Melissa Bean

Ms. BEAN

Ms. BEAN. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment that would increase funding for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Operations and Research account by $6.7 million. The amendment offsets this increase by decreasing $2.7 million in funding from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and $4 million from transportation planning and research account. The intent of my amendment is to direct the Office of Fuel Economy to use these funds to assess how to best incentivize the auto industry to increase corporate average fuel economy, CAFE, standards by the year 2015. It is my hope that this will accelerate adoption of increased fuel efficiency standards by having the office considering options like tax credits to retooling their manufacturing processes for production of more fuel efficient vehicles. This would provide manufacturers with an economically viable way to increase fuel economy for passenger cars and light trucks. Particularly in suburban districts like mine, families are plagued by heavy traffic and congestion and are burdened by the price of gasoline. The high gas prices we are facing today can only be addressed by a serious, long-term effort to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. By voting for my amendment, we can give the Office of Fuel Economy the resources necessary to start providing solutions on the demand side of the energy equation.

Ms. BEAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Ms. BEAN. Mr. Chairman, the American people are looking to Congress for leadership in addressing rising energy costs. In the last few weeks, different proposals for increasing our energy supply have come before us. However, few proposals have been offered to address the demand side of the energy equation. For too long, Congress has allowed a stalemate on innovation and fuel efficiency. This amendment does not mandate increases but, instead, funds research into options. My amendment gives this Congress an opportunity to strike a balance between keeping auto makers competitive, by addressing the economic impact on them, with the pressing needs of American drivers, because both manufacturers and consumers are looking for an economically viable solution toward the advancement in the fuel efficiency of the cars and trucks we drive. Let us help the Office of Fuel Economy facilitate public/private partnership solutions to meet the energy demand challenges our Nation is facing. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Ms. BEAN. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Ms. BEAN

Ms. BEAN. Mr. Speaker, last month this Chamber passed without my support the Lobbying Accountability and Transparency Act. Unfortunately, this body failed to truly bring sunshine to its decision-making process to the American people. Mr. Speaker, democracy works best when the American electorate is engaged and informed. If we want to truly regain the public's trust, we can provide greater accountability and transparency with a simple step. Let's start by communicating to our constituents about the votes we take. Too many people feel left out of the process and find it difficult to locate and understand the votes cast by their representatives. That is why I encourage my colleagues to cosponsor H. Res. 797, which I introduced with my colleague Chris Shays. This resolution would require each Member of this Chamber to provide a clear link from their publicly-funded official Web site to a new voting record database organized by Member name maintained by the House clerk. This nonpartisan database would give each American the opportunity with the click of a button to view a comprehensive list of every rollcall vote cast by their representative and see a description of each vote. We are supposed be the most representative body of government. With this in mind, we should make it easy for citizens to be informed. Please cosponsor H. Res. 797.

Ms. BEAN

Ms. BEAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank Mr. Rush for this opportunity to speak, and I thank him and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their work on this bill. As a new Member of this body who brings 20 years of experience in the tech sector, I rise today to speak in support of H.R. 5252. Many of our constituents have one option for cable TV and one price. Our constituents desire choice. I believe this bill will provide much- needed modernization of our telecommunications laws to provide for improved competition for video services and lower prices for consumers. By overhauling current rules and speeding the entry of competitors in the market, we encourage competition and provide our constituents with new choices and cheaper bills. To keep America competitive in the global economy, telecommunications companies will be expected to invest heavily in infrastructure. This bill will spur investment in broadband networks that will help bring America up to speed with other nations who have jumped ahead of us in broadband capacity. Some colleagues have raised legitimate concerns about how to streamline our laws while advancing new technologies. I am confident this bill will ensure consumer choice and preserve innovation on the Net, respect rights for municipalities while establishing a new source of revenue for them, and strictly prohibiting discriminatory practices like redlining. I encourage support.

Ms. BEAN

Ms. BEAN. Madam Speaker, sadly we have all become familiar with the media reports of online child predators trolling for kids on the Internet networking sites like MySpace, unsuspecting Americans having their lives hijacked by online identity thieves and scams which swindle millions of Americans of their hard-earned money. While our families want to access the tremendous resources available on the Internet, they now know that there are significant dangers lurking there. Unfortunately, most Americans do not know where to turn to for help. In fact, a Google search on Internet safety returns over 5 million hits. To assist our families in their efforts to protect themselves, I have introduced H.R. 4982, The SAFER Net Act. This bipartisan effort would do three things: First, it would streamline existing Federal resources to coordinate and promote best practices for safe surfing. Second, the SAFER Net Act would launch a national public awareness campaign to alert Americans to online threats and how they can protect their loved ones. Finally, this legislation would authorize Federal grants to support efforts that promote Internet safety, conducted by our schools, businesses, local law enforcement agencies and nonprofit organizations. Madam Speaker, we have the resources in place. We just need to use them better. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 4982.

