Floor Statements

I rise today to honor the life of Mr. Richard Shadyac, who passed away last Wednesday at the age of 80. He was the former chief executive officer of the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities, also known as ALSAC, which is the fundraising arm of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Mr. Shadyac leaves a wife, Lynn, and two children; Richard, who will take on his work at ALSAC, and a son Tom who is distinguished in the entertainment industry.

Mr. Shadyac served as CEO of St. Jude for over 13 years. He led an effort that raised millions of dollars for the purpose of research treating childhood cancers and other diseases.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is the leading hospital and research center on catastrophic illnesses in the Nation. It is located in Memphis, Tennessee. It was founded by Mr. Shadyac's good friend, Danny Thomas. After Mr. Thomas passed, Mr. Shadyac knew that they needed a new public face--and the new public face was the children--the children of St. Jude, who it serves.

Under his leadership, donations increased fourfold. He worked closely with the patients. He visited them often and stayed in touch with the families. He was a strong voice in the fight against cancer.

He was an important force here in Washington, where he represented the Lebanese Government at one point, and was one of the founders of the American Arab groups that worked to better relations with our Nation.

Our heart goes out to Mr. Shadyac's family and the St. Jude community. We will remember him for all of his good deeds and his work that will save many children's lives.

Today, the House will vote on the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act. It's an important bill to help education in our country.

It will give higher Pell Grant amounts to students who need more money to make it through college. It will put moneys in the community colleges for fiscal improvements and also into K-12s for fiscal improvements. It will help Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which are suffering a great deal at this time and need that help.

There is so much that this bill will do to help us move forward and save $10 billion towards the deficit. It will take moneys from the private sector, which has been making money off of student loans, and it will provide opportunities for students and education. It will repeal a draconian provision that particularly hurts minorities and others who can't get student loans because of Federal laws for simple possession violations of criminal laws. That shouldn't happen, and those students should have the opportunity to get college grants and loans and to go on and improve themselves and to make more of themselves.

I look forward to voting for this bill which will help America move forward.

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

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would first like to commend Representative Peters and the Science and Technology Committee for sponsoring this forward-looking piece of legislation and, of course, Chairman Gordon for his outstanding work in bringing this to the floor.

For more than a century the United States has been the home to automobile innovation. This innovation made the U.S.A. the world leader in automobile production and automobile design. Cars and the United States were almost synonymous.

However in recent years the United States has fallen far behind Asian and European automakers and countries there with regard to vehicle innovation, especially when it comes to fuel efficiency. As gas prices continue to rise and American citizens become more concerned about global warming and energy security, they have responded by purchasing more fuel-efficient vehicles.

So the American car manufacturer must meet that demand to stay active and viable. Finding a safe, affordable and clean alternative to oil will not be cheap nor easy. Public and private entities will have to work cooperatively to solve this technological problem. Old-fashioned American entrepreneurship will need to be working on the cutting edge of technological advancements to keep our automobile industry alive.

From hydrogen fuel cells to electric cars, these innovators are leaving no stone unturned when it comes to finding energy solutions. So with such an array of technologies holding so much promise, we cannot afford to ignore any promising technology. With this in mind, Amendment No. 9 assures electromechanical storage technologies such as hydraulics, flywheels and compressed air storage are also allowed to be researched under this Department of Energy program.

These technologies hold tremendous promise and need to be explored as energy alternatives. For example, existing compressed air cars average more than 115 gas-equivalent miles per gallon and can reach speeds of up to 90 miles an hour. Most importantly, these cars emit almost zero carbon dioxide and only cost $2 to $3 to fill up.

Technologies such as compressed air are not yet perfect; however, with the passage of the Advanced Vehicles Technology Act, these innovative technologies can receive the funding they need to transform a novel fuel source into an energy solution of the future. Doing so will spur development throughout the country in small scientific laboratories, and one in Memphis, Bioworks, in my district might be one that engages in this, as well as in the massive grounds of General Motors, Ford, and other American manufacturing plants.

The economic competitiveness and safety of the United States depends upon the ability of American entrepreneurs to develop viable alternatives to oil. In order to ensure our future security, we must make a down payment on the future of our country by seriously investing in alternative energy research.

For these reasons, I strongly urge the passage of this amendment to the Advanced Vehicles Technology Act, which simply gives another alternative to the Department of Energy to move us into the future in a progressive and sound way.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Murfreesboro, Tennessee (Mr. Gordon), the chairman of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I urge a positive vote on the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 57) expressing the importance of swimming lessons and recognizing the danger of drowning in the United States, especially among minority children, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 260) supporting efforts to reduce infant mortality in the United States, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Resolution 260, a resolution that supports efforts to reduce infant mortality in the United States.

