Floor Statements

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

I rise in strong support of H.R. 3107, the Homeland Security Cybersecurity

Boots-on-the-Ground Act. This is a bill I introduced to address fundamental challenges in the cyber workforce at the Department of Homeland Security. It has gained bipartisan support, as acknowledged by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meehan), our chairman.

Since the attacks of September 11, the urgent need to fill critical national security positions at times has led to actions that may have inadvertently heightened our vulnerability and fostered an over- reliance on private contractors. From a recruitment and retention standpoint, it is critical that the Department of Homeland Security clearly identifies job classifications for the cyber positions it seeks to fill. That was one of the major conclusions of the Cyber Skills Task Force that the Homeland Security Advisory Committee assembled at the request of then-DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano in 2012.

I introduced the Homeland Security Cybersecurity Boots-on-the-Ground Act to implement a number of the task force's key recommendations.

First, the bill directs DHS to develop and issue comprehensive occupation classifications for persons performing activities in furtherance of the Department's cybersecurity missions.

Secondly, the bill requires the Secretary to assess the readiness and capacity of the Department to meet its cybersecurity mission. As part of the assessment, the Department has to identify where positions are located, whether these positions are vacant, and whether they are held by full-time employees or contractors.

Thirdly, the bill requires the Secretary to develop a comprehensive workforce strategy. This strategy will be implemented to enhance the readiness, capacity, training, recruitment, and retention of the Department's cybersecurity workforce.

Finally, the bill requires the Secretary to establish and maintain a process to verify that individuals employed by private contractors who serve in cybersecurity positions at the Department receive initial and recurrent information security training.

H.R. 3107 takes a holistic approach to the challenge of recruiting, training, and retraining the cybersecurity workforce that DHS needs.

I thank Ranking Member Meehan for all of his support and for all of the work that we have done together in a bipartisan way to bring this legislation to the floor, as well as the suite of cybersecurity legislation that we brought forth to the floor today.

I want to also thank the staff of both the committee and my office for the work and the diligence that they have put into bringing forth what I call real 21st century legislation. It is very important legislation. And our very way of life depends on its success.

Since 2008, the Department of Homeland Security has been the lead Federal civilian agency for cybersecurity. It has been responsible for working with Federal agencies to secure their IT networks, and the private sector, particularly critical infrastructure owners and operators, to raise the level of cyber hygiene and address threats in a timely manner.

My legislation will help ensure that DHS has the workforce it needs to execute these critical responsibilities. For that reason, I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 3107.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Bass) for her tireless commitment to the children of our Nation's child welfare system and for extending time to speak on this timely and important legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the House's legislative efforts to combat human trafficking, a very cruel form of modern-day slavery. I urge all my colleagues to support the legislation before us, including H.R. 5081, the Strengthening Child Welfare Response to Trafficking Act, a bill that seeks to improve the child welfare response to trafficking by requiring States to have procedures for identifying, assessing, and documenting child victims of trafficking. H.R. 5081 would also help identify, assess, and document child victims of sex trafficking throughout the United States.

Unfortunately, human trafficking is a big, booming business, and I cannot--and I will not--stand idly by and watch as our country becomes the center for smuggling human beings and human sexual exploitation.

We have a major crisis on the border of our Nation and in big cities like New York and others across the Nation that have been exacerbated and enabled by highly organized crime syndicates. If we understand the methods these groups use and begin by eliminating their sources of revenue, we can save people from human rights abuses and exploitation. Young girls are sold as sexual property, and boys and men are forced to work for cheap labor after they are convinced to sign unfair labor contracts. Their government documents are taken from them, and they are left with no one and nothing.

The people who want to do harm to our most vulnerable are likely to get more money from trafficking a child for sex than from the illicit drug trade. Awareness concerning human trafficking has increased significantly in recent years, but awareness is not enough.

The United States is now considered a destination country according to the United States Department of State. Yes, Mr. Speaker, you heard it correctly. Human trafficking isn't something that is just occurring in other countries or other continents. It is happening right here in America.

In the United States, human trafficking rakes in $9.8 billion for the use and abuse of victims, many of whom are children. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children estimates that each year 100,000 children are falling victim to the industry within our own borders.

