Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6825) to amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to enhance the funding and administration of the Nonprofit Security Grant Program of the Department of Homeland Security, and for other purposes, as amended.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 6825, the Nonprofit Security Grant Program Improvement Act.

More than 20 years after the September 11 attacks, the terrorism threat landscape has grown significantly more complex, and houses of worship and other nonprofits have become targets for domestic and foreign terrorists.

Earlier this year, four Americans were held at gunpoint by a terrorist at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas. During the Colleyville attack, Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker used security training to help bring the standoff to an end without injury to his congregants.

The training that proved so crucial that Sabbath was funded by the Department of Homeland Security's Nonprofit Security Grant Program. The NSGP, as it has come to be known, is a competitive grant program that provides funding to nonprofit organizations, such as religious institutions, at high risk of a terrorist attack to help bolster their security.

Grant funding is primarily used to pay for active shooter training, fencing, barriers, and surveillance cameras.

In recent years, demand for the program has grown exponentially, given the heightened threat environment that we face. Over the past 3 years, to meet this demand, Congress has increased funding almost threefold to $250 million in fiscal year 2022.

Even with significant new resources, FEMA reported that, in fiscal year 2021, there was a $200 million gap between applications and funding. To provide FEMA with more resources to help bolster the security of more at-risk nonprofits, H.R. 6825 authorizes $500 million in grant funding for fiscal years 2023 to 2028.

This bipartisan bill, which was introduced by the leaders of the Committee on Homeland Security, Chairman Bennie Thompson and Ranking Member John Katko, also includes a range of enhancements to the program's operations.

H.R. 6825 would establish a dedicated program office to carry out education, outreach, and engagement to provide technical assistance and support. Among other things, it includes technical changes to eliminate or prevent administrative or operational obstacles that may impact access by eligible applicants; sets baseline requirements for States that administer the program; and requires audits to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse.

The legislation, which was developed in close coordination with FEMA, was unanimously supported by the committee in March.

Before I conclude, I would like to address an article that appeared in the Jewish Link, a prominent news outlet for the Jewish community in New Jersey and New York, in which questions were raised about the grant guidance for the program for the current fiscal year.

On behalf of Chairman Thompson, let me express my appreciation to Representatives Pascrell and Gottheimer, in particular, for alerting the committee to these concerns and the chairman's commitment to engage FEMA about the questions that were raised.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, back home in New Jersey, I make a point of checking in on faith communities as often as I can. We gather together, we talk about the issues of the day, we talk about how their members can help the community at large. And in every one of these conversations, I am sad to say, the issue of security comes up. We talk about this grant program and how it can help them protect themselves.

It saddens me because I know that bulletproof glass is not the solution to hatred. Security guards and security cameras are not the solution to the violence that is plaguing our society. Security at the point of the religious institution is not the solution, it is the last resort. And yet, it is something that we have to do. Until we defeat the hatred, until we deal with how it spreads through our society, we have to harden our institutions so people can worship and gather peacefully in safety.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in support of a bill that addresses this need, H.R. 6825, the Nonprofit Security Grant Program Improvement Act. It is a timely measure that is responsive to the current threat picture.

Instances of anti-Semitic crime, for example, hit an all-time high in 2021 in America. My home State of New Jersey and the neighboring State of New York, accounted for nearly 30 percent of the reported total.

The bill is endorsed by The Jewish Federations of North America, the Anti-Defamation League, the Sikh Coalition, the Secure Community Network, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, and The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.

Just today, ahead of consideration of the bill, The Jewish Federations of North America reached out to say: ``The Nonprofit Security Grant Program is critically important to the safety and security of faith communities and others who are at risk. The Jewish Federations would like to thank Chairman Thompson and Ranking Member Katko for advancing an

authorization bill that will strengthen the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and increase much-needed funding for at-risk institutions.''

Mr. Speaker, for all these reasons, while it is not enough, I do strongly believe that enactment of H.R. 6825 will position this program to be effective in the future. It will enable us to provide these essential grants to every faith institution that needs them.

