the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that you don't throw away an umbrella in a rainstorm.

Now, let me characterize these words and not attribute them. I think one of the other points that was made is: Just because polio is not on the rise, you don't get rid of the polio vaccine. Just because you think COVID-19 is gone, you don't throw all manner of precautions to the wind.

Obviously, we see what is happening with this kind of reckless behavior and this kind of red State, blue State discord. People are dying.

That is where we are with voting rights. The Shelby case in 2013 just imploded the preclearance, which in actuality says that as you begin to think about a bill that may have these discriminatory impacts, they can be precleared by the Department of Justice and stopped in their tracks. Section 2 says the harm has been done, and you can run into court making the argument that it is discriminatory.

Tragically, all we were left with, before the Brnovich case, was section 2. But here, what has happened in this case that came out of Arizona--a place where the big lie is playing out every day with a false and misleading and disreputable vote count. To my colleague, I don't know what they found yet, but it is certainly one that has no basis in fact.

The Court in Brnovich suggested that they would have something called guideposts--I call them burdens or suggestions--that when reviewing claims that are facially so-called neutral election policy, practice, or voting rule, and it is discriminating, you can look at these aspects.

You can burden us by saying, ``Here is what you look at.'' Are they ordinary burdens or mere inconvenience exception, the size of disparities and burdens imposed by the challenge rule, other opportunities to vote provided by a State's election system.

So, the polls are closed. You can't do a mail ballot. You don't have Souls to the Polls. So, just find some other way to vote.

That is the question. They say, ``other opportunities to vote.'' You close out all the other supporting aspects of voting, and maybe you can get to vote in a snowstorm. Maybe you can get to vote as a military person in battle. Maybe you can show up to the voting poll on election day because that is another opportunity. Maybe you can get on a plane and leave battle to vote. These are the just nonsensical aspects of the Brnovich case.

Legitimate State interests justifying the challenge voting rule--oh, there is a State interest to close your polling locations in minority neighborhoods, to not have places to get a voter ID in eight counties in Texas when you have a law that says you must have a voting ID, or to close out Souls to the Polls, a perfectly legal concept to allow people who work around the clock through a Sunday to go vote. I guess you would tell them to just find another opportunity.

When we were in the middle of COVID-19 and nurses and doctors were working around the clock, Harris County said: We will give you 24-hour voting.

Legally, law enforcement present, machines in order, no fraud detected at all, but you are fighting COVID, and you might not get off until 1 a.m., 3 a.m., 4 a.m.

Yet, this is what the big lie brings about, and then the degree to which a voting rule departs from what was a standard practice when section 2 was amended in 1982.

Now, the crisis of this is that all of this must be run down for you to be able to prevail under section 2, under the Brnovich case.

Taken together, this Supreme Court cabal is saying to racial, ethnic, and language minorities already intimidated--and you need to look at what John Lewis faced in 1965, this brunt force, law enforcement on horses chasing foot soldiers back over the bridge, 8-year-olds running for their lives, and bloodied older persons, foot soldiers, and John Robert Lewis, who said he thought he was going to die.

That is what sacrifice has been made for voting. Taken together, this court decision is saying: What is the big deal? It is only voting. Just like with bad weather, sometimes you just have to grin and bear it and have a little inconvenience. Just a little bit of discrimination. Why are you concerned about that?

And so I assume that without the 24th amendment, that this conservative majority and the court will subject poll taxes and literacy tests to the review standard enunciated in Brnovich. Just a little bit of inconvenience. Take that money out and pay that poll tax. You don't have any money? I guess your fundamental right to vote has just been extinguished.

That is where we are today. That is why we are here today challenging the filibuster, speaking about the Federalist papers nullification, and trying to understand that the Constitution prevails over all of these miserly bills across the Nation. The 15th amendment and then the Constitution statement, very clearly says that Congress, that no one can nullify or stop your rights as a person that is elected to Congress because they have no rights.

Madam Speaker, I include in the Record an article, an op-ed, that I submitted on June 26, 2021, authored by myself.

Where GOP Lawmakers Have Passed New Voting Restrictions Around the

Country

Republican state legislators have introduced hundreds of

bills that would tighten access to voting around the country,

many of them echoing former president Donald Trump's false

claims that loose election laws allowed fraud to taint the

2020 White House race.

The groundswell began early this year with the introduction

of 253 bills proposing voting restrictions across 43 states

as of mid-February, according to the nonpartisan Brennan

Center for Justice. That number rose to at least 389 bills in

48 states as of mid-May.

The national spotlight is now on Texas after Democratic

lawmakers left the state on July 12 in an effort to block

passage of one of the most stringent new voting measures in

the country. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said the members

could face arrest when they return, which is not expected

until the state's special legislative session concludes--

potentially as late as Aug. 7.

Across the country, 17 states have enacted laws this year

that tighten the rules around casting ballots and running

elections, according to the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab,

which tracks developments in state election law.

Many of the bills target mail voting and other policies

that helped safeguard the franchise during the coronavirus

pandemic and produce the highest turnout among American

voters in more than a century.

Some of the bills also seek to curtail early voting, impose

restrictions on voter registration efforts, limit the power

of local officials to oversee elections and stop private

donors from supplementing their operational budgets.

Democratic-controlled states have moved in the other

direction, approving measures to formalize more permissive

voting policies from 2020, complementing proposed federal

legislation to protect voting rights with a set of national

standards.

In addition to the states listed below, Alabama, Arkansas,

Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, North Dakota, New

Hampshire, Nevada, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming have

also passed laws with restrictive language.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Torres), my co-anchor, and I thank him again for his joining me tonight, and for our journey that we are on trying to raise up justice in this country.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York. I am so glad he said the words ``by any means necessary.'' That is striking, and without a doubt, the approach of the activist Supreme Court, right-wing, of the big lies, and of those who wish to stall and stop the very lifeline of American democracy, and that is the right of each person to vote their conscious.

As we have said: Our message, our power; but our voice, our vote; our vote, our voice. And I thank him for joining me this evening for elaborating and detailing and roll-calling where we are today.

I notice the gentleman did not step in the breach and indicate that we might need to expand the Court. That is another discussion altogether.

Madam Speaker, I am delighted to yield to the distinguished gentlewoman from Missouri (Ms. Bush), a member of the Judiciary Committee. I think she can speak in her own way on the vitality of a vote for poor people.

I thank the gentlewoman. Madam Speaker, thank you for recognizing me to anchor this Special Order on the fierce urgency of preserving the precious right to vote by passing H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and legislation like H.R. 1, the For The People Act.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

The gentleman is always enormously courteous, and I will be brief.

Since I was on the committee the gentleman might have been staff, but I know in the House, for example, we had at least 100 hearings and 15,000 pages of testimony. It was chaired at that time by Jim Sensenbrenner, a Republican, who was meticulous in making sure we had a record. So I am not sure where the gentleman is getting his information from.

I will just finish by simply saying that the voter suppression laws that we are dealing with today are all engaged responding to the big lie that there was not a legitimate election in 2020, and my good friend knows that President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were elected in 2020. So we wonder the basis of these voter suppression laws.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I will not take more of his time.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2467, the ``PFAS Action Act of 2021'', which is comprehensive legislation to regulate Per- and poly- fluoroalkyl substances (``PFAS'') chemicals, clean up contamination, and protect public health.

H.R. 2467 will provide the protections impacted communities need quickly and for the long term.

Specifically, this bill will require Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to use tools under several environmental statutes to:

Stem the flow of PFAS contamination into the environment by requiring cleanup of contamination sites, setting air emission limits, prohibiting unsafe incineration of PFAS, and limiting the introduction of new PFAS chemicals into commerce;

Identify health risks by requiring comprehensive health testing for all PFAS, reporting of PFAS releases, and monitoring for PFAS in drinking water;

Inform communities of PFAS risks by requiring the EPA Administrator to develop a risk-communication strategy and establish a website with information on testing of household well water; and

Limit human exposure to PFAS by requiring a drinking water standard for PFAS that protects public health, including the health of vulnerable subpopulations like pregnant women, infants, and children, and holding polluters accountable.

The legislation also provides grants to impacted water systems, creates a voluntary label for cookware that is PFAS free, provides guidance for first responders to limit their exposures, and requires effluent limitations and pretreatment standards for PFAS introduction or discharge.

Known as PFAS, for per- and polytluoroalkyl substances, the chemicals in this class of approximately 5,000 substances have become notorious as much for their potential danger as for their perseverance.

Because the chemical bonds that hold the compounds together don't break down easily, they last a very long time--a reality that has led to a commonly used name for the group: ``Forever chemicals.''

PFAS compounds are also ubiquitous and used in a range of products from food-delivery boxes to nonstick cookware to stain-resistant clothing.

But one of the most troubling routes to PFAS exposure is drinking water that has been contaminated by discharges from factories and other facilities.

PFAS chemicals are an urgent public health threat, because they are persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic.

PFAS have long been linked with adverse health effects including cancer, immune system effects, infertility, impaired child development, high cholesterol, and thyroid disease.

PFAS have been detected in the drinking water of more than 1,400 communities in 49 states, according to research by the PFAS Project at Northeastern University in Boston and the Environmental Working Group (EWG).

According to monitoring by the EPA, millions of Americans are exposed to unsafe levels of PFAS through their drinking water.

Military families and communities are at especially high risk.

A 2018 UCS analysis of 131 U.S. military facilities showed that nearly all had significant PFAS contamination of groundwater or drinking water, some with levels over 100,000 times the safe limit as determined by the most recent draft scientific assessment from the Department of Health and Human Services.

Included in this analysis was the Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base in Houston, Texas, which tested at levels of 61,000 parts per trillion.

Clear and swift action from Congress is needed to address the PFAS crisis, and we need an all-hands-on-deck effort to protect both human health and our environment.

This bipartisan legislation will ensure we're treating PFAS as a hazardous chemical and giving our agencies the resources to clean up sites for the betterment of our communities.

I urge all members to join me in voting for H.R. 2467, the ``PFAS Action Act of 2021.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2668, the ``Consumer Protection and Recovery Act'', which will ensure that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) can protect American consumers and put money back in the pockets of consumers who have been the victims of fraud and other scams by amending the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTC Act) to explicitly provide the FTC the ability to obtain both injunctive and

monetary equitable relief for all violations of the laws it enforces.

Specifically, this bill would:

Add a new subsection (e) to section 13 of the FTC Act that specifies types of equitable relief the FTC may pursue: restitution for losses, contract reformation and recission, money refunds, and the return of property;

Provide the FTC disgorgement authority to seek court orders requiring bad actors repay unjust gains acquired in violation of the law.

Clarify that the FTC may seek temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions without bond and that any relief sought under section 13(b) may be for past violations in addition to ongoing and imminent violations.

As the Nation's premier consumer protection agency, the FTC is directed to enforce numerous statutes: the core of which is section 5 of the FTC Act mandating the agency to prevent unfair or deceptive acts or practices and unfair methods of competition.

Section 13(b) of the FTC Act authorizes the FTC to bring suit in federal courts seeking relief for consumers and is a critical enforcement tool the FTC uses to combat fraud and scams under section 5.

In 2020 alone, the FTC returned more than $482 million to over 1.6 million consumer victims of fraud or illegal business practices.

The FTC's restitution authority under section 13(b) was settled law for over 40 years, but beginning in 2017, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed its own precedent to overturn FTC authority under section 13(b) to obtain monetary relief and the Third Circuit soon followed.

Because of these decisions, close to 48 million Americans in six states became unable to obtain monetary redress under 13(b).

Then, on April 22, 2021, the Supreme Court held in AMG Capital Management v. FTC that section 13(b) does not allow the FTC to seek monetary relief or require bad actors to return money earned through illegal activity.

According to Acting Chairwoman Slaughter, the Supreme Court decision ``deprived the FTC of the strongest tool [the FTC] had to help consumers.''

Mr. Speaker, all five FTC Commissioners have repeatedly urged Congress to take quick action to pass legislation reaffirming FTC authority under section 13(b).

H.R. 2668 does exactly that, by restoring nearly forty years of precedent and giving the FTC the ability to protect Americans from scams and unethical business practices.

Americans need this protection, because every day, and far too often, individuals in Texas and across the country fall victim to financial scammers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to an increase of scams and fraud that prey on consumers' fears and financial insecurities, and inaction on this issue is not an option as it will only embolden bad actors.

H.R. 2668 will ensure that the FTC maintains its ability to return money to the victims of scams.

Seniors especially need this protection, because they have worked their entire lives with the promise of a safe and secure retirement, but scammers and unscrupulous businesses are taking advantage of uncertainty surrounding the pandemic and working overtime to target them.

Retirement accounts are not the only damage these scams cause--they damage the independence and trust of a vulnerable community.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen instances of fraud rise in unprecedented numbers, as scammers attempt to take advantage of senior citizens and deprive them of their hard-earned savings.

Bad actors preying on older Americans is, unfortunately, nothing new, but in the midst of a global pandemic impacting Americans' lives and livelihoods, cracking down on those scams must be a priority.

One such scam was thwarted by Houston police and the Harris County District Attorney, who made an arrest in February in an international cyber-scam that bilked unsuspecting, mostly elderly victims out of more than $1 million.

One victim of the scam, Asuncion Peppers, 74, a retired medical technician knows that first hand; She was bilked out of her life savings.

Hackers contacted Ms. Peppers on Facebook, pretending to be one of her Facebook friends.

She was told she was eligible for a government grant of almost one million dollars and all she had to do was send a check to pay taxes.

Investigators believes the scammers were operating from Nigeria, defrauding senior citizens in the U.S. and around the world.

Before Ms. Peppers realized she was being conned, she sent checks totaling $87,000 hard-earned money.

She said that she worked three jobs to build her life savings.

Ms. Peppers and her husband are just two of 38 victims bilked out of more than $1.3 million before the fraud was discovered.

This story is not an isolated incident: although 1 in 20 seniors in the U.S. is a target of fraud schemes, the National Adult Protective Services Association has found that only 1 in 44 seniors report that they are victims of a fraud scheme.

During these unprecedented times, it is imperative that Congress pass legislation that protects U.S. consumers and honest businesses from wrongdoers who steal money through fraud and deception.

Mr. Speaker, we need to strengthen federal prevention efforts and ensure leaders in the public and private sectors are collaborating on effective safeguards.

This begins with ensuring that the FTC has the explicit authority to obtain both injunctive and monetary relief for all violations of the laws it enforces.

I urge all members to join me in voting to pass H.R. 2668, the ``Consumer Protection and Recovery Act.''

