Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule. I thank Mr. McGovern for yielding.

Last week, this House passed the Ruth Moore Act to help support the victims of sexual assault and trauma in the military, but more must still be done to stop those crimes before they occur.

I thank the Armed Services Committee members for their work on this issue to date; but, unfortunately, the Sexual Assault Training Oversight and Prevention amendment, sponsored by Representative Jackie Speier, was not made in order. This amendment would help stop sexual violence in our military and remove sexual predators from its ranks, and we should have an opportunity to vote up or down on the provision. We're missing a crucial opportunity to stop the unwanted sexual contact that is now experienced by one in five servicewomen.

I've heard from Oregonians who live with the painful memory of sexual assault they experienced while serving and veterans associations concerned for the safety of those who answer the call of duty.

We all agree that these crimes have no place in our society and no place in our military. It's too bad that we were deprived of an opportunity to do something meaningful about it.

Mr. Speaker, 50 years ago, the Equal Pay Act passed in Congress with strong bipartisan support. That should be no surprise. It makes sense.

Back in 1963, 201 Democrats joined with 160 Republicans to support equal pay for equal work. Only 9 Members voted ``no.'' Back then, women earned just 59 cents for every dollar men earned. And today, we're still 23 cents short on the promise of equal pay. Half a century later, women earn 77 cents for every dollar men make for the same work. The Paycheck Fairness Act would strengthen the Equal Pay Act, giving women the paychecks they deserve and have earned. It would eliminate the loopholes and carve-outs that have denied women basic fairness for decades.

As we celebrate the passage of the Equal Pay Act, let's hope for a return to bipartisanship and common sense. Let's make sure that women are paid what they deserve and pass the Paycheck Fairness Act. Equal pay was bipartisan 50 years ago. It should be bipartisan today.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the Making College More Expensive Act, a bill that

will potentially make college more expensive for thousands of students and families across the country.

Across America, students and graduates are trapped under a trillion- dollar mountain of student loan debt, and with this bill, the problem is about to get worse.

On July 1, interest rates will double for millions of students entering college. But this bill is not a constructive solution; in fact, this bill will make the problem worse.

Rates are currently 3.4 percent, and they will double to 6.8 percent if we do nothing. But under this bill, the rates will be uncertain because they will be variable, and will be as high as 8.5 percent.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, this legislation will force students to pay thousands more in interest than if Congress simply does nothing and lets the rates double.

It's just not fair. On average, middle class families haven't seen a raise in years. Many are working harder for less money. They're struggling to buy everything from groceries to gas. They're relying more on the Federal student loans programs to finance the growing cost of college.

But instead of debating how much we should lower rates, instead of considering comprehensive reforms to address college costs, we're actually considering legislation that would be worse than if we did nothing at all.

Mr. Speaker, this is unproductive, unreasonable, and unacceptable. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Verna Bailey, an exemplary public school principal who worked with distinction for decades in the district I am honored to represent. Since 1974, Verna has dedicated herself to the students, parents, and faculty of the Beaverton School District. Originally from Mississippi, Verna moved to the Pacific Northwest 40 years ago and promptly fell in love with Oregon and its residents. She earned a Master's Degree in Education at Lewis and Clark College, and she worked in several Beaverton schools during her exceptional career.

Verna Bailey is the daughter of a civil rights advocate, and the first African-American woman to attend and graduate from Ole' Miss. Her story is one of courage and bravery. Although many of us supported the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s, Verna personally confronted hatred and prejudice on a daily basis, and she fought to earn what all of our students rightly deserve--a quality education. Verna Bailey stepped up to be one of the first so others behind her could follow her path. She showed the integrity and determination that solidified her place in our complicated American history.

Verna's past should and will be honored, but it is her 39-year history with the Beaverton School District that is her legacy. As an educator and administrator, Verna Bailey earned considerable praise and recognition. She contributed to the development of thousands of students, including my own children, who saw and respected her as a leader. It is my honor to congratulate Verna Bailey on her retirement and to thank her for a remarkable career and for her decades of dedication to our youth and our community. Her leadership, enthusiasm, and compassion will not be forgotten.

Mr. Speaker, today, I rise in opposition to H.R. 1406, the so-called Working Families Flexibility Act, which would deal yet another devastating blow to working families who are already scraping by in these tough economic times. Let's look at the facts:

Approximately two-thirds of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.

Since 2000, hourly wages have flat-lined, but productivity has risen 23 percent.

Employee compensation as a share of national income is at its lowest in 50 years, but corporate profits are stronger than ever.

American families are putting in longer hours for less pay; and, colleagues, this bill makes things worse.

