macleginn/stanford_congress_record_longer_speeches huggingface dataset:
Date: 2005-09-20
Speaker: EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Madam Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise today to voice my support for H.R. 3649. the Sportfishing and Recreational Boating Safety Amendments Act of 2005. The purpose of this bill is very simple: to correct two provisions in the recently passed H.R. 3. the. SAFETEALU bill. One concerns the reauthorization of the Coast Guards boating safety program. and the other. Vehicle Safety Operations and Research funding. The shortterm extension that extended the highway program and the funding of the Recreational Boating Safety program until August 15 did not have this provision. However. SAFETEALU provided for. longterm reauthorization and funding of the Recreational Boating Safety program beginning on October 1. the new fiscal year. So as a result. gas taxes that are collected between August 15 and October -1 from recreational boaters cannot be given to the State boating law administrators to fund their recreational boating safety programs. H.R. 3649 corrects this problem by extending the old Recreational Boating Safety and Sportfish programs until October 1. 2005. when the new funding formulas take effect. [] 1530 Madam Speaker. the Recreational Boating Safety Grant program provides 50/50 matching funds to the States for their recreational boating safety and education programs. These programs save lives. It is our responsibility to see that there is not an interruption in this program. H.R. 3649 also corrects a funding problem that resulted in a $23.7 million reduction in fiscal year 2005 funds for the National Highway Traffic Safety - Administration vehicle safety programs. That highway safety and vehicle safety program funding is split between the highway trust fund and general funds. For fiscal year 2005. appropriations chose to not provide any general fund money to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration vehicle safety program. instead pulling additional resources from the highway trust fund. NHTSAs vehicle safety program then became subject to the same cut in funding as the highway projects are in SAFETEA7LU. If these funds are not restored. certain vehicle safety activities may be significantly impacted. including ongoing research to test and evaluate automobile and numerous research projects designed to save lives and prevent injuries on our Nations roads. So I urge my colleagues to pals H.R. 3649 to ensure that our States receive the necessary matching funds for their recreational boating safety programs between August 15. 2005 and October 1. Madam Speaker. I have no further re.quests for time. I urge the passage of this bill. and I yield back the balance of my time.
Date: 2005-09-20
Speaker: AL GREEN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. I am honored to yield such time as she may consume to the- gentlewoman from New York .
Date: 2005-09-20
Speaker: AL GREEN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker. I rise today to honor the brave crew of STS114 for their hard work and dedication in carrying out the space shuttles returntoflight mission. .The astronauts of STS114 did a superb job. They performed their tasks flawlessly. executing complex maneuvers. conducting several space walks. performing onthefly repairs. and delivering critically needed supplies to the International Space Station. In short. they made it look easy. but in fact we know that it was an extremely challenging mission. I am pleased that this House is honoring their accomplishments today. At the same time. I think they would be the first to acknowledge that they did not do it alone. The STS114 crew was backed by a superb team on the ground who also deserve our praise. The engineers and support staff who made this mission possible should be equally proud of their accomplishments. Their hard work and long hours spent preparing for this mission are fully recognized and gratefully appreciated. Thus. by our actions today. we thank all of those who are responsible. not just the astronauts. but the entire NASA team. thousands of dedicated men and women at NASA centers and at contractot facilities across the country. We thank them for their dedication and perseverance. and we want them to know that they are special to US. NASA has made great strides since the tragic Columbia accident. While it is clear that additional work lies ahead. it is fitting that we take a moment to celebrate what has been accomplished thus far. I would like to thank the gentleman from California (Chairman CALVERT) for his leadership in introducing this outstanding resolution. and I am honored to speak in support of it. Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time.
Date: 2005-09-20
Speaker: AL GREEN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. I am honored to yield as much time as she may consume to the gentlewoman frory Texas (Ms. EDDIEBERNICE
Date: 2005-09-20
Speaker: EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. let me thank my colleague for his leadership in bringing this resolution to the floor. I rise to congratulate the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Discovery crew on their successful return to flight this spring and on the many hours of work leading up to that pivotal moment. As a member of the House Committee on Science. I support NASAs commitment to science and technology research in space. It has been very successful. I also support the breakthroughs in aeronautics research that NASA has -made over the years. NASA research touches many aspects of our everyday lives such as satellite phone technologies. intensive care monitoring. highway safety.. breast cancer biopsies. and hurricane observation technology. and I could go on. To NASA and -the Discovery crew. I say well done. I was really on pins and needles until they hit Earth safely.