Madam Speaker, in these tumultuous days of crisis and challenge, Members of Congress know well, perhaps better than most, how blessed our nation is to have in reserve such exceptional young men and women who will go on to become leaders in their local communities, states, and the nation in the areas of business, education, law, government, philanthropy, the arts and culture, and the military.

We know this because we see them and benefit from their contributions every day. Many of them work for us in our offices as junior staff members, congressional fellows, or interns and they do amazing work for and on behalf of the constituents we are privileged to represent.

Madam Speaker, I believe there is no higher calling than the call to serve a cause larger than ourselves. That is why I ran for public office. I was inspired to serve by President Kennedy who said, ``Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,'' and by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who said:

``Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. . . . You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.''

By this measure, there are several other great young men and women who served as volunteers this year in my offices. They braved the dangers of the pandemic that has wrought so much suffering and heartbreak across our nation. They cheerfully do their duty in the U.S. Capitol complex that just six months ago was the site of an insurrection attack not seen since the War of 1812. These dedicated and public-spirited men and women may toil in obscurity but their contributions to the constituents we serve are deeply appreciated. That is why today I rise to pay tribute to five extraordinary young persons for their service to my constituents in the 18th Congressional District of Texas and to the American people. They are:

Alejandro Garcia Escobar Plascencia, Georgetown University;

Jacqueline White Menchaca, Arizona State University;

Idia Irele, Smith College and Harvard University;

Anthony Collier, Texas Southern University; and

Valencia Shuler, Rice University.

Madam Speaker, the energy, intelligence, and idealism these wonderful young people brought to my office and those interning in the offices of my colleagues help keep our democracy vibrant. The insights, skills, and knowledge of the governmental process they gain from their experiences will last a lifetime and prove invaluable to them as they go about making their mark in this world.

Because of persons like them the future of our country is bright, and its best days lie ahead. I wish them all well.

Madam Speaker, I am grateful that such thoughtful committed young men and women can be found working in my office, those of my colleagues, and in every community in America. Their good works will keep America great, good, and forever young.

Mr. Speaker, I, too, want to add my appreciation to the chairman of the Judiciary Committee for his leadership in moving this bill forward and certainly to our friend and one who has served this Nation in many ways, Congressman Crow, for his continued consideration of our friends in Afghanistan.

As the co-chair and founder of the Afghanistan Caucus, I have gone to Afghanistan many, many times in the early years. I know the people in Afghanistan truly love democracy. I know the women and children want education, and I know that in the midst of our decision on the longest- serving war, we must find that pathway to be able to ensure democracy prevails, both in terms of the democratic leadership of government but also in the lives of the people.

I hesitate to read this language: ``Gunfire erupts. At least a dozen men are seen shot to death amid cries of `Allahu Akbar', God is great.

``The victims were members of an Afghan Special Forces unit: their executioners, the Taliban. The summary killings took place on June 16 in the town of Dawlat Abad in Faryab Province, close to Afghanistan's border with Turkmenistan.'' It is, of course, a difficult thing to read and to understand.

But as we begin to write the democratic principles of a constitution so many years ago--prior to this Nation going to Iraq--people were interested and excited about their life. Women were elected as parliamentarians. In fact, they prided themselves on a number of parliamentarians who happened to be women.

In the instance of that leaving Afghanistan the first time, we found that those women, many going to their districts, were killed. Schools for children that girls were in, schools that I took books to, were actually burned to the ground.

So those who stood by us, those who guided our troops, those who translated for us, and those who took us into the villages--because many of you know the stories of our soldiers going in with money. That was the policy at that time--this bill specifically acknowledges their leadership.

I include in the Record three articles referencing this important issue.

[From Human Rights Watch, Apr. 1, 2021]

Afghanistan: Taliban Target Journalists, Women in Media

New York.--Taliban forces are deliberately targeting

journalists and other media workers, including women, in,

Human Rights Watch said today. Threats and attacks

against journalists across the country have increased sharply

since talks began between the Afghan government and the

Taliban, heightening concerns about preserving freedom of

expression and the media in any peace settlement.

Human Rights Watch found that Taliban commanders and

fighters have engaged in a pattern of threats, intimidation,

and violence against members of the media in areas where the

Taliban have significant influence, as well as in Kabul.

Those making the threats often have an intimate knowledge of

a journalist's work, family, and movements and use this

information to either compel them to self-censor, leave their

work altogether, or face violent consequences. Provincial and

district-level Taliban commanders and fighters also make oral

and written threats against journalists beyond the areas they

control. Journalists say that the widespread nature of the

threats has meant that no media workers feel safe.

``A wave of threats and killings has sent a chilling

message to the Afghan media at a precarious moment as Afghans

on all sides get set to negotiate free speech protections in

a future Afghanistan,'' said Patricia Gossman, associate Asia

director. ``By silencing critics through threats and

violence, the Taliban have undermined hopes for preserving an

open society in Afghanistan.''

Human Rights Watch interviewed 46 members of the Afghan

media between November 2020 and March 2021, seeking

information on the conditions under which they work,

including threats of physical harm. Those interviewed

included 42 journalists in Badghis, Ghazni, Ghor, Helmand,

Kabul, Kandahar, Khost, Wardak, and Zabul provinces and four

who had left Afghanistan due to threats.

In a number of cases that Human Rights Watch documented,

Taliban forces detained journalists for a few hours or

overnight. In several cases they or their colleagues were

able to contact senior Taliban officials to intercede with

provincial and district-level commanders to secure their

release, indicating that local commanders are able to take

decisions to target journalists on their own without approval

from senior Taliban military or political officials.

Taliban officials at their political office in Doha, Qatar,

have denied that their forces threaten the media and say that

they require only that journalists respect Islamic values.

But Taliban commanders throughout Afghanistan have threatened

journalists specifically for their reporting. The commanders

have considerable autonomy to carry out punishments,

including targeted killings.

Women journalists, especially those appearing on television

and radio, face particular threats. The recent wave of

violent attacks has driven several prominent women

journalists to give up their profession or leave Afghanistan

altogether. Female reporters may be targeted not only for

issues they cover but also for challenging perceived social

norms prohibiting women from being in a public role and

working outside the home.

Journalists outside the country's main cities are

especially vulnerable to attacks because they are more

exposed and lack even the minimal protection that a larger

Afghan media, government, and international presence

provides. However, as the fighting has increasingly

encroached on major cities, these have offered decreasing

protection to journalists seeking safety from the violence in

their home districts.

A journalist covering the fighting in Helmand province said

that one of his sources told him the Taliban were looking for

him and he should lie low. ``The majority of Afghan

journalists feel intimidated and threatened,'' he said. ``All

the journalists are scared because everyone feels like they

could be next.''

Residents of Taliban-held areas have long expressed fear of

retaliation if they complain about the way Taliban forces

carry out military operations or enforce restrictions. In a

June 2020 report, Human Rights Watch documented severe

restrictions in areas under Taliban control, including limits

on freedom of expression and the media.

The Taliban leadership should immediately cease

intimidation, threats, and attacks against journalists and

other media workers, Human Rights Watch said. They should

urgently provide clear, public directives to all Taliban

members to end all forms of violence against journalists and

other media workers, and intimidation, harassment, and

punishment of Afghans who have criticized Taliban policies.

The Taliban leadership should also explicitly reject violence

against women in the media.

The United Nations and governments supporting the Intra-

Afghan Negotiations should publicly press the Taliban

leadership to adopt these recommendations, and provide

increased support, including protection, to independent media

organizations and journalists in Afghanistan, especially

those facing threats.

``It's not enough for Taliban officials in Doha to issue

blanket denials that they're targeting journalists when

Taliban forces on the ground continue to intimidate, harass,

and attack reporters for doing their jobs,'' Gossman said.

``Countries supporting the peace process should press for

firm commitments from all parties to protect journalists,

including women, and uphold the right to free expression in

Afghanistan.''

Taliban Threats to Afghan Media

Although the Taliban routinely deny responsibility for

attacks on journalists, the Afghan Journalists Security

Committee (AJSC) has said:

Since the beginning of the spike in targeted killings in

early November [2020], supporters of the group [Taliban] have

welcomed the killings of journalists on social media, calling

these killings in many cases a religious duty. Taliban

supporters accuse journalists of being agents of Western

countries, and corrupted by Western values, thereby

legitimizing any violence against journalists and the media

as not only being permissible but a key part of their war.

Taliban Threats Related to Reporting on the War

Taliban commanders and fighters have long targeted the

media, accusing them of being aligned with the Afghan

government or international military forces. If journalists

report unfavorably about Taliban actions or military

operations, the Taliban often accuse them of being spies.

District and provincial-level Taliban commanders have also

criticized journalists for not reporting incidents such as

civilian casualties from government airstrikes. Journalists

have said that the role some of them play as influential and

prominent figures in many communities has made them targets

of the Taliban. By attacking them the Taliban effectively

threaten all local media. A journalist in Helmand said:

If the more prominent journalists are targeted first, the

other journalists, who might be less influential or

prominent, are automatically intimidated and fear for their

lives . . . . Pro-Taliban accounts on social media . . .

explicitly issue warnings to other journalists, along the

lines of ``learn something from the death of this

journalist''--you can be next.

The effect on Afghan media has been profound. The killings

and threats have generated fear among journalists and media

workers, many of whom have altered their work patterns in an

effort to mitigate the danger or try to be less visible.

Taliban pressure on the media is an apparent part of an

effort to shape public debate about the war at a time of

heightened political tensions surrounding the peace talks.

Local journalists said Taliban commanders and fighters call

them to complain about published reports, questioning why a

certain issue was covered in a certain way. A journalist in

Kandahar said:

The Taliban warned me about reporting on casualties related

to a suicide attack. They wanted me to say that a lot of

people got killed but I just reported the attacker dying . .

. The Taliban threatened a couple of journalists over the

last couple years for not reporting on assassinations. They

say, 'Why don't you report the actual number?' When we argue

with them that it is the correct number, they threaten us.

When one journalist reported a Taliban attack on a civilian

facility in Kandahar, he said that within minutes he received

death threats and other warnings on his phone. The Taliban

called him to say that they had not targeted civilians but a

nearby government checkpost. The journalist said that he

lives in fear that the Taliban might still come after him.

Other journalists in Kandahar have reported being followed by

Taliban fighters. Because of such confrontations, journalists

often self-censor their stories.

In Helmand, Taliban commanders targeted journalists who

reported on military operations during a Taliban offensive in

October. Taliban forces attacked the outskirts of Lashkargah

city, overrunning Afghan government checkpoints until US

airstrikes drove them back. In the months before he was

killed by an improvised explosive device (IED) on November

11, Elyas Dayee, a journalist, had received multiple threats

from Taliban commanders in Helmand, warning him to stop his

reporting on their military operations. Another reporter

covering the fighting said that the morning after his report

came out, a Taliban commander called and accused him of

publishing reports against the Islamic Emirates and warned

that he would face consequences.

The Nature of the Threats

In Taliban-controlled provinces, threats often come from

local commanders with knowledge of the journalist's family,

work habits, and movements. These commanders maintain

individual contact with journalists and editors, and usually

communicate these threats by phone or through social media.

A radio presenter in Zabul province said that he and his

colleagues routinely receive threats from the Taliban

accusing them of giving the government publicity. The callers

always know details about the journalists they call,

including their jobs, family members' names, and often their

addresses. One caller told him that he should either leave

the area or work for the Taliban. When he refused the caller

told him he should ``count down to his death.'' He said his

relatives also receive these threats and are told to

communicate them to him.

In Ghazni province, reporters say that they have been

threatened and intimidated by various groups and do not know

who is behind every attack. However, despite official denials

from the Taliban leadership, comments by Taliban commanders

and fighters on social media have led journalists to suspect

that the Taliban are responsible for many attacks. These

commanders generally have considerable autonomy to plan and

carry out military operations independently.

The Afghanistan Journalists Safety Committee said that in

Ghazni province, the

Taliban had instructed the majority of the local media

outlets that they would only be permitted to continue media

activities if they followed Taliban directives. Another

journalist in Ghazni said that the Taliban commanders in the

province object to any content that is negative or critical

about them. Journalists whose reporting is perceived as

favorable to the Afghan government may immediately become a

target. Leaving their jobs is often their only recourse.

On December 21, Rahmatullah Nekzad, head of the Ghazni

journalists' union, was fatally shot as he walked from his

home to a local mosque. Although the Taliban spokesman,

Zabihullah Mujahid, denied that the group was responsible for

the attack, Nekzad had been receiving threats from local

Taliban commanders since at least 2019. He said in early

December, that the Afghan National Directorate of Security

(NDS), the country's intelligence agency, informed him that

he and 15 other journalists in Ghazni were at risk of a

Taliban attack. He described the threats he received:

I use a social media account to upload daily news. Some

local Taliban called me to accuse me of running social media

pages that post anti-Taliban news . . . Their argument was

that every time you post something on your wall, these . . .

are also your accounts. They also threatened people who

commented on the post.

In another case in mid-December, Taliban forces stopped the

vehicle in which a local journalist was traveling. He called

a contact, who then contacted a Taliban official. As a result

of this intervention, the local Taliban released him. While

he was in their custody, the Taliban accused him of working

for the government's intelligence agency and for

``foreigners.''

Journalists have also been threatened for reporting on

Taliban abuses. A radio correspondent from Badghis province

said that after he and his colleagues broadcast a report

about the Taliban extorting payments from highway drivers,

the journalists began to receive threats:

In addition to the radio, we have a Facebook page where we

publish the news of the day. After I posted this story, one

of the comments read: ``The martyrs of the Islamic Emirate

will soon kill the employees of this media station.'' The

same message came in [Facebook] Messenger. Since then, we

report less news on Facebook now. Badghis's capital is a very

small city. Everyone knows each other and I have no doubt

that they also know the address of our office.

Another journalist from Badghis said that in November, as

he was traveling from Herat to Badghis province, Taliban

fighters stopped him and forced him out of his car. They

interrogated him about whether he had cooperated with

government security forces and threatened to kill him. He

said that his family was aware that he was on the road. He

was finally released after local and ethnic Taliban elders

who knew them mediated his release. ``I am still in fear and

. . . shock from this incident,'' he said. ``Now I publish

less news of the war. Whenever I go to a press conference, I

am fearful and cautious. I only cover news from the capital

now.''

Local Taliban fighters have assaulted journalists who have

traveled into Taliban-controlled districts. A journalist from

Wardak province said that a group of Taliban fighters stopped

and beat him and another reporter, accusing them of spying

and ``going around without the Taliban's permission to take

pictures, record videos, and talk to people.'' The

journalists showed their press identification but were not

released until after they called a contact, who then informed

senior Taliban officials, who ordered them released.

