Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5236) to expand opportunities available to employee-owned business concerns through Small Business Administration loan programs, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, ownership structures of businesses come in numerous shapes and sizes. Whether they follow a traditional model or an employee-owned structure, small businesses across the Nation continue to face a difficult lending environment.

Although the SBA bridges the gap for many of the Nation's small firms, 100-percent-employee-owned firms face uncertainty as they navigate the SBA's 7(a) Loan Program.

To strengthen the 7(a) Loan Program for employee-owned small businesses and worker cooperatives, Ranking Member Velazquez introduced H.R. 5236, the Main Street Employee Ownership Act of 2018.

In order to provide clarity for program participants, H.R. 5236 would update reporting statistics to ensure accurate data is captured.

The bill also codifies ownership transition plans.

Additionally, H.R. 5236 requires the SBA's resource partners to have educational material available to explain the nuances of these uniquely structured businesses.

Although the requirements for personal guarantees within the 7(a) Loan Program prove challenging to some of these business structures, H.R. 5236 importantly preserves this hallmark and requires the SBA to work with industry representatives to develop ways to satisfy the guarantee while reducing its burdens.

Employee-owned small businesses are an important part of the small business ecosystem. We must continue to streamline the processes and procedures in place at the SBA for all small businesses. H.R. 5236, Ms. Velazquez's legislation, is a step in the right direction that provides clarity for employee-owned small businesses and worker cooperatives.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the ranking member, Ms. Velazquez, who has spearheaded this legislation.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 5236, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will conclude by saying that employee-owned businesses really populate the streets and neighborhoods of many cities across this Nation. They are unique in form but face many of the same hurdles that other small businesses face.

H.R. 5236 streamlines how employee-owned businesses operate under the important rules of the SBA 7(a) Loan Program. While preserving important characteristics of the program, H.R. 5236 will help employee- owned businesses as they seek capital to grow, expand, and create much- needed jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I want to again thank and commend the ranking member, Ms. Velazquez, for her leadership on this legislation.

I would urge my colleagues to support H.R. 5236, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4743) to amend the Small Business Act to strengthen the Office of Credit Risk Management within the Small Business Administration, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, although the economy is starting to recover, small businesses continue to face a rigid lending environment that challenges growth and job creation. With options limited, small businesses regularly turn to the SBA, the Small Business Administration, for assistance.

With nearly 70,000 loans made in fiscal year 2017, the 7(a) Loan Program is the SBA's largest capital access tool and is reserved for creditworthy small businesses that cannot access traditional or conventional bank lending.

In recent years, the program has experienced rapid growth, which spiked congressional interest and resulted in numerous hearings and meetings to evaluate the SBA's oversight of lenders.

After careful consideration, I, along with the ranking member, Ms. Velazquez, determined legislation was needed to ensure the integrity of the program and to safeguard the American taxpayers' dollars. As a result, in January of this year, we introduced H.R. 4743, the Small Business 7(a) Lending Oversight Reform Act of 2018, this bill.

H.R. 4743 contains important oversight reforms that strengthen the SBA's Office of Credit Risk Management and the SBA's Lender Oversight Committee. H.R. 4743 also bolsters the credit elsewhere test which acts as a gatekeeper into this government guarantee program.

With the reforms outlined in this provision, the credit elsewhere test will be clarified and refocused on a borrower's ability to access the program. The changes to the credit elsewhere test will ensure the program is being used by eligible and deserving small businesses.

Additionally, H.R. 4743 outlines a portfolio risk analysis that the SBA must perform. With any program that has a government role, healthy and vigorous oversight is required to protect the taxpayers. H.R. 4743 provides this for the 7(a) Loan Program and for the Nation's small businesses.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the ranking member, Ms. Velazquez, for all of her hard work and interest in this topic, and I also want to thank all of the members of the committee who have had a role in exploring this issue.

The bill has broad, bipartisan support--as many of our bills often do. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 4743, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Kelly), chairman of the Subcommittee on Investigations, Oversight and Regulations.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to close.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman for her leadership on this

issue. I would also like to thank the staffs on both sides of the aisle, and I would also like to thank the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Rodney Frelinghuysen, for his assistance in a bump that we ran into at the eleventh hour there.

He was a classmate of mine. We both came in in the historic class of 1994, and he will be leaving at the end of this term. He is going to be greatly missed, but, in any event, I want to thank Chairman Frelinghuysen.

