Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, it's my great honor to recognize and congratulate Consumers Energy Company on its 125th anniversary. On this day 125 years ago, Consumers Energy founders William A. Foote and Samuel Jarvis secured a street lighting franchise agreement with the city of Jackson, Michigan. What began as the illumination of a dozen streetlights has endured 125 years of change, growth, and service. Today, Consumers Energy delivers electricity and natural gas to 6.8 million of Michigan's 10 million residents in all 68 counties of the State's Lower Peninsula.

For the past 125 years, Consumer Energy has operated under the timeless principle: provide customers with safe, reliable, and affordable energy service. This principle has played an integral role of improving the quality of life for generations of Michigan residents. It also has been responsible for the growth of businesses and industries which provide jobs for millions of the State's residents.

Since its beginning in 1886, the goal of Consumers Energy was to deliver power to homes and businesses in cities, towns, villages and even the most rural areas. In 1927, the company installed Michigan's first rural power line, the 7-mile Mason-Dansville line, thereby bringing power to rural farms for the first time.

Today, Consumers Energy continues a proud tradition as an industry and community leader. In celebration of its milestone anniversary, the company will award $125,000 each to 10 communities for a total of $1.25 million for programs and services that will strengthen those communities and touch the lives of thousands of our citizens.

Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing Consumers Energy's 125th anniversary and wishing them continued growth and success in the future.

I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, as I, a former United Steelworkers Union member, stand here today, the unemployment rate in Michigan stands at 10.6 percent, and in areas of my district it is as high as 14 percent.

Our primary focus in Congress, as passed in the Republican jobs plan and seated in the Senate right now, our primary focus is to get burdensome government regulations out of our way and out of the way of the American people and let them get back to work.

The National Labor Relations Board has taken actions that directly oppose American job providers and job creators. How can any Michiganian operating a business expect to compete on a level playing field with NLRB membership like Craig Becker, who once wrote, ``Employers should be stripped of any legally cognizable interest in their employees' election of representatives.'' And also, ``Employers have no standing to assert their employees' right to fair representation.''

In their recent action to create an ambush-style election process, the NLRB has taken the side of a former special interest attorney over the will of the American working people. The rogue majority of the NLRB wants to set conditions that stifle job creation and expansion. Job creators are terrified of the NLRB's actions to create an ambush-style election process that will prevent employees from making an informed decision. And more stunningly, they reversed 30 years of precedent through their Specialty Healthcare decision, which would allow unions to carve up a worksite however they use.

America's job creators and workforce deserve fairness to ensure that union representation elections, like elections for our political leadership, are done in a just manner that allows all participants to make an informed decision on their representation status.

The Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act will ensure that employees and employers will have a level playing field at the NLRB and its special interest allies are determined to tilt.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2465) to amend the Federal Employees' Compensation Act, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 2465.

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

I rise today in support of H.R. 2465, the Federal Workers' Compensation Modernization and Improvement Act. The legislation was approved unanimously by the House Education and Workforce Committee, a testament to its commonsense bipartisan policies. I urge my colleagues to support it.

For more than 90 years, our workers' compensation program has provided assistance to Federal employees who become injured or ill through a work-related activity. The program reflects our commitment to the men and women who serve our country in the Federal Government.

Established by the Federal Employees' Compensation Act, the program is administered by the Department of Labor; and, in recent years, it has grown significantly in size and in cost. An estimated 3 million employees are covered by the program. During fiscal year 2010, beneficiaries receive nearly $3 billion in workers' compensation.

Unfortunately, this Federal program has not been significantly reformed or updated in almost 40 years; and as is too often the case with government programs left unchecked for decades, waste and inefficiencies have crept into the system, leading to poor use of taxpayer resources and diminished support for the individuals the program is intended to serve.

Through the oversight efforts of the Education and Workforce Committee, we've learned about a number of challenges confronting the program. For example, workers in rural areas like my own may have limited access to medical care. Additionally, Mr. Speaker, some compensation levels remain set to formulas that made sense during the days of the Second World War, but are inappropriate today. Clearly, reform is long overdue.

Federal employees should have access to a program that reflects the realities of today's economy and that takes into account the best practices in medical care. Taxpayers deserve a program that operates efficiently and effectively. That's why I, along with the other leaders on the Education and Workforce Committee, introduced the Federal Workers' Compensation Modernization and Improvement Act, an initial step in our effort to strengthen the program and bring it into the 21st century.

