Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, this bill is a clear example of government overreach.

What business does the government have micromanaging how any sporting association runs their league? Having a congressional vote to dictate the terms of participation in a private sporting league is a slippery slope. What is next, voting on what uniforms the Ducks should wear each Saturday or, more sinisterly, who can participate based on race, religion, or national origin?

Government has a role, and this isn't it.

How do my colleagues propose to enforce this bill? Ohio passed the Save Women's Sports Act, where a girl would have to verify her gender by an exam of her external and internal anatomy.

Traumatizing girls who happen to be late in physically maturing or naturally have a more athletic build to satisfy extreme political agendas is fear-mongering, cowardice, and downright creepy.

Who will be doing these inspections? We do not need Taliban-like enforcers in our schools.

Every day, women are injured and murdered in domestic violence and children are murdered in their classrooms. If you want to protect women and girls, let's work on that. Until then, let's be honest about what this is: political propaganda that has nothing to do with lowering costs for working Americans.

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

I rise in support of H.R. 152, the Federal Disaster Assistance Coordination Act.

This legislation amends the Disaster Recovery Reform Act to help Federal agencies streamline and consolidate information collection and preliminary damage assessments following disasters.

After a major disaster, there is no time to wait for bureaucracy. However, Federal recovery assistance following disasters is currently hampered by inefficient information collection and assessments conducted by multiple agencies.

This bill will remove information collection barriers that currently impede disaster aid. It creates a working group to identify duplicative assessments and propose their elimination.

Further, it would streamline Federal disaster recovery efforts by concluding that a single agency is sufficient to conduct damage assessments to account for the needs of disaster victims.

The Federal Government can and should be doing this smarter.

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

Mr. Speaker, as stewards of taxpayer dollars, we need to ensure that we are spending our money as efficiently as possible.

Government should work. As we have seen in fires in Oregon, hurricanes in North Carolina and Florida, and currently the horrific fires in Los Angeles, when people suffer from a natural disaster, it is imperative that they get the help that they need. They have lost everything, and the last thing we should be doing is dragging them through duplicative bureaucracy.

That is why this bill is so important. This bipartisan bill passed the House on suspension in the 116th, 117th, and 118th Congresses. This bill will help disaster survivors by taking a step toward streamlining the Federal Government's fragmented approach to disaster assistance.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and, hopefully, the Senate will move it through. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 153. This bill would create a new online system for tracking Federal disaster projects and assistance.

People should know how and where their disaster funds are being spent without wading through reams of government paperwork. The legislation simplifies the data collection process for Federal disaster recovery projects. To increase transparency, this bill would also create a page on USAspending.gov where anyone can track agency disaster recovery activities and the amount of assistance expended by the agency on a quarterly basis.

Federal agencies need to be accountable to the victims of disasters and to the taxpayers who funded these agencies' really important work. We also need to allow Federal disaster victims peace of mind when they are at their most vulnerable.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me and support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the House passed this bipartisan bill on suspension in the 116th, 117th, and 118th Congresses. I look forward to the Senate taking up this bill, given how important it is with the massive natural disasters that we are seeing. I certainly hope that we in Congress fund the IT infrastructure so that we can get this done and get this done quickly.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 164, my legislation with Representative Ezell. This bill empowers publicly owned electric utilities to implement hazard mitigation improvements during disaster recovery.

When disasters strike, they leave a trail of destruction, including damaged energy infrastructure that needs to be immediately repaired to restore power. At the same time, this can present an opportunity to improve the resilience of power infrastructure to reduce the risk of outages or fires in the future.

I have spoken with many FEMA employees, and they feel like they have their hands tied because of rules that are in place that prevent them from being able to fund investments in resilience and infrastructure.

As we are seeing more extreme weather because of climate change, we need to step up and spend taxpayer dollars more efficiently and better. That means that we have to change this law because the current law prevents FEMA from reimbursing utilities for hazard mitigation as they make temporary disaster repairs. This leads to wasted opportunities, more frequent power outages, and higher costs passed on to ratepayers.