Threats also come in writing. A journalist in Ghazni said

that a letter was dropped by his house ordering him to meet

with the local Taliban because his reports were not

``neutral.'' It warned him that if he did not change, his

death was ``close.'' After the warning, he left his home

district and stayed in Kabul for a few months. Eventually he

returned home but avoided his office out of fear.

The Taliban also send cell phone text messages to comment

on media coverage, often chiding reporters that they should

have included the Taliban point of view. While criticism of

media reporting is not in itself problematic, when it comes

from an armed group with a history of killing journalists,

the messages are intimidating and create fear. ``Being a

journalist is something that can put your life in danger

without even doing anything specific to antagonize the

Taliban,'' one journalist in Ghazni said.

Journalists also receive threats when they share their

political views on social media. Taliban commanders also use

Facebook to issue threats. A journalist in Ghazni said that

shortly after he posted a government statement on a military

offensive that resulted in Taliban casualties, he received a

message from a Taliban commander demanding to speak with him:

He told me not to listen to what [government officials] say

and ordered me to come see him. I had to comply. He came with

his men in a Toyota vehicle. He threatened me and told me not

to post anything more on Facebook.

Another journalist in Ghazni had a similar experience after

using Facebook to post his report on the police killing a

suspected Taliban bomber. He received a call from a man who

said he was with the Taliban and asked him why he was

publishing inaccurate information. The man warned him that

they would watch out for what he published and that he should

not publish such reports anymore.

Local Taliban commanders issue warnings about radio and

television stations airing music programs, which they

consider prohibited, and blame journalists for this practice.

One journalist described the threats he received:

Whenever the Taliban hears about music on local radio

channels, they immediately start calling you, threatening to

kill you. They told me many times that they held court

sessions about me, proving that I am guilty of broadcasting

music. They threatened to kill me. I left this job because of

these threats.

The journalist said that local Taliban officials had also

told him not to broadcast election-related news because

elections were ``US-instigated.'' He said: ``I argued with

them for a couple of months that this is not my personal

choice but the station's editorial decision. Then the Taliban

asked for my boss' number and threatened him until he left.''

Another Ghazni reporter said he had received at least six

threats in which callers warned him of vague consequences if

he did not remove music or make other changes to the

programs.

Threatening to harm relatives is a common tactic to spread

fear. A journalist in Khost said that he received threatening

calls from unknown numbers, some accusing him of working for

Christians, others accusing him of being a foreign spy. Some

specifically warn him that they know his relatives and where

he lives:

I am terrified but cannot do anything about it . . . One of

my relatives said that I should leave [journalism] because he

is scared . . . I cannot carry on with my work. I cannot go

outside freely. A caller shared a lot of information about me

as proof that they have been watching me--he told me my name,

my father's name, where I work, and the address of my house .

. . after a few days, I got a message saying ``the path you

have chosen is not the right path, so you should move on from

it or else we will decide what to do with you.''

For the time being, the journalist has changed his phone

hoping to prevent further threats.

Taliban Threats to Women in the Media

The Afghan Journalists Safety Committee reported that 14

women working for media outlets in Afghanistan were

threatened or violently attacked in 2020. An increasing

number of Afghan women in journalism have left the profession

because of worsening security and threats, a trend that

emerged after 2015 and has accelerated.

The Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP), an armed

group affiliated with the Islamic State (also known as ISIS),

took responsibility for killing four women journalists and

media workers, including Malala Maiwand, the first woman TV

presenter for Enikass News, on December 10, and the March 2

killings of Mursal Waheedi, Saadia Sadat, and Shahnaz Raufi,

who worked at Enikass News dubbing foreign language news

reports.

It is often not clear whether the ISKP, the Taliban, or

other groups are responsible for some threats and attacks

against women. In Ghazni province, the Taliban have

instructed media outlets that the hosts of entertainment

programs should not be women, and that no music should be

broadcasted.

Farahnaz Forotan, one of Afghanistan's best-known

journalists noted for her hard-hitting interviews on Tolo

News, left the country in November after hearing that she was

on a Taliban blacklist and would soon be killed.

She said that the Taliban:

do not accept free media, and, in many events, they had

rejected being interviewed by women. The reason they wanted

to kill me, was because as a woman I am not accepted

according to their values . . . The situation in Kabul is

very scary. I know four journalists in Kandahar who left

their jobs. The local media does not reflect it because they

cannot. They are being threatened and the government cannot

provide protection . . . Every morning I check messages to

make sure that everyone is safe. I live with fear--it is very

difficult to live with the fear of losing a loved one.

Another Kabul-based journalist had worked as a producer for

a television news outlet but left her job in mid-2020 after

receiving threats. She said:

The Taliban threatened me a couple of times on the phone,

and they told me to leave my job. I also found a letter from

the Taliban in a hole in our door. The letter repeated that I

must not work anymore for news agencies because this job

doesn't suit me morally. If you continue, then you have no

right to complain [about the consequences].

Mr. Speaker, I support the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa program, and I support its increased numbers. I ask my colleagues: Don't stop here. Let's keep going. These are our friends, and democracy must prevail.

Mr. Speaker, against the backdrop of a war that has demanded sacrifice and summoned patriotism, I rise in unequivocal support of H.R. 3985, ``The Allies Act of 2021,'' which honors the contributions of our allies in Afghanistan by strengthening the Afghan Special Immigration Visa (SIV) Program.

I wish to recognize my distinguished colleague, the gentleman from Colorado, Congressman Crow, who valiantly served three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, for leading this bipartisan effort to uphold our commitment to our partners in Afghanistan.

This piece of legislation, which I am proud to co-sponsor, comes as we conclude a multigenerational war that has accomplished its principle objectives: rendering justice to those responsible for 9/11 and making sure that no attack on the homeland ever emerges from Afghanistan.

Over the course of achieving this mission, we found critical allies and made invaluable friends, among them those who leveraged their skills and knowledge to protect our troops from harm.

The Afghan Special Immigrant (SIV) Program, created in 2009 to provide safety for Afghan interpreters, contractors, and security personnel assisting U.S. efforts in the country, is more than a program.

It is a promise--a promise to our allies that when they have our back, we have theirs.

Specifically, the bill improves the SIV application process by:

amending the credible threat requirement;

aligning applicant standards;

clarifying eligibility for certain Afghans;

streamlining duplicative procedures, and,

increasing protections for surviving spouses.

Reports on the ground indicate those Afghan nationals who worked on behalf of the U.S. Government face extreme danger.

Time is of the essence, and this bill removes our friends and allies from the bureaucratic barriers of additional lengthy paperwork to establish a credible threat, when we already know that such a threat exists for individuals with verified ties to the U.S. government.

Additionally, to qualify for the Afghan SIV Program under the current law, Afghan nationals who were employed by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) or Resolute Support (RS) must have performed ``sensitive and trusted'' work.

This employment requirement was removed for U.S. Government employees in the FY2020 National Defense Authorization Act, but it remains for individuals employed under ISAF and RS.

All current applicants must also submit an I-360 petition to USCIS after completing the State Department's Chief of Mission process.

This redundancy creates duplicative applications and introduces a gap in the process that allows for fraudulent petitions, ultimately slowing down the processing time for all applicants.

The Allies Act of 2021 aligns standards across all types of employment and gives the Department of Homeland Security the flexibility to not require I-360 petitions in cases where applicants have already proven eligibility through the Chief of Mission Process.

By making standards uniform, clear, and nonduplicative for all applicants, this bill streamlines application processing and ensures a more efficient safety plan for all our allies.

The bill also expands the types of individuals eligible for the SIV.

In practice, the original Afghan SIV statute only includes Afghan nationals who worked under U.S. government contracts.

Yet we received support from many Afghan nationals under nongovernmental cooperative agreements and grants, including many key contacts working on critical democracy, human

rights, and governance work to assist the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.

This bill makes clear that Afghan nationals that worked under such non-governmental agreements to advance the U.S. mission are eligible for the Afghan SIV program.

In addition to previously excluded contractors, we must also acknowledge the danger surviving spouses face and place them at the front and center in our migration support efforts as well.

Currently, surviving spouses of deceased SIV applicants are not allowed to continue through the process if the primary SIV applicant died before visa approval.

The immediate families of our allies are also our allies and we must remove this dangerous obstacle for them to reach safety.

The Allies Act of 2021 allows family members of deceased primary applicants to continue through the process if their spouse had applied for Chief of Mission approval.

We cannot leave our Afghan allies and their spouses vulnerable to the imminent threat of revenge from the Taliban.

They simply are not safe at home and they need our help.

The adaptations and amendments that this act offers would facilitate a path to safety and freedom for nearly 20,000 of on-the-ground partners whose work made possible all our advancements in that country.

Madam Speaker, I urge us to act with compassion and honor our core American value of promoting freedom for all, for it was our reverence for this value that characterized our extended presence in Afghanistan in the first place.

It is time for us to ensure the safety and lives of our friends and allies in Afghanistan.

Madam Speaker, I want to rise today to inform everyone who might be listening that the filibuster is not in this little book that has governed this great Nation, the Constitution of the United States.

In fact, the 15th Amendment, as it relates to voting, says: ``The right of citizens of the United States to vote should not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,'' which means we should move forward with certain things.

One, we need to move forward with the infrastructure bill. We must move forward with the budget and budget reconciliation. We must ensure that voting rights are protected in this Nation. Again, the filibuster is not a constitutional provision, and therefore, we must govern.

Madam Speaker, I want to express my knowledge and concern of the crime and violence across America. It is facing us in Houston as well. I was delighted to bring almost a million dollars to help our victims of crimes and the victim advocates program for HPD. It is time now to stand up for America.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York for her leadership on the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Innovation.

Madam Speaker, I rise to support the State and Local Cybersecurity Improvement Act.

I particularly emphasize the fact that we are the United States of America, but the cyberattacks occur in our neighborhoods, our hamlets, our cities, our counties, and our States. They occur right under our noses, and they impact our constituents by taking their personal records from the Texas Medical Center, for example, impacting the medical care of people, interfering with various diagnostic machines, and dealing with the energy infrastructure, such as the Colonial Pipeline incident. These are happening in our neighborhoods.

The State and Local Cybersecurity Improvement Act will make $500 million available in grants from the Department of Homeland Security to State, local, and Tribal entities over the next 4 years as they address critical cybersecurity risks facing information systems.

I will soon rise to the floor on legislation that I have authored, and I will make this point, Madam Speaker: It is crucial that the other body begins to address the legislation that this House is able to pass because we are passing innovative, corrective, and needed legislation.

Cyber is not a joke, if I can say that. Neither are the attacks on our cyber infrastructure.

However, the Department of Homeland Security was created in 2002 to bring together the expertise of several different government entities to protect against foreign threats. At that time, the Nation's main concern was protecting our citizens and residents from another large- scale terrorist attack, one that we had never seen before: attacking tall buildings with airplanes. We had never seen it.

But, today, 2021, is not 2001. It is not 20 years ago, and the landscape of terrorism has changed enormously. With rapid advancement in technology and malign foreign cyber aggression in nation-states that are not engaged, this bill is important.

Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to support this bipartisan legislation, H.R. 3138, that will provide us a way to address this issue.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York for her leadership, and I thank the ranking member of the full committee and the chair of the full committee for bringing these matters to the attention of the Nation.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of my bill, H.R. 2980, the Cybersecurity Vulnerability Remediation Act, which authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to take actions to counter cybersecurity vulnerabilities in our Nation's critical infrastructure.

Interestingly enough, when we introduced this bill some years ago, we called it the zero-day bill, which was to presuppose what would happen when everything collapsed. When we introduced it, it was before the Colonial Pipeline, it was before the Solaris attack, it was before knowing about the gangs in Russia, cyber gangs that proliferate before the activity of China.

I thank Chairman Thompson and Ranking Member Katko for their leadership in putting the security of our Nation's cyber access first, whether they are computing resources used in voting technology or industrial control systems that support delivery of electricity, oil, and gas, or management of transportation systems that are vital to our Nation's economic health.

The Cybersecurity Vulnerability Remediation Act was introduced, as I said, and passed the House during the 115th and 116th Congresses and has been updated again in the 117th Congress to meet the ever-evolving nature of cyber threats faced by Federal and private sector information systems and our Nation's critical infrastructure.

As I said before, it will be very important that the other body seriously considers the cyber threats against this Nation. This bill goes significantly further than the first cybersecurity vulnerability act that I introduced in the 115th Congress to address the instance of zero-day events that can lead to catastrophic cybersecurity failures of information and computing systems.

It is estimated that 85 percent of critical infrastructure is owned by the private sector, and for far too long this fact has hampered efforts to establish stronger requirements for cybersecurity by owners and operators.

Private sector critical infrastructure failure due to a cyberattack is no longer a private matter when it can have massive impacts on the public, such as disruption of gasoline flowing to filling stations, which we saw recently.

My bill, the Cybersecurity Vulnerability Remediation Act, will expand

the definition of security vulnerability to include cybersecurity vulnerability; add sharing mitigation protocols to counter cybersecurity vulnerabilities; establish protocols to counter cybersecurity vulnerabilities involving information system and industrial control systems, which will include vulnerabilities related to software or hardware that is no longer supported by a vendor; direct the undersecretary for DHS Office of Science and Technology to stand up a competition to find solutions to known cybersecurity vulnerabilities; provide greater transparency on how the Department of Homeland Security CISA is coordinating cybersecurity vulnerability disclosures through the sharing of actionable protocols to mitigate cybersecurity vulnerabilities with information systems and industrial control systems owners and operators.

H.R. 2980 bolsters the efforts to engage critical infrastructure owners and operators in communicating cybersecurity threats and lays the foundation for greater transparency on the real threats posed by cyberterrorists to private and government sector critical infrastructure and information systems, which impact the people of this Nation.

This legislation allows the science and technology director, in consultation with CISA, to establish an incentive-based program that allows industry, individuals, academia, and others to compete in identifying remediation solutions for cybersecurity vulnerabilities to information systems and industrial control systems, including supervisory control and data acquisition systems.

This bill, when it becomes law, will put our Nation's best minds to work on closing the vulnerabilities that cyber thieves and terrorists use to access, disrupt, corrupt, or take control of critical infrastructure information systems.

In addition to these changes, the bill requires a report to Congress that may contain a classified annex.

The report will provide information on how DHS coordinates cybersecurity vulnerability disclosures and disseminates actionable protocols to mitigate cybersecurity vulnerabilities involving information systems and industrial systems.

Congress needs to know how prevalent and persistent cybersecurity threats targeting critical infrastructure and information systems might be, especially if those threats result in a payment of ransom. They need to know about a payment of ransom.

Paying a ransom for ransomware emboldens and encourages bad cyber actors and places everyone at greater risk for the financial and societal costs of increases in threats as others seek payouts.

