mesut/congress_speeches huggingface dataset:
HONORING NATHANIEL ``NATE'' ADAMS, JR.
Eliot L. Engel (Democrat, NY) \u2014 2018-2-8

I want to take a moment to honor a community leader, Nathaniel ``Nate'' Adams, Jr a man who has left an indelible mark on both the Bronx and Westchester counties which I represent. Nate has lived a full and active life, one that has taken many interesting turns over the years. Born on November 9th, 1941 Nate was raised and educated in Cleveland, and went on to Purdue University, where he was awarded a full track and field scholarship, and graduated with a bachelor of science degree in 1965. prgtoken In his professional life, Nate was a teacher-coach at Woodlands High School in Hartsdale, New York and later became the cofounder of RAN Associates in 1970. Then in 1972, Nate began a star-studded entertainment career, first as an associate producer for the movie ``Super Fly'' and then as an actor and clothing designer for the movie ``Classic.'' Nate then worked as a special events organizer for Don King Productions, where he produced a musical concert in Zaire ahead of the Muhammed Ali Vs. George Foreman prize fight. In 1980, he was a producer for the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) where he created the UNCF Walkathon, ``Walk a Mile, to Save a Mind''; in 1985 he became Director of Special Events of CARE International; in 1986 he became producer for International Tours for KOOL & the Gang; and in 1990 he became Tour Manager for the Lloyd Price Group, the Four Kings of R&B, and other greats. Nate was also the cofounder of the Black National Sports and Entertainment Foundation. prgtoken Incredibly, Nate was just as active outside of work, too. He has been a member of Shiloh Baptist Church in New Rochelle since 1978, and became a Deacon himself in 1982. In 2002, Nate became chairman of the Shiloh Community Development Corporation, which led to the construction of a 40-unit senior housing facility in New Rochelle. In 2006, he became chairman of the Deacon Ministry of Shiloh Baptist Church, then just two years later, became President of Tilden Towers II Board of Directors in the Bronx. prgtoken Of course for all his great accomplishments, Nate would always point to family as his greatest. He and his wife Audrey have been married since 1967, and they have been blessed with 3 children, Nichole, Nathaniel III, and Alisha, and 10 grandchildren. prgtoken Nate's motto, ``I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me'' couldn't be more appropriate for a man who truly has done it all. He is most deserving of this recognition today.
KARI'S LAW ACT OF 2017
Anna G. Eshoo (Democrat, CA) \u2014 2018-2-8

I thank our terrific ranking member for yielding time to me and for his leadership and that of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. prgtoken Kari's Law addresses a very serious problem and it has been outlined by Members on both sides of the aisle, and I support the bill. prgtoken But it is very important for those who are listening into this discussion this morning that when anyone dials 911 from a hotel, from a large building of several stories, from office buildings, from our office buildings where our offices are--10 floors, 20 floors, 30 floors--seconds really matter and they can make the difference between life or death. You should not have to dial 9 or some other prefix to get help. prgtoken We already know that that is what happened in this tragic situation where the 9-year-old daughter was witnessing the actual murder taking place by her father, the estranged husband of Kari. That woman lost her life. prgtoken So what is missing in this legislation is accuracy for multiline telephone systems. Once your call reaches the 911 call center, whomever answers that call needs to know exactly where you are to dispatch first responders. Now, if you are in a single-family home, it is easy. But if you are in any one of these buildings, hotels, or office buildings, the first responders have to go floor by floor. That takes a long time. We know because we walk from floor to floor just to get over to the Capitol. It takes us 7 or 8 minutes to get from Cannon House Office Building to the Capitol. prgtoken So if you call 911 again from the 10th floor of a 30-story office building, it takes first responders a long time to get there. prgtoken Oftentimes, during an emergency, individuals who have called in, they don't really know exactly where they are, or they are so panicked that they are blinded by what is going on that they can't express that to the dispatcher. That is why location technology is really important. prgtoken I offered an amendment when this bill was taken up at the Energy and Commerce Committee to include location technology. That was rejected by the majority, but they promised that they would work with me in order to bring that about. prgtoken Despite a lot of reaching out, et cetera, it didn't happen. I am once again offering legislation to establish that there will be location technology applied to multiline telephone systems. I think it is essential, and I don't know anyone who would disagree with that. It just didn't happen. It is not in this bill. But I think that it is important to highlight, as we celebrate the work that has been done, the important step that this takes, that there is a hole in it. prgtoken So as has been said by other Members, we are approaching the 50th anniversary next week of the first 911 call ever made in our country. I would like to urge my colleagues to work with me to build on the important progress that this bill represents, Kari's Law, to ensure that all mul
SMALL BANK HOLDING COMPANY RELIEF ACT OF 2018
Al Green (Democrat, TX) \u2014 2018-2-8

