Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, last week, on June 6, I had the honor of attending the 70th anniversary of the D-day invasion in France. What a humbling experience it was to be there. Countless graves marked the landscape where over 6,000 U.S. soldiers fought and died at the site of one of the most significant military operations in modern history.

Looking back, it is incredible--incredible that an operation as vast and as complex as the Allied invasion of Normandy could ever succeed. Just about everything that could go wrong did. We faced setbacks at every turn, yet against all odds, our brave young men persevered.

Speaking with D-day veterans from San Diego like Jack Port, Joe Reilly, Victor Kramer, and James Federhart, I was reminded that they were just kids in 1944, many of them still teenagers.

I wish I could have shared it with my dad who served as a medic throughout the war, but like so many of his brothers in arms, he did not speak about his experience, and it is not hard to imagine why.

Many of their comrades never made it home. Thousands of U.S. soldiers fought and died, so that the world might live in freedom and inherit peace.

Mr. Speaker, this week, the White House hosted high school students from across the country for its 2014 Science Fair.

San Diego high school student Eric Chen was among the attendees and was praised by President Obama for his award-winning research into combating influenza. I rise to congratulate Eric and celebrate all students across the country who eagerly pursue scientific research.

We must continue to provide students with opportunities to demonstrate their excitement and their mastery in science, technology, engineering, and math. Soon we will depend on these same students to tackle our biggest challenges; and at times, they will inherit problems that seem daunting: climate change, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, drought, food scarcity, the list goes on.

We are at a critical crossroads in so many areas and cannot afford to lose our technological edge. We must provide students with the tools necessary for success by further investing in STEM education. It begins by heavily recruiting teachers who go beyond the traditional role of educators, teachers that become mentors and explorers and visionaries with their students; and we need teachers who inspire our best and

brightest young minds to do more than the generation before them ever could imagine.

STEM education is an issue that we can all rally around, and I urge my colleagues to do so when supporting this important initiative.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, first, I certainly want to thank Chairman Wolf, Ranking Member Fattah, and, of course, the committee for putting together a strong bill in what we all know has become an increasingly tough environment for appropriations bills.

This year's Commerce-Justice-Science bill is clearly the product of a great deal of bipartisan collaboration, and, as a result, this bill provides strong funding for a number of important priorities that both Democrats and Republicans can get behind. In that vein, I want to offer an amendment which I believe both sides of the aisle should be able to support.

While only a small portion of the overall Department of Commerce budget, the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service plays a critical role in helping American small business owners export their products to foreign countries--and we know that about 95 percent of the world's customers live overseas.

Unfortunately, while this year's CJS bill does a decent job of funding the Department of Commerce, it failed to fully match the President's requested increase of funds for the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service. Unfortunately, that will mean that we will, once again, continue the trend of underfunding this vital national resource.

Specifically--and I wanted to note these three points--this amendment helps small businesses who can benefit from overseas consumer activity by helping them learn how to navigate red tape imposed by governments overseas. Big companies we know don't necessarily need this help but our small business owners do.

Second, it will help them increase exports, create jobs, and boost economic recovery. Third, the funding that was requested in this amendment is $3 million. The agency is currently $15 million below the President's request. So I want to share where the offset comes from. It comes from the Bureau of Prisons, which was overfunded by $61 million-- and that is out of $7 billion. The offset does not touch funding for new construction, which we know there are concerns about overcrowding from time to time. That is not an issue in this amendment.

Madam Chair, in order to remain competitive in an increasingly globalized economy, we must do everything that we can to help our exporters gain access to overseas markets. While this amendment only amounts to really a small increase in funding, we know from past experience that it will pay enormous dividends. I certainly have seen that in my community in California.

Most importantly, it will allow U.S. exporters to compete on a level playing field with the rest of the world and will help strengthen the overall economy, putting Americans back to work.

I urge my colleagues to support small business owners all across this country and adopt this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Offered By: Mrs. Davis of California

Amendment No. 22: Page 3, line 10, after the dollar amount,

insert ``(increased by $3,000,000)''.

Page 34, line 8, after the dollar amount, insert ``(reduced

by $3,000,000)''.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to call attention to the wildfires that have ravaged southern California over the past week. Thanks to our brave first responders, these blazes are nearly contained, but not before destroying dozens of homes and forcing thousands to evacuate.