None of us want to communicate to folks in our district that we were able to help this synagogue, this mosque, this church, but the one across the street, the one in a different neighborhood, we are sorry, we can't help you because we ran out of money. That is absolutely unacceptable, and we are going to solve this program.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 6825, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6871) to amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to provide for certain acquisition authorities for the Under Secretary of Management of the Department of Homeland Security, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this measure.

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

Mr. Speaker, today, I rise in support of H.R. 6871, the DHS Acquisition Reform Act. The Committee on Homeland Security has examined for several years the Department of Homeland Security's challenges in managing its acquisition programs.

The Department uses its acquisition system to carry out its critical missions, such as screening travelers, cybersecurity, border security, and disaster response.

In 2016, the Government Accountability Office reported that one-third of the DHS major acquisition programs it reviewed experienced cost overruns and schedule delays, increasing costs by $1.7 billion. And just last year, GAO reported that 10 of the Department's 24 programs that it reviewed had failed to meet their cost or schedule targets during fiscal year 2020.

To address DHS' acquisition challenges, H.R. 6871 would centralize oversight of the Department's portfolios of acquisition programs to guard against waste. The bill designates the Under Secretary for Management as the Department's chief acquisition officer and authorizes related oversight responsibilities for other key officials.

Under this act, the chief acquisition officer is charged with advising the Secretary of Homeland Security regarding acquisition activities that incorporate widely accepted program management best practices and standards.

H.R. 6871 establishes an Office of Test and Evaluation to provide oversight of test and evaluation activities for major acquisition programs to ensure that those programs meet operational requirements. Additionally, the bill establishes a Program Accountability and Risk Management Office to identify problems with cost, schedule, or performance that may need to be addressed to prevent cost overruns, schedule delays, or performance issues.

The increased oversight provided in the DHS Acquisition Reform Act will help the Department to manage its major acquisitions more effectively.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my House colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 6871 will help ensure that DHS acquisition programs remain on budget and on schedule while meeting performance requirements.

In committee, this measure, introduced by my colleague from Kansas, Mr. LaTurner, received strong bipartisan support.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 6871, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6868) to amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to provide for financial assistance to fund certain cybersecurity and infrastructure security education and training programs and

initiatives, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on this measure.

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

Mr. Speaker, whenever you talk to experts working in cybersecurity, one of the first priorities they emphasize is how important it is to address the shortage of trained cybersecurity professionals. We can invest in the latest technology, but if we don't have the talent to implement cybersecurity practices, we will be left vulnerable.

There are many programs in the Federal Government designed to help address this problem, but one particularly essential one is the Cybersecurity Education and Training Assistance Program, or CETAP. Operated by DHS's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, CETAP supports K-12 cybersecurity education across the country.

H.R. 6868 will strengthen this existing program by giving CISA the authority to provide grants to State and local governments, colleges and universities, and nonprofit organizations to carry out the program and help address the shortage of cybersecurity professionals in the United States.

The bill also includes an important amendment from Representative Jackson Lee to ensure that CISA reports to Congress on how these grants are supporting the cybersecurity education of women and underrepresented communities.

As we address our cyber workforce challenges, we must make sure that no groups are excluded from that effort.

I thank the sponsors of H.R. 6868, Representatives Garbarino and Titus, for their work on this bill. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, expanding access to cybersecurity education in our K-12 schools will develop the next generation of cybersecurity professionals who have the knowledge needed to protect us in today's connected world.

CETAP has shown great success in addressing this challenge, and this bill will help us build on that progress.

I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 6868, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5658) to require the Secretary of Homeland Security to submit a report on the cybersecurity roles and responsibilities of the Federal Government, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on this measure.

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

Mr. Speaker, given the magnitude and complexity of the current cybersecurity threat landscape, coordination among DHS components to address growing and evolving risks in cybersecurity is critical. It is important that DHS components coordinate in a manner that reflects how their respective expertise can fit into the broader DHS cybersecurity strategy.

While the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has the most notable role in cybersecurity at DHS, other components also have considerable cyber expertise.