Date: 2005-09-20
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

It would be like if Enron executives or Tyco executives suggested that they would do the investigation on what went wrong with their two companies themselves. the corporate executives.
Date: 2005-09-20
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

And the gentleman is absolutely right. we are here to say it right out loud. I also voted against the partisan committee that was voted on last week. And something else we should address out loud are the ludicrous comparisons that have been made to other socalled partisan or internal congressional investigations. They are comparing the Katrina committee that was formed in the Congress last week to the IranContra investigation. Well. there is absolutely no comparison. The IranContra investigation was by a Democratic Congress versus a Republican administration. where clearly there would not be the legislative branch and the executive branchwalking in lockstep. Clearly there was the accountability there when you have two different party leaderships running those two different branches of government. So that is a ludicrous comparison and makes absolutely no sense to use it. and it is disingenuous to use it. And to add insult to injury. and I also hope we spend some time talking about this. what the leadership in the Congress is talking about. as if it is not bad en6ugh we are not going to really get to the bottom of why there was a serious lapse in emergency preparedness and disaster response in the gulf coast States. now. during the rebuilding effort. when we have all said and all Americans have locked elbows and said we will rebuild the gulf coast region and we will do everything we can to help them. and we absolutely should. what are they talking about here in the Congress? They are talking about massive spending cuts. including cutting the prescription drug benefit for our senior citizens in Medicare. eliminating it. repealing it. or delaying its implementation as an offset to paying for the reconstruction of the gulf coast States.
Date: 2005-09-20
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

I am sorry. we are all just champing at the bit tonight. but including in a region where the plight of over 100.000 people. after the hurricane was the result of their poverty. So now we are going to go in. and the second proposal for spending cuts as opposed to rolling back the tax cuts is to repealor eliminate or delay massive transportation funding. particularly in communities where mass transit is necessary and the only way poor people can get to work is using mass transit. S they are victims of a natural disaster. and now. a few months later. we will make them victims of a congressional disaster.
Date: 2005-09-20
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

They have a name for it. They are calling it Operation Offset. This is their plan. They are going to come back here in a few days and propose Operation Offset. which is going to day that we are not touching the tax cuts. In fact. I will quote. I believe it is the chairman of the Republican study group. our colleague from Indiana. He said. we need to rebuild. We can find the cuts in Washington. D.C. to do that. I really believe that. And his proposal is to set aside all those additional highway projects and delay the drug benefit by a year. Those are just some of the proposals that are expected to come down the pike. Now. before I yield to the gentleman from Florida. I represent a district that is not poverty stricken. There are poverty stricken sections. but there are communities in my district that are quite wealthy. And I have people in those communities stopping me in the supermarket and saying. Debbie. keep my tax cut. These are people that need help. We need to make sure they can have health care and that they have a roof over their head. So there are people out there that benefit from these tax cuts that get it. so why do they not get it here?
Date: 2005-09-20
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. to stay on DavisBacon for a secofid. there was also some irony in the Presidents waiver because last year when it was 2004 and .we were in advance of a Presidential election. he took great pains at expressing his deep affection for Florida and Floridians. talked about how important a State we were and made many trips to our State. Interestingly enough. he waived the DavisBacon requirements for Broward. MiamiDade. and Monroe County in this last goround with Katrina.