Madam Speaker, as long as there is silence about cyberattacks like ransomware, the criminals and terrorists will remain out of reach and continue to feel safe and emboldened in carrying out these attacks, often from the soil of our enemies or peer competitors.

I applaud and thank the Biden administration for its quick action in responding to the attack against Colonial Pipeline, but it did shut down the whole East Coast, and he did it by an executive order.

Today, our Nation is in a cybersecurity crisis. The attacks against Federal, State, local, territorial, and Tribal Governments, as well as threats posed to private information systems and critical information systems make this bill necessary.

So I am hoping, along with those who have been attacked, like the Metropolitan Police Department, the medical system in Houston--the gang known as the Babuk group released thousands of Metropolitan Police sensitive documents, and it goes on and on.

Madam Speaker, I include in the Record four articles regarding this issue.

[From the Forbes Magazine, July 20, 2021]

Turning Up The Heat: A Ransomware Attack On Critical Infrastructure Is

a Nightmare Scenario

(By Richard Tracy, Forbes Councils Member)

Ransomware attacks in 2020 were up more than 150% compared

to the previous year, while ransomware payments were up over

300%.

Over the past six months, we've seen a number of ransomware

attacks against critical infrastructure--from a water

treatment facility to a gas pipeline and multiple food

distribution companies--all of which present clear and

present danger to society. The impact was so dire--with

recent research finding over seven ransomware attacks per

hour--that the Department of Justice elevated ransomware

attacks to a similar priority as terrorism.

The recent Colonial Pipeline hack, in particular, appears

to have struck a nerve, as there is finally discussion about

cybersecurity standards for the pipeline industry. That would

be a good start and one that is long overdue considering the

importance of fuel distribution for our economy and overall

way of life.

However, the oil and gas industry is just one element in a

single critical infrastructure sector--the energy sector. DHS

has defined sixteen critical infrastructure sectors, and each

is deemed critical for the proper functioning of our society.

Due to the connected nature of everything these days, each

sector is a potential cyber target. Disruption to any

critical infrastructure segment has potentially dire

economic, safety and national security consequences. As such,

it only makes sense to address cybersecurity risk management

for all sectors, not just oil and gas.

The threat goes beyond the pipeline.

To better understand the need to focus on all critical

infrastructure, let's look at the power grid. Imagine a

ransomware attack against the power grid that services highly

populated areas in the desert southwest. Now, imagine this

attack takes place during the hottest part of the summer.

Think about the heat-related deaths that would likely occur

and the impact on medical supplies that require

refrigeration. Yes, there are generator backups in hospitals

where supplies are stored, but we already know from the

pipeline hack that the fuel needed to run these generators

can be disrupted too. It's also important to note that

hospitals, also considered critical infrastructure, have also

suffered from ransomware attacks. In fact, hospitals have had

an even bigger target on their backs in recent months. The

connected nature of our critical infrastructure compounds the

problem and potential impacts.

To further illustrate how important the power grid is to

our citizens, Protect Our Power, an independent, non-profit

advocacy and educational organization focused solely on

driving increased resilience of the U.S. electric grid to

attacks, recently conducted a public opinion poll of 1,095

Americans. Most notably, the study found:

86 percent of Americans are concerned that the grid is

vulnerable to a serious cyberattack.

70 percent say they would feel unsafe in the event of an

extended power outage of two weeks or more.

66 percent believe their quality of life will suffer from

an outage lasting more than seven days.

64 percent say they are unprepared for an extended power

outage that will last more than two weeks.

70 percent say the infrastructure bill should include

funding to address this important issue.

Only 16 percent believe the federal government is doing all

it can to prevent an attack on the grid.

As most Americans agree, the federal government can and

should do more to help secure all of our critical

infrastructures.

Recent ransomware attacks against critical infrastructure

help us understand standards and practices that would have

helped. For example, multi-factor authentication (MFA), a

widely recognized best practice, may have prevented the

Colonial Pipeline hack. According to GAO, greater and more

consistent adoption of the NIST CSF, which was specifically

developed to help critical infrastructure manage cyber risk,

would benefit cyber risk management efforts across all

critical infrastructure sectors.

In summary, we need to secure all critical infrastructure

sectors. The power grid example used here illustrates how

dire the consequences could be. It's time to move. Summer is

upon us, and the desert southwest is getting hot.

Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to support this legislation because there is a known list of these attacks from the ISS World to the $50 million paid. I ask my colleagues to support this legislation, and I ask my friends in the other body, to pass this legislation so it becomes law.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2980, ``The Cybersecurity Vulnerability Remediation Act,'' which authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to take actions to counter cybersecurity vulnerabilities in our nation's critical infrastructure.

I thank Chairman Thompson and Ranking Member Katko for their leadership in putting the security of our nation's cyber assets first, whether they are computing resources used in voting technology or industrial control systems that support the delivery of electricity, oil and gas, or management of transportation systems that are vital to our nation's economic health.

The Cybersecurity Vulnerability Remediation Act was introduced and passed the House during the 115th and 116th Congresses and has been updated again in the 117th Congress to meet the ever-evolving nature of cyber threats faced by federal and private sector information systems and our nation's critical infrastructure.

This bill goes significantly further than the first Cybersecurity Vulnerability bill that I introduced in the 115th Congress, to address the instance of Zero Day Events that can lead to catastrophic cybersecurity failures of information and computing systems.

It is estimated that eighty-five percent of critical infrastructure is owned by the private sector and for far too long this fact has hampered efforts to establish stronger requirements for cybersecurity by owners and operators.

Private sector critical infrastructure failure due to a cyberattack is no longer a private matter when it can have massive impacts on the public such as the disruption of gasoline flowing to filling stations.

The Jackson Lee Cybersecurity Vulnerability Remediation Act will:

Expand the definition of security vulnerability to include cybersecurity vulnerability;

Adds sharing mitigation protocols to counter cybersecurity vulnerabilities;

Establish protocols to counter cybersecurity vulnerabilities involving information systems and industrial control systems, which will include vulnerabilities related to software, or hardware that is no longer supported by a vendor;

Direct the Under Secretary for the DHS Office of Science and Technology to standup a competition to find solutions to known cybersecurity vulnerabilities; and

Provide greater transparency on how the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) is coordinating cybersecurity vulnerability disclosures through the sharing of actionable protocols to mitigate cybersecurity vulnerabilities with information systems and industrial control systems owners and operators.

H.R. 2890 bolsters the efforts to engage critical infrastructure owners and operators in communicating cybersecurity threats; and lays the foundation for greater transparency on the real threats posed by cyberterrorist to private and government sector critical infrastructure and information systems.

The legislation allows the Science the Technology Directorate in consultation with CISA to establish an incentive based program that allows industry, individuals, academia, and others to compete in identifying remediation solutions for cybersecurity vulnerabilities to information systems and industrial control systems including supervisory control and data acquisition systems.

This bill when it becomes law would put our nation's best minds to work on closing the vulnerabilities that cyber-thieves and terrorists to use them to access, disrupt, corrupt, or take control of critical infrastructure and information systems.

In addition to these changes, the bill requires a report to Congress that may contain a classified annex.

The report will provide information on how DHS:

Coordinates cybersecurity vulnerability disclosures; and

Disseminates actionable protocols to mitigate cybersecurity vulnerabilities involving information system and industrial systems.

Congress needs to know how prevalent and persistent cybersecurity threats targeting critical infrastructure and information systems might be, especially if those threats result in a payment of ransom.

Paying a ransom for ransomware emboldens and encourages bad cyber actors and places everyone at greater risk for the financial and societal costs of increases in threats as other seek payouts.

As long as there is silence about cyber-attacks like ransomware the criminals and terrorists will remain out of reach and continue to feel safe in carrying out these attacks often from the soil of our enemies or peer competitors.

A company cannot stand up to Russia or China, but the United States can and has done so to protect our national interest.

I applaud and thank the Biden Administration for its quick action to respond to the attack against Colonial Pipeline in issuing a new Executive Order.

Today, our nation is in a cybersecurity crisis.

My concern regarding the security of information networks began in 2015 when the Office of Personnel Management's data breach resulted in the theft of millions of sensitive personnel records on federal employees.

The attacks against federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal governments, as well as threats posed to private information systems, and critical infrastructure systems makes this bill necessary.

On May 13, 2021 it was reported that the DC Metropolitan Police Department had experienced the worst reported cyberattack against a police department in the United States.

The gang, known as the Babuk group, released thousands of the Metropolitan Police Department's sensitive documents on the dark web because the department would not pay.

Cyberthreats are not limited to information related to government employees.

In February 2021, a cyberattack on an Oldsmar, Florida water treatment facility involved increasing the levels of sodium hydroxide from 100 parts per million to 11,100 parts per million in drinking water.

However, the levels of this chemical in the water produced by Oldsmar, Florida was increased to levels that would cause harm to people if they drank or used it.

This is just one example of how terrorists can attack critical infrastructure and cause threats to health, safety and life.

Cyber terrorists and cyber criminals are also motivated to attack information networks in exchange for money.

The sources of revenue from cyberattacks has moved from demands of payment for thieves not to release information--to the sale of stolen information on the dark web and now to a sophisticated denial of service attack in the form of ransomware that locks a system using encryption until the victim pays.

A list of known ransomware attacks in 2020 that are suspected of paying ransoms, included:

ISS World (Denmark) paid an estimated cost: $74 million;

Cognizant (US) paid an estimated $50 million;

Sopra Steria (French) paid estimated $50 million;

Redcar and Cleveland Council (UK) paid an estimated $14 million; and

University of California San Francisco (US) paid an estimated $1.14 million.

There are likely many other attacks that are not publicly known and this must change if we are to defeat this threat.

Ransomware is becoming the tool of choice for those seeking a payout because it can be carried out against anyone or any entity by perpetrators who are far from U.S. shores.

The Colonial Pipeline incident is just one in a long line of successful attacks or infiltrations carried out against domestic information systems and critical infrastructure with increasing consequences for the life, health, safety, and economic security of our citizens.

CEO Joseph Blount testified before the U.S. Senate that the attack occurred using a legacy Virtual Private Network (VPN) system that did not have multifactor authentication.

In other words, hackers were able to gain access to this critical infrastructure as a result of a single compromised password.

There would be no need for the Cybersecurity Vulnerability Remediation Act if owners and operators were succeeding in meeting the cybersecurity needs of critical infrastructure.

I know that there is more that should and ought to be done to address the issue of cybercrime and I will be pursuing this avenue under the jurisdiction of the House Judiciary Committee, as the chair of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security.

Madam Speaker, I ask that my colleagues vote in support of H.R. 2890.

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the gentlewoman from North Carolina as she manages this rule and does it in an excellent manner.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the underlying rule and to mention that H.R. 2467, known as the PFAS Action Act, is an important step in the right direction in providing safe and proper use of these chemicals.

As well, I rise in support of H.R. 2668, which is dealing with reinforcing the authority of the Federal Trade Commission.

Likewise, I rise in support of H.R. 3985, and I thank Jason Crow for his leadership. That is, of course, expanding the Afghan Allies Protection Act of 2009 to expedite the Special Immigrant Visa process for certain Afghan allies, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, we could not be making a more important statement and doing a more important act. We are making a statement that says that we do not forget our friends, our allies.

As a Member of the United States Congress since before 9/11, and having interacted with the Afghanistan Government during the early years, the creation of that government in Kabul, going to Kabul and talking to the beginning, the embryonic parliamentarians, where there were any number of women there in those early years after the war as they began to set up their government, being a part of looking at their constitution and having input into its democratic ideals, I know what can happen when America leaves.

What happened when America left after the Iraq war? Schools with girls were burned. Parliamentarians that were women lost their lives.

This is a dangerous condition, sadly. Those allies who provided us services, who were translators, who provided the civilian services, they are in danger.

This is the right direction. I thank the administration for working with us and working with Mr. Crow. I am a cosponsor of this legislation. It is time to move this now. I really hope the other body seriously takes into account that we are saving lives.

As the co-chair of the Afghan Caucus, I think it is crucial for us to save lives. This is an important initiative. We need to do more. I think there are 8,000 visas. We need to do more, but this is an excellent step. I really support the

efforts of Mr. Crow and thank him for his leadership.

We are going to be monitoring this. We must monitor what the Taliban is doing, and we must make sure that lives are saved.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the rule governing debate of H.R. 2668, the ``Consumer Protection and Recovery Act'', which will ensure that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) can protect American consumers and put money back in the pockets of consumers who have been the victims of fraud and other scams by amending the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTC Act) to explicitly provide the FTC the ability to obtain both injunctive and monetary equitable relief for all violations of the laws it enforces.

Specifically, this bill would:

Add a new subsection (e) to section 13 of the FTC Act that specifies types of equitable relief the FTC may pursue: restitution for losses, contract reformation and recission, money refunds, and the return of property;

Provide the FTC disgorgement authority to seek court orders requiring bad actors repay unjust gains acquired in violation of the law.

Clarify that the FTC may seek temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions without bond and that any relief sought under section 13(b) may be for past violations in addition to ongoing and imminent violations.

As the Nation's premier consumer protection agency, the FTC is directed to enforce numerous statutes: the core of which is section 5 of the FTC Act mandating the agency to prevent unfair or deceptive acts or practices and unfair methods of competition.

Section 13(b) of the FTC Act authorizes the FTC to bring suit in federal courts seeking relief for consumers and is a critical enforcement tool the FTC uses to combat fraud and scams under section 5.

In 2020 alone, the FTC returned more than $482 million to over 1.6 million consumer victims of fraud or illegal business practices.

The FTC's restitution authority under section 13(b) was settled law for over 40 years, but

beginning in 2017, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed its own precedent to overturn FTC authority under section 13(b) to obtain monetary relief and the Third Circuit soon followed.

Because of these decisions, close to 48 million Americans in six states became unable to obtain monetary redress under 13(b).

Then, on April 22, 2021, the Supreme Court held in AMG Capital Management v. FTC that section 13(b) does not allow the FTC to seek monetary relief or require bad actors to return money earned through illegal activity.

According to Acting Chairwoman Slaughter, the Supreme Court decision ``deprived the FTC of the strongest tool [the FTC] had to help consumers.''

Mr. Speaker, all five FTC Commissioners have repeatedly urged Congress to take quick action to pass legislation reaffirming FTC authority under section 13(b).

H.R. 2668 does exactly that, by restoring nearly forty years of precedent and giving the FTC the ability to protect Americans from scams and unethical business practices.

Americans need this protection, because every day, and far too often, individuals in Texas and across the country fall victim to financial scammers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to an increase of scams and fraud that prey on consumers' fears and financial insecurities, and inaction on this issue is not an option as it will only embolden bad actors.