For example, the Secret Service has a critical role in investigating cybercrimes, and the Transportation Security Administration and the Coast Guard provide cybersecurity support for the transportation sector.

As DHS develops its cybersecurity strategy and incident response planning, it must consider how best to use each of these components and must carefully define roles and responsibilities so that components understand their duties during a cyber incident.

To that end, H.R. 5658 directs DHS to provide a report to Congress that explains the roles and responsibilities of its components in cyber incident response. The report is to include information on how DHS' authorities and CISA's incident response plans are utilized in the Federal Government's overall cyber incident response efforts.

This report will help ensure that DHS is developing a coordinated effort to provide Congress critical information regarding the authorities needed to facilitate effective cyber incident response.

I thank Representative Bacon for collaborating with the Homeland Security Committee on this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, in recent years, we have seen several cyber incidents that have demonstrated the importance of effective incident response planning.

With cyber incidents occurring across many sectors, DHS plays a unique role as the lead Federal coordinator for securing critical infrastructure. Passing this bill will help ensure that DHS and its components have the properly defined roles and responsibilities necessary to carry out this mission effectively.

I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 5658. I am sure we all look forward to spending quality time together as we do roll call votes on all of these noncontroversial, bipartisan bills this week, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Cantor Martha Novick, who for the last 36 years has filled Temple Emanu-El, in Westfield, New Jersey, with her warmth and her voice.

Over the years, she has brought hundreds of students to Washington, D.C., to introduce them to social justice, advocacy, and action.

She has performed leading roles for the Metropolitan Opera Association and the National Shakespeare Theatre and has appeared as a soloist with the Jerusalem Symphony, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and the Westfield Symphony.

Cantor Novick is a performer and an innovator, creating the Shabbat Hallelu worship service, which has become a national model, and working tirelessly to find a balance between traditional and modern musical styles of worship.

We are grateful to Cantor Novick for all she has done and for her commitment to Temple Emanu-El and its greater community in her new role as Cantor Emeritus.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6089, the Stop Iranian Drones Act, and to speak favorably about all of the important legislation the House is moving today to address Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine.

The Stop Iranian Drones Act codifies crucial language that ensures we can impose sanctions on Iranian drones under current laws. Sanctions are a very powerful tool, as we have seen in the last 2 months as we have imposed powerful sanctions on Russia since its invasion, but I think we need to go further, and my bill, H.R. 6930, the Asset Seizure for Ukrainian Reconstruction Act, gives us the tools to do just that.

Let me say a few words about it.

In the last few weeks, we have seen across the United States, Europe, and the world the seizure of yachts, villas, and banks accounts belonging to Russian oligarchs who have supported the cruel regime of Vladimir Putin. Recently, with the help of the FBI, a $90-

million yacht was seized in Europe. Ninety million dollars is actually pretty cheap for a Russian oligarch's yacht. Some of these boats run up to $600 million. Up to $300 billion of Russian Central Bank assets have been seized or frozen by the United States and our allies.

All these actions raise a very important question. Think about the destruction in Ukraine, the thousands of people who have been killed, the atrocities, and the bodies of men and women left in the streets as Russian soldiers and occupiers are expelled by the brave Ukrainian defenders.

Can we imagine if there is, for example, a cease-fire that puts the immediate violence to rest--we hope that happens--but can we imagine at that moment giving all of this wealth, all of Russia's wealth, the yachts, the bank accounts, the villas, and the planes back to Putin and his cronies as Ukraine lies in ruin and as the Ukrainians bury their dead?

I think the answer is no. We cannot imagine doing that. We will not do that. I don't believe that the Biden administration intends to do that. But the law here is very complicated. These assets are not actually seized. They are merely frozen and blocked.

So this legislation--which I urge all of my colleagues to support today, a bipartisan bill--asks the administration to come up with a mechanism that would enable us to take this wealth and to sell it, to dispose of it, and to use the proceeds to help the people and Government of Ukraine rebuild their country.