Commonsense solutions, like H.R. 164, are more critical than ever to keep energy costs low for American families. This bill maximizes FEMA's resources and helps communities protect critical infrastructure, leading to lower costs for utilities and families in the wake of future disasters. More importantly, it allows us to use taxpayer dollars to invest in resiliency as we are seeing more extreme weather coming at us every single day.

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

Mr. Speaker, the costs of recovering from increasingly frequent severe weather events often raise the price of Americans' electric bills. This bill would help public power make their systems more resilient at the time of repair, increasing efficiency and cutting overall costs.

I can't think of a more important set of bills to be passing at this time as the first bills coming up on suspension. These bills invest in our infrastructure and help FEMA be more transparent and utilize taxpayer dollars more efficiently.

Again, I thank my colleague, Representative Ezell, for prioritizing and moving this bill forward.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 189, the Securities and Exchange Commission Real Estate Leasing Authority Revocation Act.

This bill revokes the independent real estate leasing authority of the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. Congress granted the SEC independent leasing authority in 1990, which means the SEC does not use the GSA, the General Services Administration, for its real estate needs, as many government agencies do.

While some Federal agencies have used their independent real estate leasing authority successfully, since securing their own authority, the SEC has wasted time and taxpayer dollars with failed procurements.

For example, in 2010, after the SEC leased 900,000 square feet of space in the Constitution Center building in Washington, D.C., the SEC's own inspector general found that the SEC had overestimated the amount of space needed, attempted to eliminate competition among building owners, and violated the Antideficiency Act.

After this incident, the SEC pledged to Congress that the agency would use the GSA to handle its real estate procurements, but the SEC has yet to follow through on that pledge and has since canceled procurements, had lawsuits, and wasted taxpayer dollars.

Congresswoman Norton introduced an identical bill during the 118th Congress. That bill, H.R. 388, passed both the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the House of Representatives on voice votes. Unfortunately, H.R. 388 was not even considered by the Senate.

It is time for Congress to return the SEC's leasing authority to the GSA, the Federal Government's civilian real estate arm.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

Mr. Speaker, since securing its own real estate leasing authority, the SEC has wasted time and money with failed procurements. It is past time for the SEC to cede that authority back to the GSA.

My colleague, Congresswoman Holmes Norton, has explained this very thoroughly and clearly.

Mr. Speaker, I support H.R. 189, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I rise in support of the Amtrak Executive Bonus Disclosure Act. This bill would require Amtrak to post the executive leadership team compensation annually on the Amtrak website.

Congress already requires the Nation's intercity passenger railroad to submit this information to Congress. This bill would increase transparency of the information to the public and require it to be posted online as well, as Amtrak has now done for the last 2 years.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Graves, Representatives Frederica Wilson, Troy Nehls, and David Rouzer for working together to bring this very important legislation forward to increase transparency for the American people. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. It is a good bill. It should pass.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to state my opposition to the National Defense Authorization Act.

First, let me be clear, I support any funding to keep Americans safe, protect and fairly compensate our troops for their sacrifices, and to improve our national security. I also support some of what is included in this act: pay raises for our servicemembers, expanding access to contraceptives for female servicemembers under TRICARE, and properly funding the replacement of poor and failing military housing and barracks.

However, it is simply irresponsible to give more money to an agency that accounts for half of our discretionary spending but can't pass an audit. This is an agency that spends over half its budget on defense contractors who have no incentive against price gouging, some who overcharge the Department of Defense by 40 to 50 percent with no accountability and no consequences. Year after year, we dump money into defense contractors that grow fatter while our servicemembers and their families struggle to scrape by.

Since the election, we have heard a lot of talk about improving government efficiency and cutting waste, and I agree. It is incumbent upon us to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars, but instead of proposing cuts to Social Security benefits for seniors or cutting veterans' benefits to our servicemembers, benefits that they have earned, let's start where there are clear savings to be had.

In this NDAA, the Pentagon would get $10 billion more than last year. Simply put, the Pentagon just failed its seventh audit, and it is getting nearly $900 billion already. Why should we keep writing blank checks and expecting things to change when there is no incentive to do so?