H.R. 2668 will ensure that the FTC maintains its ability to return money to the victims of scams.

Seniors especially need this protection, because they have worked their entire lives with the promise of a safe and secure retirement, but scammers and unscrupulous businesses are taking advantage of uncertainty surrounding the pandemic and working overtime to target them.

Retirement accounts are not the only damage these scams cause--they damage the independence and trust of a vulnerable community.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen instances of fraud rise in unprecedented numbers, as scammers attempt to take advantage of senior citizens and deprive them of their hard-earned savings.

Bad actors preying on older Americans is, unfortunately, nothing new, but in the midst of a global pandemic impacting Americans' lives and livelihoods, cracking down on those scams must be a priority.

One such scam was thwarted by Houston police and the Harris County District Attorney, who made an arrest in February in an international cyber-scam that bilked unsuspecting, mostly elderly victims out of more than $1 million.

One victim of the scam, Asuncion Peppers, 74, a retired medical technician knows that first hand; She was bilked out of her life savings.

Hackers contacted Ms. Peppers on Facebook, pretending to be one of her Facebook friends.

She was told she was eligible for a government grant of almost one million dollars and all she had to do was send a check to pay taxes.

Investigators believes the scammers were operating from Nigeria, defrauding senior citizens in the U.S. and around the world.

Before Ms. Peppers realized she was being conned, she sent checks totaling $87,000 hard-earned money.

She said that she worked three jobs to build her life savings.

Ms. Peppers and her husband are just two of 38 victims bilked out of more than $1.3 million before the fraud was discovered.

This story is not an isolated incident: although 1 in 20 seniors in the U.S. is a target of fraud schemes, the National Adult Protective Services Association has found that only 1 in 44 seniors report that they are victims of a fraud scheme.

During these unprecedented times, it is imperative that Congress pass legislation that protects U.S. consumers and honest businesses from wrongdoers who steal money through fraud and deception.

Mr. Speaker, we need to strengthen federal prevention efforts and ensure leaders in the public and private sectors are collaborating on effective safeguards.

This begins with ensuring that the FTC has the explicit authority to obtain both injunctive and monetary relief for all violations of the laws it enforces.

I urge all members to join me in voting for the rule and the underlying legislation, H.R. 2668, the ``Consumer Protection and Recovery Act.''

Mr. Speaker, it is always important to have an opportunity to speak to our colleagues and as well the American people. Tonight, I will dwell on questions of human rights, challenges to those human

rights and the legacy of the undermining of human rights even in America that will include aspects of such indignities around the world.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes) who will start with a discussion on a longstanding and well-known historic violations of human rights.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership. We must always remember that human rights are equal to human dignity.

So it is my privilege tonight to stand to discuss the value of recognizing human dignity. As I do so, let me add to an earlier discussion that reflects on giving our children human dignity.

Isn't it amazing how children have suffered in the course of the most recent history depredation of wealth, and so they have been ensconced in poverty, they have been hungry, and they have been without a good education? These are children in America. We can speak about children around the world. They have had little access to broadband technology, and they have suffered in their housing provisions, if you will.

So I am very proud to just start out by, again, applauding the American Rescue Act and also the life-changing impact of the child tax credit. I don't think we can do that enough. And children of color have been at the front of the line and we are able to help with food and childcare, diapers, healthcare, clothing, taxes.

Poor, working, and middle class families are able to receive the same amount. You will see, Mr. Speaker, where I am going on this because we don't do this in anger. We don't do this because we are mad. We do this because it is righting the wrong, as one of my colleagues said.

This will provide $250 per month, per child and $300 per month for every young child. That means children under 5. All families in my district will be able to feel more secure. Let me run through these numbers because they are stunning.

The 18th Congressional District in Houston, Texas, Mr. Speaker, 91.7 percent of children in my district will gain from the expanded and improved child tax credit. I know that because I have been immersed in childcare education events.

We have been in a church, we have been at my Federal building, we have been up and down on the radio, we have been everywhere we could be to ensure that we did it with humor, with seriousness, with compassion, being out on the street corners along with trying to encourage people to get vaccinated. We have been saying: Get ready for the child tax credit President Biden and the Democratic Congress worked so hard on.

Mr. Speaker, 91.7 percent of the children will gain in my district. That is 202,800 children.

I have schools in my district that are 100 percent at risk, and they eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There is no shame to helping children. Behind those children are parents who are suffering. These dollars will help these parents have dignity, their children have dignity, and their children have resources.

The average benefit for 56,700 households in my district--Houston, I hope you are listening--is $3,500.

If you have not filed your taxes in the 2019 year, you can immediately get help from my office at 713-655-0050 or the IRS tax advocacy team, also in my building of 1919 Smith Street in Houston, Texas.

Don't miss the opportunity for your own human dignity. It is not a handout. It is a hand up. The expanded and improved child tax credit lifts 21,800 children in my district out of poverty. Because of the larger benefits for the youngest, 8,400 kids under the age of 6 are raised out of poverty. That has expanded across America where millions of children face a new day.

Families with children in poverty receive $5,300 on average, and they are getting some 6,500 children in my district out of deep poverty. We know now that we are engaged in the appropriations process. I thank Chairwoman DeLauro and all of the appropriators for their work. We know how important it is if you are going to do something in life, this year, 2021, in the aftermath of COVID-19, this is the year to do it with the appropriations bill. This is the year to do it. Again, my theme: a sense of dignity.

And where does that take me now? Well, I must deviate for a moment, Mr. Speaker, to just indicate that I think the Biden-Harris team has brought to America a sense of compassion. It has turned anger and ugly words into reaching out to people where they are. That could mean people who oppose them. But they reach out to them where they are, and they reach them with a sense of understanding and acceptance that they must cast leadership for all of America, even if people disagree with them.

So my good friend was here on the floor--I am sorry that he has left--but I want to emphasize that Vice President Kamala Harris is doing an excellent job on some very tough issues. She is meeting on voting rights and meeting with any number of persons. I want to remind America that Texas Democratic State representatives who had some medical mishaps here or medical circumstances with COVID-19--no one is immune--are still here fighting so that we can have voting rights.

She has met with all of them. She is deeply engaged in making sure that we work together as a Congress to get voting rights done along with the Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Beatty and all of us as Members who are standing ready. So she is doing an excellent job. And I will tell you, living on the border myself, living in Texas, in the region, having gone to the border over and over again, she is doing a job that should be done that others are not doing, getting into the weeds and understanding what the President's

path should be as we go forward on immigration reform.

She has been to the Northern Triangle. That is the heart of where the issues start, and they are working to discern how they can best stop the massive flow of migrants, immigrants, who are in fear of their lives living in the countries that they are living in. These are tough issues, and I just want to say thank you to Vice President Kamala Harris, because some people misunderstand and think that it is just an easy thing to do.

My word from Texas on her trip was excellent, and that people were receptive to her intellect, her compassion, and her willingness to get the job done. And the job will be done.

So as I say that, I indicated this will be a night about human rights. And so I want to give you a little education about legislation that we are so pleased about. Can you imagine, H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans having nearly 200 sponsors, cosponsors of individuals who have come from many parts of the country. And so I am speaking to my colleagues who happen to be Republicans, and I want to give them the opportunity to realize just what this bill is.

I heard someone say ``restoration,'' and I heard someone say ``repair,'' and they are right. My good friend, the Honorable Barbara Lee, we are working in tandem together, working in tandem on H. Res. 19, which is reconciliation and restoration, and then the bill, H.R. 40, legislation to create a commission that would study effectively slavery, and as well then develop reparation proposals. Again, restoration, repair.

Let us remove ourselves from any sort of shackle on the question of reparations. Let us be understanding of someone else's pain, someone else's history; that is, in fact, American history. So I hold up this bill, because I said I would do show and tell, H.R. 40. Look at the pile of Members here as original cosponsors, and they have been coming on and on, and I want to just say thank you to my friends and colleagues who have thoughtfully felt the need to say how do we heal America's systemic racism; and how do we heal institutional racism; how do we ignore what is, in fact, truth.

Now, I think most of you know I could not stand here without saying thank you to the 415 Members of Congress who voted along with the United States Senate on Juneteenth. Do you realize that Juneteenth is the first time America has acknowledged the history of slavery? In 1865, those of us west of the Mississippi just got the word from the Union soldiers with General Granger that we were free by General Order No. 3.

Juneteenth is a commemoration of that. And I want everyone to know that, frankly, 47 States have already been celebrating in their own way Juneteenth. After 38 years, we have a new Federal holiday called Juneteenth, which gives America and little schoolchildren the opportunity to ask their dad or their teacher: What is Juneteenth? That was holding people in bondage, but it was setting them free.

After the bloodiest war, brothers against brothers, the Civil War, where Abraham Lincoln so emotionally indicated: ``A house divided cannot stand,'' but General Granger came and Sam Collins held a magnificent celebration on June 19 in Houston, in Galveston, in that region where I represent, and the mural was unveiled by a magnificent artistic team led by Reginald Adams out of Third Ward, Texas, which is Houston, which is where my congressional district is, and it told the story of the freedom of these slaves. And we repeated General Order No. 3 which says, ``equality of personal rights'' but the biggest thing it said was, ``the slaves are free.'' And that we insist upon equality of rights. That is all that H.R. 40 is about.

Are we to deny equality of rights? That was in General Order No. 3. That is what the President, unfortunately, being assassinated, President Abraham Lincoln sent General Granger down to read to the slaves who had worked and been beaten for 2\1/2\ more years.

It is important that we not ignore what slavery was all about. This is the whelped and beaten back and scarred back of a slave. Let us be clear. Bondage, we are the only group of Americans that have been held in bondage in this Nation, and we have been held or were held in bondage longer than this country has been a nation. For 246 years, we were held in bondage, and we only celebrated our 245th birthday.

So I am here to be able to, very briefly, run you through a brief history. Let me do this. Let me first of all talk about the words of Gary Abernathy, who proudly says that he is a conservative.

And Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining, please?

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate it, only to make sure that I can now flow with the concept of the time.

But the headline reads: ``Why I support reparations--and all conservatives should.''

I know my friends are listening here on the other side. Gary Abernathy. And I will take some excerpts from this. He acknowledges that he is a conservative. And I can venture to say that his credentials can be documented.

But he says, in spite of the bill that I have offered--has an apology--he takes note of that, he even indicates that he may not be that enthusiastic about that. But he says, ``In fact, it could be argued that the idea fits within the conservative philosophy,'' meaning that the notion of reparations is worth discussing because he says, ``In fact, it could be argued that the idea fits the conservative philosophy.''

He goes on to say, ``But it is undeniable that White people have disproportionately benefited from both the labor and the legacy of slavery, and--crucially--will continue to do so for generations to come.''

None of this is said with anger. It is only setting forth facts. When slavery was abolished after a bloody Civil War, African Americans were dispersed into a world that was overtly hostile to them. ``Reconstruction efforts were bitterly resisted by most Southern Whites, and attempts to educate and employ former slaves happened only in fits and starts.''

Remember, this is a group of people in the millions who simply were set free. Freedom is precious. We cannot deny how precious freedom was, how sweet it was, but they were given nothing; nothing to start their lives, and they came into the hostility of people who really didn't want them to be free. That was the bulk of the South, and many parts of the North. ``The government even reneged on its `40 acres and a mule' pledge. After slavery, prejudice and indifference continued to fuel social and economic disparity.''

Be reminded of the whipped back of this Black man, this slave. And there were whipped backs of women and children. They lived through this through no fault of their own. They worked and toiled in the fields. They made cotton king. They built the economic engine of this Nation. They created a transatlantic slave trade. They sent millions of dollars from the South to the Wall Street banks, and we built America.

They built this place where I stand, the United States Capitol, with their bare hands, and they built the White House. What else could they have built?

And so when slavery was abolished, there was silence. It has been represented that there is a gap of $17,600 shows the median Black household net worth, to a $174,000 wage of the average American or White family.

When parents offered gifts to help children buy a home, avoid student debt, or start a business, those children are more able to retain and build on their wealth over their lifetimes. I think we just saw a very unique occasion today regarding space. I would not in any way say anything but congratulations, but one of those persons paid $27 million to be on that historic moment. Calculate that. It is a personal payment. It wasn't government.

And, again, I celebrate the occasion, but juxtapose that against where we are or where African Americans are. Randall Robinson made the point that even affirmative action would never close the economic gap. ``Blacks, even middle-class Blacks, have no paper assets to speak of. They may be salaried, but they're only a few months away from poverty if they should lose those jobs . . . ''

And many times the ravages of discrimination and segregation are intertwined in law, and they may lose their jobs.

And so this conservative author believes in reparations. And he believes that this can be done with a fair amount of dollars, but there is more to it, as you will hear me say, because it is not about money.

He concludes by saying: ``It is a tenet of conservatism that a level playing field is all we should guarantee. But that's meaningless if one team starts with an unsurmountable lead before play even begins.''

I think LBJ said: If you want to tell people about a fair race, meaning a running race, and one fellow or lady has shackles around their ankles and the whistle blows, get ready, go, it is not a fair race because one runner is freed and has all of the elements of freedom, and the ability to do great things, and one is running with leg irons on.

So as we look at how we can as a nation, a community come together, I don't know how many times I want to raise the question that we are not doing this in anger. H.R. 40, first introduced by John Conyers, is an international concept. It just means repair. It means doing the right thing, healing, dealing with injustices. It will not be painful.

But let me tell you why this legislation is not painful, because it is a study that will give us a roadmap and it will be done with academicians and those who are appointed by government leaders, and they will be balanced and they will be responsible and they will be thorough.

Why do we think we need it?

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the article from Gary Abernathy, Washington Post contributing columnist.

[From the Washington Post, Apr. 22, 2021]

Opinion: Why I Support Reparations--and All Conservatives Should

(By Gary Abernathy, Contributing columnist)

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) is among the progressive

lawmakers whose blunt, liberal outspokenness regularly annoys

me. Recently, she particularly upset me while discussing the

latest congressional study of reparations for descendants of

enslaved people, when she said, ``If you through your history

benefited from that wrong that was done, then you must be

willing to commit yourself to righting that wrong.'' Only

this time I was bothered because her comments hit home. Like

most conservatives, I've scoffed at the idea of reparations

or a formal apology for slavery. I did not own slaves, so why

would I support my government using my tax dollars for

reparations or issuing an apology? Further, no one in the

United States has been legally enslaved since 1865, so why

are Black people today owed anything more than the same

freedoms and opportunities that I enjoy?

