Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I pause today to think about history. I thought a lot about the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination, and today is the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. I thought I should bring some words to us from the Address. The world can never forget what the soldiers of Gettysburg did:

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to

the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far

so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated

to the great task remaining before us--that from these

honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for

which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we

here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in

vain--that this Nation, under God, shall have a new birth of

freedom--and that government of the people, by the people,

for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.

I am proud to serve in this House where John Kennedy served. I am proud to serve in this House where Abraham Lincoln served. It is my opinion that part of that work was providing equality, freedom, and fairness. I believe President Lincoln would support the Affordable Care Act and health care for all.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained at a hearing of the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law, on which I serve as Ranking Member. I was therefore unable to be present for rollcall vote No. 583, the Previous Question on the Rule to consider H.R. 3350.

Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Madam Speaker, I want to thank Mr. Maloney for his work and Mr. Shuster for his work. We ``dam'' well better get prepared to increase our infrastructure spending, or we will have more problems in this country.

The motion to instruct conferees is well-taken and well-drafted. Our roads, rivers, railways, and runways got a D-plus on the American Society of Engineers' 2013 report card for America's infrastructure. That is inexcusable, a D-plus on our infrastructure. It used to be the pride of our country and one of the ways that we produced jobs and took goods to market. The fact that this score was awarded to a world superpower and a leader in technological innovation is completely unacceptable.

Passing WRRDA is an important step towards turning around our Nation's infrastructure investment program. I was proud to work with and support our outstanding chairman, Chairman Shuster, and Ranking Member Rahall when we passed the bill in both the Transportation Committee and on the House floor.

Our committee understands--I think not totally, I can't speak for the whole committee, but in general--that earmarks aren't a bad thing and earmarks are something that greases the wheels that make the engine of government run and work effectively and bipartisanly. We need to bring those back to make this House work together, Democrats and Republicans, so we all have something invested for our districts. That is important.

People ask about dysfunction here and people not working together. It is because everybody doesn't have some part of the pie, something for their districts that they can be proud of. We need to get that back. People need to understand that article I says this Congress is supposed to appropriate the moneys. That is why our infrastructure has weakened. That is why we have so many projects along rivers where the Corps of Engineers don't have adequate funding and direction to keep our rivers moving and moving commerce forward.

WRRDA doesn't mean that just our Nation's waterways, locks, and dams will be the subjects of targeted investments, which it needs to be. It means that thousands of people will be put to work on making the improvements necessary to improve the national infrastructure.

The effect of sequestration on our Nation's infrastructure is real. It is time to get back on track toward smart investments that make our Nation more competitive in the global marketplace.

The Corps of Engineers has a backlog of authorized projects in excess of $60 billion. The Corps construction account has been reduced by $688 million since 2010. We should be doing more to build that infrastructure and create jobs, not less.

According to a study by the American Society of Civil Engineers, if we don't make new investments in our new water infrastructure, we will lose $416 billion in GDP by 2020 due to increased costs and loss of work productivity. This means real loss for real American families.

Madam Speaker, I think in Turkey they are probably improving their infrastructure. We should be doing the same thing here in America, Madam Speaker. It is important we do that.

Without investment, the average American family would have to adjust their household income to account for a $900 squeeze as a result of rising water rates and falling personal incomes. The longer we put off investment in our Nation's infrastructure, the more that investment will cost and the more people will be out of work and the more difficult it will be for our economy to get righted.

I support this motion to instruct conferees today. I thank Mr. Maloney and Mr. Shuster, and hopefully we can put America's infrastructure investments back on the right back. But to do that in the long run, we need bipartisanship, which will involve earmarks and making the transportation bills like they used to be when Mr. Shuster's father was there and like Mr. Shuster would like to make them. If we can just take Mr. Shuster and clone him, we can work together and have a greater America and more jobs and a greater country.

Mr. Chairman, there is one fact that is indisputable, and that is the procedure by which this particular bill came to the floor. It is a procedure whereby the majority had three witnesses and the minority had one, and none of the witnesses were victims.

There are two major asbestos victims' groups. They would be the people most interested in preserving the funds for victims--the Asbestos Cancer Victims' Rights Campaign and the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization. One is headed up by the widow of a former Member of this House, Mrs. Vento. Her husband, Congressman Bruce Vento, died of mesothelioma. They oppose this bill, but the fact is, indisputably, that they were not allowed to testify.

If this bill, indeed, were for the victims, the victims should have had an opportunity to testify. The chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Bachus, of which I am the ranking member, valiantly tried to rectify that error by allowing them to testify, but he was overruled.