I am so honored to have this opportunity. I thank the chairman as well, and I want to thank the ranking member for all of the work that she has done in this area. She has been a part of the avant-garde to protect and maintain community banks. prgtoken One of the great difficulties that we have had with our committee is defining what a community bank is. We have had testimony to indicate that a community bank can be $50 billion or more. We want to make sure that the small institutions that the chairperson is talking about continue to exist. prgtoken It is unfortunate, but if we pass this legislation, there is a good likelihood that the level of consolidation that will take place will be antithetical to the very commentary that we are hearing with reference to the need for community banks, small banks to make sure small businesses will receive loans. There is a contradiction contained within the very effort that is being made. prgtoken I am honored to have with me a statement from over 200 civil rights community organizations, labor unions, businesses, investors, faith- based businesses, community and civic groups; and this statement reads--this is from them, but I concur with it: ``Raising the limit to $3 billion is a policy well calculated to significantly reduce the number of community banks in the U.S. First, raising the limit will allow medium-sized community banks of $2 to $3 billion in size to more easily acquire smaller community banks. . . .'' prgtoken That is a significant comment because the acquisition of smaller banks is going to cause us to have fewer smaller banks, and the argument that is being made is that the smaller banks are the ones that are servicing small businesses. prgtoken It goes on to read: ``. . . reducing the number of independent community banks. Second, allowing holding companies to borrow excessively will raise the risk of bank failure the next time the financial system is under stress. ``A $3 billion limit is unjustified, as there is no evidence that community banks over $1 billion in size are currently too small to survive. According to a recent FDIC report, `While economies of scale are important for community banks, historical trends in the size distribution of community banks that have survived over the last quarter century do not suggest that economies of scale require a community bank to grow or merge to asset sizes larger than $1 billion.'' prgtoken My point is that I am a proponent of community banks.
CHILD PROTECTION IMPROVEMENTS ACT OF 2017
Charles E. Schumer (Democrat, NY) \u2014 2018-2-8

yesterday, after months of painstaking negotiations, the leader and I reached a 2-year budget deal. Not only will it end the series of fiscal crises that have gridlocked this body, it will also deliver large investments in our military and robust funding of middle-class programs. It will also give a significant boost to our Nation's healthcare and provide long-overdue relief to disaster-stricken parts of our country. prgtoken As I said yesterday, it doesn't include everything that want nor everything that s want, but it is a good deal for the American people, and it is a strong signal that we can break the gridlock that has overwhelmed this body and work together for the good of the country. prgtoken Let me run through a few of the benefits this agreement will provide. prgtoken Our military has suffered from the uncertainty of endless short-term spending bills. This budget deal puts that to an end. It gives the military a significant boost in support and allows the Pentagon to make long-term decisions about its budget. It is the right thing to do. prgtoken I want to credit two people--first, my dear friend Senator McCain. He talked to me repeatedly, even when he was ill, about the need for funding defense. He also talked about the need for doing immigration and tried to make them go hand in hand. Senator McCain has been our leader in this Chamber on both sides of the aisle in terms of making sure defense is funded, and I know that today he is proud of what we are doing for the military. prgtoken I would also like to thank Secretary Mattis. He visited me repeatedly. He is a Cabinet Secretary who seems to be doing his job, rather than focusing on an ideological path that divides people. He worked hard for this and deserves a great deal of credit. prgtoken We have always argued that we want to fund our military and our middle-class programs. We need good help on both. A mother whose child has died from opioid addiction, a veteran who is waiting in line to get help, college students with great debt on their shoulders, pensioners whose pensions might be greatly diminished need help too. To say that our military needs help to the exclusion of all of these other worthy causes is not fair to them and not good for America. I have always argued that we can do both, and this budget shows we can. We can do both--fund the military and help fund the middle class. For those naysayers who said it could not be done, it sure can with this budget. I am proud of what it does for the middle class. prgtoken For a decade--we all know this; we all talk about it--our middle class has suffered from a needless and self-imposed austerity in Congress that has limited investments in jobs and education, infrastructure, scientific research, and more. This deal puts that to an end as well. For those who say we cannot do both, we can. I am proud of this budget, because it does. Let me go in
HONORING HOMETOWN HEROES ACT
Rand Paul (Republican, KY) \u2014 2018-2-9