Yes, it is complicated. If we apply our American legal constructs to these men and women who have served Putin loyally all these years, it looks like they are the owners of these assets. One of them owns the Chelsea football team in Great Britain. Some own property in the United States. But, in fact, Mr. Speaker, if you understand how Russia works, then you understand that the true owner of all of these assets is one man. It is Putin. These are pooled assets. He can use them whenever he wants.

So I believe it is fitting that we should pass legislation encouraging the administration to use the wealth that has supported this cruel regime to help to rebuild the country that the Putin regime is destroying.

It is the right thing to do, and it is the practical thing to do because this reconstruction effort will, in fact, cost up to hundreds of billions of dollars. We should not be saddled with the full cost of that. Let's use Russia's money to rebuild Ukraine.

Madam Speaker, when people sometimes ask me to name an unusual fun fact about myself, something that no one would quite believe would be true, I sometimes say that at a younger point in my life I had a chance to write and negotiate a four act parody performance of ``West Side Story'' with the Russian Government. I owe that experience to Secretary Madeleine Albright.

I was a young speech writer at the State Department when she became Secretary of State. I was so thrilled to have that opportunity because here I was an immigrant from Poland when it was a Communist country. Our new Secretary of State was an immigrant from Czechoslovakia, leaving that country under duress with her family when it became a Communist country. I felt a kinship with this extraordinary American, a sense that we saw the world in similar terms.

I saw her in every part of the world stand up for our country, for our values, for our interest. I saw her face down dictators and comfort their victims. I saw her sense of fun.

In 1997, we were on our way to a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, in Malaysia, and we learned a couple of days in advance that there was a tradition that every delegation would put on a skit at the end of this diplomatic meeting, something very, very unusual. We heard, furthermore, that the United States had developed a reputation for really sucking at the skit. That was not acceptable to Madeleine Albright.

She was going to go and stand up for democracy in Burma and Cambodia and have a standoff with the Chinese over the South China Sea, but we were also going to win the skit. So she assigned me to write a brand new version of ``Don't Cry for me Argentina'' from ``Evita,'' which became ``Don't Cry for Me ASEANs.'' We all got up there and performed it, not really knowing what the reaction would be. It was reviewed in Playbill on Broadway. It was such a surprising hit.

We learned something really interesting, in diplomacy you can actually say anything, no matter how sensitive, no matter how potentially offensive to your diplomatic partners around the world, if you make it rhyme and you put it in a song.

So the next year we got even more ambitious, and we went to the Russians, and said, Would you like to do ``West Side Story'' with us? They said, Yes. So my job over the most stressful week of my life, counting my last two elections, was to negotiate into long hours of the night with the Russian diplomats the jokes that we would make in this four-act production of ``West Side Story.''

We didn't think that they would do it until the last minute. The night before the performance, at midnight, the foreign minister of Russia, Yevgeny Primakov, who had been the head of their KGB, stumbled in with his aides into Secretary Albright's suite completely drunk, and said, We are ready to rehearse. We knew that we had it.

Those were obviously simpler days, better days, when we could fight with the Russians on all kinds of issues, but still find fellowship and some friendship and some opportunity to laugh together.

Times have changed. When I look at what is happening right now to the brave people of Ukraine and the evil that Russia has unleashed on them, and so many other terrible things that the government of Vladimir Putin has done in recent years, I thank goodness for what Secretary of State Madeleine Albright did in the 1990s, particularly her role in leading the first expansion of the NATO alliance.

She understood and saw, before most people, that it would be unjust to stay allied with Europe's old democracies, France, Germany, the United Kingdom forever, but Europe's new democracies never, simply because they had once, against their will, had been subjugated by the Soviet Union.

She also saw it would be unwise, in fact reckless, to allow these Eastern European democracies to stay in a gray zone of insecurity, to signal to Russia that it could, in effect, do what it wanted in this zone, that America would not defend these countries.

She said then of NATO expansion that it was basically about expanding the part of Europe where wars do not happen. By making clear that we, the United States, will fight, if necessary, to defend our allies there, we would make the necessity of doing so actually far less likely. She was right.