The fact is that the procedure that brought this bill to the floor was flawed. Accordingly, I submit that the bill should be flawed because the victims should have had the opportunity to speak. If it is for the victims, if it is for preserving funds, the people who are proponents shouldn't have been afraid of the victims' organizations going on record and giving testimony and testifying.

This whole proceeding today is conceived in an attack on the victims--not allowing the victims to speak and not allowing transparency in the hearing process. This is allegedly about transparency. It is not. It is about covering up and not allowing freedom of speech from the people who are most affected--those who had loved ones die from mesothelioma.

Will the gentleman yield?

Would you explain to me then why the victims were never allowed to testify on the record in this Congress and were never given an opportunity even though the subcommittee chairman valiantly and heroically tried to rectify that?

In private.

Mr. Chairman, we had one witness; the majority had three witnesses. Ours had to try to explain the legal effects.

The fact is the proponents of the bill who claim it is for the victims should have had the right to have the victims be there. The special procedure they had was an in camera hearing not on the record. That is not right. If you want to propose something for the victims, you give them an opportunity to testify on the record--and they all opposed the bill to a one.

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

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

My amendment ensures that H.R. 982 will not apply to trusts that have an internal claims audit program to ensure that claims are valid and supported.

Proponents of H.R. 982 argue that its reporting and other information-sharing requirements are necessary in order to ensure that asbestos victims are not committing fraud by recovering money both from trusts and through the tort system, thereby ``double dipping.''

While proponents of the bill have yet to point to any empirical evidence of endemic fraud within the asbestos trust claims process, H.R. 982, if enacted, will impose unnecessary burdens and costs on trusts and will expose claimants' private information to the unnecessary risk of inappropriate exposure, exposure that their loved ones have already suffered from.

H.R. 982's additional requirements on trusts will raise their administrative costs significantly. Money used to pay these costs ultimately means less money to compensate asbestos victims.

This is particularly problematic in light of the fact that defendants can already obtain the information they want using existing discovery tools without undermining compensation for legitimate claims.

The reporting requirements in H.R. 982 also raise privacy concerns. This provision requires that a claimant's name and exposure history be made part of a bankruptcy court's public docket, meaning that anyone can access such information for any purpose, including purposes that have nothing to do with compensation for asbestos exposure.

I recognize that the bill specifically prohibits trusts from making public any medical records or full Social Security numbers, although it does require the last four digits of the Social Security number to be used.

I also recognize that limited additional privacy protection is available under rule 107 of the Bankruptcy Code.

Nonetheless, these measures are insufficient to fully protect the claimant's privacy. As noted by my colleagues, once out in public, such information can be used for any purpose. Potential employers, insurance companies, lenders, and even those who may seek to harm an asbestos victim in some way can have access to this information without the victim's permission or knowledge.

In light of these concerns, and notwithstanding the lack of any evidence of systemic fraud, my amendment ensures that to the extent that a trust already has measures in place to ferret out potential fraudulent claims, it should not have to bear the costs, burdens, and privacy risks presented by H.R. 982's requirements.

If, in fact, proponents of H.R. 982 are primarily concerned about potential fraud in the asbestos trust claims process, then they should have little trouble supporting this amendment that recognizes processes already in place to address fraud while also addressing some of the concerns of those who oppose the bill. Accordingly, I ask my colleagues to support this amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers).

Mr. Chairman, I would like to respond.

The gentleman from Houston mentions this is a ``victims' rights bill,'' but all the victims' rights organizations are against it. There is something wrong. Something smells, and it is not Denmark.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Sure there isn't, because a group that is unknown, they don't know who they are.

The victims' organizations are concerned about victims in the future. They have suffered. They project into the future. They want to help other people put into their position. They are reaching out in a benevolent manner.

Mr. Vento's widow and her organization and the other organizations are against it. They had no voice. The only voice they have is through Representatives, and they ask the Representatives to vote ``no.''

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the PREEMIE Act reauthorization, which will be considered in the House under suspensions later today.

I am grateful for the support of my Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander,

who has brought this legislation in the Senate, and I cosponsored a House version of it.

I am also the sponsor of the NEWBORN Act, a bill aimed at reducing infant mortality rates around our country that will be introduced soon.

My interest in this is because this is important for our future. America, unfortunately, is way back in the countries on infant mortality. Memphis, unfortunately, is a leader in that situation where we have a tremendously high infant mortality rate that rivals Third World countries.

The PREEMIE Act's many provisions aimed at reducing the rate of infant mortality are vital to having a better Nation.