what we have experienced today is a long debate about how we should spend our money, and I have said repeatedly that this is a terrible, rotten, no-good way to spend your money. It is a terrible way to budget your money. prgtoken It is a terrible thing to sort of lurch from deadline to deadline. Basically, Congress lurches all the way to a deadline. We approach midnight, and we are either up or down on some bill that is decided by a few people but not by the vast majority. So Congress basically lurches from deadline to deadline, and then Congress waits until the last minute and then gloms all of the spending together in one enormous bill. When that bill comes forward, though, at the very last minute, we are told that we don't have enough time to debate and amend the bill, so no one really is allowed to participate in the process other than a few folks behind closed doors. The consequences of this have not been good, I think, for the country. prgtoken All day long, what we have been requesting and what I have been asking for is simply 15 minutes to have one amendment, and my amendment would have said that we should live within our means, that we should live within the budgetary caps we have set and try not to add too much debt. We were denied this amendment even though we have had plenty of time. We probably had time for 40 or 50 amendments today had we actually allowed this to happen. prgtoken But make no mistake--the result of this bill today is a bipartisan looting of the Treasury. We are going to now have a bill that will expand spending across the board and will lead to trillion-dollar annual deficits. But it doesn't have to be that way. I think the Senate, if it actually tried harder, could do the right thing. If we were passing individual appropriations bills, no one Senator would ever stop anything, would ever be able to shut down anything. If we had done our job, the appropriations bills would have already been passed or be in the process of passing for the following year, and I think it just takes willpower to do it. Everybody you talk to says: Oh yeah, we should do it that way. Everybody sort of quietly says: This is the last time I am voting for a CR or for one of these enormous spending bills. Yet we are on our fourth one this year. prgtoken Even though I have great complaints about how much debt is going to be added with this, I think we also are finding that we will have another one of these in a month. So really I think that is what is disconcerting to a lot of us, is that we don't go through the process of actually looking for waste in government, going through the committee process, and spending the money more wisely. prgtoken Earlier today, I went through a series of wasteful projects that are out there. Many of them are very similar to wasteful projects that William Proxmire had started noticing in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Yet we still have many of that same waste t
WILDLAND FIREFIGHTING LEGISLATION
Maria Cantwell (Democrat, WA) \u2014 2018-2-9

I wish to speak about an urgent challenge facing my constituents and my colleagues in the Pacific Northwest that unfortunately was ignored in this massive legislative mishmash we were asked to vote up or down on in the middle of the night: wildfires. prgtoken Communities across the West, including my home State of Washington, are being torn apart by these disasters. Last year, the Diamond Creek fire burned 128,000 acres in my State. In 2016, the Okanogan Complex burned 305,000 acres. Just those two fires alone burned an area around two-thirds the size of Rhode Island, and both devastating events spewed ash and toxic smoke across a vast region and destroyed billions of dollars' worth of forest products. prgtoken I am very concerned that these are not freak or rare, once-in-a- generation events. According to our best scientists, the killer combination of climate change and decades of inadequate forest management has made these monster infernos the new normal. prgtoken The numbers speak for themselves. prgtoken Ten thousand, that is the number of houses that have been burned down in wildfires last year. prgtoken Eighteen billion, that is the initial estimate of how much damage wildfires caused just in California last year. prgtoken Sadly, 54 Americans were killed by these wildfires in 2017. prgtoken That is why I have spent years collaborating with other Senators from affected States to hammer out commonsense, bipartisan solutions to this increasingly urgent challenge. prgtoken First and foremost is the inadequate funding for fire prevention and suppression programs. prgtoken How much longer are we going to shortchange fire programs? The fire budget Congress allocated for this last year was short by over $1.4 billion. prgtoken Under current law, when there is a funding shortfall like this, the Forest Service has to rob its own programs to make it up. What programs? The ones dedicated to fire prevention and forest restoration that could help prevent future fires. That is crazy and very short- sighted. prgtoken Also, we need a better management strategy for our national forests-- an innovative strategy to manage our forests in smarter, more efficient, and more sustainable ways. There are many case studies of how we can reduce fire risk and increase local forestry jobs, all while restoring forest ecosystems. prgtoken For example, the Colville National Forest has been using innovative management tools to reduce the risk of wildfire in northeast Washington. The forward-thinking restoration work being performed by Vaagen Brothers Lumber in Colville has enabled this small National Forest to be ranked in the top three forest products-producing national forests in the country. Their holistic approach to forest restoration has also earned them the proud spot as the No. 1 national forest for number of culverts replaced to improve fish passage and water quality. prgtoken The success of local projects cannot help but inspir
BROADER OPTIONS FOR AMERICANS ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED
John Cornyn (Republican, TX) \u2014 2018-2-12