The bill before us today advances this goal in three important ways:

First, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2465 enhances the efficiency of the Federal Workers' Compensation Program. The legislation allows physician assistants and advanced practice nurses--highly trained individuals in the medical profession--to certify a worker's disability and ensure these professionals are reimbursed for their services. The bill also streamlines the claims process for workers who sustain a traumatic injury in an area of armed conflict. These individuals can work in hostile and even deadly environments, and they should not have to wait months for benefits they are entitled to and the taxpayer wishes to afford them;

Second, the legislation, Mr. Speaker, improves the integrity of the Workers' Compensation Program. The Labor Department would be allowed to cross-check an employee's earnings with information held at the Social Security Administration, helping to provide workers the benefits they deserve, no more and no less. The Department would also be empowered to collect administrative costs and other expenses from agencies employing the workers, promoting greater accountability within the program for all Federal agencies;

Finally, Mr. Speaker, the legislation modernizes benefits to better meet the needs of today's workers, providing the level of support employees need and guaranteeing that injuries or illnesses resulting from an act of terrorism are treated like other war-risk hazards.

The Federal Workers' Compensation Modernization and Improvement Act represents commonsense reform Federal workers and taxpayers deserve. I encourage my colleagues to support the legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Let me close by acknowledging the bipartisan effort that went into crafting the legislation, as my ranking member of the subcommittee, Ms. Woolsey, has already stated.

It was a bipartisan effort that worked toward a very satisfactory, even more so, unnecessary conclusion, as well as bringing the bill before the House today.

I'd like to express my gratitude to the chairman and ranking member of the Education and the Workforce Committee, Congressmen John Kline and George Miller, for their work and the work of their staffs on this important legislation. I'd also recognize the hard work of the staffs of our Workforce Protection Subcommittee, both Congresswoman Woolsey's and mine, in this effort as well.

The committee on which we are privileged to serve brings together individuals from very different walks of life and with very different views on how to fix the problems facing this great Nation, in many cases; but I'm encouraged that we've been able to work together on this legislation, demonstrating our shared commitment to serve American workers and taxpayers.

I urge my colleagues to support the Federal Workers' Compensation Modernization and Improvement Act.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to express my opposition to the new guidelines from the administration that restrict marketing certain food and beverage products toward children. Instead of principles, these guidelines should be treated as what they really are: unnecessary regulations.

As introduced by the administration, these rules falsely claim to be voluntary. For the first time in our Nation's history, the food and beverage industry and advertising businesses will be forced to completely alter the way they promote even their healthiest products.

Great Michigan companies like Kellogg's, that already make nutritious products, will be harshly affected. Stripping Tony the Tiger off the cereal boxes isn't going to make children healthier. What it will do is tack on another burdensome regulation for Kellogg's and other companies to deal with, destroy an American icon, and cost jobs.

Guidelines with this type of power should not circumvent the normal rulemaking process, including review by the OMB. These guidelines should be withdrawn immediately by the administration.

I thank the chair and committee leadership for bringing this bill forward, H.R. 2218, for which I urge my colleagues' support.

In the Northwest Ordinance, the same language in that ordinance, as well as what was then put into many of our State constitutions, says this: ``Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good governments and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education, shall forever be encouraged.''

I believe this bill, H.R. 2218, does just that. It's a simple bill. It promotes a charter school program that accomplishes three goals. Those being, one, to provide parents greater options for their children's education; two, consolidating education programs and reducing the authorization level; and, three, supporting the development of high-quality charter schools. That's what we're about in education. That's what we ought to be concerned with.

This bill accomplishes our goal of modernizing and streamlining the program by consolidating the current programs to one program and one authorization line. The result in savings still affords the taxpayer, the parent, and the educator with even more opportunity for growth of proven charter school models and new innovative charter schools.

The bill ensures that charter schools and charter school authorizers reach out to parents to serve students who can benefit from these schools. The legislation supports quality initiatives in the authorizing world without putting any new mandates on the schools.

The legislation has broad support, including a community that includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable, National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, Texas Charter School Association, Chiefs for Change, the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, just to name a few.