I remain unconvinced that an apology would have much real

value, but the more substantive notion of reparations is

worth discussing. In fact, it could be argued that the idea

fits within the conservative philosophy. We'll come back to

that. But it is undeniable that White people have

disproportionately benefitted from both the labor and the

legacy of slavery, and--crucially--will continue to do so for

generations to come.

When slavery was abolished after a bloody civil war,

African Americans were dispersed into a world that was

overtly hostile to them. Reconstruction efforts were bitterly

resisted by most Southern Whites, and attempts to educate and

employ former slaves happened only in fits and starts. The

government even reneged on its ``40 acres and a mule''

pledge. After slavery, prejudice and indifference continued

to fuel social and economic disparity.

The result is unsurprising. As noted by scholars A. Kirsten

Mullen and William A. Darity Jr., co-authors of ``From Here

to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-

First Century,'' data from the 2016 Survey of Consumer

Finances showed that median Black household net worth

averaged $17,600--a little more than one-tenth of median

White net worth. As Mullen and Darity write, ``white parents,

on average, can provide their children with wealth-related

intergenerational advantages to a far greater degree than

black parents. When parents offer gifts to help children buy

a home, avoid student debt, or start a business, those

children are more able to retain and build on their wealth

over their own lifetimes.''

Black author and activist Randall Robinson has argued that

even laws such as those on affirmative action ``will never

close the economic gap. This gap is structural. . . . blacks,

even middle-class blacks, have no paper assets to speak of.

They may be salaried, but they're only a few months away from

poverty if they should lose those jobs, because . . . they've

had nothing to hand down from generation to generation

because of the ravages of discrimination and segregation,

which were based in law until recently.''

In addition to the discrepancy in inherited wealth, even

conservatives should be able to acknowledge that Whites enjoy

generational associations in the business world, where who

you know often counts more than what you know--a reality

based not so much on overt racism as on employment and

promotion patterns within old-school networks that Blacks

lack the traditional contacts to consistently intersect.

For now, support for reparations is anemic. A House

Judiciary Committee bill creating a commission to merely

study the idea was opposed last week by 17 Republicans,

though all 25 Democrats on the committee voted for it; and

just 1 in 5 respondents in a Reuters/Ipsos poll last June

agreed that the United States should use tax dollars for

reparations--not shocking, when a price tag of $10 trillion

has been suggested.

The cost can be debated, along with the mechanics of a

compensation package. But in the current drunken haze of

government spending, appropriating trillions for the noble

purpose of bringing Black Americans who remain economically

penalized by the enslavement of their ancestors closer to the

fiscal universe of White citizens surely seems less

objectionable than some recent spending proposals.

It is a tenent of conservatism that a level playing field

is all we should guarantee. But that's meaningless if one

team starts with an unsurmountable lead before play even

begins.

It's not necessary to experience ``White guilt'' or buy

into the notion of ``White privilege,'' a pejorative that to

me suggests Whites possess something they should lose, when

in fact such benefits should extend to all. Supporting

reparations simply requires a universal agreement to work

toward, as Jayapal said, ``righting that wrong.''

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a Washington Post article, ``U.N. rights chief: Reparations needed for people facing racism.''

[From the Washington Post, June 28, 2021]

UN Rights Chief: Reparations Needed for People Facing Racism

(By Jamey Keaten)

Geneva (AP)--The U.N. human rights chief, in a landmark

report launched after the killing of George Floyd in the

United States, is urging countries worldwide to do more to

help end discrimination, violence and ) systemic racism

against people of African descent and ``make amends'' to

them--including through reparations.

The report from Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. High

Commissioner for Human rights, offers a sweeping look at the

roots of centuries of mistreatment faced by Africans and

people of African descent, notably from the transatlantic

slave trade. It seeks a ``transformative'' approach to

address its continued impact today.

The report, a year in the making, hopes to build on

momentum around the recent, intensified scrutiny worldwide

about the blight of racism and its impact on people of

African descent as epitomized by the high-profile killings of

unarmed Black people in the United States and elsewhere.

``There is today a momentous opportunity to achieve a

turning point for racial equality and justice,'' the report

said.

The report aims to speed up action by countries to end

racial injustice; end impunity for rights violations by

police; ensure that people of African descent and those who

speak out against racism are heard; and face up to past

wrongs through accountability and redress.

I am calling on all states to stop denying--and start

dismantling--racism; to end impunity and build trust; to

listen to the voices of people of African descent; and to

confront past legacies and deliver redress,'' Bachelet said

in a video statement.

While broaching the issue of reparation in her most

explicit way yet, Bachelet suggested that monetary

compensation alone is not enough and would be part of an

array of measures to help rectify or make up for the

injustices.

``Reparations should not only be equated with financial

compensation,'' she wrote, adding that it should include

restitution, rehabilitation, acknowledgement of injustices,

apologies, memorialization, educational reforms and

``guarantees'' that such injustices won't happen again.

Bachelet, a former president of Chile, hailed the efforts

of advocacy groups like the Black Lives Matter movement,

saying they helped provide ``grassroots leadership through

listening to communities'' and that they should receive

``funding, public recognition and support.''

The U.N.-backed Human Rights Council commissioned the

report during a special session last year following the

murder of Floyd, a Black American who was killed by a white

police officer in Minneapolis in May 2020. The officer, Derek

Chauvin, was sentenced to 22-1/ 2 years in prison last week.

Protests erupted after excruciating bystander video showed

how Floyd gasped repeatedly, ``I can't breathe!'' as

onlookers yelled at Chauvin to stop pressing his knee on

Floyd's neck.

The report was based on discussions with over 340 people--

mostly of African descent--and experts; more than 100

contributions in writing, including from governments; and

review of public material, the rights office said.

It analyzed 190 deaths, mostly in the U.S., to show how law

enforcement officers are

rarely held accountable for rights violations and crimes

against people of African descent, and it noted similar

patterns of mistreatment by police across many countries.

The report ultimately aims to transform those opportunities

into a more systemic response by governments to address

racism, and not just in the United States--although the

injustices and legacy of slavery, racism and violence faced

by African Americans was clearly a major theme.

The report also laid out cases, concerns and the situation

in roughly 60 countries including Belgium, Brazil, Britain,

Canada, Colombia and France among others.

``We could not find a single example of a state that has

fully reckoned with the past or comprehensively accounted for

the impacts of the lives of people of African descent

today,'' Mona Rishmawi, who heads a unit on non-

discrimination in Bachelet's office. ``Our message,

therefore, is that this situation is untenable.''

Compensation should be considered at the ``collective and

the individual level,'' Rishmawi said, while adding that any

such process ``starts with acknowledgment'' of past wrongs

and ``it's not one-size-fits-all.'' She said countries must

look at their own pasts and practices to assess how to

proceed.

Rishmawi said Bachelet's team found ``a main part of the

problem is that many people believe the misconceptions that

the abolition of slavery, the end of the transatlantic trade

and colonialism have removed the racially discriminatory

structures built by those practices.

``We found that this is not true,'' said Rishmawi, also

denouncing an idea among some ``associating blackness with

criminality . . . there is a need to address this.''

The report called on countries to ``make amends for

centuries of violence and, discrimination'' such as through

``formal acknowledgment and apologies, truth-telling

processes and reparations in various forms.''

It also decried the ``dehumanization of people of African

descent'' that was ``rooted in false social constructions of

race'' in the past to justify enslavement, racial stereotypes

and harmful practices as well as tolerance for racial

discrimination, inequality and violence.

People of African descent face inequalities and ``stark

socioeconomic and political marginalization'' in many

countries, the report said, including unfair access to

education, health care, jobs, housing and clean water.

``We believe very strongly that we only touched the tip of

the iceberg,'' Rishmawi said, referring to the report. ``We

really believe that there is a lot more work that needs to be

done.''

This report came from the United Nations because reparations is a universal concept of repair, repairing, and human rights. This report from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights is big stuff. It ``offers a sweeping look at the roots of centuries of mistreatment faced by Africans and people of African descent, notably from the transatlantic slave trade.''

Does that sound familiar? Back and forth across the ocean.

``It seeks a `transformative' approach to address its continued impact today.''

In its report, it says: ``I am calling on all states to stop denying, and start dismantling, racism; to end impunity and build trust; to listen to the voices of people of African descent; and to confront past legacies and deliver redress.''

This is what this report from the United Nations has said.

It goes on to say: ``Reparations should not only be equated with financial compensation.''

This is what I have been saying. I say that when I go on the floor and ask for my colleagues to support it. Thank goodness we understand it. We get it. I am looking for my Republican friends to join us.

``Adding that it should include restitution, rehabilitation, acknowledgment of injustices, apologies, memorialization, education reforms, and `guarantees' that such injustices won't happen again.''

Does that sound unfair?

``We could not find a single example of a state that has fully reckoned with the past or comprehensively accounted for the impacts on the lives of people of African descent.''

This individual, who was head of the unit on nondiscrimination, said: ``Our message, therefore, is that this situation is untenable.''

This is the report from the U.N.

``A main part of the problem is that many people believe the misconceptions that the abolition of slavery, the end of the transatlantic trade, and colonialism have removed the racially discriminatory structures built by those practices.''

Absolutely wrong. The report found that this is not true, ``also denouncing an idea among some `associating blackness with criminality.''' That has gone on in many places around the world, including the United States.

This report also ``decried the `dehumanization of people of African descent' that was `rooted in false social constructions of race' in the past to justify enslavement, racial stereotypes, and harmful practices as well as tolerance for racial discrimination, inequality, and violence.''

Do we realize that that hurts all of our children? Children who are White and non-White are hurt by the definitions of color and Africans and people of African descent.

We face inequalities, meaning those of African descent, and ``'stark socioeconomic and political marginalization' in many countries, the report said, including unfair access to education, healthcare, jobs, housing, and clean water.''

What the commission could do is to give peace and understanding of the very fact of what would be a positive response to this question of discrimination.

I want to add some real scientific evidence that I am not here on the floor complaining. I am giving an opportunity, along with the infrastructure bill, along with the budget reconciliation, because I am on the Budget Committee, along with voting rights, after 30-some years when this bill was first introduced in 1989, after the Japanese received reparations in 1988, of which we supported.

Thank you to the Japanese American Association. They are strong supporters of H.R. 40. They got reparations for their false and unfair internment in the 1940s during World War II. We celebrated it. We worked with them and helped them construct that, those who were in Congress at that time.

John Conyers filed this bill shortly after 1989, and I am honored to have been given this challenge and opportunity by him upon his retirement. I will not let the Nation down. I say the Nation because a definitive study is worthy. It I might show you that the idea of reparations is to suggest a continued, systemic impact, a continued, systemic impact that is going on, even in this moment.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record this article that is part of the Harvard Medical School's continuing coverage of medicine, and you would not believe it.

[From Harvard Medical School, Feb, 10, 2021]

Anti-Racist Epidemiology--Research Suggests Reparations for Slavery

Could Have Reduced COVID-19 Infections and Deaths in U.S.

(By Jake Miller)

This article is part of Harvard Medical School's continuing

coverage of medicine, biomedical research, medical education

and policy related to the SARS-Co V-2 pandemic and the

disease COVID-19.

Civil rights activists have long called for monetary

reparations to the Black descendants of Africans enslaved in

the United States as a financial, moral, and ethical form of

restitution for the injustices of slavery.

Now, a study led by Harvard Medical School researchers

suggests reparations could also have surprising public health

benefits for Black individuals and the entire nation.

To estimate the impact of structura inequities between

Black and white individuals, the researchers set out to

capture the effect of reparation payments on the Black-white

wealth gap in the state of Louisiana.

Their analysis, published online on Feb. 9 in Social

Science & Medicine. suggests that if reparations had teen

made before the COVID-19 pandemic, transmission of SARS-CoV-2

in the state's overall population could have been reduced by

anywhere from 31 percent to 68 percent.

The work was done in collaboration with the Lancet

Commission on Reparations and Redistributive Justice.

``While there are compelling moral and historical arguments

for racial-injustice interventions such as reparations, our

study demonstrates that repairing the damage caused by the

legacy of slavery and Jim Crow racism would have enormous

benefits to the entire population of tbe United States,''

said study senior author Eugene Richardson. assistant

professor of global health and social medicine in the

Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School.

The disproportionate effects of COVID-19 on racial

minorities--Black individuals in particular--have been well

documented. Black people get COVID-19 at a rate nearly one

and a half times higher than that of white people, are

hospitalized at a rate nearly four times higher, and are

three times as likely to die from the disease, according to

the latest estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease

Control.

The greater disease burden among Black people has caused

tremendous loss of life and

unspeakable suffering across these already vulnerable and

disadvantaged communities. Notably, these effects have also

spilled over and are driving transmission rates of the virus

in the overall population, the study authors said.

Addressing the structural inequalities at the roots of this

disparity through monetary reparations would not only

radically decrease the impact of COVID-19 among the people

who received reparations, tbe authors said, but would reduce

the overall toll of the disease on a broader scale,

benefiting the entire population. The findings, the

researchers said, powerfully underscores the truly global

nature of the pandemic and the notion that a society is only

as strong as its most vulnerable members.

``If we extrapolate these results to the entire United

States, we can imagine that tens or hundreds of thousands of

lives would have been spared, and the entire nation would

have been saved much of the hardship it has endured in the

last year,'' said Richardson, who is also the chair of the

Lancet Commission on Reparations and Redistributive Justice.

For their analysis, tbe researchers paired sophisticated

data analytics and computational tools with commonly used

epidemiologic modeling methods to calculate the impact of

structural racism on infection rates among Black and white

populations in Louisiana. They chose Louisiana as an exemplar

of the impacts of structural racism in the U.S. because it

was one of the few states that reported infection rates by

race in the early stages of the pandemic. For a control

group, the researchers chose the relatively egalitarian

population of South Korea.

The researchers noted that although modeling is used to

understand many factors in the spread of an infectious

disease, such as differences in infection risk based on

whether passengers on a train sit with windows open or closed

or individual variations in mask-wearinq habits, it has

rarely been used to capture the effects of social factors

that can create vast disparities between populations, such as

those seen between Blacks and whites in the U.S.

Richardson's recent book Epidemic illusions explores the

ways conventional epidemiology is constrained from proposing

solutions that address the root causes of health disparities

derived from the combined weight of centuries of racism,

imperialism, neoliberal politics, and economic exploitation.

One of the goals of the paper is to challenge the narrow ways

people who work in medicine and public health measure and

think about problems and solutions and to broaden the public

imagination, thus opening new conversations about what

challenges and opportunities are worth considering in global

health and social science, Richardson said.

The study examined the initial period of the outbreak,

before infection control measures were implemented, so any

differences in infection rates between populations at that

time would have been driven mainly by differences in the

social structures, the researchers said.