Mr. Speaker, to conclude, the 7(a) Loan Program is an important capital access resource for the Nation's small businesses. However, with any government guarantee program, strong oversight is mandatory to safeguard American taxpayer dollars. H.R. 4743 institutes strong and critical reforms to make sure oversight is front and center as this program is administered by the SBA.

H.R. 4743 ensures the program will only be utilized by small businesses that truly require its services, and I urge my colleagues to support the bipartisan reforms instituted in H.R. 4743.

Finally, I want to again thank the gentlewoman from New York and the staffs and everyone else involved in this. I understand it might not be the norm everywhere these days, but, in our committee, it is business-- and I should say--it is small business as usual. The gentlewoman was really a pleasure to work with on this and many other issues, so I thank the gentlewoman very much for her work.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my continued support for this legislation. A lot of hard work has gone into this legislation over the years, and the result is an unprecedented level of consensus from a broad coalition of stakeholders in the music industry who don't always agree.

This legislation, I think, will prove to be a great benefit to music consumers, creators, and producers alike.

The way we listen to and experience music is much different today than it was when the Copyright Act was enacted back in 1976. As a result, our copyright laws have become outdated and are, in many ways, insufficient for the music industry in the 21st century. This legislation provides much-needed updates to bring music licensing into the digital age, particularly improving market efficiencies and transparency to reflect the modern music marketplace.

So again, I thank the chairman, ranking member, and various sponsors of the underlying pieces of legislation included in this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Missouri for yielding.

It is Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month, and the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Wagner) has been a leader in speaking out on this critical issue for many years now, and we appreciate her leadership on that.

As a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, I have had the opportunity to advocate for global human rights issues for many years. Tonight, I want to condemn a genocide that has been happening before our eyes: the genocide against the Rohingya in Rakhine State, Burma.

Last September, the Burmese military began a so-called clearing operation, allegedly in response to some insurgent attacks. In reality, this was just an excuse for a massive and barbaric campaign to forcibly remove the Rohingya from Burma altogether and erase their memory from the Rakhine State once and for all, resulting in over 700,000 Rohingya, many of whom are children, fleeing Burma for Bangladesh. This has needlessly left Bangladesh and the world with one of the worst humanitarian crises that the world faces today.

While these numbers are truly shocking, as we learn more about the crimes committed by the Burmese military, there can be no doubt that this is, in fact, genocide.

When the Rohingya arrived in Bangladesh, they told story after story of the crimes that they had witnessed and that they had personally suffered: widespread killings, mass graves, rapes, and other unspeakable horrors and injuries. These atrocities have been confirmed by many people who had no ax to grind here or anything, So this is something that the world must see and must believe.

In addition, hundreds of villages have been burned and others have been simply bulldozed in a clear attempt to prevent the Rohingya from ever returning. Together, these heinous acts are a deliberate attempt to irreparably harm the Rohingya. This is absolutely genocide.

Together with Mr. Engel and Mr. Crowley, our colleagues here in the House, I have helped to lead the House's efforts to address this crisis. With our passage of H. Con. Res 90, the House unequivocally condemned the Burmese military's atrocious actions, but more serious action is still needed.

Burma's constitution allows the Burmese military to control much of the government, and civilian leadership has taken virtually no real steps to address this violence. That is why I joined again with Mr. Engel and Mr. Crowley to introduce the BURMA Act, which applies tough, targeted sanctions on the individuals involved in leading this genocide. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this legislation and then, ultimately, of course, to vote for it when the time comes.

As we remember the victims of all genocides this month, we must work to adequately address one which is unfolding right before our eyes, right before the world's eyes right now. So, again, I want to thank the gentlewoman from Missouri for calling this particular action to the attention of our colleagues and the attention of the world, but also other genocides and other atrocities that have occurred across the globe. She is truly a leader, and we are lucky to have her doing that in Congress on an everyday basis, but also, in particular, this evening.

Mr. Speaker, this is National Crime Victims' Rights Week, and back in 2004, I introduced the Crime Victims' Rights Act, which was signed into law by President Bush as part of the Justice for All Act.

Under that landmark legislation, crime victims were finally awarded criminal rights in Federal criminal cases, including the right to protection, the right to timely notice not to be excluded and to be heard at all public hearings, the right to confer with the prosecutor, the right to restitution, the right to a speedy trial, and the right to privacy.