Charter schools were created in Michigan, my State, 15 years ago. And since that time nothing but proven educational success has taken place, with children in tough school districts before now receiving education that is promoting success for them and their future prosperity in an education opportunity that expands in the real-world experience.

For that reason and many others, I urge the support of H.R. 2218 as a proposal that does exactly what our Northwest Ordinance says. It encourages schools and the means of education for quality, students, and future people that will work in our system.

Mr. Speaker, we are in the midst of a crisis. It's not a crisis of a debt ceiling. It's a crisis of debt, of Washington spending too much, not taxing or borrowing too little. The problem isn't the debt ceiling; it's the debt. We can no longer continue to commit generational theft by our uncontrolled spending habits to our children and grandchildren.

Luckily, the Congress has made significant progress in the first six budget bills in cutting real spending for this upcoming fiscal year. And House Republicans have fundamentally changed the debate in Washington. We are no longer talking about job-killing tax increases. We're talking about spending cuts and long-term spending reform--our goals from day one.

It's time for President Obama and the Senate Democrats to join us in our efforts to control spending before time runs out. We must solve this crisis to encourage job creation and return America to its greatness. America's great people are ready.

Mr. Speaker, we are in the midst of an important debate. It's a debate on the debt ceiling and our spending crisis. But fundamentally, it's a debate about the future direction of our country, the next generation, and getting Americans back to work. Jobs are the cure for an ailing economy and the elixir for a bright and secure future. We cannot continue down the current path of fiscal irresponsibility. We cannot continue to commit generational theft of our children's and grandkids' futures.

What kind of legacy will we leave for this country and its future generations? Will we leave a legacy of debt? No, that's not what I want. We must not pass on to the generation of tomorrow the mistakes of our leaders today who, until now, remain unwilling to make the tough decisions and cut spending to create jobs and grow our economy. We can and must do right; and by God's grace, we will.

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

Mr. Chairman, tonight I am offering an amendment that would reduce funding for the National Endowment for the Arts to fiscal year 2006 levels.

In February, during the consideration of H.R. 1, I offered a similar amendment to cut NEA funding, which the House adopted. The underlying bill funds the National Endowment for the Arts at $135 million which is a $19.7 million reduction from last year's level.

I commend the chairman and the committee for recognizing that this funding has precipitated at an unsustainable rate. Since 2008, the NEA has received increases of over $10 million each year, including $50 million in funding from the stimulus in 2009. These spending increases have coincided with annual trillion dollar deficits.

My amendment would take funding levels back to fiscal year 2006 levels at $124.4 million. If accepted, this cut returns $10.6 million to the spending reduction account.

I want you to know I believe in the fine arts, and of course I know that's defined by individual standards. In the past, I was privileged to serve on a symphony board for a time as the chairman of the finance committee. In my early years, I was brought to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra by my parents, on school trips and otherwise, and appreciate the impact the fine arts can have. Tramping through art museums is not foreign to me as well, and I enjoy much of what I see.

But at a time when our government must cut Federal spending, at a time when our taxpayers cut and fix and repair and alter their own lifestyles and their spending, the primary source of funding for the arts should be through philanthropy, not forcing open the taxpayers' wallet without their choice.

The National Foundation for the Arts does provide benefits to our country and helps fund our true fine arts. However, we are asking them to only fund their true priorities, and they can make those priorities. We know that the public asks questions about some of the programs that the NEA has supported. I'm tempted to, but I will refrain from, giving explicit illustrations of funded programs and projects that they've undertaken with much taxpayer disapproval. But suffice it to say that in recent years the NEA has funded exhibits that disparage religion, promote pornography, and support Presidential campaigns. That is not supported by the general taxpayer and should not be.

My amendment asks the NEA to only fund their true priorities. Now, if they want to determine those priorities, so be it. But if they want to determine priorities for youth concert series or young composers or you name it, that will be a choice as well, and I think most taxpayers would support those choices.

Our country is in financial hardship. The sponsors of the arts should be sponsors of the arts, as I am. But taxpayers ought to know that we will expect them, like the rest of the programs and certainly the rest of society, to be efficient at this time. Our country is in a financial hardship, and we're not taking programs like the NEA off the table; we're just asking them to establish priorities with reduced funding, yes, but an opportunity to efficiently convey to the taxpayers their understanding of what we're going through as well.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I thank the chairman for yielding.