If this bill becomes law, which we know it won't, a single mom living paycheck to paycheck could work more than 40 hours a week and receive no overtime pay in her paycheck. She would still have to pay the babysitter that week for the extra hours she spent on the job with no guarantee she'll be able to take the comp time off when she needs it. She would have to accept the days off her employer offers--that might not match her schedule--or else wait up to a year to receive the pay that's rightfully hers. And if the business closes, she's out of luck and out of pay.

Instead of getting a paycheck that includes overtime, she'll be forced to decide between an interest-free loan to her employer, or time off when it's convenient for her boss, not for her. Under this bill, millions of working families who are already living on the edge would work longer hours and take home less pay. They would have less flexibility, not more.

Colleagues, if we really want to talk about flexibility, let's talk about paid sick leave. I urge my colleagues to take a stand for working people and oppose this bill.

Mr. Speaker, being a middle class American today often means being caught in the middle, caught in the middle of the partisan posturing in Washington. And the situation we are in here today is yet another example.

The Senate's filibuster of appointees to the National Labor Relations Board left the President with two options: make recess appointments or stop enforcement of the laws. Because the latter was not acceptable, the President appointed NLRB members in a recess appointment, a process used by several Presidents before him. Unfortunately, the D.C. Circuit Court invalidated those appointments, and the question is presently pending before the Supreme Court. Now, it's too bad we're not here working together to request expedited consideration by the Supreme Court, but instead we're considering a bill that essentially seeks to shut down the NLRB.

Freight workers in my home State of Oregon will feel the consequences. In September of 2008, Oak Harbor Freight Lines, in violation of the law, announced that they would stop making payments to employee pension funds following a work stoppage during contract negotiations. In May 2012, a unanimous panel at the NLRB, a panel of Republicans and Democrats, found the company to be in violation of multiple sections of the National Labor Relations Act and ordered the company to reimburse the trust for missed payments. The law before us today, if passed, will invalidate this decision, as well as many others; stop the enforcement of the National Labor Relations Act; allow unlawful activity to continue; and exact a toll on workers across the country.

The NLRB is the referee between management and labor, and it helps guarantee the fundamental rights of middle class workers to organize, to bargain for better wages, benefits, and workplace conditions. This bill eliminates the referee and does real harm to hardworking men and women in my district and across the country. I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill.

Thank you so much, Mr. Blumenauer, for leading this discussion about such an important topic.

The reality of what we are talking about is really impossible to deny. We've had numerous scientists testify in Congress. You mentioned Dr. Hansen. I want to mention that his first testimony in Congress was 25 years ago. 1988 was the first time that Dr. Hansen, a well-renowned NASA scientist, testified about the problems of climate change--25 years ago. Since, so many peer-reviewed studies have shown the reality of what we are facing and the human impact, a significant contributing factor.

Not only do we have a lot of impacts on the planet, from glacial withdrawal and loss of sea ice, ocean acidification, rising temperatures and rising sea levels, we are feeling the impact here in our country with record droughts in the American Southwest and historic severe weather events. You probably have already mentioned that, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, and NASA, last year, 2012, was the warmest year on record for the United States. The 9 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998.

I want to talk for a minute, Mr. Blumenauer, about some of the effects we are feeling in our home State of Oregon. We have a reputation for quality wine grapes, including the world-renowned pinot noir grape. The quality of wine is attributable to the climate in Oregon. The pinot grapes grow in a temperature range between 57 and 61 degrees, and a minor variation threatens the quality of the grapes and the value, significant value, to Oregon's economy.

Also, the district that I represent, and I know you've been out to our Oregon coast frequently, includes the shellfish industry. There's a thriving fishing community there. There's dungeness for sale on the commercial market and recreational crabbing that helps draw tourists over to the coast. In recent years, the changes have caused low oxygen content in the water. Hypoxia is the condition that results. It is creating dead zones in our ocean that kill fish, crab, and other marine life.

This is a serious problem that's affecting the industry over there. There's a shellfish hatchery, Whiskey Creek, over in Tillamook that supplies three-quarters of the oyster seed used to produce shellfish up and down the West Coast. It's an industry worth $110 million annually. Their stock of oyster seed is being threatened by the rising acidity of the ocean, which is, again, a serious impact of climate change. So right there in Oregon there's two examples, economic examples, of how our local industry is being affected.

Oregonians, I know, as well as people around this country, they're looking to us for solutions. They're looking to us for leadership. So we need to discuss how we are going to mitigate and begin to reverse these environmental and economic effects. We have a great responsibility, not only to our own home States, but to our country and the rest of the world, and we need to take a leadership role.