Not a single member of NATO, old or new, has ever been attacked on European soil to this day. The only countries Russia has attacked are countries that do not have NATO's defense guarantee.

I think one reason she saw these things is because as an immigrant to America, as an immigrant from tyranny, she saw America from the inside but also from the outside. She saw what America means--what the idea of America means to a human rights defender in Burma, to a dissident in China, to a refugee from violence in Kosovo or Bosnia. She comforted so many of those people and convinced them that America was on their side.

She believed America is a special country, indeed, an indispensable country. She understood that our influence in the world comes not just from the example of our power, but from the power of our example at home.

In her last years, when I would see her, she would often tell me that one of her greatest regrets was she never had a chance to run for office. She was jealous of those of us who had worked with her over the years who decided to run for Congress because she understood that we can't do anything for others if we are not safe and strong at home in our own great, American democracy.

Years ago, when I worked for her she gave a commencement address, and I will just close with these words that she spoke: ``There is no certain roadmap to success, either for individuals or for generations. Ultimately, it is a matter of judgment, a question of choice. In making that choice, let us remember that there is not a page of American history, of which we are proud, that was authored by a chronic complainer or prophet of despair. We are doers. We have a responsibility, as others have had in theirs, not to be prisoners of history, but to shape history; a responsibility to fill the role of pathfinder, and to build with others a global network of purpose and law that will protect our citizens, defend our interests, preserve our values, and bequeath to future generations a legacy as proud as the one that we honor today.

``To that mission, I pledge my own best efforts and summon yours.''

We pledge our best efforts to that mission here today, and we summon those of everybody who is watching this evening.

Madam Speaker, from war in Europe to pandemic around the world to potential crisis in Asia, one of the lessons we are learning is that America should never be dependent on strategic adversaries like China or Russia for the goods most critical to our economic and national security.

Whether it is PPE, pharmaceutical ingredients, microchips, or the advanced battery technologies that will power the future, we must bring our supply chains home.

We can do this by enacting into law the bipartisan supply chain resiliency provisions in the America COMPETES Act.

This section of the bill, which I helped write, makes one of the biggest investments to spur domestic manufacturing in our Nation's history. It has been endorsed by the National Association of Manufacturers, the United Steelworkers, the National Defense Industry Association, and more than 20 organizations, and the list is growing each day.

I urge that any competitiveness bill that goes to the President for his signature include these important provisions in the America COMPETES Act.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize 1st Sergeant Christopher Coffin, who tragically lost his life serving his country during Operation Iraq Freedom.

1st Sergeant Chris Coffin was assigned to the 352nd Civil Affairs Battalion when the vehicle he was traveling in was forced off the road by insurgents on July 1, 2003. He died that day protecting a convoy that had travelled from Kuwait to Baghdad.

Sgt. Coffin was born in Branchburg, New Jersey in 1951 and spent most of his childhood there. In 1978, while attending Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, he met his wife, Betsy. The two of them shared a love for the outdoors, and would frequently travel together to ski the Rocky Mountains.

Chris was also a National Park Ranger, serving at Gettysburg National Military Park, Pennsylvania and at Mount Rainier National Park, Washington. At Mount Rainier, he was a climbing ranger and was responsible for saving the lives of many injured or trapped visitors. He took such pride in the daily raising and lowering of our nation's flag at the Paradise Ranger Station that his friends, even to this day, remember the huge smile beaming on Chris' face as he walked to the flagpole.

Chris was a loving husband, a proud serviceman who always took care of his soldiers, a National Park Ranger who led search and rescue missions to save the lives of park visitors, and a friend to everyone who was fortunate to have met him.

Madam Speaker, please join me today in recognizing the life of 1st Sergeant Christopher Coffin.

Madam Speaker, I regretfully missed one vote on Monday, September 20, 2021. On Roll Call vote No. 262, S. 189, The Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2021, I would have voted YEA.

Mr. Speaker, 3 weeks ago, the remnants of Hurricane Ida slammed into New Jersey claiming 30 lives and devastating my district.