I just want to make it clear because, as I've listened to the opposition to this, it appears one didn't catch my train of thought. I'm not saying that arts or the NEA is wrong. I'm saying it's time to make priority decisions.

Certain priority decisions, as recently as November of 2010, fund programs such as Fire in the Belly--I won't go into the full description of it--and Hide and Seek, which can be considered pornography and which was, in fact, portrayed as that in an exhibit. Those are things that are priority decisions.

So I'm saying it is time, if we're funding those, to give the taxpayer a break and say, if you want to attend those or support those, do it through philanthropy or do it through initial sponsorships themselves but not through the taxpayer.

I object.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, we received word yesterday that the President has threatened to veto the bill we will consider later today, H.R. 2560, the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act. As a cosponsor of this bill, I can't disagree more.

We have a spending problem, not a revenue problem. For the President to threaten to veto a serious proposal that will put our country back on the path to fiscal responsibility demonstrates his stubborn insistence on continuing reckless spending and debt. If the President wants to continue to disregard the voice of the people, then he will veto this bill, despite never presenting a plan of his own.

The President will do what he chooses to do, but I will do what the people and our Nation's future demand. Unless we want to face even longer-term economic difficulties, the President should reconsider his position and support this plan that cuts spending and encourages job growth.

Mr. Speaker, we're broke, and that's really not the legacy that I want to leave Micah and Claire, my grandkids.

More unrestrained spending and tax increases will only slow our economy and make our fiscal problems worse. Raising the debt ceiling without significant reform is not a solution. It's a gimmick. We have to get our spending under control; and Cut, Cap and Balance is a path to fiscal responsibility.

Mr. Speaker, this year alone the Federal Government will spend twice what it spent just 10 years ago, and more than 40 percent of it is borrowed money. We will have accumulated more debt in the past 2\1/2\ years than we did during the Presidencies of Washington through George H.W. Bush. That's right. It took 41 Presidencies to spend what we have spent since 2009.

We've got to stop spending money we don't have. It's causing the private sector to sit on the sidelines, take fewer risks, and create fewer jobs. And that's what it's all about, isn't it, growing the economy, creating jobs?

The Cut, Cap, and Balance Act automatically saves $111 billion in 2012 and around $5.8 trillion over the next 10 years. It includes enforceable caps on spending that will bring the size of government back to below 20 percent of GDP. And the legislation cuts up the government's credit cards by passing a balanced budget amendment.

Cut, Cap, and Balance will create a future of better opportunities for our children, Micah and Claire, my grandkids. Washington will finally have to do what every American family and every business does every day, balance the budget.

This Saturday, I enjoyed an afternoon of kicking the walnut down the street with Claire and Micah, 4\1/2\ and 3 years old, but I don't want to kick the can down the road for them.

I didn't have the guts to tell them that we've already taken their tax dollars from them before they're even at the point of going to school and ultimately going to work.

We need to stop our spending now. Cut, cap and balance.

Madam Speaker, hardly a week goes by without this administration promulgating some new regulation that burdens the American people and our economy.

This week it's an environmental regulation that will drive up energy costs. According to a report by the SBA, regulations cost $1.7 trillion annually. OMB has reported that regulations cost $62 billion annually.

Regardless of which agency's number we believe, it doesn't matter. Both numbers are too high and hurt economic growth at a time when unemployment is too high.

Let me make this real simple and settle this argument between these agencies. The cost of regulations is not simply a job, it's jobs, and every job has a human face.

If more spending and more regulations meant more jobs, then this President's policies would have produced the strongest economic recovery in our Nation's history. Unfortunately, it's made things worse.

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

Mr. Chairman, the amendment I am offering today addresses the most pressing concern my constituents have with the National Flood Insurance Program, and that problem is inaccurate flood maps.

I certainly understand that the NFIP is on shaky financial ground, and I commend Chairman Bachus and Congresswoman Biggert and the Financial Services Committee for their work in crafting this bill; but as we vote today to put the NFIP on a path to solvency, we must not let this opportunity to strengthen the program pass us by.