I am proud to join my colleagues and the ever-growing number of Americans who are standing up to the objectionable practice of human trafficking. Congress is taking the additional steps to protect our children with this legislation. Again, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 5081 and all of the legislation concerning human trafficking before the House. The time is now to protect children from being victims of human trafficking.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and missed the vote on the Motion on Ordering the Previous Question on the Rule. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no'' on rollcall No. 428.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 428 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained in my district due to travel cancellations caused by inclement weather and I missed the votes on Monday, July 14, 2014. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 405, H.R. 4195--The Federal Register Modernization Act and ``yea'' on rollcall No. 406, H.R. 5029--The International Science and Technology Cooperation Act of 2014.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the

ranking member who has done a yeoman's job in helping alongside our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to move this forward.

Mr. Speaker, the Committee on Homeland Security has a great stake and a long history of trying to help the troubled Chemical Facility Anti- Terrorism Standards, or CFATS, program succeed. Consideration of H.R. 4007 today is our latest effort.

While I feel that it would have been better to bring this bill before the full House under a rule, so that Members could offer amendments, I want to commend my counterpart on the Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies Subcommittee, Mr. Meehan, for his diligence and commitment to moving the legislation through regular order in committee.

Upon introduction of this bill, I had a number of concerns with the bill. Amazingly, the original legislation had a requirement that required CFATS to terminate after 2 years.

It also did not provide an authorization of appropriations or codify the critical infrastructure protection program within the Homeland Security Act. This was corrected by Democratic amendments, many of which I offered, that were accepted in committee.

A major impetus for action to authorize the CFATS program was certainly the explosion last April in West, Texas, at a fertilizer facility containing a huge amount of ammonium nitrate. As we later learned, the facility was willfully off the regulatory grid and unknown to DHS.

Through the committee process, language was adopted to give DHS new authority to bring so-called outlier facilities into compliance. We had an energetic debate at subcommittee with respect to whether nongovernmental third-party contractors should be utilized to carry out compliance visits and inspections.

I appreciate the majority's view that augmenting the DHS inspector workforce in this fashion could be helpful with respect to the massive backlog of security inspections that exist in the CFATS program. However, there are other ways to increase capacity without contracting out jobs.

Further, there is a troubled history with the CFATS program of overreliance on contractors. I believe that, if DHS goes down this path, there need to be structures in place to ensure that work done by contractors is promptly and accurately fed into the regulatory system. That is why I offered language in committee to build in oversight and accountability. I am pleased to say that it was accepted.

A lingering concern--underscored by the Steelworkers, Teamsters, and others--is even if there is broad recognition that, for CFATS to work, we need chemical workers to come forward to report security vulnerabilities and CFATS compliance issues, no guaranteed whistleblower protections attach.

Men and women that risk their positions and paychecks to make their workplace, their communities, and the Nation more secure deserve access to meaningful whistleblower protections. Should H.R. 4007 be approved today, I would put whistleblower protections high on the to-do list for the Senate.

Then there is the matter of the statutory exemptions barring DHS from regulatory water, wastewater, and other critical infrastructure chemical facilities. The bill perpetuates the exemption without consideration of the arguments that former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff and others have made about the risks.

Encouragingly, the committee accepted the amendment offered by Ranking Member Thompson to require an independent study of the terrorism vulnerabilities associated with the limited authority granted to DHS and the exemption on water and wastewater facilities. The results of that study will be important to inform Congress when the CFATS is up for reauthorization in 3 years.

Overall, I would say that, through the committee process, the bill has been improved. Is there more work to be done? Certainly--that is why I am profoundly disappointed that H.R. 4007 is being considered on suspension.

Many Members of this body that do not have the privilege to sit on the Homeland Security Committee have concerns about the vital, critical infrastructure program that affects their districts, towns, and neighborhoods.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Horsford) for his leadership and for being willing to be one of our distinguished anchors of the Congressional Black Caucus' Special Order, along with Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, who hails from Brooklyn, New York, like myself.

I want to also knowledge the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Ms. Fudge, for her leadership, speaking truth to power at all times.

Mr. Speaker, I stand here today with my colleagues from the Congressional Black Caucus to commemorate, as a beneficiary, a historic decision--a decision that changed this Nation forever, Brown v. The Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court held that racial segregation, the doctrine of separate but equal, violated the guarantee of equal protection in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

The unanimous decision in Brown v. The Board of Education called upon the conscience of this Nation and the principles upon which it had been founded that each of us are created equal and that we are entitled to the full protections of the laws of our land.

Before Brown, the full participation of African Americans and other people of color in our public education system, which was a primary component of our civil society, were prevented and denied almost everywhere in the United States.

The promises of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution that we are created equal and entitled to equal protection of the law were, until the decision in Brown, only words without substance for millions of people, whose exclusion from our society had persisted in the century after the Civil War.