President Biden's major disaster declaration unlocked the financial help that we need, and today Congress is heeding our call to fund that assistance with billions of dollars to help homeowners and small businesses rebuild and to support the flood control projects that we desperately need the Army Corps to complete to prevent the next disaster.

While we need the help--and I am proud to have played my part in securing it--we also know that the solution to these increasingly catastrophic storms can't simply be that we apply to FEMA to help fix our homes every 5 years or that we keep building ever higher and higher flood walls. We have got to recognize that climate change is 4 feet of water in your basement, Mr. Speaker, and the cost of not dealing with it is far greater than the cost of transitioning away from fossil fuels.

We can resign ourselves to half a country on fire and half the country under water, or we can lead the world to clean energy. I prefer to do that.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of what is now our only remaining opportunity to understand the attack on the Capitol.

January 6 was a day when democracy in America almost gave way to anarchy. It was also the worst day for law enforcement in America since 9/11.

Yes, the courts can tell us who brutally attacked our brave police officers that day; who tried to stop, by violence, the peaceful transfer of power from one President to another.

But they can't tell us why this happened; how and why did so many ordinary Americans come to believe that storming our Capitol was a perfectly normal thing to do; how did this movement become radicalized, and what drives it to this day.

Because the lies are still being told, and I am not going to move on from confronting a lie as others refuse to move on from promoting that lie.

If somebody voted against a bipartisan commission and opposes this select committee, it can only be because they don't want to know the answers to the questions that still remain.

Madam Speaker, I am going to vote ``yes'' because I want to know those answers so that this will never happen again.

Mr. Speaker, the INVEST in America Act will put millions of Americans to work building 21st century infrastructure that will make us again the envy of the world.

This is not Eisenhower 7.0, as the chairman often reminds us. Of course, we are going to fix our highways, but we are not just going to keep building bigger and wider ones. We are going to do something as new and as bold today as the Interstate Highway System was in the 1950s.

So, yes, the bill invests in EV charging. Yes, it makes record investments in passenger rail, including our important Hudson Tunnel between New Jersey and New York.

And please, don't tell New Jersey commuters that they are riding the Green New Deal to work every day. They just want better trains that will get there faster than they did 100 years ago.

Anyone who wants to do just what we have been doing here for the last few decades is basically saying they want to let other countries, like China, master and market the clean energy technologies of the future.

Well, I am not going to cede our leadership. I want America to win. I want America to do big and bold and great things again.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to vote for this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor BSA Troop 19 in Short Hills, New Jersey, and their historic first class of female Eagle Scouts.

Five members in the troop in my district earned this prestigious rank in the first year young women were able to obtain the status in the organization's 111-year history.

I first met Katelyn Cannon, Keira Lowden, Riya Tyagi, and Bridget and Morgan Lomax virtually in February and I was lucky enough to attend their Eagle ceremony earlier this month. Their pioneering leadership has paved the way for many more young women to follow.

From creating a nonprofit corporation, to leading conservation efforts for koalas; to preserving and digitizing hundreds of hours of music for the New Jersey Youth Symphony; to building and installing houses for bats in local open spaces, these Scouts have gone above and beyond.

The Scouting community is better with Katelyn, Keira, Riya, Bridget, and Morgan as Eagle Scouts.

Congratulations to these trailblazing young women, and thank you to their Scoutmaster, Daniel Cannon.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Carolyn Masaitis, a beloved crossing guard from Basking Ridge, New Jersey. Carolyn passed away on May 17th, 2020, after a courageous battle with cancer.

Carolyn was a cherished member of her community who spent the last 28 years ensuring the safety of Basking Ridge children as a crossing guard near the Liberty Comer School. Along with her husband, George, Carolyn was a source of love and support to the students and families who knew her.

Carolyn prepared goody bags full of snacks and stickers on holidays, gave cards and small gifts on birthdays, and always had treats on hand for the neighborhood dogs. She never forgot to ask how a sick family member was doing and continually kept up to date with those around her.

I join the Basking Ridge community in mourning her loss. Carolyn exemplified what it means to be an upstanding citizen and neighbor. Her presence will be missed by all.