Several years later, the GAO found that too many victims were not aware of these important rights and that more needed to be done to educate victims. You see, in civics class, we all learned about the rights of the accused, but very little attention is given to the rights of victims.

Mr. Speaker, as we commemorate National Crime Victims' Rights Week this week, it is important that we make sure victims know what their rights are under the law. It is the least we can do to show victims the respect and dignity that they deserve.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Goodlatte for his long-time commitment to this very, very important issue, passing a balanced budget amendment for our Nation.

Mr. Speaker, with the national debt exceeding $20 trillion, it is long past time that we take necessary steps to restore fiscal responsibility to the budget process. Too often, spending bills are passed by adding to the deficit rather than balancing the budget and helping to pay down our national debt. It is time to reverse that mentality.

One of the greatest disappointments that I have experienced in my 22 years in Congress happened when we passed a balanced budget amendment in the House by the required two-thirds votes, but the effort failed in the Senate by just one vote, and a number of Members from the House went down to the Senate to personally watch that vote and stare those Senators in the eye, and it was such a disappointment because we all knew then how important this was to our country.

And here we are, 20-plus years later, and the debt has gone up far more than any of us thought even possible at that time. Had the balanced budget amendment passed back then, our debt today certainly would be lower, much lower.

The American people sent us here to make the difficult decisions necessary to balance the budget and to live within our means. Just as the American people have to do, every family has to balance their budget every week or every month, and they can't spend more than they take in or they end up going bankrupt. Our Federal Government is basically bankrupt, but since we print money here, we are able to go on. But that harms the American people. It harms our economy. We have got to do something about it.

We cannot continue to just hope that we pass a balanced budget. It has become increasingly obvious over the years that the only way to ensure a balanced budget is to mandate, to require that Congress pass one, and that is what we are considering today.

Passage of the balanced budget amendment is the only thing that we

can do to make certain that we, and future Congresses, rein in the out- of-control spending and restore fiscal sanity to Washington.

The resolution offered by Chairman Goodlatte today takes the necessary steps to ensure that for any fiscal year, total outlays--what we spend--do not exceed total receipts--what we take in. Our Nation cannot continue to spend money that it doesn't have.

Let's end the borrow-and-spend mentality that created our staggering national debt--over $20 trillion--and put our Nation on a sustainable path by requiring that a balanced budget be enacted every year.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this measure.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to mark the seventh anniversary of the Syrian people's demand for democracy, which began on March 15, 2011.

As a senior Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, I have watched President Bashar al-Assad commit a catalogue of the most barbaric crimes during seven years of civil war. These include his use of chemical weapons against civilians, his mass imprisonment and murder of his own citizens, and his deliberate shelling of noncombatants. His violence has created a catastrophic refugee crisis, and the death toll from his brutal war is in the hundreds of thousands.

Worse, Russia and Iran have been keen to expand their influence in Syria--no matter the human cost. Not only has Vladimir Putin propped up Assad militarily, but he has provided diplomatic cover for Assad's crimes. Further, Tehran has entrenched itself in Syria by mobilizing and training numerous proxy fighters. This expanded influence undermines American interests, threatens Israel, and further destabilizes the Middle East.

I encourage the Administration to work with Congress and our allies to bring this war to a needed conclusion; one that transitions Syria into a post-Assad future.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Goodlatte, Majority Leader McCarthy, and Congressman Rutherford for their leadership on this important legislation.

Over the years, our Nation's schools have become soft targets for any would-be killer who has gotten access to a gun. We need to do a better job of protecting both students and faculty from these increasingly frequent threats.

This legislation combines school safety provisions included in two bills, one originally introduced by Mr. Rutherford, and the other by me. Together this proposal represents a collection of commonsense solutions to better help protect our students, our teachers, and other faculty in our schools.

H.R. 4909 reauthorizes the COPS Secure Our Schools grant program and more than doubles its annual budget from $30 million to $75 million annually. Of that $75 million, not less than $50 million per year will be made available for evidence-based strategies and programs to prevent violence in public or private schools over the next decade.

Among the security measures for which these grants may be used include additional training to ensure the health and well-being of students, the development of more robust threat reporting systems, and investments in more advanced security technologies.