The United States amazingly enough ranks 29th in the world in the incidence of infant mortality. That is a shocking figure. And while there are a lot of reasons for infant mortality--there's education, there's health care, there are certain other issues that may be existent--health care is the primary one. And as we discuss health care in this Congress, it is hard to submit looking at the United States being 29th in the world in infant mortality, that we don't have a problem somewhere with our health care system.

The extremely high incidence of infant death in the African American community is particularly troubling. In Shelby County, Tennessee, the county which I represent, African American babies die at three times the Nation's infant mortality rate. Prematurity is the number one cause of infant death in the United States, accounting for at least 60 percent of those deaths. Poor women are much more likely to deliver a premature or a low-weight baby as they cannot afford prenatal care or are simply not educated about what is required for women during pregnancy or have access to health clinics or inner-

city doctors, general practitioners, which might be provided if we can pass a health care bill here.

We must work together to lower our country's infant mortality rate, and that starts with lowering our rate of premature births and educating people and providing access to health care.

I was spurred to introduce H. Res. 260 by the devastating rate of infant mortality in Memphis, in Shelby County. And I represent part of Shelby County; the honorable gentlewoman from Brentwood, Tennessee, represents a part of Shelby County, as well, on the Republican side.

In 2007 the 38108 ZIP code in north Memphis, which is a predominantly low-income neighborhood, had an infant mortality rate of 31 deaths per 1,000 live births. That's almost five times the Nation's rate of 6.78 deaths per 1,000 live births; and that ranks the 38108 area worse than the developing nations of Iran, Indonesia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Syria, and Vietnam in infant mortality.

In my own family, there was an incident of infant mortality. My mother and father's first child, Rosemary, died at 1 month of age in 1945. She was buried with some other family members, not direct family, in 1945. When my father passed in 1992, we buried him at Elmwood Cemetery, a different cemetery than where my sister was buried. But my mother was so touched and always was by the loss of her child that she had her name put on the stone with my father even though her remains were at another cemetery where her name was also.

That taught me something about infant mortality: a mother never forgets the loss of a child, and it affects that mother forever. So it's a problem that affects people of all races and stays with us for all time.

I recently had the opportunity to visit Africa, several countries there, one of which was Liberia, which has a very high rate of infant mortality as well. They have very few doctors there. They don't have good health care. And that has got to be a problem that we need to deal with and we try to with our foreign aid, and I commend President Bush as well as President Obama for extending aid to Africa and so many humanitarian efforts, particularly PEPFAR, but also others.

This month Nicholas Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, authored a book, published it, entitled ``Half the Sky,'' which is about women in the world and how they have had difficulties rising to the level that they could and that we could empower women and have a tremendous economic advantage, particularly in disadvantaged countries, by giving women the opportunity to participate in the workforce and be educated. Much of the book is dedicated to the enslavement of women but also to maternal mortality and infant mortality as well. I encourage everybody to consider reading the book and taking up this cause.

This September is Infant Mortality Awareness Month; so I am especially proud that we are considering this important resolution today.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting passage of House Resolution 260, which supports efforts to address this important public health problem and a moral problem, and understand racial disparities that persist in infant mortality and try to make America better than 29th in the world.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady from Tennessee for her remarks which are so appropriate; and I would like to add that there are efforts in Shelby County, the Blues Project and the ABC Project that the county has, to combat infant mortality and work with pregnant women and new mothers.

If a child is born premature, it costs at least 20 times as much money to keep that child alive for the first year. So if their efforts could be successful to eliminate and reduce infant mortality, and some of that comes through programs such as the county and others have--Blue Cross/Blue Shield has the Blues Project--we could save money in the health system because we won't spend so much keeping premature babies alive at the trauma center. It is an example where if we have preventive care and wellness programs, by investing money, we can save money. And we can save so much with infant mortality.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 57) expressing the importance of swimming lessons and recognizing the danger of drowning in the United States, especially among minority children, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

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

I rise today in strong support of House Resolution 57, a resolution recognizing the persistently high rates of drowning fatalities among children.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 3,582 unintentional and fatal drownings in the United States in 2005. This figure represents an average of 10 drowning deaths a day.

Children are the most susceptible to fatal drowning incidents. In fact, drowning is the second most common cause of unintentional death among children ages 1 to 14.