Date: 2005-09-20
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

There were four storms last year that came through Florida. Not one of them did he do that. And after Katrina. in a year that is not an election year. he waives the prevailing wage requirements in DavisBacon in three counties. Yet FEMA. his administration. has refused to reimburse and grant individual assistance reimbursement for people who had their homes damaged. looking through their roof at the sky that were victims in Florida of Hurricane Katrina. If they are not going to reimburse people and they are going to have to rebuild themselves or be left out in the cold and not rebuild at all. then what is the burning need to waive DaVisBacon and the prevailing wage requirements in those counties? I guess only to help contractors. only to ensure that whatever building is going on is going to put as much money in the pocket of a contractor and workers be dammed because they really do not matter anyway because it is not an election year. I mean. the way that we can ensure that we prevent this fraud and abuse in contracting is stop the sweetheart deals. stop the monopoly contracts. make sure that we have some bidding and responsible bidding so that we know that the contractors that can actually do the work for a responsible amount of money are the ones that get the contract. We have a funeral and cemetery company that got a contract. a nobid contract. in Louisiana to bury and. I guess. deal with the bodies. and there are so many of them. and this is the same company that was prosecuted for throwing bodies into the forest of a cemetery in West Palm Beach. Florida. Prosecuted. Buried people in the same grave. moved bodies from one grave to another. This is the kind of track record this company has. and now they have been given a solesource contract in Louisiana. I mean is it not time.that we stop the madness in giveaways that this administration has been in lockstep involvement in trying to help corporations as opposed to real people since the day that they walked into the White House? I mean. our legislation that was introduced by the gentleman from California and the gentlewoman from California today would do.several extremely important things. One is it would establish an independent commission to prevent fraud and abuse. I mean. that is essential. We have to have some reviews of the process. We have to review contract awards to ensure that the Federal Government is complying with the competition requirements that there -are. I mean. the implication of potential payoffs is just rampant without that type of review. We have to review whether contract awards are based on merit as opposed to relationships between awardees and Federal Government officials. I do not know if it is any coincidence. but the Vice President is the former CEO of Halliburton. and I would love to see how many contracts Halliburton has
Date: 2005-09-20
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr.Speaker. as we have the last few minutes here.- let us just recap what is not happening that should be happening. The American people clearly have indicated that they want an independent commission. They want a commission that is going to truly investigate what happened so that it never happens again. Instead. they get a partisan committee created in Congress with an imbalance of Republicans to Democrats and Congress investigating itself. What are they getting? Instead of a bipartisan effort to truly rebuild the Gulf States. they are getting proposals to cut prescription drugs for senior citizens. transportation projects for people that are in dire need of being atile to use that transportation and unclog the arteries of America. billions of dollars in proposed cuts in higher education. in college aid in the budget. only a couple of weeks delay in the recoficiliation process. our budget reconciliation process .which is also a round of cuts. a response from the Republican leadership here that the answer to their ballooning the deficit is to cut into the hearts of the people that need it the most. Mr. Speaker. at the end of the day. what we are proposing is an independent commission. We are proposing a review. a thorough review of the contracting process to make sure that there is some accountability in the way we spend these dollars. We are proposing housing and economic security and education assistance for � the Katrina victims that need it the most. And I have to conclude by saying that we also have proposed passing legislation to ensure that all victims of Hurricane Katrina. including those in our home State of Florida. get reimbursement for the damage that they received. because they certainly are not getting that help right now.
Date: 2005-09-21
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

Madam Speaker. I. too rise to reflect on the life and contributions of Simon Wiesenthal who passed away 2 days ago at the age of 96. Simon Wiesenthal.is known by many to be the "conscience of the Holocaust." for after the atrocities ended. he spent his entire life researching and locating former Nazis to bring them to justice. Throughout the course of the Holocaust. Simon Wiesenthal and his wife lost a total of 89 family members. American soldiers liberated him from the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1945. He was barely alive. weighing less than 100 pounds. As a prisoner in 12 concentration camps. Simon Wiesenthal memorized the names of his perpetrators and later he embarked on his mission to bring them to justice. He created the Jewish Documentation Center to assemble evidence for trial. His most famous cases included the capture of Adolf Eichmann. the man who supervised the implementation of the "Final Solution." Wiesenthal also helped locate the Gestapo officer who arrested Anne Frank. In total. he helped trace some 1.100 Nazis. In a conversation with a former concentration camp inmate. Wiesenthal explained. when we come to the other world and meet the millions of Jews who died in the camps and they ask us. What have you done. there will be many answers. But I will say. we did not forget you. Now it is our turn to say to Mr. Wiesenthal. we will not forget you. We will honor his life and his work by continuing to bring perpetrators to justice and continuing to fight intolerance and antiSemitism wherever it exists.
Date: 2005-09-21
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. the gentleman from Ohio speaks the truth. There is n o question about it. Now we are hearing on CNN. and we have to hear it on CNN. unfortunately. that the Republican leadership plans to go forward . with their partisan committee to investigate Hurricane Katrina. Rightfully so. the gentlewoman from California has refused to appoint Democratic Members. and everyone I have spoken to in our Democratic Caucus. if asked to serve by the gentleman from Illinois . we will stand our ground and insist on there being an independent commission. The example we have been using here on this floor is would the American public be comfortable if Enron executives examined and investigated what went wrong in their corporation and their corporate scandals? How about Tyco? You would never accept those kinds of internal reviews as being accountable. objective. or independent. If Congress is going to truly inspire the confidence again of the American people. which is what we so desperately .need to do when it comes to our emergency preparedness procedures. it is to not engage in partisan infighting and backsidecovering. because that is what they are doing here with insisting on having a partisan internal congressional committee instead of an independent. objective 9/11style commission. It is confidence that we need to restore because it is the issue of security thatAmericans most want to feel comfortable that their government is taking care of. That was supposedly why the President was reelected last year. One of the reasons many people cited was because they felt he would keep them safer. this administration would be more likely. supposedly. to keep them safer. I bet a lot of those people are scratching their heads wondering why they cast that vote and where is the action to back up the words that the administration campaigned on all of last year.