For example, Louisiana has a population heavily segregated

by race, with Black people having higher levels of

overcrowded housing and working jobs that are more likely to

expose them to SARS-CoV-2 than white people. In comparison,

South Korea has a more homogenous population with far less

segregation.

To probe how such structural inequities impact transmission

of SARS-CoV-2, the researchers examined infection rates over

time for the first two months of the epidemic in each

location. During the initial phase of the outbreak in

Louisiana, each infected person spread the virus to 13 to 2.5

more people than an infected individual durinq the same phase

of the outbreak in South Korea, the analysis showed. The

study also showed it took Louisiana more than twice as long

to bring the early wave of the epidemic under control as

South Korea.

Next, the researchers used next-generation matrices to

gauge how overcrowding, segregation, and the wealth gap

between Blacks and whites in Louisiana could have driven

higher infection rates and how monetary reparations would

affect viral transmission.

The model showed that greater equity between Blacks and

whites might have reduced infection transmission rates by

anywhere from 31 percent to 68 percent for every person in

the state.

This research comes at a time when many Americans are

already thinking about the larger societal costs of

structural racism, the researchers said. They noted, for

example, that the nationwide movement to protest police

brutality against Black people has been fueled by many of the

inequitable outcomes exemplified so painfully by the

coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.

``This moment has made it possible for a lot of people who

had no reason to think about these inequalities to be very

aware of them,'' said study co-author and Lancet reparations

commissioner Kirsten Mullen, who was a member of concept

development team for the National Museum of African American

History and Culture.

Anti-racism in action

Richardson said that the research was designed to explore

how reparations payments might have altered the trajectory of

the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. and how a different

response to the disease could have helped mitigate the

disparities fueled by social conditions that are vestiges of

slavery. Such conditions, Richardson noted, include ongoing

discrimination and structural racism in the form of

redlining, overcrowding, over-incarceration, and the

heightened use of lethal force in policing experienced by

Black people.

Richardson said that historian and anti-racist scholar

Ibram X. Kendi's description of the differences between

racism and anti-racism were helpful in designing the study.

According to Kendi, a racist policy is any policy that

produces or sustains inequality or promotes the power of one

racial group over another, whereas an anti-racist policy is

any measure that produces or sustains equity between racial

groups.

Richardson said that one important goal of the project was

to attempt to harness the power of mathematical modeling for

an anti-racist response to the coronavirus and beyond.

``When you look at a formula for transmissibility, it looks

like an objective calculation,'' he said. ``But where is

lethal policing in that formula?''

Richardson noted that it was important to call attention to

the systemic and structural elements of racism that can get

lost in simplified models of disease.

What are reparations?

Mullen and study co-author William Darity, who recently

published a book on reparations and have written in the press

about the case for using reparation payments to fight COVID-

19, defined reparations as a program of acknowledgement,

redress, and closure for a grievous injustice. In this case,

Mullen said, the atrocities are associated with periods of

enslavement, legal segregation and white terrorism during the

Jim Crow era, and racial strife and violence of the post-

Civil Rights Act era, including ongoing inequities in the

form of over-policing, police executions of unarmed Black

people, ongoing discrimination in regard to incarceration,

access to housing, and, possibly most important, the Black-

white gulf in wealth.

Successful reparations programs include three elements:

admission of culpability on behalf of the perpetrators of the

atrocity; redress, in the form of an act of restitution; and

closure, wherein the victims agree that the debt is paid and

no further claims are to be made unless new harms are

inflicted.

In this case, Mullen said, reparations would take the form

of financial restitution for living Black individuals who can

show that they are descended from at least one ancestor who

was enslaved in the U.S. and that they self-identified as

Black on a legal document at some point during the 12 years

prior.

The financial restitution is designed to help close the

Black-white wealth gap. Darity noted that it is important to

distinguish wealth from income. Wealth is how much you own,

and income is how much you earn. Greater wealth translates to

greater stability for individuals and families across time.

Greater wealth is also more strongly associated with greater

well-being than greater income, Darity said, and disparities

in wealth manifest as health disparities.

Wealth is more strongly associated with familial or

individual well-being,'' said Darity, who is the Samuel

DuBois Cook Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at Duke

University and a Lancet reparations commissioner. He noted

that, according to the Federal Reserve Board 2016 Survey of

Consumer Finances, the average Black household had a net

worth $800,000 lower than the average white household, and

that Black people, who represent 13 percent of the U.S.

population, only own 3 percent of the nation's wealth.

``This dramatically restricts the ability of Black

Americans to survive and thrive,'' Darity said.

To assess the effect of reparation payments on the

trajectory of the pandemic, the researchers based their

calculations on a model that would pay $250,000 per person or

$800,000 per household to descendants of enslaved

individuals--one of several proposed reparation models.

Every transmission is a social transmission

``Every transmission has a social cause,'' said study co-

author and Lancet reparations commissioner James Jones,

associate professor of Earth System Science and a senior

fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford

University.

For a brief moment when AIDS was in the spotlight during

the late 80s and early 90s, people interested in social

behavior became interested in mathematical modeling of

disease, Jones said. While that interest largely waned, the

COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the need to think about

social science, inequality, social structure, behavior

patterns, and behavior change, as well as how they fit

together with how we understand and respond to epidemics,

Jones said.

Even the simplest model must account for a rudimentary

social structure, Jones said. At its most basic, this can be

represented with a generalized estimate of how likely an

infected person is to come into contact with a susceptible

person. He explained that this number, R0 or ``R-naught,'' is

the average number of people an infected individual transmits

the virus to. When R0 is less than one, no epidemic is

possible because the number of people infected decreases.

When R0 is greater than 1 an epidemic is possible. R0 also

determines the total number of people who could potentially

become infected or how many people would need to be

vaccinated to end the epidemic. It can also be

used to calculate the so-called endemic equilibrium--which

determines whether a disease will continue to exist within a

population, simmering constantly in the background or

bubbling up seasonally, like influenza.

``That's the theory of infectious disease control in a

single parameter,'' Jones said.

That seeming simplicity can make it hard to focus on the

complex ways that infectious diseases move through the real

world, the researchers said.

``It's important to highlight that R0 is not simply a

function of the pathogen,'' Jones said. ``It's a function of

the society.'' Social and environmental factors like

mobility, segregation, and the nature of the built

environment help determine rates of infection, he said.

This is one important reason that diseases don't hit all

people the same. Global R0 is an average of very different

R0s for different groups of people. Some groups are more

likely to interact only with members of their own group, some

groups are more likely to come in contact with infected

people, and some are more susceptible to the disease for

other reasons, Jones said.

In this case, the researchers used mathematical models to

help understand the differences in R0 for Black people and

white people in Louisiana and to help think about how things

would change if racism were less prevalent in America.

Absent those interventions, the researchers noted that

Black Americans remain at an elevated and inequitable risk of

becoming infected and dying during the COVID-19 pandemic and

that this inequity will continue to fuel the pandemic for all

Americans.

``Increasing equality would have huge benefits on infection

rates for everyone,'' said co-author Momin Malik, who was a

data science postdoctoral fellow at the Berkman Klein Center

for Internet & Society at Harvard University at the time the

study was conducted.

This research was supported by the National Institute of

General Medical Sciences Models of Infectious Disease Agent

Study (grant R01 GM130900), National Institute of Allergy and

Infectious Diseases (grant K08 AI139361), National Institute

of Minority Health Disparities (grant R01 MD011606), National

Science Foundation Division of Social and Economic Sciences

(grant 1851845), Institute of Education Sciences (grant

R305A190484), and the Ethics and Governance of Artificial

Intelligence Fund.

It states: ``Civil rights activists have long called for monetary reparations,'' this report opens up. This is a scientific, vetted report from the Harvard University Medical School. It is titled ``Anti-Racist Epidemiology: Research suggests reparations for slavery could have reduced COVID-19 infections and deaths in the U.S.'' This was published online on February 10.

It says: ``To estimate the impact of structural inequities between Black and White individuals, the researchers set out to capture the effect of reparation payments on the Black-White wealth gap in the State of Louisiana.'' This is an important report.

``The disproportionate effects of COVID-19 on racial minorities-- Black individuals in particular--have been well documented. Black people get COVID-19 at a rate nearly one-and-a-half times higher than that of White people, are hospitalized at a rate nearly four times higher, and are three times as likely to die from the disease, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

``The greater disease burden among Black people has caused tremendous loss of life and unspeakable suffering across these already vulnerable and disadvantaged communities. Notably, these effects have also spilled over and are driving transmission rates of the virus in the overall population.''

They did their study in many places, but I will read a portion. ``The study examined the initial period of the outbreak, before infection control measures were implemented, so any differences in infection rates between populations at the time would have been driven mainly by differences in the social structures.''

``Louisiana has a population heavily segregated by race, with Black people having higher levels of overcrowded housing and working jobs that are more likely to expose them,'' and they found that if reparations had been given, they would have done better.

I conclude, Mr. Speaker, by just saying that you see a picture of the Tulsa race riot. That is why I stand here today to say that Tulsa Greenwood needs reparation. H.R. 40 needs to pass. Why don't we do it together?

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, most of the colleagues of this House know that I have introduced H.R. 40, the Commission to Study Slavery and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act, which can be defined as repairing.

I read to my colleagues an assessment of the U.N. Human Rights chief in a landmark report, launched after the killing of George Floyd in the United States, urging countries worldwide to do more to help end discrimination, violence, and systemic racism against people of African descent and to make amends to them, including repair, reparations.

That word strikes fear in most people's hearts and minds because they don't take a moment to understand what ending systemic racism and institutional racism is or what repairing is. Repairing is a global concept. It means that if you have been harmed or there is something broken, you fix it.

When you think about racism in the United States, it is something broken. There are many ways to address it: dealing with education and healthcare, dealing with the economy of people who have an enormous wealth gap, but breaching the gap and bringing people together.

I ask my colleagues for us to move forward on H.R. 40 because it is healing legislation, and it will bring Americans together.

Mr. Speaker, thank you for your courtesies. And I begin with a clarion call. The Speaker wears many hats, and we have been in meetings where we have focused our legislative prowess, legislative questions, on voting rights. So, I think it is appropriate to begin today to say that a crisis is pending.

I am stunned by this decision. I am aghast. I will not use the word ``enraged'' because action requires a calm and contemplative mind.

Today, the Supreme Court upheld voting restrictions. They might have written it and said they upheld voting laws. They upheld voting restrictions in Arizona and signaled that challenges in new State laws making it harder to vote--my God, I am going to say that on this floor--making it harder to vote in spite of the constitutional privilege that is ensconced in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments that generates into the States the dignity of humanity, that citizens' birthright is the right to be precise in your desires of your representation.

And then, it signaled in this article that challenges to new State laws making it harder to vote would have a hostile reception from a majority of the Justices.

The vote was just as we expected. All the Court-packing--all the Court-packing--has borne fruit.

Forgive me. I wanted to be on this floor speaking eloquently, if you will, about a myriad of things, but a 6-3 vote, not even a light of difference: three who were not appointed by Republican Presidents, and then, of course, the packing by the former President of the United States.

By the way, I just want to make a public statement. I know the First Amendment has its privileges. I ask the media to call the former President ``the former President.'' He is not the President of the United States. He is not ``President'' and his name. He is the former President. He is not ``President'' and his name at the border. He is the former President at the border, creating havoc.

And havoc was created with this 6-3 vote. The decision was the Court's first consideration of how a crucial part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 applies to voting restrictions that have a disproportionate impact on members of minority groups.

It was issued as disputes over voting rights have taken center stage. We are still suffering from the Shelby case of 2013 that indicated that the Section 5 provision is unconstitutional and has left us with no tools to deal with this.

As Republican-controlled State legislatures increasingly seek to impose restrictions, new voting rules, we are in the fight of our life.

I am on the floor of the House today to indicate that there is no divide in any of us, thanking the Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Beatty on the urgency of voting rights, and the Judiciary Committee and the chairman of that committee, the subcommittee chairmen of that committee, and all the Members and staff, we needed this decision to be able to craft the record that is going to withstand and fight the battle and be able to pass what the Supreme Court cannot undermine with its decision.

In fact, we must thwart its decision. We must protect the vulnerable. We must not allow the disabled to be videotaped in Texas. We must not allow the hungry and thirsty to be denied water and food in Georgia. We must not allow judges to overturn willy-nilly the elections in Texas.

We must not allow, if I might, the idea of a former officer of the United States--in fact, the Chief Officer of the United States. We must not allow that person to make a mockery of the order of government.

There is but one President of the United States. That is President Joe Biden. There is but one Vice President, Vice President Kamala Harris. And they are effectively leading this government and this Nation. They are caring people.

President Biden is, as we speak, either there or en route to the enormous tragedy in Surfside, Florida, to provide comfort but also to provide the strength of the Federal Government in any investigation that will proceed.

That is the able work of the Florida delegation and this President. They will do their job, particularly those Members who represent that area, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and many other Members.

But it is challenging to be thwarted in voting and to ignore the Constitution, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.

So, today, I want to proceed with what I think is a necessary agenda that is so important to this Nation. I will talk about so many different aspects of the issue of governance, why voting is so important, and why we need to close the social and racial divide, or racial and social equity should be intertwined.

Let me emphasize, if you will, the enormous difference that what we are going to be working on over the next couple of weeks is going to make in lives, and that is, of course, the child tax credit.

Votes and winning the majority in 2020 of the House and Senate by Democrats, and, of course, the new President and Vice President, led us to the expanded and improved child tax credit.

It is a historical change that is a lifeline to the middle class and cuts child poverty. It provides children and their families with additional payments through the year that help them with

the cost of food, childcare, diapers, healthcare, clothing, and taxes.

I will be in my town, Houston, Texas, on July 3--yes, the Independence Day weekend--to be able to open the eyes of my mothers and fathers caring for children, that this is their legitimate opportunity to receive monthly payments, $250 per month per child and $300 per month for every young child. All the families in my community can feel more secure and better able to deal with the burdensome expenses that face them weekly and monthly.

Let me be very clear: This brings America together, this idea of the child tax credit. But, let me remind you, it was because of our votes that elected a Democratic majority, not a majority that does not include a desire to work in a bipartisan manner. We do desire that.

I think this is the first opportunity that I have had since the historic passage--maybe the second--a moment that I can say to the Chamber and to this historic Congressional Record a large thank you for bipartisanship that has brought about, after 38 years, the historic Juneteenth holiday that was celebrated because it was signed on June 17th, the first historic holiday on June 18th.