On top of this startling statistic, for every child who fatally drowns in the United States, there are four near-drowning incidents that require emergency care. These accidents can lead to brain damage and result in permanent disabilities ranging from loss of memory to the loss of all basic functions.

Drowning rates among minority children greatly exceed those of their non-minority counterparts. The fatal drowning rate for African-American children is over three times that for Caucasian children. American Indian and Alaskan Native children have rates over two times as high as Caucasian children.

Contributing to these disparities is limited access to swimming lessons. African Americans and Latinos are more likely to live below the poverty line, putting lessons that can cost hundreds of dollars per course out of reach.

House Resolution 57 not only condemns the persistently high rates of drowning among children, but it also recognizes the hard work of organizations that promote access to swimming education and teach skills that will help save lives.

I urge my colleagues to help bring awareness to this serious issue, and join me in supporting final passage of House Resolution 57.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlelady from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), as long as she doesn't mention anything about the Tennessee-Florida game on Saturday.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz and Congressman Sires for their hard work on this, and my counterpart from Tennessee for her excellent work.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, we in this House of Representatives have the opportunity to participate and help shape history. Last night during the joint session, President Barack Obama was part of that great train of history of our Nation. He spoke in the great tradition of Teddy Roosevelt who first spoke about national health care, and Eleanor Roosevelt who talked about it, and Harry Truman who spoke 60 years ago from this well about that need in this Nation. And he spoke in the great

tradition of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, who saw that Medicaid and Medicare were passed in 1965.

I was very, very proud to be a part of this body last night, and I will be even prouder when a vote comes up.

Over the Speaker's rostrum engraved in stone is a quote of Daniel Webster: ``Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build on its institutions, promote all its great interest and see whether we also in our day and generation may not perform something worthy to be remembered.'' Daniel Webster is calling to us to heed Barack Obama's call to pass national health care in the great tradition of American leaders and do something worthy to be remembered.

I look forward to that opportunity.

Mr. Speaker, I, like other Members of Congress, went home and had a townhall meeting on health care and met with many doctors. What I found is that the American public knows that the system is broken and that we need to change. The difficulty I have got in my district is I'm for a public option. But I'm not drawing a line in the sand to say I won't vote for a bill that improves the health care system, that takes care of the problem concerning preexisting conditions, that gives more wellness and preventative programs and that sees that we have more family doctors and health centers.

For that, the liberals in my district, and I'm a liberal, are upset with me because I haven't said I won't vote for a bill that doesn't have a public option. On the other hand, there are people that are against health care at all, and if I vote for anything, they will be upset.

Tonight the President of the United States will address the Nation. I plan

to listen, and I plan to support the President of the United States in providing health care and making the greatest reforms in welfare moves for the people of our Nation and improvement in health care since 1965 when Medicaid and Medicare were passed. Those were great days for America.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of the joint resolution (S.J. Res. 19) granting the consent and approval of Congress to amendments made by the State of Maryland, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the District of Columbia to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Regulation Compact, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, Daniel Webster reminds us on a daily basis in a plaque, a stone engraved above the Speaker's rostrum, that in our time here in Congress we're supposed to do something that's worth being remembered, something valuable. Forty-four years ago today Medicare was signed into law. That Congress did something worthwhile. The Congress that produced Medicaid did something worthwhile. Both those Congresses were vilified, and people said both of those programs were socialism.

Well, they were wrong; they were American. They were caring programs that have helped with people in sickness and getting them healthy in an affordable manner. This Congress can do something worthy of being remembered by passing national health care and taking care of people and extending Medicare and Medicaid to another group of Americans and making sure that we're no longer the only civilized industrialized country in the world that doesn't have health care for all of its citizens.

It's time that we act and we do what Daniel Webster charges us to, and that's to do something worthy of being remembered. Nothing is more important than health care.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Sam Schloss Lodge of B'nai B'rith in Memphis, Tennessee.

Sam Schloss Lodge is one of the oldest B'nai B'rith lodges in the country and has the largest membership of any original Lodge. B'nai B'rith's mission is to engage in community service and promote Jewish rights.

The lodge is involved in multiple service organizations in the Memphis area, including the Harwood Center for Developmentally Delayed Children and the Jewish Family Service of Memphis. The Lodge's most successful service project is the ``Care Bear'' project, which collects stuffed animals from the community and distributes them to abused and neglected children.

I want to congratulate all of the members of the Sam Schloss Lodge, including President Leon Hellman for this tremendous milestone.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Melissa Collins, an elementary school teacher from my district who will be honored by President Obama with the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching for her work mentoring students.