Like the PREEMIE Act, the Affordable Care Act has made great strides in advancing this agenda by requiring maternity coverage in all health plans. The United States has a long way to go, but legislation like the PREEMIE Act, the NEWBORN Act, and the Affordable Care Act can put the United States on the right track where it needs to be in the rates of premature births and infant mortality.

Mr. Speaker, last Friday, I became aware of the death of a great United States Congressman, Bill Young, from Florida.

Mr. Young was the senior Republican Member, who served in this House since 1970. He was a gentle soul, congenial, friendly--always nice to me. I asked him to join with me in the Tourette Syndrome Caucus, and he did. He was one of the founding members. He was a leader in seeking funds for biomedical research, which doubled during the time in which he was the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. He understood earmarks were the responsibility of this Congress, and he fought for them and supported them.

He was close friends with John Murtha, and I was proud to serve and to know both of them. Both men were in the military reserve, and both men towards the end of their careers recognized that war was wrong in places where they had previously been for it--John Murtha in Iraq, and, in 2012, Mr. Young said that it is time to get out of Afghanistan.

A great leader has passed. His funeral will be tomorrow in the State of Florida. I was proud to know him. This country was fortunate to have him serve in this body.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the President of the United States had the House Democratic Caucus in the East Room for a discussion. Today he will have the Republican caucus, and he will also have the Democratic Senators.

Mr. Speaker, I hope all the Republicans go engage the President, because the President gave such a clear and convincing argument about why what is going on is wrong and has to stop. If the President is told by the minority party in one of the Houses to get a funding bill passed to fund the government that he has to repeal some act, where does that stop? If we get a continuing resolution, and this one was until December 15, and they ask the President to abolish the landmark legislation that he signed and that this Congress passed a few sessions ago, the next thing could be, well, we are not going to continue the government again unless you repeal the EPA, or we are not going to do it unless you repeal the Fair Labor Standards Act, or maybe 6 months down the line we are not going to repeal it unless you and Vice President Biden both resign.

You can't give in to these types of tactics to have bills repealed because of a minority within a minority of one branch of government and not go through the regular order of the House passing, the Senate passing, the President signing or vetoing, and then let the Court decide if it is constitutional, which has happened with the Affordable Care Act.

The President made it clear that he wants to work with both sides; but he is not going to give in to these types of tactics because it wouldn't be fair, not only for him but for the next President and the next President and for the United States of America. Presidents and the country should not be held ransom by the demands of one group, and the President is standing for the Presidency and for the country and for the Constitution.

The Affordable Care Act is not going to be repealed, and the other party knows that. Now they have proposed working on entitlements and long-term deficit reduction. The President will talk to them, engage in dialogue; and hopefully after the Republicans attend and listen to the President today, they will see that this has been a mistake for the American people and a mistake for their political party and they will end this shutdown, reopen government, pass a continuing resolution, and pass a debt ceiling, even if for only 4 or 6 weeks, which the pundits think may happen. It will get us out of this crisis.

And hopefully the minority group within the Republican caucus will let the Republican Party continue to be what it had been in the past, a party of business, and not a party that was anti-business and threatening a debt ceiling issue and a default on our debt which would be catastrophic to the national markets and world markets. Hopefully, within those 6 weeks of dialogue with the President and the leaders of Congress, they can come to some agreements, and we won't have this type of brinksmanship again.

The President is a convincing individual. He is very knowledgeable, he has great people working for him, and he is looking out for the future of this country. This shutdown was totally avoidable. The continuing resolution, which was only going to be to November 15 on the Senate side and December 15 on the House side, accepted the House of Representative's budget figures, which was the Paul Ryan budget.

The Paul Ryan budget is anathema to Democrats. We don't like it. It has got cuts to so many services that are important to people in this country: cuts to Head Start; cuts to SNAP payments, formerly known as food stamps; cuts to veterans; cuts to programs that help people get through the day; energy programs when it gets cold to help you pay your utility bills. These cuts are anathema to us, but we accepted them to keep the government going. The Democrats in the Senate accepted them, the Democrats in the House, the President.

But the House Republicans who put that figure out and got accepted, that wasn't enough. They had said, all right, now you have got to repeal, abolish, and/or change to the point of trying to get to abolishment of the most important bill that has been passed in this House of Representatives since 1965 when the Civil Rights Act and Medicaid and Medicare were passed.

It is not going to happen. We are the last industrialized country on the face of the Earth to have national health insurance. It is the right thing to do; and it is folly for Governors and the States that haven't allowed the Medicaid expansion to go forward to do that and I hope they would.