If I may add, too, that it calls out for continued investment in alternative technologies and energy from electric vehicles to hybrid vehicles to alternative fuels, solar power, wind power, and bicycles. We need to continue that research and investment in those alternative technologies to decrease our dependence on foreign fuel.

One of the things that I want to mention too and what we have debated here on the floor is how much we're going to spend to clean up after disasters. That is something that we have debated here on the floor.

I want to point out that a recent GAO report for the first time lists climate change as a significant financial risk to the Federal Government. We're not well positioned to address the fiscal exposure presented by climate change.

As a Nation, we've become too familiar with the consequences of waiting until the 11th hour to develop solutions. The time is now to work together, to begin to reverse these changes, to develop alternative technologies, to come up with policies that will begin to take on this very serious problem and build our economy at the same time.

And even for those who dispute or ignore the scientific evidence of climate change, we can still discuss the economic gains we can make by investing in a clean-energy economy and modernizing our infrastructure and seeking energy independence, which is also a national security issue, as you had mentioned, as well.

I know we join you in that.

I also wanted to mention, while you're talking about renewable energy, the great promise of wave energy as well with the coast.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I know that Mr. Blumenauer has grandchildren. I don't yet. We owe it not only to the current generation, but to future generations to take action on these important issues.

Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of the Democratic budget alternative offered by Ranking Member Van Hollen, and I thank you for allowing me the opportunity to be heard on this important issue. Today I am supporting the Van Hollen Budget and opposing the budget blueprint laid out by Budget Committee Chairman Ryan. The Van Hollen budget acknowledges the concerns that have been expressed to us loudly and clearly by constituents since sequestration took effect March 1st; the Ryan budget exacerbates the problems caused by across- the-board cuts and attempts to recycle ideas that the American people have repeatedly rejected.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, half of our current budget deficit is attributable to high unemployment and lagging economic growth. The approach taken by Chairman Ryan's budget would make the problem worse by cutting investments in education, research, and infrastructure. Implementing this kind of harmful austerity approach will handicap our fledgling economic recovery. The budget I voted for makes strategic cuts, closes tax loopholes, and lays a foundation for economic growth going forward. And perhaps most importantly, the Van Hollen budget ends the damaging sequester and puts our country on a sustainable fiscal path without ending the guarantee of Medicare.

In the months preceding our self-imposed March 1st deadline, sequestration was a central theme in almost every conversation I had with constituents. I spoke with researchers at universities across Oregon who expressed concern about the impact cuts would have on scientific advancement, business leaders who told me they had not hired new workers because of the uncertainty caused by sequestration, and teachers who worried about cuts to vital special education programs. Oregonians, like most Americans, do not support this detrimental approach to policymaking.

In the weeks following the implementation of the sequester, my offices in Oregon and here in Washington, DC continue to hear numerous additional stories of the hardships brought about by budget uncertainty. For those who rightly raise concern, the budget proposed by Chairman Ryan is another example of DC putting politics over solutions. My constituents want fiscal responsibility from their elected officials; not a budget balanced on the back of the working class and the elderly.

Congress has reduced projected deficits by about $2.7 trillion since August 2010 by cutting discretionary spending, increasing tax rates for families with taxable income over $450,000 a year, and eliminating related debt servicing. The combination of deficit reduction included in Ranking Member Van Hollen's budget and the total deficit reduction achieved to date meets the $4 trillion goal set forth by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Commission. Further, the Van Hollen alternative I am supporting today achieves this deficit reduction without implementing the Ryan budget's Medicare voucher plan, while also preserving the Affordable Care Act reforms that currently provide seniors with reduced prescription drug costs and free preventive health care.

Our constituents sent us here to solve the problems created by our predecessors, not to make them worse. The Van Hollen budget alternative puts us on the road to economic recovery while preserving the social safety net. For this reason I am proud to support it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of the City of Tualatin, Oregon, on the occasion of its centennial anniversary.

This remarkable city, located just south of the State's largest metropolitan area, serves as a gateway to the fertile farmland of the Willamette Valley, which was formed by a series of cataclysmic floods some 12,000-17,000 years ago.

The Tualatin River Basin has provided sanctuary and sustenance for a litany of ancestral occupants. This wide range of early and distinguished inhabitants included the Atfalati Tribe and the historic Tualatin Mastadon, which was unearthed in 1962 after 13,000 years and subsequently displayed at the Tualatin Public Library for public edification.