Additionally, the COPS Secure Our Schools grants can be used in conjunction with the COPS Hiring Program to ensure that our schools have both the security measures and personnel in place to prevent future violence. On Monday, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Department of Justice will use the COPS Hiring Program to increase the number of school resource officers nationwide. The legislation we are considering

today could help that effort by allowing schools to hire retired police officers to provide security if the Department of Justice determines that such plans would provide a significant improvement in school security.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Dan Hils, president of the Cincinnati FOP, for actively engaging on the issue of school safety and for bringing these types of forward-thinking solutions to my attention. He has been a tremendous resource throughout this process.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleague to support this measure.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California for yielding.

First of all, I am glad that the gentlewoman isn't talking about Wall Street this evening. The gentlewoman always wants to talk about Wall Street, and I am glad we are talking about Marcy Kaptur this evening because she is really special.

This, of course, is in recognition of a fellow Ohioan, Marcy Kaptur, who will become the longest serving woman in the history of the United States House of Representatives. That is quite an accomplishment. She will be breaking the record currently held by Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers, a Republican from Massachusetts, who served from 1925 to 1960.

I think I speak for most Ohioans, regardless of party, when I say we are proud that Marcy has brought this prestigious milestone back home to Ohio.

Marcy has been a stalwart supporter of her constituents, fighting for jobs and fair trade agreements. That is why her constituents continue to elect her to represent them in this body every 2 years, even though we have been trying every 2 years to knock her off. We just haven't been able to do it, she is that good.

Like me, Marcy grew up in a working class family. She was the first member of her family to attend college, earning degrees from the University of Wisconsin and the University of Michigan. Graduating from these two universities, one of which is not even recognized in some parts of Ohio, had to be a tremendous hurdle to overcome when first running to represent Ohioans. Yet Marcy continues to earn the trust of her constituents, and that says a lot about who Marcy Kaptur is as a person.

As the son of a World War II veteran myself, I would submit that perhaps Marcy's most enduring accomplishment was her 17-year battle to get a World War II Memorial built on The National Mall.

I just wish that it had been completed in time for my father to have seen that. I know he would have been really excited about it. Unfortunately, he passed away in 1998, before that wonderful memorial was completed, but I know he is looking down and sees it. I really appreciate all the other World War II veterans that do get to see it.

Through a number of setbacks, Marcy Kaptur never wavered in her support for that memorial. Every time I meet with a group of World War II veterans who have flown in on an honor flight--which was another Ohio creation, I might add--to visit the memorial, I am reminded of Marcy's dedication and determination to make that happen. We truly owe her a great deal of credit for the beautiful tribute to the Greatest Generation that the World War II Memorial has become. As dean of the Ohio Republican delegation, I would like to express how proud the Members in this Chamber are for this historic accomplishment.

Even though we do not agree on everything--or, I guess, even very much sometimes--and have been known to have a few disagreements here and there, I am proud that she is not only breaking the record for the longest serving woman in this body, but she is doing so as a Representative of our great State, the great State of Ohio.

We are really proud of Marcy. We are happy that she has accomplished this. We hope she will be around here for many years to come. I hope I am here, as well, to continue to serve with her. Obviously, all of our constituents get to make that decision every 2 years.

Congratulations, Marcy. I speak on behalf of all my colleagues within the Ohio delegation as well as on behalf of an awful lot of other Republicans in the House who respect you greatly.

Congratulations.

Mr. Speaker, in recognition of International Women's Day, I would like to acknowledge the efforts of two women from Cincinnati.

Long ago, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote ``Uncle Tom's Cabin'' in Cincinnati. When she later met Abraham Lincoln in the White House, he reportedly said: ``So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.''

More recently, Elina Govil, a high school student from Indian Hill, is fighting to provide at-risk girls in conflict zones with access to a proper education.

To assist Elina in her efforts, as a senior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I introduced the Protecting Girls' Access to Education Act, bipartisan legislation that could help millions of young girls across the globe.

Children who are denied an education, because they live in an area that is torn by chaos and war, have little chance of ever attaining a stable existence. Girls, in particular, are subject to exploitation and the pitfalls of human trafficking, violence, and poverty.

Thank you, Elina, for helping girls everywhere to have the opportunity to reach their fullest potential.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate Mr. Shimkus yielding. And I want to thank Chairman Walden, as well, for his hard work in this area, as well as Mr. Shimkus', and the entire Energy and Commerce Committee for their leadership in this area.