The sight of brush fires burning across the county has become all too

familiar in the San Diego region in recent years, but this won't be an ordinary year. So far, we have seen twice as many fires as usual, and the worst months are yet to come.

Many who have been forced to leave their homes speak of how, in those moments when they fear they might lose everything, they realize what is most important to them.

Now, it is time for Congress to remember what is important, the vital programs that Americans rely on in times of crisis.

With natural disasters worsening across the country, it is more important than ever to ensure that agencies like the Forest Service, the National Weather Service, and FEMA have the resources they need to keep Americans informed and safe.

This appropriations season, I urge my colleagues to come together, as I have watched San Diego County residents do, and prioritize these lifesaving services for all Americans.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Mr. Wilson and the committee staff for working in a bipartisan manner to develop this bill.

The Buck McKeon NDAA continues the committee's focus on sexual assault and includes such provisions as requiring the judicial panel to assess the use of mental health records by the defense in preliminary hearings and to compare this with the civilian use of mental health records in criminal proceedings; clarifying that the service academies, including the Coast Guard Academy, are subject to the same sexual harassment and assault requirements; requiring an inspector general review of the separation records of servicemembers who made unrestricted reports and determining whether such separation was in retaliation for filing said report; requiring performance appraisals of a commanding officer to include whether a command climate has been established in which allegations of sexual assault are properly managed and victims feel free to report; and requiring the Secretary of Defense to modify rule 404 of the Military Rules of Evidence to clarify that general military character of an accused is not admissible, except in cases where the military character of the accused is relevant to the offense being charged.

Mr. Chairman, oversight of sexual assault in the military remains a priority of the committee, and we will continue to identify gaps that need to be addressed and to enable the Department of Defense to reduce these numbers.

We all want to get to the same place--safe working conditions and a harassment-free, sexual assault-free environment for all, and there are different views of how to get there; but the bill, as it is now, gives us the opportunity to create a military where change can and must occur.

On other personnel matters, our bill does not include the proposed legislative changes to the commissary system, housing allowances, and the health care modifications requested by the Department of Defense.

As a result of that, the Department will need to address the $1.5 billion savings it already took in its fiscal year 2015 budget.

In addition, the restoration of the 1 percent COLA reduction that was in the budget agreement and restored earlier this year left the Department with an additional hole of $500 million for fiscal year 2015, and these savings will need to be paid for from other Department of Defense accounts.

We must begin that discussion, and I hope that the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission will be the start of that.

We know these are difficult times, and difficult decisions need to be made to protect and sustain our All-Volunteer Force. It has already been stated that ignoring these issues will only lead the Department to take significant cuts to our end strength and readiness.

Despite these concerns though, Mr. Chairman, this bill deserves passage.

Mr. Speaker, last night, Republicans and Democrats on our House Armed Services Committee came together to pass a defense bill that all of us--I mean all of us--all of us on the committee could support. That is something remarkable, considering what is on the House floor this week.

Instead of debating the minimum wage, we are getting maximum partisanship. Instead of creating a select committee on job creation, we are voting to create a select committee on Benghazi, shamefully playing politics with a terrible tragedy.

The only person whose job the majority seems to care about is the former Secretary of State's. The national climate assessment released this week laid bare the consequences of climate change, but sadly, instead of reducing our carbon footprint, we get a climate of dysfunction and hot air.

Enough is enough. House leadership should follow the example of the House Armed Services Committee. Put the partisanship aside and get to work on the things that really matter to the American people.

Mr. Speaker, the other week, I met with leaders of the San Diego medical research community, who had a unified message: we need to end the cuts in research that have slowed medical innovation for the last decade.

I am proud to be leading the bipartisan effort, along with nearly 200 of my colleagues, to push for over $32 billion in Federal funding for the NIH.

This is a very personal issue. Almost all of us know someone who is struggling with a disease for which the National Institutes of Health funding is used to find a cure. That person could be a mother, a father, a family friend or, even more heart-wrenching, a child. The disease could be cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, MS, or any of the other diseases that people face every day.

It is more than a matter of scientific research; it is a matter of economics. For a generation, California has been a world leader in life sciences innovation, and our State is home to the most jobs, to the most companies, to the world's greatest concentration of top-tier research institutions. It is time to reverse the budget cuts that threaten this ecosystem and to increase the NIH budget to $32 billion.

Mr. Speaker, Women's History Month is a time for us to reflect on what women have done for America and what America can do for its women.