Without robust accountability, all this is, is a transfer of wealth from hardworking American taxpayers to private defense contractors in the military industrial complex. Without meaningful oversight for how my constituents' taxpayer dollars are spent, I plan on voting no.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 7671, legislation authored by Representative Neguse and cosponsored by Representatives D'Esposito, Titus, Ezell, and Stanton.

The bill will incentivize faster recovery for federally declared disasters and lower costs. It also enables State and local emergency managers to build capacity for future disaster preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery.

When managing Federal disaster declarations, States administer FEMA grants that may be worth billions of

dollars. FEMA allows States to utilize a percentage of those grants to cover the cost of administrator requirements and grant management.

Current law requires management costs to be strictly tied to each specific disaster declaration. However, most States are managing recovery for multiple disaster declarations simultaneously.

A project inspector working a full day may visit multiple disaster sites in a State. If those sites are associated with more than one disaster, all associated costs must be parceled out to possibly dozens of open grants. This is inefficient, wastes taxpayer dollars, and slows recovery.

This bill encourages efficiency by allowing States to use their management funds across all open disasters. Additionally, H.R. 7671 helps build capacity at FEMA and at the local level by rewarding applicants that complete recoveries from major disaster declarations quickly.

One of the most common concerns we hear from emergency management experts is that FEMA, States, and local governments do not have sufficient personnel or resources to prepare for and respond to disasters. Increasing efficiency and building capacity is one of the most important actions we can take to ensure nationwide disaster readiness and empower State and local emergency managers. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Neguse).

Mr. Speaker, emergency managers need more resources and capacity to effectively respond to increasingly frequent and severe disasters. This bill incentivizes faster disaster recovery, gets communities back on their feet, and creates more capacity in Federal and local emergency management offices.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 9541, the bill I cosponsored with Representative Ezell. This bill empowers publicly owned electric utilities to implement hazard mitigation improvements during disaster recovery.

When disasters strike, they leave a trail of destruction, including damaged energy infrastructure that needs to be immediately repaired to restore power.

At the same time, this can present an opportunity to improve the resilience of power infrastructure to reduce the risk of outages in the future. Unfortunately, current law prevents FEMA from reimbursing utilities for hazard mitigation as they make temporary disaster repairs. This leads to wasted opportunity, more frequent power outages, and higher costs passed on to ratepayers.

Commonsense solutions like H.R. 9541 are more critical than ever to keep energy costs low for American families. This bill maximizes FEMA's resources and helps communities protect critical infrastructure, leading to lower costs for utilities and families in the wake of future disasters.

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

Mr. Speaker, the cost of recovering from increasingly frequent severe weather events often raises the price of America's electric bills.

This bill will help public power make their systems more resilient at the time of repair, increasing efficiency and cutting overall costs.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague Mr. Molinaro for sponsoring this really important legislation.

I rise in support of the Amtrak Executive Bonus Disclosure Act. This bill requires Amtrak to post the compensation of its executive leadership team annually on the Amtrak website. Congress already requires the Nation's intercity passenger railroads to submit this information to Congress. This bill increases transparency by making this information readily available to the public.

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

Mr. Speaker, this bill will increase transparency at Amtrak. I urge my colleagues to support this very important legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the University of Oregon Ducks on their 12-0 season and having the No. 1 ranking in college football.

Congratulations to Dan Lanning who led this football team to the only undefeated record in college football.

I also want to give a shout-out to quarterback Dillon Gabriel who has thrown over 3,200 yards and is the Big Ten's offensive player of the year; the offensive and defensive lines that continue to win games in the trenches; Bryce Boettcher who leads our team in tackles; Tez Johnson who leads our team in receptions; and Jordan James who has rushed over 1,000 yards this season.

We Oregonians are proud of our Ducks, and we wish our team luck against Penn State tomorrow. We will be cheering you on to the title. Go Ducks.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Rural Health Month. One-third of Oregon's counties are frontier counties, which have even more struggles accessing healthcare than our rural communities.