In 1850 the U.S. Congress passed the Donation Land Claim Act, which granted title to American settlers committed to productive cultivation of the land. Shortly after, from 1850-1853, 30 families took up permanent residence in the area. Initially known as

Galbreath, then Bridgeport, the settlement was named Tualatin in 1887 and subsequently incorporated, by a vote of the townspeople, on August 18, 1913.

In the one hundred years since, Tualatin, Oregon has demonstrated a balanced approach to development--combining economic vitality and safe and beautiful neighborhoods with environmental stewardship to ensure a preeminent quality of life. Over 300 acres of award-winning parks and natural spaces delight residents and offer an abundance of recreational opportunities for hikers, bikers, and outdoor enthusiasts. The community is very proud to have recently celebrated 25 years as a designated Tree City USA.

The City of Tualatin harbors a first-rate educational system, visionary leadership, and public administrators of the highest caliber. An engaged and informed citizenry--critical to the success of every governmental body--actively participates in governance, supports a thriving business community, and sustains a range of cultural and artistic activities.

Mr. Speaker, one hundred years have passed since the incorporation of Tualatin, Oregon. It is a deep honor to represent this exceptional city in the U.S. Congress. I offer my sincerest congratulations during this centennial celebration and look forward to many more years of growth and prosperity.

Madam Chair, I thank Ranking Member Miller for yielding me this time.

Today I rise in opposition to the SKILLS Act. This partisan bill, unfortunately, takes a one-size-fits-all approach, freezing funding, eliminating programs that help veterans, the disabled, young workers, and older Americans find work, and ending the requirement that community colleges serve on workforce investment boards. As a graduate of a community college, I take that very seriously.

This bill also fails to address the skills gap issue. When I'm out in my district talking to businesses large and small, especially in the high-tech sector in Oregon's Silicon Forest, they often say there are job openings but not enough qualified workers.

There's a substitute bill, the Workforce Investment Act, sponsored by Mr. Miller, Mr. Hinojosa, and Mr. Tierney. Unlike the substitute bill, the SKILLS Act doesn't include the WISE Investment Act language that I authored to address the skills gap problem. The WISE Investment Act helps connect the needs of small businesses and other stakeholders with the training programs available through community colleges and elsewhere.

It's time to set ideology aside and work together so that the best ideas rise to the top. Unfortunately, this bill does the opposite. I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill, and let's start working together to get a bill with

broad support. I urge my colleagues to support real workforce reforms that we need, that are bipartisan, and that address the skills gap issue as well as the other important issues that are included in the Workforce Investment Act, but unfortunately not in the partisan SKILLS Act.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 273 because it once forces middle class workers to bear the burden of Congress's inability to come together and solve our fiscal woes.

This bill would result in a freeze on federal civilian employee pay for a third consecutive year by repealing the modest 0.5 percent increase scheduled to take effect next month. This miniscule raise would be their first since 2010, despite the fact that inflation has increased by 5.3 percent in that same time period.

These federal employees are hard-working people who deserve to be treated fairly for all they give in service to our constituents. They are the hotshot crews that fight our wildfires every summer. They are seismologists who will warn us about an approaching tsunami. They are the inspectors who ensure the safety of our food supply. They are the air traffic controllers who keep use safe when we fly. They are the VA doctors and nurses who treat our war veterans. And they are the officers who protect our borders, our airports, and our nuclear facilities.

At the same time, this bill asks nothing of the companies whose government contracts may award hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary per employee. And despite the protests of the bill's supporters, it does nothing to freeze pay for Members of Congress--that pay freeze, which I support, is already in effect.

This bill is just another political game that does nothing to meaningfully reduce spending or get our debt under control. I have said it before and I'll say it again: We've been governing by crisis for far too long. It's time to rally around common sense. It's time to take a seat at the bargaining table. This bill will not get us there, and it's time we all stop pretending that it will. I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing H.R. 273.

Mr. Speaker, today is February 13, but it feels like Groundhog Day. Here we are, back again, facing the prospect of devastating cuts from sequestration.

Families in Oregon don't understand why Members of Congress can't seem to set aside their differences and get things done; and, frankly, neither do I. We don't want to see these devastating cuts go into effect. We don't want to see a government shutdown. We don't want to tell the children that they have to have even more students in their already-crowded classrooms or explain to senior citizens that the Meals on Wheels they rely on might not be delivered. We don't want to see cuts to food safety or air traffic control or maritime and border security.

We're in the home stretch, racing towards yet another deadline, but instead of sitting at the bargaining table, we're headed out for recess.