Millions of African Americans and other people of color could not eat in a restaurant, stay in a hotel, obtain a mortgage, or register to vote, even though they were American citizens who paid their taxes, fought for our country, and obeyed the law.

Such racial discrimination was not limited to the States of the former Confederacy. In 1936, after sprinter Jesse Owen returned to the United States for a ticker tape parade in Manhattan, he was forced to enter the Waldorf Astoria on a freight elevator to attend a reception there because the hotel maintained a policy of segregation.

Mr. Speaker, today we have a responsibility not only to commemorate the historic landmark decision of Brown v. The Board of Education, but also to understand its relevance at this moment in our history--a moment when our schools, particularly in New York City, have become more segregated by race than at any other time in the past half century, when enormous disparities in income and wealth threaten to divide this Nation and, indeed, when many of the same tactics used to disenfranchise our parents and grandparents are again being used to disenfranchise African Americans in this generation.

Today, we have a responsibility, an obligation, if you will, to build on the legacy of the Brown decision and to eliminate in our schools, communities, and other institutions the practice of racial segregation, whether intended or unintended, that continues to divide this Nation, and to protect for every American the civil rights to which we are entitled by the Constitution.

It falls on our shoulders to keep up that fight for equality and, quite frankly, to make sure that, as a diverse Nation, we have an appreciation of the diversity of culture, religious, and ethnic backgrounds.

Mr. Speaker, I recall the words of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who wrote that:

Unless our children begin to learn together, there is

little hope that our people will ever learn to live together.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Nevada.

Mr. Chair, today, I rise to oppose H.R. 10 the Success and Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Act, which reauthorizes the charter school program in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

While I recognize that there are public charter schools that are providing students quality public education, I reject the notion that we have to accept inequity between public charter schools and the rest of the public school system. While H.R. 10 does begin to address some of the inequities, it does not go far enough in leveling the playing field between public charter schools and the public non-charter schools--where the overwhelming majority of our children are educated.

Charter accountability, transparency and financial oversight are not sufficiently addressed in H.R. 10, yet they are the cornerstones of inequity between public charter and public non-charter schools. However, through the amendments process, I tried to strengthen the bill.

One of my amendments would have increased financial oversight by limiting the compensation of charter school administrators. Under this amendment, charter school administrators' could not be compensated at a rate higher than the highest paid education official in the state. For New York, that would mean that public charter school administrators could be paid no more than John King, the New York State Commissioner of Education, whose salary is $212,500 per year. This amendment was inspired by a 2013 New York Daily News article which noted that many of the city's charter schools' administrators earned significantly more than the Chancellor of New York City schools. I believe that public charter school resources should be focused on classroom instruction, not exuberant salaries. Unfortunately, this amendment was rejected by the Republicans.

I also tried to increase charter accountability by submitting an amendment requiring charter schools to disclose their student retention rates. In Brooklyn, where families have many charter school choices, it can sometimes be difficult to differentiate between the schools. Parents who are trying to decide where their children should attend school need to have comprehensive information on the performance of public charter schools in their area. Knowing the student retention rate for public charter schools would enable parents and government officials to reach informed decisions about the performance of public charter schools.

Ironically, even the fact that we are reauthorizing charter schools today is yet another example of the inequity between public charter and public non-charter schools. This bill will likely move forward in the Senate, whereas the Elementary and Secondary School Act, which reauthorizes public non-charter schools, languishes in the Senate.

Though my student retention rate amendment was incorporated into the bill, I remain in strong opposition to this bill because it does not go far enough in achieving parity between public charter schools and public non-charter schools.

There are over 49.5 million public school students in America. Public non-charter schools continue to educate the vast majority of students in America. Therefore, we must improve and strengthen public education, so that our children will be able to successfully compete and thrive in a 21st century global economy. To accomplish this both public non- charter and public charter schools must peacefully, co-exist on equitable grounds. No equity will exist until public charter and public non-charter schools have the same accountability, transparency and financial oversight requirements. Otherwise, our children and ultimately our society will continue to suffer the cost of doing nothing.

As the debate regarding the challenges between public charter and public non-charter schools rages on, I hope that policy makers will devote significant time, energy and resources to address issues of inequity.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and missed the amendment votes to H.R. 10 on Friday, May 9, 2014.

Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes'' on rollcall No. 212, the Castor amendment; ``yes'' on rollcall No. 213, the Jackson-Lee amendment; ``yes'' on rollcall No. 214, the Wilson (FL) amendment; ``yes'' on rollcall No. 215, the Langevin amendment; and ``yes'' on rollcall No. 216, the Bonamici amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I stand before you today outraged and baffled that we are in the 21st century and still have to have an Equal Pay Day. Equal Pay Day symbolizes when, more than three months into the year, women's wages finally catch up to what men were paid in the previous year.

Why this is still being debated when the Equal Pay Act was passed 51 years ago is crazy.

How can we as a nation begin to justify unequal pay simply because you are a man and I am a woman? Why does my gender diminish my value to the workforce?

I, and all women, am not asking for any more than what we deserve for being productive, valuable employees.

Today, in 2014, women earn 77 cents for every dollar that a man earns. This is outrageous. It gets even worse for women of color. Black women only earn 64 percent and Hispanic women, even less, just 53 percent of what white men earn. I am appalled by this, and so are the American people. Not only does my gender decrease my pay, but my race does as well.

According to the American Association of University Women, African- American and Hispanic women are paid less than their white peers even when they have the same educational background.

There are a record number of women in the workplace and two-thirds of women are the primary or co-bread winner in their families. Consider the position that the American family, our economy and our nation would be in if we all agreed that women should have equal pay for equal work. Our President said it best, ``When women succeed, America succeeds.''

Women are losing money every year and every hour due to the pay gap. It is time to close the loopholes in the Equal Pay Act.

I urge Speaker Boehner to bring H.R. 377 the Paycheck Fairness Act to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise in opposition to the severely regressive Paul Ryan Budget Proposal, a radical and erosive bill that undermines our national security by slashing funding for essential emergency assistance and jeopardizes our preparedness and safety in natural disasters.

The Ryan Budget would be a fiscal wreck to high-growth states and states affected by natural disasters. In the immediate aftermath of a disaster, states and local areas often depend on help from the Federal Government. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) helps people affected by the disaster get food, water, and shelter, and helps with search-and-rescue missions and providing electric power. FEMA also helps states and local governments repair or replace public facilities and infrastructure, which often is not insured.

Last year New York was completely devastated by Hurricane Sandy. Sandy's impact included the flooding of the New York City Subway system, many communities, the closure of all road tunnels entering Manhattan except the Lincoln Tunnel, and the closure of the New York Stock Exchange for two consecutive days. Thousands of homes and an estimated 250,000 vehicles were destroyed during the storm. Economic losses across New York were estimated to be at least $18 billion. In my district, it was nothing less than a miracle that the section of the Shore Parkway connecting Sheepshead Bay with Canarsie was not destroyed; which by coincidence, a National Park Service project had placed a huge amount of soil near the bridge, which effectively saved it.

The Federal Government's ability to respond to natural disasters, like Hurricane Sandy would be significantly hindered under Chairman Ryan's Budget Proposal and shift very substantial costs to states and localities forcing them to make do with less during difficult times of disaster.

House Republicans continue to push for devastating cuts that threaten the safety net designed to provide the most basic needs for millions of Americans at their most vulnerable time. It is for these reasons that I will vote ``no'' on this budget and I ask my colleagues to oppose this budget as well.

Mr. Speaker, today, I rise in opposition to the severely regressive Paul Ryan Budget Proposal a ``slash and burden'' bill written on the backs of programs and tax cuts that grievously affect low-income and middle-class Americans.

The Ryan plan proposes a pathway to American prosperity by attempting to balance our nation's budget through vicious cuts to programs that working people rely on, paired with cuts to taxes for the wealthy. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, sixty-nine percent of Ryan's cuts would come from low-income programs while the richest one percent of Americans would enjoy nearly a fifty percent tax cut.

One of the many low-income programs that would feel the sharp effects of the Ryan Budget proposal is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also referred to as SNAP. SNAP funding would be cut by $137 billion over ten years effectively starving millions of families and children and furthering the economic instability of Americans.

These cuts would force states to decide whose benefits to reduce or terminate. They would have no good choices; the program already provides an average of $1.40 per person per meal primarily to poor children, working-poor parents, seniors, people with disabilities and others struggling to make ends meet.

These proposed cuts rest on inaccurate claims about how the SNAP program discourages work and encourages waste, fraud and abuse. Chairman Ryan claims that SNAP doesn't encourage recipients to work. Yet, among SNAP households with at least one

working-age, non-disabled adult, more than half work while receiving SNAP and more than eighty percent worked in the year prior to or the year after receiving SNAP. The rates are even higher for families with children; more than sixty percent work while receiving SNAP, and almost ninety percent worked in the prior or subsequent year.