Ms. BEAN

Ms. BEAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of Mr. Miller's motion to instruct. I supported H.R. 2830 when it was passed by the House in December, and I fully expected that an improved version would return from conference. One improvement we can make today addresses the concerns our constituents have about the inequitable treatment of retirement compensation for employees and executives. Sadly, over the last few years, hundreds of thousands of hardworking Americans have had their company pensions severely cut, in some cases after 30 or 40 years of loyal service. Their companies have justified these pension cuts with the argument that cuts are necessary to remain competitive. But, at the same time, these same companies are providing lavish bonuses and compensation to their executives. Well, I believe it is important for companies to offer competitive compensation packages to recruit the best executives. I do not believe executives should be rewarded because of or in spite of the cuts that they have made to the pensions of their employees and retirees. Instead, executives should be held accountable for the mismanagement and underfunding of their pensions. When companies underfund or dump employees' pensions while handing out golden parachutes to their top executives, they are not demonstrating the kind of corporate citizenship American workers and taxpayers expect. Mr. Speaker, that is why I urge you to join me in supporting the Miller motion to instruct. The Miller motion will promote parity between the compensation packages executives receive with the pensions employees have earned. By doing so, perhaps executives will finally be given the incentive needed to fully fund and protect the pensions of their employees. It is about time for pension parity and fairness.

Ms. BEAN

Ms. BEAN. I am honored to join my colleagues in the Blue Dog Coalition and, again, want to commend your leadership, Congressman Ross, of our Blue Dog Coalition, because fiscal responsibility has to be our top priority in this Congress. So many of us came to this body to address issues of importance and priority to the families in the districts that we represent. And yet, if we don't, first and foremost, act responsibly with the national tax dollars that we have, we can't properly address those regional priorities that we would like to. I was here on the floor with you just several weeks ago, and I mentioned that I had been with some seventh graders in my district. One of the fun parts of our job is when we can go have civics classes with the kids. And they were pretty mortified just a few weeks ago when I shared with them that their share of our national debt, each individual one of them, was $27,000. And I am sad to see from your last chart, you have now moved it, it is already up to $28,000. So we went from $8.2 trillion to $8.3 trillion in just a couple of weeks. And it is frightening how rampant this irresponsible spending has been and how out of control our Congress has been. And it is sad that when I spoke to these seventh graders about their family budgets or their parents who worked in the business communities, how did they avoid getting themselves into debt, that those seventh graders could better articulate fiscal common sense by saying, don't spend what you don't have, than this Congress has been able to demonstrate. And I also serve on a caucus that addresses financial literacy for young people in this country. And it is so hypocritical that we want to talk to these kids about how to better manage their money when we are not doing a good job with our Nation's resources.

Ms. BEAN. To future generations.

Ms. BEAN. Will the gentleman yield?

Ms. BEAN. So much of what we have been talking about, whether it is education, whether it is the environment, it is all about future generations and our commitment to them. And to go back to the seventh graders that I mentioned that I spoke with, they are all studying the Constitution right now. Some of them probably in your districts as well as mine are taking their Constitution tests. I was so impressed with their knowledge and their youthful idealism as we talked about the Constitution and what it meant to them. And we had an open discussion, and we took the preamble of the Constitution apart, and we talked about what does it mean in order to form a more perfect union. And they understood that that meant that we have a commitment to make our country better. We talked about providing for the common defense. And they understood that that meant not just national defense but also protecting Americans from natural disaster like we have experienced in the gulf region and then, sadly, just this week from the tornadoes. They talked about establish justice and what did justice mean. And they understood that that meant there should be basic fairness in our laws. But the part that really resonated with the kids was when we talked about that as we preserve these liberties and these American values, we do them for ourselves and our posterity. And they understood that that meant we as adults should be making decisions not only for them as well as ourselves but for their children. And so they are very concerned that we are not making the right decisions. So they expressed a lot of those issues. And to go back to the fiscal responsibility theme that we have been talking about tonight, they were able to understand the analogy of what we have been doing with this debt, and driving ourselves into debt essentially would be if I got a credit card and went out on a spending spree, but I put the credit card in my daughters' names and said to them, When you are 18 and you get a job, you get to pay it off. And that is what we are doing to these kids, and that is not justice. That is not making good decisions for our posterity. We can do a better job than we have been doing for them.

Ms. BEAN

Ms. BEAN. Mr. Speaker, I am excited to rise today to support National Mom and Pop Business Owners Day. This celebration honors the husband and wife business owner teams whose work helps drive the economy and fuel job growth. Married couples who work together to build and maintain a business assume broad responsibilities. Not only is their work important to our local and national economies, but their success is central to the well- being of their families. My Eighth District, like others, counts on these family businesses and their teams working hard to support their families and aid their communities. As retailers, these teams often bring different or unique products to the marketplace. In manufacturing, they create innovative concepts and ideas. They manage to do all of this while at the same time providing stellar and personal customer service. As a member of the House Committee on Small Business and because of my own experience as a small business owner, I am appreciative of the impact these small businesses have on our local economies. In fact, 80 percent of our domestic job growth comes from the small- and medium- sized business community. I am proud of the contributions of these mom and pop business owners across America and hope that my colleagues will join with me in celebrating this important day.