Since I returned to Congress in January, my office has been barraged with letters and phone calls expressing concerns about the new and revised flood insurance rate maps that FEMA is rolling out in my district. These maps determine whether property owners will be required to purchase flood insurance, and evidence shows that the current mapping methods are oftentimes inaccurate, onerous or punitive; and while this insurance represents an essential lifeline to some property owners who face a real risk of flood damage, it is a costly, unnecessary mandate on those who face no actual threat of being flooded.

I am encouraged that the underlying bill, H.R. 1309, establishes a Technical Mapping Advisory Council to review the current mapping standards and that it proposes revised standards to be implemented by the FEMA administrator. Within 12 months of organization, the TMAC is required to report to Congress and the administrator on how to improve mapping methodology. H.R. 1309 clearly instructs the TMAC on their task, and that is to ensure that the flood insurance rate maps reflect true risk and that the most current and accurate data is used.

I look forward to receiving this report from TMAC and to the administrator's implementation of the new mapping standards; but in my view, this review is a tacit admission that the current practices are not working and that they represent a poorly implemented government mandate that cannot continue. The maps FEMA has been rolling out across the country are not based on the best information available, and this needs to stop.

My amendment improves on the work of the TMAC, simply requiring that, while the TMAC studies the best possible mapping methods, none of our constituents will be at risk of inclusion in a new map that uses the faulty, questionable methods currently in place. Simply put, this amendment would implement a moratorium on the issuance of new flood maps until the TMAC has done its due diligence and has issued its report on new mapping standards.

I am glad to have the support of Chairman Bachus, and I ask that you support me in voting for this commonsense amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, rising unemployment continues to populate the headlines. An article last week by the AP points out that several cities in my State of Michigan, including Battle Creek, which I have the privilege of representing, endured big increases in unemployment. Michigan's unemployment stands at over 10 percent. The policies of this administration exacerbate bad situations. We do not need more overspending, higher taxes, rising energy costs, government takeover of health care, and more regulations.

My Republican colleagues and I have put forth a jobs plan. We know government cannot create jobs. Instead, we can support an environment where the private sector flourishes and creates jobs. Our jobs plan will reduce regulatory burdens, which are currently costing small businesses over $10,000 per employee each year, requiring congressional approval for any regulation that has significant impact on the economy. Our jobs plan will fix the Tax Code, streamlining and lowering tax rates. Our jobs plan will encourage entrepreneurship. Our jobs plan will increase domestic energy production and will cut unsustainable spending that creates crushing burdens of debt.

At home last week, I was constantly reminded how the lack of good- paying jobs is affecting my constituents. It's truly time for America to stand up for its liberty and its next generation.

Mr. Speaker, while our President telegraphs to our enemies a timeline for ending the war that they are certainly willing to continue to commit to, while military efforts continue in Libya with uncertain, undisclosed, and unsuccessful outcomes led by our administration under NATO command, greater atrocities perpetrated against freedom seekers in Syria go unaddressed, unannounced, unconsidered by our President. Why? What's the reason? What's the time limit? It is known that Syria has been a continuing threat to freedom and a strong supporter and sustainer of unrest and terrorism in the Middle East and around the world. They're a strong ally of Iran and a constant threat to our friend Israel.

As freedom-seeking citizens of Syria join, Mr. Speaker, many others in the Middle East in calling for political reforms, respect for human rights, and regime change, the government of Syria and President Bashar Al-Assad is violently and sadistically suppressing the Syrian people, his own people. Tanks, snipers, goon squads, violent attacks on women and children, starvation and dehydration, inhuman imprisonment, torture, and worse has been the norm for the Syrian people for too long--without a strong and principled response from our President and our Nation. Why? We're not calling for a war. We're not calling for troops on the ground. We're not calling for anything right now except to take a stand against this atrocity.

Other nations have stood and voiced their concerns that President Assad has violated its international obligations, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Isn't it time for our President and this administration to stand and speak as the world leader and call on President Assad to step down and for the Syrian Government to end its cruel crimes against humanity?

I am firmly convinced that the rest of the peace-loving world will respond to our leadership. They are looking for it. They expect it. They are asking for it, and the Syrian people will be encouraged and defended. And liberty's cause will be promoted in this earthquake zone called the Middle East.

It's time to speak up. May God grant our President and this administration and our government the courage to do so. Because it is for humanity and people like ourselves that we speak.