Thank you to Opal Lee. Thank you to the initiator of the State holiday in Texas, Al Edwards. But more importantly, thank you to that teacher in the airport who stopped me and said: Thank you for Juneteenth. I can now teach the original sin of slavery to even elementary schoolchildren, not out of anger and hatefulness, but the whole story of America's original sin and what liberation, emancipation, and freedom represent.

Thank you for the quote about President Joe Biden that said: He may be known for many things in his administration, but he will probably be remembered for signing the Juneteenth holiday.

I am grateful to my colleagues for allowing me to lead, to have introduced that bill, the first Member of Congress to do so. I am grateful to Members of the other body--Senator Markey and Senator Cornyn--who rallied so that the Senate could move and that, in 1 day, we could pass it in the House, the bill that I introduced that the Senate then took.

To the leadership here, how much we exalted this body when it was a 415-person vote. I hope with that vote that there are those thinking that: Wow, I voted for that. I am not finished because we are not finished.

If anything reinforces that our journey is not finished, it must be the idea that, today, the Supreme Court rendered a decision that completely turns upside down the writing of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, led so ably by my colleague and friend Congresswoman Terri Sewell, a bill that will come through the House Judiciary Committee. We will be able to be the fixers, the doctors, those who will hold the Constitution and say: The Supreme Court, though the highest body in the land, in this instance, because of the Court- packing, is wrong because the Founding Fathers did not intend for us to have a restraint on that unfettered right of voting.

My friends, we would not be in the midst of the debate right now on the INVEST Act that is going to provide such a new difference in our lives. That is because of the vote.

I thank the chairman of the Transportation Committee, Mr. DeFazio, because now that first step will be toward rebuilding the Nation's roads, bridges, transit, rail, and we will be fighting against climate change.

Look at our Western region, where hundreds are impacted, thousands, millions, but then they have lost tens upon tens, maybe hundreds of people, maybe, but certainly numbers who died from the enormous heat.

We actually passed that historic bill today. I am very proud that part of it, working out of Energy and Commerce and working with Chairman Pallone, we have provided real dollars to communities for wastewater infrastructure. You know that is important. We have done that through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund. We have provided, I want you to understand, the historic funding level for drinking water, the State revolving fund, making improvements to prioritize replacing lead service lines that have plagued so many of our Midwestern States and Southern States, our public housing, improving water quality in schools.

I know it well because my schools are old. Children before bottled water, with the historic water systems, were drinking out of those old water fountains and addressing needs in territories, reforming the broken standard-setting to make it work better as it relates to public health and to eliminate toxins.

The vote, the right to vote, is an extremely vital part, and as we have had the right to vote, and each Member has had the right, I am glad to publicly announce that I will have complete reformation of a historic street in my district, Scott Street--the right to vote--with the grant that was awarded through me to Houston and metro and the city of Houston, which we will be announcing soon.

Those of you living in and around Scott Street, the University of Houston, Texas Southern University, there will be a new light, a new opportunity. And then we will be able to expand on the Greenways project, neighborhood greenways. I have heard you. I have heard the neighborhood. And so we will have that opportunity.

And through voting, the Jackson Lee-Espaillat amendment, it is in now, it is law, and it is going to the Senate to be finally passed.

And I am going to be an optimist that we were able to have an amendment in the Safe Streets program where funds are spent to give local governments more control over where the funds for the new Safe Streets program are spent by requiring the State Department of Transportation that ignores local government.

They are ignoring local governments right now in my community on I- 45. They ignore them by expanding I-45 and taking out houses and schools and buying up historic neighborhoods. They are wrong. TXDOT, you are wrong. And we will continue to investigate until you realize that you are wrong.

But I have an amendment now that says that local governments must be heard, and they must be consulted with on the amount of dollars to help them carry out Safe Streets projects, and that is to use a Safe Streets program to set aside safety funds to reduce fatality and serious injuries on public roads with a focus on vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, bicyclists, scooters, and motorcyclists.

Why? People are dying.

In my district, a woman stopped her car to help a handicapped person in a wheelchair get across the street, and another car hit her and the handicapped person and killed them without even stopping.

Who needs to have the resources, but our local government?

And then, of course, we have seen death take a toll on motorcycle riders. Bike Texas has been fighting for this. And we lost a young man a few years ago as he was riding his bike in the Heights area. He lost his life. I promised his family.

The lady who lost her life pushing the wheelchair was Lesha Adams, 54, and she was helping Jesus ``Jesse'' Perez to cross. Ms. Adams pulled over and got out, and as I said, another vehicle struck them. And they were both killed.

And on March 7, 2019, right before the pandemic, I went to the spot where David Leon Loya was killed in a collision with a school bus while riding his bicycle. That was the way he got around in the Heights.

This is in their name, to make local governments take charge of those dollars and to help stop that kind of violence, which it is.

And then the motorcycle riders, they have motorcycle clubs, and they are ignored. And in the name of Jamal Harris that was killed around Mother's Day or in May, this amendment was put forward.

In the freeze we have suffered. People died. And so I have an amendment that was passed and will now become law that requires the EPA administrator to initiate a study on the distribution of wastewater infrastructure funds to rural communities, economically disadvantaged communities, and Tribal communities during the 20 fiscal years preceding.

And the reason is, there has been the understanding that wastewater resources in inner city infrastructure and

rural areas is poor, not working, and you feel the impact. I am grateful. But again, I am going to say voting.

And then, of course, we know the freeze. So many died in early February.

The President came to acknowledge something that we had never experienced. Our whole grid shut down, which is why we need the American Jobs Plan in its totality. I stand with my friends in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Budget Committee, and the Congressional Black Caucus, and all of the Democratic Caucus that we must go big. We must work with this bipartisan legislation, but we must get climate change. We must get the care economy. And we must deal with the broadband and cyber.

But the electric grids have been failing. And so my particular amendment implements a program under which the administrator may award grants to community water systems to carry out activities to educate and assist persons by the community water system in adapting and responding to bad acts and natural disasters, including sub-zero temperatures.

What does that mean? It means that our pipes froze. People were still suffering from freezing, and those pipes burst and destroyed homes. Not only did people die, they frozen to death because they had no electricity, and they had no water.

And I remember standing and giving out water to thousands, being part of giving out water to thousands all over our community. We were giving out water in 2021. They had no water. Not only did they have no water, but it took a very long time.

I will include a study to show you why wastewater is so important. The groundbreaking 2019 study and report is ``Flushed and Forgotten: Sanitation and Wastewater in Rural Communities in the US.'' And it was conducted by the Alabama Center for Rural Enterprise and the Columbia University Institute for the Study of Human Rights. It indicated, sanitation is essential to everyday functions such as urination and defecation. Without a system in place to dispose of wastewater, individuals experience environmental contamination. The perpetual appearance of wastewater in and around homes that occurs when systems are absent or failing takes a significant toll on mental health and the ability of individuals to live in dignity.

Do you realize that that is occurring in America? That is why I am here today.

And I am here today because no one is going to tell me with conditions like this that we don't need the American Jobs Plan and that we don't need the dollars that will stop flooding in Houston, which we have built up enormously.

No one is going to tell me that we don't need the child tax credit for each and every one of you. That is why we will be in Houston on July 3. We will be in Houston July 3 because these children need these resources.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining, please?

Mr. Speaker, I want to take a moment to physically hold this poster up and to emphasize how important our children are before I raise another very vital point.

One, it was because of votes that we got the Children's Health Insurance Program. And it will be because of votes that we got the pandemic child tax credit that you will get $250 for older children and $300 for younger children every single month.

Meet me at the Saint John's Church at 10 a.m. on July 3 to ensure that you get the right information. This is not a sales job. This is what voting and representation is all about.

I will conclude my remarks with something that has been, Mr. Speaker, very important, and I hope that its explanation is one that is taken not historically in the way that it should, and we ought not ignore the attack on democracy and to acknowledge the leadership of this House for the January 6 committee. I have worked on the select committee. I am a Member who was here for 9/11. And when I say ``here,'' I was literally in this Capitol and among others that fled out of this Capitol and watched the billowing smoke that was a result of the hit at the Pentagon as we were escaping. And so I take very seriously the issues of January 6.

I will also briefly acknowledge the work that we have done with ensuring that Confederate statues were removed and put in a place of history but not a place that is a citadel of democracy when there were those that stood up against that democracy.

I acknowledge the validity of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act and pay tribute to his family who has sacrificed so much to try to make things right.

But now I will proceed with what I think must be our next step with voting, and that is H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act. I want to take away any glare or misunderstanding that this is a figment of our imagination, this is something that we should do in passing, it is an impossibility, it is a third rail, if we do this, something will happen.

I welcome, and I am here, present, to speak to all of my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, but I want you to look at the back of this slave. The silence is deadening as to what occurred for almost a quarter of a thousand years; in bondage over 200 years.

We have difficulty in detailing the actual facts of the precise brutality in every plantation and every nuance and every northern State and every southern State and every western State and every eastern State because it was prevalent everywhere. There were different times when it ended. Certainly, December 1965 was when the 13th Amendment was so eloquently debated with difficulty, and it was passed.

But H.R. 40 is the distinct opportunity internationally for America's presence to be known that we are back, that we are willing to acknowledge the original sin. We are not here accounting for my neighbor, who will tell me that he or she did not have slaves. That is not the accounting that we are, in essence, looking at. We are not looking to be able to see whether or not my other neighbor just left slavery.

Slavery is a part of America's history. The DNA and the progeny of slavery are here in America. You cannot ignore them. They are the foundation of this Nation.

They built the place I now stand. Slaves.

They built the White House. Slaves.

They built infrastructure.

They created cotton and made it king, never to be given any compensation for years of work. No health insurance. No insurance. No workmen's comp. No salary.

But as the U.N. Human Rights Council has said, reparations should not only be equated with financial compensation, it should include restitution, rehabilitation, acknowledgment of injustice, apologies, memorialization, education, reform, and guarantees that such injustices won't happen again.

The legislation itself is a nonthreatening and serious legislation. It is a reflection of what General Sherman tried to do. He tried to remedy the back that we see here today. He tried to give 40 acres and a mule.

Can you imagine the conglomerate that would have occurred if 5, 6, 10, 20 slaves had come together with that?

And believe me, slaves did not ask in anger. In fact, as they did not get it, they made their way. But as they made their way, we can cite 19 sites, almost, in America where what slaves built were destroyed.

Greenwood, 100 years, is an example. Greenwood is an example of a cry for reparations. Mother Fletcher and Mother Randall. And our sergeant, her brother, articulate that they never got anything and all that they had in Greenwood was taken from them. What an unbelievable scenario that we are facing.

Mr. Speaker, so my plea today is that as you've listened to me, I leave here to go fight for voting rights. But I also leave here with a challenge and an encouragement for the understanding of all that I have said. But, more importantly, as I close, H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparations Proposals, I look forward to working with our leadership and all others to ensure that we do make this an important step forward.

Mr. Speaker, thank you for recognizing me for this Special Order during which I will discuss the removal of statues glorifying Confederate traitors from places of honor in the Capitol, the removal of the bust from the Old Supreme Court Chamber and replacing it with a

bust civil rights icon and legend, the late Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall.

At the outset, Mr. Speaker, let me make this brief comment.

Many of friends across the aisle, including Republican Leader McCarthy, have noted the fact that all of the persons affected by H. Res. 503 were Democrats and none were Republicans.

This is hardly revelatory.

After all, the Republican Party was founded in the 1850s because of its opposition to slavery that Southern Democrats like future Vice President of the Confederate States of America Alexander Stephens boasted was the ``cornerstone of America.''

In 1861, after the election of Abraham Lincoln as President, the eleven slave-holding states seceded from the Union, not to preserve their heritage, but to keep their slaves.

That led to the Civil War, in which more than 600,000 persons on both sides gave their lives and ended in the utter defeat and unconditional surrender of the Confederate Army led by its traitor general Robert E. Lee.

Also, as a consequence of the Civil War, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution were passed and ratified.

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful that at the time when it was needed most, the Republican Party was born and committed to the extinction of slavery.

It was the pro-freedom, pro-civil rights party.

The Democratic Party in those nightmarish days was centered in the ``Solid South,'' and proudly wore the label of the pro-slavery, white supremacy party.

This was not lost on the American people, and for a century Black Americans overwhelmingly self-identified with the pro-civil rights, anti-white supremacy Republican Party.

Even after the national Democratic Party renounced de jure racism and ``states rights'' at the 1948 DNC in Philadelphia, resulting in Strom Thurmond leading his fellow Dixiecrats out of the convention and running a failed bid for the presidency, Black Americans remained a core constituency of the Republican Party, while nearly all whites in the southern states were Democrats, distinguishing themselves from northern liberals by calling themselves ``Southern Democrats'' or ``constitutional Democrats''.

All of this changed in 1964.

That was the year the Republican Party nominated for president Sen. Barry Goldwater, an active and die-hard opponent of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Southern Democrats saw in Goldwater's support for `states rights' a kindred spirit and vehicle to halt the federal government's commitment to extend the writ and guarantees of the Constitution to all persons in all regions of the country.

Mr. Speaker, the result of that realigning election remains with us to this day.

Before the Great Depression and the election of Franklin Roosevelt, the overwhelming majority of votes cast by Black Americans were for Republican candidates.

Even in the election of 1960, the parties closely competed for the votes of Black Americans, with Republican Richard Nixon winning more than 35 percent.

Fast forward to 1964.

Republican Barry Goldwater was routed 486-52 in an electoral college landslide and lost 43 states; Lyndon Johnson won the popular vote by 16 million votes (61-38 percent).

Goldwater won only his native state of Arizona and five Deep South I states--Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina.

It is interesting to note that the five Southern states that voted for Goldwater swung over dramatically to support him; for example, in Mississippi, where Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt had won 97 percent of the popular vote in 1936, Goldwater won 87 percent of the vote.

Lyndon Johnson would say the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would cost Democrats the South for 50 years but it was worth it.

What accounted for this change in voting allegiance, which persists to this day?

The answer is simple and obvious, beginning in 1964 the Democratic Party became, and was perceived by Americans, as the party of civil rights; the Republican Party not so much.

So, Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is that yes, the Confederate traitors whose statues are being removed from the Capitol were then members of the southern Democratic Party.

The difference is that white supremacists have not been welcome or embraced by the national Democratic Party since 1948 and have been pariahs since 1964.

We Democrats are not reluctant to remove and banish those who bring shame and dishonor to our cause of advancing equal justice for all Americans.

I challenge our friends across the aisle to stop glorifying as `heritage' a history of terror, injustice, violence, and racism represented by the persons whose statues are being removed and anyone who proudly waves a Confederate flag, like the one that disgraced the Capitol when it was paraded by domestic terrorists during the January 6 insurrection and attack on American democracy.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.