This is an honor awarded to teachers who do an exceptional job at mentoring students in the areas of mathematics and science. She is one of 100 educators who will receive a $10,000 award from the White House on behalf of the National Science Foundation, which she will use a portion of to help her continue to teach her students.

Melissa teaches second grade students at John P. Freeman Optional School in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. While teaching others, this accomplished teacher is also working on improving her own education by studying for a doctorate degree at the University of Southern Mississippi.

During a time in this country where math and science teachers are scarce, Melissa Collins exhibits the teaching skills necessary to inspire our children to learn. Melissa is a leader at the elementary school. The school principal sends new teachers to her classroom in order to observe her teaching style.

In 2008, John P. Freeman Optional School was awarded the No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon Award, which recognizes academically superior schools across the nation. It is beyond a doubt that Melissa helped John P. Freeman School achieve this great honor.

I want to commend and congratulate Melissa Collins on this great achievement.

Mr. Speaker, I attended Vanderbilt University and graduated in 1971. My chancellor was a gentleman named Alexander Heard. Alexander Heard passed away last week at the age of 92. He was an exceptional educator, one of the best Tennessee or this Nation will ever know.

During the tumultuous times of the 1960s, a student group invited both Dr. Martin Luther King and Stokely Carmichael to address the students at Vanderbilt University. Protests came in as expected. Chancellor Heard knew that colleges were about openness, about free speech and exchange of ideas. In fact, he said the university's obligation is not to protect students from ideas, but rather to expose them to ideas to help make them capable of handling them and hopefully having ideas.

Chancellor Heard wrote quite a few texts on southern politics, was a respected academician as well as an educator. He was a gentleman, he was a scholar, he made Vanderbilt a great university.

He will be missed.

Madam Speaker, this year marks the 35th anniversary of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), the single largest provider of civil legal aid for the poor in the nation. Established by Congress in 1974, LSC is a private, nonprofit organization that promotes equal access to justice and provides grants for high-quality civil legal assistance to low-income Americans. The people who come to LSC-funded programs for help are the most vulnerable among us: women seeking protection from abuse, mothers trying to obtain child support, families facing unlawful evictions or foreclosures that could leave them homeless, disaster victims trying to obtain federal emergency assistance or insurance payments to rebuild their lives. In fact, three out of four clients are women--many of whom are struggling to keep their children safe and their families together.

LSC's work is more important than ever before, partly because of the impact of the current recession. Economic downturns affect the poor disproportionately and add to the pressures on the nation's public health and safety, child welfare, housing and jobs programs. Ensuring that the poor are adequately represented in the civil judicial system greatly improves their chances of keeping or securing basic necessities--the keys to stability and self-sufficiency. It also helps keep communities healthy. For low-income individuals and families, legal services often represent their only means of access to the justice system.

Nearly 51 million people--including 17.6 million children--are eligible for LSC-funded services. LSC-funded programs close nearly one million cases per year nationwide and provide other assistance to more than five million people. The clients served are at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty threshold, an income of about $27,000 a year for a family of four. An overwhelming demand for civil legal services exists. Based on a 2005 study, 50 percent of eligible potential clients requesting assistance from LSC-funded programs are turned away for lack of adequate program resources. At a time when poor Americans are struggling to keep their jobs, homes, and basic necessities for their families, it is crucial for the federal government to continue to address the civil legal needs of these vulnerable people as a national priority. Fortunately, LSC has broad bipartisan support for a strong federal role in access to equal justice efforts.

On the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Legal Services Corporation, I welcome my fellow Members of Congress to join me in recognizing the critical role that the Legal Services Corporation plays in helping America live up to its commitment to ensure equal access to justice for all. LSC and its grantees are to be commended for the vital work they do every day on behalf of clients in desperate need of counsel.

Mr. Speaker, today the Federal minimum wage rises to $7.25 an hour. This Congress is proud that the previous Congress passed the minimum wage, and it went up in stair steps; and in these tough economic times, working people need help. They need help with all types of activities.

This will put $1,100 in the pockets of working people. That means money for groceries, for rent, for school supplies, moneys that will help with this economic recovery, $5.5 billion over the next 12 months.

One of the first votes I took in this Congress was to increase the minimum wage that had been held stagnant for decades. This will help 40,000 people in my district in Memphis and across the country.

This Congress should be proud of its support for working families, but sad that it took so long to get this minimum wage to where it is. We need to help the working people, and we need to make sure we make this country a better country with health insurance for all.