Ms. BEAN

Ms. BEAN. I think I am going to yield back the balance of my time, if that is okay. But I want to thank you, my colleagues, for letting me join you during this 30-something hour, my first time joining you even though you let an older Member join you.

Ms. BEAN. That is exactly right. That is why I am yielding back my time. I appreciate you letting me join you today, in the interest of not only my kids, but the seventh graders we talked about today. It has been very important.

Ms. BEAN. Madam Speaker, I yield to Ms. Wasserman Schultz.

Ms. BEAN. Madam Speaker, it is an honor to join the gentlewoman.

Ms. BEAN. I have some of those figures in the meantime, while you get the chart. It is actually, four lenders currently hold a total of $2.174 trillion of our public debt. Compare this to only 23 billion in foreign holdings in 1993. The top 10 current lenders are Japan at $682 billion; China at $249 billion; the UK at $223 billion; Caribbean banking centers, $115 billion; Taiwan, 71 billion; and it goes on and on.

Ms. BEAN. I mentioned it on the floor briefly that I had been with some kids several weeks back. More recently I mentioned to my colleague we were talking about Internet safety. I am the parent of teenagers, my daughters are 13 and 15, so the issue of Internet safety has been an important issue. I have been visiting middle schools to talk about some of the challenges that they face. So we went to talk about Internet safety with the middle schoolers; and whenever I talk with middle schoolers, we also have a little bit of a civics lesson. Many seventh graders I know in Illinois, as well as around the Nation, are studying the Constitution. I was pretty impressed with the quality of education our children are receiving because they had not expected me to ask them about it. They thought we were just going to talk about Internet safety, and I asked them about the Constitution and the Preamble, and if any of them had the Preamble to the Constitution memorized, and they did. And they did. And I asked them to come on up. All the hands went up to be part of our little civics class. And they came up, and we took that preamble apart. We talked about in order to form a more perfect union, you know, what does that really mean and they understood that that meant trying to make our Nation better. We talked about providing for the common defense, and how that meant that we not only needed strong national security, but we also needed to protect our citizens when natural disasters could come as well. And we talked about the general welfare and the economy and how their parents and their neighbors and their community needed a strong economic environment so that they could provide for themselves. We also talked about domestic tranquility. Some of them admittedly did think that that meant, don't hit your sister, so we went through that. But we also talked about fiscal responsibility. And one of the things that was alarming to them, and it was intended to be and to create a discussion with them, was to talk about the national debt, which is now over $8 trillion. And I shared with these seventh graders that their share of our national debt is now over $27,000 each. And they were very displeased to hear that that was their share of national debt and said, Well, why aren't you guys spending less?

Ms. BEAN. Every American's share of the deficit is over $27,000 of our over-$8 trillion of national debt; and as you now know, we are raising the debt ceiling so we can bring that up to $9 trillion. And it was really frightening to these kids.

Ms. BEAN. It is a big number when you are talking to 12-year-olds.

Ms. BEAN. Well it is interesting how these seventh graders demonstrated greater fiscal sense than this Congress has been able to demonstrate, because we talked to them about debt and how essentially what we have been doing, to your point, to put it in their terms, would be like me, as a mom, getting a credit card in my daughters' names, okay, and going out and buying things for myself and then saying to them as soon as they are old enough to work, now you get to pay for all the things I bought myself. That is essentially what we are doing to future generations. And they said, Well, that is just not right. And they were right in understanding that. I also asked them, What would you do to not have debt; and they said, Well, spend less than you have. Pretty simple answer, but one that without PAYGO budget rules, which we once on a bipartisan basis adhered to in this body and were able to get ourselves to the largest surplus in the history of this Congress, we have now gone, since we have thrown out PAYGO rules and we are not requiring ourselves as a body of Congress to be more fiscally responsible, we now have the largest deficit in the history of the Nation, and that is pretty unconscionable.

Ms. BEAN. Very much so. I mean, what PAYGO really did is, it forced tougher decisions. It forced a greater degree of transparency and honesty with the public because it forced us to say, if we are going to spend more on a particular program, where was that money going to come from. And that has really gone away. And with the lack of that, there are a lot of false promises to the public about the reality of our false accounting.

Ms. BEAN. Exactly. It is so fun to be here with you because this is my first time joining you in your 30-something colloquy, because at 44 I am a little outside of the age span, so I appreciate you inviting me today. But it is fun for us to be able to talk about our children on the House floor where we haven't done that before. But I think there are some very strong parallels in what you are saying, in that oftentimes I think in our roles in Congress with the public, with our constituents, we have to bring a little bit of tough love to the equation the way we do with our children. We can't just tell people what they want to hear, but what they need to hear, which is the reality of our fiscal challenges.

Ms. BEAN. At the tough love.