If we really look at the history of women in this country, we see that they have done far more than we give them credit for. I am not just talking about extraordinary figures like Susan B. Anthony and Rosa Parks. I am talking about the countless women who have worked day in and day out since this country was founded.

The idea that women are new to working is a myth. The truth is women have always worked to better their families and their communities, but too often the work that they do is undervalued.

Almost two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women, and although more families than ever rely on female breadwinners, women's wages still lag behind men's. For these women it isn't about having it all; it's about having enough to get by.

This Women's History Month, let's give women and their families the raise they deserve. Let's show all Americans that their work is worth a living wage. After all, when women succeed, America succeeds.

Mr. Chair, on rollcall No. 130, had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. Speaker, we need a government by the people and for the people, not a government run by the special interests and for the corporations. But how do we get there?

First, we remove barriers to voting. From overcoming hurdles to absentee voting and difficulty with registration, to long lines at the polls, more can be done to make sure that our elections work for all voters.

We should take a good long look at the thoughtful recommendations of the President's bipartisan election commission, which listened to voters and to election officials and bundled together the best ideas.

Second, we can't let the big money interests choose our leaders. We need public campaign financing, like the bill recently introduced by my colleague, Representative Sarbanes of Maryland.

In a post-Citizens United world, the voices of special interests will be much louder than those of average Americans, unless we act now and bring back government run by the people and for the people.

Mr. Speaker, as the cost of a college education continues to rise, Americans have become increasingly dependent on Federal student loans for access. Families are watching tuition creep up year after year, while their incomes and their savings have not kept pace.

To make matters worse, there have been widespread reports of abusive practices in the student loan servicing industry, and that makes it harder for borrowers to repay their loans. These trends jeopardize the promise of higher education as the great equalizer, a place of opportunity for all. Parents are worried that their children won't ever get a shot at the American Dream because they are drowning in debt.

And this week, the majority will bring up legislation that would undermine the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's independence and their rulemaking authority; and this bill would weaken essential consumer protections and make it all but impossible to fight abuse in the student loan industry.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on H.R. 3193 and stand up for students and families who deserve fair treatment.

Madam Speaker, in the aftermath of the Great Recession, Congress established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for a very clear reason: to ensure that financial markets and services work for all Americans, not just the big banks and best connected.

Today, the CFPB makes sure that consumers get the information they need to make smart financial decisions on everything from mortgages to credit cards to student loans.

Today, the House majority will introduce a purely partisan measure called the Consumer Financial Protection Safety and Soundness Improvement Act. That is a mouthful, if nothing else, but rather than improve the CFPB, it would do precisely the opposite by undermining its independence and eliminating its rulemaking authority.

Consumer protections could be scrapped. We must not repeat the same costly mistakes that put our economy in the free fall of the Great Recession.

Mr. Speaker, climate change, offshore drilling, wildfires, scarcity--these concerns are expressed over and over again from my constituents in my district.

People are anxious that the world that they are handing down to their children is not as pristine as the one they inherited. They plead with us to protect the environment. Yet time and time again, the House majority votes to undercut clean air and water laws, while blocking efforts to protect public lands. What a travesty when an allegiance to industry takes precedence over maintaining a healthy environment.

This week, we wasted precious floor time with needless bills, like the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley Emergency Water Delivery Act, which made a mockery of the serious drought in California. The House needs to stop bringing irresponsible bills to the floor, giving away our cherished lands, stripping away environmental protections, and doing nothing to solve real problems like the drought in California.

We have heard their excuses. They say environmental regulations slow the economy, but let's be honest: putting the interest of appropriations above our environment is a dangerously expensive notion.

Let's stop being reactionary and get ahead of these real problems facing our planet.

Madam Speaker, tonight, the President will address a key American principle, that everyone who works hard and plays by the rules deserves a chance at success. We certainly expect our kids to work hard in school and play by the rules in hopes that they will have strong futures that include a shot at the American Dream.

No matter what side of the aisle we are on, we can all agree that what we want is the best for our kids and, in some cases, our grandkids. But what kind of future are we giving them if they have to start behind kids in other countries where access to pre-K is widespread?

Kids who are part of a quality pre-K program are more likely to graduate high school, to earn higher pay, and live more productive lives.

In looking for common ground, we should learn from the recent spending deal which showed bipartisan support for boosting early education. Let's not let tonight be a wasted opportunity to give our kids the strong start that they desire.