As chairman of the House Small Business Committee, I continue to hear from small-business owners all across America that compliance with regulations is one of the greatest challenges that they face, and this is, in essence, what this is.

In fact, today, I chaired a hearing on how the regulatory process is impacting small businesses. The bill before us today, the BRICK Act, would provide crucial relief to America's brick, clay, and tile industries, the majority of which are, by definition, small businesses; and we should always remember that small businesses create about 7 out of every 10 new jobs in America.

The BRICK Act would ensure that small-business owners don't have to worry about spending millions of dollars to comply with a regulation that may well be thrown out in court. I would urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4607, the Comprehensive Regulatory Review Act.

I want to thank Chairman Hensarling and the entire Financial Services Committee for their continued critical work on financial regulations.

As chairman of the House Small Business Committee, I consistently hear from Main Street businesses, small businesses from all over the country, that overregulation is preventing business expansion and job growth.

Just last week, I chaired a hearing on a recent report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office that explored whether financial regulations were adversely impacting community banks and credit unions. One of the major takeaways from that report was that we need to improve the tools available to financial regulators to reduce those burdens.

Because small businesses most often rely on conventional bank borrowing to finance their development, any additional red tape that reduces access to capital can be a monumental problem for the Nation's smallest firms. The bill that we have before us today, which would reform the Economic Growth and Regulatory Paperwork Reduction Act of 1996, is a move in the right direction.

Making sure all financial regulators have a comprehensive process in place to review regulations will strengthen our financial sector and make it more possible for America's small businesses to have access to the capital that they need to grow and expand and create more jobs for more Americans. Mr. Speaker, I therefore urge my colleagues to support the commonsense reforms that are in H.R. 4607, and I urge them to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I also thank him for pulling together this Special Order here this evening.

As the gentleman mentioned, I used to be the chair of the subcommittee that he now chairs, and that is the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific. I have been on the Foreign Affairs Committee for over 20 years now. We do a lot of important things on that committee, and our view of China has evolved somewhat over that time.

Do we want to have good relations with China?

Absolutely. It is in our best interests, it is in China's best interests, it is in the world's best interests. We passed normal trade relations some years ago. It used to be called the most favored nation; now it is normal trade relations. We trade with them a lot.

Many would argue that American jobs have gone to China. They have stolen our technology, our intellectual property secrets, and a whole range of other things. So they haven't been terribly cooperative in that area, yet they have benefited a great deal.

One of our strongest allies, Taiwan, the PRC--China--has been bullying for years. Too often, China has gotten their way. They have been able to keep Taiwan out of international health organizations that would be helped by having the Taiwanese expertise in that. They have done a whole range of things.

When I first came here, there were several hundred missiles in the PRC--China--pointed at Taiwan. Now there are over 1,600 missiles, and they threaten them on a whole range of things. So it is very important that we continue to have strong relations with Taiwan.

Legislation that I have proposed and that we have passed here before in our committee and that we hope to pass in the House as well--and then we hope the Senate will take it up as well--is to allow high- ranking Taiwanese officials to come here to the United States, particularly to Washington, D.C., to meet with our officials here in our Nation's Capital. That makes sense, and hopefully we will do that in the very near future, but China has been very uncooperative, obviously, with respect to Taiwan.

They have been particularly uncooperative with respect to one of our greatest threats in the world right now, and that is North Korea. We get a lot of lip service from China, but very little action.

North Korea is a threat. For a long time, they were a threat to the region. We cared about that and we worked with our allies on that. But now they are a threat to Washington, D.C., and Seattle and Los Angeles and my home city, Cincinnati, and cities all over the United States, because we believe they can now reach the United States with nuclear weapons.

That is the first time. A lot of us were concerned about that day ever coming. Previous administrations tried to get China to lean on North Korea because China has the greatest clout with North Korea because China provides most of their food and most of their fuel. About 90 percent of North Korea's trade is with China. China acts like they are going to be helpful, and then they are not.

The last thing we want to see is military confrontation. You will have some folks in our country that that is their principal priority, they don't want any confrontation, but then they will be satisfied to have North Korea have nuclear weapons.