I want to begin my remarks today by discussing a piece of bipartisan legislation that I have sponsored with our colleague, the senior Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein. In all likelihood, this bill is not something you are going to see reported on in the evening news. It is rather obscure in its origins, but it is extraordinarily important, and I will explain that in just a moment. It is called the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act, and it concerns another acronym--the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS. It is the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. prgtoken CFIUS is a multiagency panel headed by the Treasury Department, and Secretary Mnuchin chairs that panel. Its job is to vet foreign investments to determine if they pose a threat to our national security. I am an ardent supporter of free trade, and I strongly support more foreign, direct investment in the United States. Unfortunately, some of our adversaries--most notably China--have altered the strategic landscape and are not playing by the same set of rules. China has weaponized investment in an attempt to vacuum up our advanced technologies and simultaneously undermine our defense industrial base. prgtoken As it acquires U.S. firms, technology, and intellectual property, as well as the know-how to put them to use, the risk is that the Chinese Government, which has its tentacles not only in state-owned Chinese companies but also in so-called ``private'' Chinese firms, will get its hands on these capabilities and use them against us. This has already been shown to have happened in a number of documented cases. prgtoken Standing by and allowing our national security to be compromised through these continued transfers of certain dual-use technology and know-how to China would be highly irresponsible. That is why the CFIUS--the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States-- process needs to be updated and modernized. At its core, the bill I have introduced would expand the scope of reviewable transactions to more effectively address national security concerns. prgtoken CFIUS's jurisdiction has not been updated in more than 40 years, and since that time, global threats like the one posed by China have grown in complexity and scope. China has studied our laws, and it has found ways to game the export control system and to evade CFIUS review. prgtoken This bill has strong support, not just from the White House but also from Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Ross, and the Attorney General of the United States, Jeff Sessions. It has also been endorsed by Secretary of Defense Mattis, as well as three of his predecessors, two former Directors of National Intelligence, and many others. prgtoken In industry, major U.S. companies are starting to recognize the risks here, as well, and several have stepped up and endorsed this bill. However, there is a very smal
BROADER OPTIONS FOR AMERICANS ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED
Chuck Grassley (Republican, IA) \u2014 2018-2-12

we have had a chance today to listen to my colleagues discuss what we think is the only piece of legislation that can get through the Senate, through the House of Representatives, and, most importantly, be signed by the President of the United States. All are cosponsors of this bill, except Senator Hatch, who spoke on another issue that he is very interested in, but it is a very important immigration issue as well. prgtoken We heard from Senator Cornyn. Then I spoke. Senator Cotton spoke and Senator Ernst, Senator Tillis, and Senator Lankford. Senator Perdue is one of those who is a cosponsor of the bill and would have liked to have been here to speak, but he is just now returning from his constituency. prgtoken We have tried to lay out a path to giving DACA kids certainty, doing it from a standpoint of being humanitarian for people who were brought to this country by their parents. Their parents may have broken the law--and they did break the law--by coming over our borders without documentation, but we never should hold children responsible for what their parents did. This legislation takes a compassionate and reasonable approach to reforms, including a pathway to citizenship for a broad population. It grandfathers people waiting in line for family- based visas, and it expedites clearing that backlog. It helps to keep young people out of the same legal limbo in the future. prgtoken This legislation is a product of compromise. The President and many conservatives have come a long way to offer this plan and especially the part of the plan that offers citizenship to this group of people. For one example of compromise, as chairman of this committee, there are a lot of things I would have liked to have seen in this legislation that can't be in there, as a way of getting a broad base of compromise. I am a strong supporter of mandatory E-Verify, but that is not in this document. I think the other side needs to be willing to compromise as well. We need to pass something that can become law. Several times my colleagues have been told that this is the only plan the President supports, and you have heard him say that on television many times since he put out the four-pillars program, as we call it, that came from his White House. The House isn't going to bring up anything that the President will not sign. I think we need to stop political posturing and pass something that can fix a real problem by providing border security and certainty for DACA kids. prgtoken This legislation is a reasonable approach to shielding children illegally brought to our country through no fault of their own while also taking meaningful steps to ensure that nobody finds themselves in the same situation in the future. This is a rare opportunity to fix a real problem and protect the country in a thoughtful and compassionate way. We simply have to correct the loopholes in current law that allow dangerous criminals to enter and