Date: 2005-09-21
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. I want to piggyback on what he is saying herebecause not only do the American people want an independent review so that their confidence can be restored. They want their representatives in Congress to be statespeople. They want us to step up and put partisanship aside. My colleagues are veterans of this process. and I have been here 9. almost 10 months now. and the thing thae has been the most startling to me is how partisan it is here. It does not need to be this way. I know. I have spoken to some Members even today. some Members who are leaders on the Republican side who I know if we came around the table and sat down and hashed out how we could best approach the review of what happened with Katrina and the response and our lack of preparedness. I know we could work it out. But the leadership here does not allow that to happen. It is all about winning. It is all about "our way. or the highway." And Americans are sick of "our way or the highway" politics. They just want us to get it done and do the right thing. And I just do not understand why it has to be about winning. it has to be about we are going to protect our backsides. we are going to make sure that the truth really does not come out. God forbid if we actually admit that we
Date: 2005-09-21
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. in the last few minutes. and if the gentleman from Florida wants to go over this. I would be happy to yield to him. We have on our side of the aisle a series of proposals. an action plan that Leader PELOsI has put forward related to housing and economic security and health care that we are going to be talking about over the next several months. because it is not. all about complaining. It is not all about we do not like what they are doing. We have a series of proposals that we want to see happen to ensure that people can move their lives forward. We have to make sure that these people have health care. We have to make sure that they have roofs over their heads. We have to make sure that they have ac-
Date: 2005-09-21
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. you know. it certainly does not have to be that way. It cprtainly was not that way when the shoe was on the other foot. because some people listening might feel. well. you know. this is just the way Congress does it. Congress is a partisan body. it is a political body. and you know when one side is in charge. they run the show. They run these investigations. and that is just the way it is. Well. in this situation. you have got a Republican Congress investigating a Republican administration. And let us go back to the Reagan years when you had the IranContra scandal. Then you had. a committee set up within the Congress. which was a Democratic Congress investigating a Republican ad.ministration. so obviously there was some inherently builtin accountability in that situation. And when it came to the way that committee was appointed and developed. even internally within the Congress there was mutual agreement on both sides of the aisle that it was done in a bipartisan fashion. And I will quote. thenRepresentative DICK. CHENEY from Wyoming who is now our Vice President. He said. because he was one of the key sponsors of the committee of the legislation that created the IranContra Committee. he said at that time. "I must say the majority has been exceedingly fair in the proceedings. The leadership of both parties has worked in a truly bipartisan fashion to create this committee." referring to the IraqContra Committee. Well. it is really unfortunate that when the shoe is on- the other foot and they have the opportunity to do the right thing and work in a bipartisan fashion. that they are choosing not to. And it is certainly within their discretion. It is within their choice. and they are just wiping their hands and refusing to do it. I know the gentleman from Ohio is pulling over our 30something board. and we want to let people know how they can get in touch with us. and we want and we urge their feedback. We want to hear from people.
Date: 2005-09-21
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. -Speaker. the way I want to conclude for us. or my portion of the conclusion. is to reiterate that at the end of the day we have plans. If we were in charge. we would be moving to ensure that we got health care to the people who are victims of Katrina. We would be making sure that we helped get them some economic security. We would make sure that there was some accountability in the process of the doling out of contracts for the cleanup and the construction. We would be making sure that education was of primary and paramount -concern. We would be initiating an agenda to assist people and restore confidence in the emergency preparedness and disaster response procedures in America. Because Katrina was not the first hurricane that bore down on our country. and as we have Rita churning in the gulf as a Category 5. we know she is not going to be the last. And. you know. I think we should conclude by praying for the people Who are going to be experiencing Rita in the next few days and sending them our best wishes and urging them to heed the warnings that your emergency managers are going to be sending out to you. So I look forward to joining you again as we do each week. and now. you know. in double session. because we have so much to talk about and let people know what is going on here in the Congress.