I hope the Republicans come to their senses and we end this shutdown.

Mr. Speaker, just as Mr. Doggett has said as to the absurdity, I'm not sure if this is Joseph Heller or if it's Fellini.

The Tea Party Republicans came here because they were concerned about the debt. The debt, Mr. Speaker, was caused by Reagan and Bush. Look at the records. Reagan and Bush caused the debt. Now they've shut down their government like an arsonist sets a fire, and they're coming around, acting like they're firefighters who are trying to rescue the children who they didn't realize were in the building and who couldn't get help from the NIH for their cancer treatments and the veterans they're going to rescue who couldn't go to the memorials and the Federal workers who aren't getting paid.

It is like a Fellini movie.

There is apparently a wall between the Tea Party Republicans and the mainstream Republicans, who would like to move this country forward.

Mr. Speaker, tear down that wall.

Madam Speaker, this afternoon, I was supposed to be in Memphis with the head of the faith-based group from Washington. Because of the sequester, she wasn't able to travel. Because of the shutdown, I'm here.

So we had 42 pastors come to my office with the navigators in Memphis, and we talked about the Affordable Care Act and how to sign up people in the community and what the Affordable Care Act did. It was a very beneficial program in telling people in the community how to sign people up for needed and important health care. I wish others would do the same thing. It would be constructive.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is the law of the land. We need to help our citizens get adjusted, get involved, and get the benefits.

Mr. Speaker, I take umbrage at this whole process.

In September of 1954, I came down with polio, which affects me to this day. The vaccine which was helped developed by the National Institutes of Health didn't become available until about 6 months later. I've asked Mr. Kingston, I've asked people in this House for 6 months, I've spoken on this floor, I've written editorials to fund the National Institutes of Health to find cures for cancer and heart disease and stroke and diabetes and Parkinson's. They can do it, but it's cut by the sequester by $1.6 billion and not once have the Republicans said, We'll fund it and we'll find cures to disease. We'll use this, our ``Department of Defense'' for human beings, and fund it at the level it should be so that other people like me won't get a disease 6 months earlier than the cure was available.

They haven't come forth once. These are crocodile tears. This is politics. It's not trying to cure people. It's not trying to stop illness and create cures. And I really object to this being used politically.

I spoke 6 months ago to put the money back and find cures, and I got nowhere.

Mr. Speaker, quite a day--first day of the government shutdown.

Americans come to Washington to see the Lincoln Memorial, visit the Smithsonian, go to the National Zoo. They go to New York to see the Statue of Liberty--``give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning for freedom.'' Go to national parks--the treasures of our country--closed. Services tapered down. No new patients at the National Institutes of Health. This should not be in America. Government shutdowns are wrong, and they're bad for our country.

Now, let's think a little bit about how we got here. We got here because the job of the Congress, according to the Constitution, is to come up with a budget and appropriate monies. The Republicans have had a budget, and the Democrats in the House have asked month after month after month after month to have a conference committee appointed so that we could work with the Senate and come up with a budget. And the Republicans--even though we had bills, letters, requests--no conference, no, no, no, no, no.

Now, beyond the last minute, beyond midnight last night, when all of their failed attempts to get the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act--and that's what it is, it's an affordable care act and a patient protection act--abolished; passed 3 years ago; 43rd attempt. Reality: it's not going to happen. It's the law of the land. And one day it will be seen, like Social Security and Medicare, as one of the three greatest laws ever passed by this Congress.

But they've tried everything they can to stop it: defund it, put it off a year, come up with different prevarications. At the last minute after midnight they say: We want a conference committee. They can get a conference committee if they come with a clean continuing resolution.

And what's in their continuing resolution? A budget of $986 billion. The Ryan figures were less. That's what they wanted. It's not what the Democrats wanted. The Democrats want a higher budget. This cuts 17 percent from Health and Human Services, programs the government offers to people in need, the safety net, people who more than ever need SNAP payments, need Meals on Wheels, need assistance. We accepted their lower figure for a continuing resolution. Even then it wasn't enough. They put it in all these proposals and abolished the health care bill.

You know, when the Republicans came to power about 3\1/2\ years ago, one of the things they told the American people: We're going to be different. We're not going to have bills that combine different subjects. You know all you people don't like that, these bills with different subjects that come back from the Senate or pass the House with amendments. We're not going to do that. Then they come with bills that are the budget, a continuing resolution, along with abolishing ObamaCare. That's against what they said they would do.

They said they were concerned about the debt, and they have offsets-- no bill could pass without an offset; nothing could contribute to the deficit. Yet they brought a bill, a continuing resolution, but abolishing the medical device tax, costing the government $30 billion. No offset.