Chairman Ryan and House Republicans continue to push for devastating cuts that virtually eliminate assistance for millions of low-income Americans, instead of working to help lift them out of poverty AND away from government assistance by refusing something as fair and practical as raising the minimum wage.

The Ryan budget threatens the most basic needs of millions of Americans already struggling to make ends meet. It significantly increases hunger, poverty and hardship. It is for these reasons that I will vote NO on this budget and I ask my colleagues to oppose this budget with me.

Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to oppose H.R. 4015, the SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act.

For years, I have worked with my colleagues, hospitals, and doctors to temporarily repair a permanent problem. We have continued placing a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound. The Band-Aid doesn't work anymore. We need some serious treatment for this SGR wound. However, the suture we need is not H.R. 4015.

This bill is just another attempt by Republicans to undermine the law that is the Affordable Care Act. Their weak attempt at yet another delay of ACA's individual mandate will not be accepted by the American people. Millions of Americans are benefiting from ACA. They now have access to free preventative care; they are now no longer denial coverage due to preexisting conditions; and parents can now keep their children on their healthcare plan until age 26.

It is important to recognize that the bill, in its original form, stood as a bipartisan agreement. It was a permanent fix to the SGR problem. To have physicians paid based on merit, using a metric system to access doctors on the quality of care given not the quantity of patients seen, served to benefit the medical community and the patients in their care.

However, the Republicans have poisoned this bipartisan agreement making it impossible for me to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 4015. Specifically, they are delaying ACA's individual mandate for five years by changing the penalty for failing to purchase health insurance to zero (0) until 2019.

There is no argument that a SGR permanent fix is necessary. However, it should not, and will not, be at the expense of hard-working Americans who now have access to health care that they may not have had before the Affordable Care Act.

It is imperative that we continue to work in a bipartisan way to seek a solution to the SGR problem, because H.R. 4015--in its current form-- is not the solution.

I ask my colleagues to join me in voting ``no'' on this bill.

Madam Speaker, today I rise in opposition to H.R. 7, a Republican bill intended only to exacerbate divisions between Americans and to undermine the rights of American women to access health care.

H.R. 7 would effectively deny women access to health insurance coverage that includes abortion, by taking away important tax benefits such as certain tax deductions and premium tax credits used to help pay for the cost of health insurance coverage. This bill is so misguided and invasive that it does not even allow for coverage when a woman's health is in danger.

Despite the Republicans' ``pro-business'' stance, this bill would also limit small businesses' ability to claim existing health care deductions or claim the Small Business Health Tax Credit for those businesses that offer their employees comprehensive health insurance that includes abortion.

Limiting access to these tax deductions and tax credits not only adversely impacts the employees and the small businesses, but also harms the American economy. After all, both Democrats and Republicans agree that small businesses are the engines of our economy.

Quite simply, H.R. 7 intrudes upon the relationship between a woman and her doctor by limiting a woman's ability to access health insurance coverage that includes coverage of abortion and in doing threatens a woman's health. The notion that women are incapable of rational decision regarding their own bodies and their own health does not have any place in the Twenty-First Century.

So far this year, we have not even had an opportunity to vote on the extension of unemployment benefits, nor have we had the opportunity to vote on any meaningful jobs bill. Instead, I am ashamed to say that we waste our time on bills such as H.R. 7 that politicizes women's access to health care and takes our focus off what should be our primary goal--creating jobs! Jobs! Jobs!

I ask my colleagues to oppose this bill.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise in opposition to H.R. 2642, a bill that will starve millions of families and children and further add to the economic instability of American families.

Cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, referred to as ``SNAP,'' by eight billion dollars ($8 billion) over the next ten years, H.R. 2642 will undermine access to healthy food for the many children, disabled people, and senior citizens who account for eighty- three percent of the beneficiaries of the program.

It is estimated that eight hundred and fifty thousand (850,000) households, of which three hundred thousand (300,000) are New Yorkers, will lose on average ninety ($90) dollars per month in SNAP benefits.

While I am glad that the far larger cuts were rejected by the Conference Committee, the loss of ninety ($90) dollars per month is deeply harmful to these households, which are already teetering on the brink of economic catastrophe.

What are we thinking? We are literally taking the food out of the mouths of babes, while continuing to provide generous subsidies to large agro-businesses.

It is for these reasons that I will vote no on this bill and I ask my colleagues to oppose this bill with me.