We can't tolerate somebody as unpredictable, somebody as dangerous as Kim Jong-un or his predecessors, his father or grandfather, people like that to have nuclear weapons. It is just unacceptable to the United States and most other countries around the world, but the rest of the world looks to us to act.

This is a case where we really do need China to step up and do the right thing. Thus far, they have not been willing to do that.

So the question is: How do we get China to do that?

In the past, a number of us thought the way you got China's attention was

to at least discuss with our allies in the region--South Korea, Japan, even Taiwan, perhaps--to consider having nuclear weapon programs themselves. And maybe even talking about that would be off-putting enough to the PRC that they would lean on North Korea to back off their program.

Well, we are probably beyond that now because North Korea not only has a nuclear program, but they have one that could now hit the continental United States.

I think the only thing at this point that works is any leverage that we have with China itself, that if they don't act, then they can either trade with North Korea or they can trade with us. That ought to be a pretty easy deal for them to make. The economy in North Korea is in shambles. The people are starving. The people are repressed by their own illegitimate government. So there is not a lot of trade. It is not of great import to China. In fact, their relationship with North Korea--I think the way they look at it--it keeps us off balance. So they can trade with North Korea or they can trade with us.

Now, trade with the United States is very significant to the PRC. It means millions and millions and millions of jobs.

Are we willing to go that far?

Well, I think we should be when you are considering war, which is the alternative to actually getting North Korea to back off their program.

So in this case, I think we ought to make it clear to China that we are serious about this; whether it is the financial system, international banking, cutting that off. We ought to fully cut that off with North Korea and at least on the books we have, but China has ways of getting around that and propping up their ally, North Korea.

So this is the time. It has got to happen soon. North Korea has, we think, probably 20 or so nuclear devices at this point. You wait another year or 2 years, they are going to have dozens and dozens and dozens of them.

Not only is that dangerous because they have them, but it is dangerous because they will sell those nuclear devices to organizations, al-Qaida, perhaps even ISIS, or other organizations that would love to smuggle those things into this country and use them. They would use them in a heartbeat if they had them. We can't let that happen.

So things that we talked about in previous administrations and that administrations would negotiate--we had six-party agreements and we would get together--and North Korea would agree:

Okay. For food and fuel, we will end our nuclear program.

On the books it was ended, but underground or in the mountains, it was continuing.

Both previous Republican and Democratic administrations essentially let that happen, and it was bad, but they couldn't reach the United States. Now they can reach the United States.

So we are at that time now that years ago we warned about. We are there now. So I would strongly encourage this administration to take this seriously and do whatever is possible, short of war--we want to avoid that if at all possible--to make sure that China finally leans on North Korea to back down.

Mr. Speaker, I thank again the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Yoho), who is doing a fine job as chair of the Asia and the Pacific Subcommittee. I also thank him for the opportunity and pulling this together this evening.

Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to honor former Congressman and Cincinnati Mayor Tom Luken, who passed away last week at the age of 92.

Tom Luken was a Democratic stalwart and something of a local political legend representing the people of Cincinnati for 15 years in this body.

I learned firsthand just how tough a politician he was when I ran against Tom in 1988. He won. But I also learned a great deal about Tom Luken, the man, during that race. He was a dedicated public servant who always focused on the needs of the people he represented. He was a devoted husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather.

As many probably know, his son Charlie was also Cincinnati mayor and also served in this body for a term.

Mr. Speaker, even though we were from different political parties and disagreed on a lot of issues, I have always respected Tom for his commitment and dedication to our community and to our Nation. I hope that his wife, Shirley, and his entire family know just how much Tom Luken will be missed.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his leadership in ensuring that a number of important reforms to section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act were included in this legislation.

I rise in support of this modified version of S. 139. While this does not go as far to reform FISA section 702 as the USA Liberty Act, which passed out of the Judiciary Committee in November with my support, the reforms that are included help to provide a more appropriate balance between protecting our

civil liberties and providing the intelligence community an important national security tool for another 6 years before its expiration this Friday.

FISA section 702 is a critical tool used by the intelligence community to protect American citizens from foreign threats and has been successfully used numerous times to prevent terrorist plots. Since we last reauthorized FISA section 702, much has changed not only in who our foreign threats are, but also in the methods that they use against us. The bottom line is we need to protect the safety of the American people. We need to make sure constitutional protections are in place, and this is the proper balance.