In the history on ObamaCare, they have been cited by PolitiFact twice for having the governmental ``Lie of the Year.'' One is they said there were death panels, panels that simply said that end-of-life discussions could be covered by government payments, a proposal that Republicans put forward--I believe with Senator Grassley and a gentleman from Louisiana.

They also said it was a government takeover of health care. It's not a government takeover; it's insurance. It's the plan Mitt Romney put into effect, Bob Dole championed, Richard Nixon championed. It's a Republican plan. Most Democrats would have preferred a single payer, certainly a public option. They're not satisfied with that.

Now they're talking about a special deal that Congress people get. Shame on them. I, for one, don't take Federal insurance. I have a different program. But for the people in Congress and their staffers, because of an amendment Senator Grassley put in the bill, they go into the exchanges and they leave their Federal health care plan they've been in. It was subsidized, like employers subsidize health care. Now it is no longer. It's unfortunate.

My time has run out. The government has run out.

Mr. Speaker, I'll tell you how indefensible it is. The provision that said that Congresspeople and their staffs were kept out of the Federal insurance plans and put into the exchanges was drafted by Charles Grassley, a Republican from Ohio, who said, on September 26, that he never intended that to take away the employer subsidies that congressional staffers have gotten for years and years and years, like every other employee in America. The Republican who drafted this himself said: That's not correct. It's not right.

The Republicans have lied about health care, saying ObamaCare was the government takeover of health care. PolitiFact said it was the biggest lie of the year. They said there were death panels--biggest lie of the year. This will give them a triumvirate, the three biggest lies of the year. They're lying about their own employees, their own health plan.

The fact is they were the only people in the country to be put out of the plan they were in and had their subsidies taken away. It's cruel and wrong. They deserve health care, too.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today that the House just passed H.R. 1961. It gives the Delta Queen another opportunity to go up and down the Mississippi River.

The Delta Queen is a national treasure that, for 80 years, took passengers up and down the river and, of course, stopped in my hometown of Memphis. On its last trip, about 3 or 4 years ago, I was there to witness the Queen's last trip. And it was an emotional time for a lot of Memphians who really revere the river and the traffic thereon.

There were issues about safety; but those issues, I think, are satisfied, the concerns of people. There were ocean standards put to a riverboat, which were improper. The unions that opposed this in the past came to be for it.

The bill passed, and it's important that it did. The Delta Queen is a safe vessel that will provide a wonderful experience for people traveling up and down the Mississippi River, America's greater river.

It's a treasure, a piece of history. It's also economic development for the region.

So I thank my colleagues for supporting both the Delta Queen and the communities along the river; and I look forward to a nice trip on the Delta Queen one time, and a julep to boot.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the Record the story of Naquila, a mother from Little Rock, Arkansas, just west of Memphis, a face of hunger in America.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the rule and the draconian cuts to SNAP, a lifeline that millions of Americans rely on. Republicans want to slash nearly $40 billion from SNAP and take food out of the mouths of nearly 4 million Americans, including 68,000 of my constituents. These drastic cuts will harm children, seniors, veterans, and Americans living in cities like Memphis with chronically high unemployment, all in the name of rooting out fraud.

It's interesting that Republicans see fraud and abuse in the SNAP program sometimes, but they seem to ignore the billions of dollars of fraud and abuse at the Pentagon. According to one estimate, hundreds of defense contractors that defrauded the U.S. military and taxpayers received more than $1.1 trillion in Pentagon contracts during the past decade. Where is the outrage across the aisle and the demands for better oversight for defense contracting? Instead of fixing problems for

the contractors who might be fraudulently taking billions of taxpayer dollars, they're focusing on making it harder for the families who are struggling to receive a little extra help. We need to be finding ways to reduce poverty in our communities, not cutting programs that work, like SNAP.

I urge my colleagues to vote against the rule and oppose the bill.

Mr. Speaker, today is 9/11. We've all talked about it.

When I think about 9/11 I mostly think about--I think about the victims, obviously, but the first responders who were also victims-- firemen and policemen in New York City and that area who rushed into harm's way and lost their lives trying to protect others.

We appreciate it and thank those heroic fire people and police people. But sometimes I don't think we keep them in our minds like we should. They're public employees, they're middle class Americans. They're having a tough time, and we need to always appreciate the sacrifices they make to people that keep our liberty here in this country and keep us safe from crime and from horrific circumstances.

I thank the first responders. I appreciate what they did on 9/11 and what they do every day.