In Oregon alone, sequestration would kick more than 900 kids out of Head Start programs that make a difference in their school readiness. It would trigger a 9 percent cut in Federal funding to Oregon's public university system, slashing student aid and ongoing research and development. Law enforcement agencies throughout the country would lose the equivalent of 1,000 Federal agents, 1,300 prison officers, and more than 5,000 Border Patrol personnel. Small businesses across the Nation would lose more than $540 million in loan guarantees.

Despite the talk of uncertainty, our economy really is poised to take off, but it can't do that if Congress decides to take off from work. It's sad but true: The biggest obstacle to economic growth tomorrow is congressional foot-dragging today.

We've been governing by crisis for too long. It's time to rally around common sense. It's time to take a seat at the bargaining table. And most of all, it's time to get back to work.

No sequestration deal, no recess.

Mr. Speaker, 40 years ago today, Roe v. Wade gave women the right to make their own decisions about reproductive health care. Without it, women's lives would be very different.

History shows us that when abortion is illegal, it does not go away; it becomes dangerous. And that's why it's important to continue to make sure that abortion is legal, rare, regulated, and safe.

Before Roe, more than a million women each year took great risk to access health care they needed. They faced unlicensed and ill-equipped physicians, unsanitary conditions, illness, and death. This is why the Supreme Court ruling was so important 40 years ago. It ensured safe, legal abortions for these women.

Roe v. Wade ensures the basic right of privacy, the freedom to control one's body and one's future. It can be easy to feel complacent today, but the threats against reproductive health care rights are increasing.

There is still work to be done. Today, 40 years later, we must continue to fight so that women's reproductive health care rights are not rolled back.

Mr. Speaker, our constituents across this great Nation are looking to Congress for leadership.

Here we are, back in Washington this week, still in negotiations to find a compromise to avert this so-called ``fiscal cliff.'' The yearend is fast approaching. Before last Friday, almost every conversation I had with my neighbors back in Oregon centered on this question: What will happen after January 1? How much will taxes increase if Congress, as is too often the case, is too paralyzed by gridlock to act?

My constituents found common ground in expressing this simple view: that the middle class families and those who are struggling have done enough to bear the brunt of the country's economic difficulties and should not be asked to pay more. To see people coming together to ask their legislators to do what is right, what is balanced, and what is responsible encouraged me that we might reach some solution.

So I'm here today, Mr. Speaker, to ask that we all join together to do what my constituents and your constituents and all of our constituents have asked us to do. We must find consensus and allow tax rates on most Americans to remain as they are so our communities and businesses can move forward with certainty and faith in their government to work together and do what's right for our constituents.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and Mr. Ranking Member.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the underlying bill which reauthorizes important programs to keep our waterways safe and navigable, protect our marine economy, defend our maritime borders, and support the brave Coast Guard personnel, including the personnel of the U.S. Coast Guard sector Columbia River, which is headquartered in Oregon's First Congressional District. They all work in pursuit of these vital missions. I also thank the chairman and ranking member of the Coast Guard Subcommittee for their work on this, as well as the chair and ranking member of the full Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

In addition to supporting the basic mission of the Coast Guard, this legislation includes language to reauthorize another important mission carried out by our Federal Government that is worthy of this body's support, NOAA's marine debris program. In June of this year, coastal residents in my home State of Oregon found a 66-foot dock resting on a beach near the town of Newport, Oregon. The dock was just one piece of many that scientists have estimated to be a debris field with as much as 1.5 million tons of debris that were washed into the ocean by the tsunami that struck Japan in March of 2011.

Beyond the obvious navigational dangers posed by the dock and the other debris that has been discovered in States on the Pacific coastline, the debris also brings with it invasive species that could harm our maritime environment. Not only is this debris dangerous, it's costly to remove, and the threat of a significant increase in debris arriving on our coasts has caused many State and local governments serious budgetary concerns. Oregon spent nearly $80,000 just removing that one dock.

Since the arrival of the Japanese dock on Agate Beach, Oregon, other members and I have heard from constituents who call on us to provide them with some assistance in dealing with this unprecedented situation.

The Marine Debris Program at NOAA makes some funding available through grants provided to coastal communities and to State and local governments to assist with debris response and removal. The bill we are considering today reauthorizes NOAA's Marine Debris Program. That's very important.

In addition to that, I've introduced bipartisan legislation with Congresswoman Herrera Beutler from Washington, the Marine Debris Emergency Act, to expedite that funding, which can currently take about a year from proposal to award. This bill will shorten the window to 60 days, which could be very important.

So I urge my colleagues to support our coastal communities by supporting this legislation and the bill before us today. Thank you to the chairs and ranking member for their hard work.