We need to make sure that the people who are feeding our country--our farmers, our fishermen, and our ranchers--can access the healthcare that they need. The barriers are great.

I was just able to get $2 million to build a chemotherapy care clinic in Curry County. It would take 7\1/2\ hours for people needing chemotherapy to be able to go get treatment, having to travel by car on dangerous roads. We need to do better.

These people are the heart of our country, and we need to invest in healthcare for our rural communities.

Mr. Speaker, my father was in the fire service when this was passed in 1983. He retired in 1991, and because of this wrong, he will get less than people who have private pensions simply because he chose to protect and serve our community.

I agree with what has been said earlier. We need to fix what is broken and do it the right way. It is why I believe we should pass the Social Security Expansion Act, so that we can extend the solvency of Social Security. That is not what is on the floor today.

I could say a lot of things, but I think my cousin said it best. He called me when I was on the way here. He is suffering permanent health effects from the time he spent at the World Trade Center after 9/11 and for the time he spent in the fire service running into fires when everybody else was running away. He said, public employees, police officers, teachers, firefighters, and their spouses are punished for our commitment to serve our community. While trust fund babies and day traders get their full benefits, we do not. This is only part of the solution.

He said, Val, tell them they need to pass this bill. It is time to right this wrong. We have earned our benefits.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, this week I voted against H.R. 8790. I support parts of this bill. For example, it would create a Community Wildfire Risk Reduction Program, in line with a recommendation from the non-partisan Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission. It would also increase tribal inclusion in forest management.

But I cannot overlook the unfunded mandates in H.R. 8790. For instance, I strongly support creating a Community Wildfire Defense Research Program within the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) to provide research that would improve the wildfire-resistance of structures and communities. However, JFSP is already oversubscribed and the bill ignores the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission's recommendation to significantly increase the program's funding. H.R. 8790 would greatly expand JFSP's responsibilities without a corresponding increase in funding, resulting in less applied research being provided to land managers. This is not the way to address the wildfire crisis.

I am also concerned about what is not in H.R. 8790. Over 100 recommendations from the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission were not addressed, including many recommendations to support and expand the workforce. You cannot talk about the wildfire crisis without talking about the firefighters who do body-breaking work to protect our forests and communities. It is unacceptable that Congress has not passed a permanent solution to the firefighter pay cliff. There should be no question that federal wildland firefighters deserve at least $15 an hour and a daily pay supplemental when they are working on long-duration wildfires, prescribed fires, or deployed away from their duty station to a high-risk fire area. I am a cosponsor of bipartisan legislation, H.R. 5169, the Wildland Firefighter Paycheck Protection Act, which would finally ensure that these heroes are paid well for their work. This bill should have been included within H.R. 8790.

For these reasons, I do not believe H.R. 8790 is sufficient for the communities I represent that have been experiencing record-setting wildfire seasons and expect Congress to approach the issue with the seriousness it deserves.

I will be sending a letter urging Senate leadership to improve the bill and send it back for reconsideration in the House. I want to achieve a better outcome that can solve problems and make a difference in our forests. I stand ready to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to achieve that goal.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this unnecessary amendment that seeks to restrict the rights and interests of Federal employees by calling into question the role of official time.

Forty years ago, Congress established official time to ensure that all employees entitled to union representation receive it regardless of whether or not they choose to join the union. Official time ensures Federal employees have a voice at the worksite to resolve disputes, address issues of discrimination or retaliation, and propose improvements to the workplace.

The Federal Government covers the cost of official time activities because under Federal law, unions must provide fair representation to all employees at the worksite, not just those who pay dues, but also those who benefit from their unions bargaining for better wages, hours, and working conditions, even though they aren't union members.

Opponents of public sector unions claim that official time is a waste of taxpayer dollars. This is false. The cost of official time amounts to just one-tenth of 1 percent of all the salaries and benefits paid to Federal employees in a given year.

This amendment is an attack on official time and on public sector unions, plain and simple. I urge my colleagues to oppose any and all efforts to take rights away from workers and to oppose this antilabor amendment.