Donald Beyer

Mr. BEYER

Mr. BEYER. Madam Chair, I am a businessman. I am also the father of three daughters. I have managed people and managed compensation plans for more than 40 years, and I know that we cannot manage what we do not measure. I agree with my friend, the Republican congresswoman from New York, that men and women should be paid equally for equal work. This should be a bedrock principle of our democracy. But if we don't gather the data, how will we ever know if there is paycheck fairness? My middle daughter is a computer programmer--well paid. She was dismayed to learn around Christmastime that her male counterparts doing exactly the same work were making more money. It is a fiction that this will be a burden on employers with more than 100 employees. Absolutely none of these employers have not digitized their paycheck process decades ago. The collection of this data requires a keystroke; that is all. All the data, already there, already gathered. Pay transparency is the most powerful way to achieve paycheck fairness. Men and women together are outraged when they see actual measured pay unfairness. But where incomes are most fair, where they are most transparent--in the military and in government--paycheck inequity is small or even nonexistent. This is not a bill for lawyers. This is a bill for business owners and business managers who want to do the right thing and now will have the data to do that right thing.

Mr. BEYER. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. BEYER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished majority leader.

Mr. BEYER. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend from North Carolina for supporting this amendment, and I thank my friend from North Carolina for clearly stating a number of times today that Democrats and Republicans are both committed to equal pay for men and for women. I think our differences just come down to how we accomplish that, because 50 years after the Equal Pay Act was signed, there are still significant differences, despite our joint commitment to equal pay. If unequal pay continues to persist, how do we address it? We simply say that the collection of data to the EEO-1 is the best way to move forward. The employers with less than 100 have been exempted from the very beginning of the EEO-1 report, so this is simply consistent with that and recognizes that, to get meaningful data, sometimes you need more than a handful of people. That is, 6 or 10 or 12 people don't necessarily give you an apples-to-apples comparison. When you get more than 100, you can do it. The government already collects the sensitive data. It has done it for years without privacy concerns. My friend pointed out there may be 3,200 or 3,600 categories. Right now, with deep learning and machine learning, this is something that takes a microsecond to do. This is very easy. We are now in an intellectual and digital world where we can have the EEO discover which companies have persistent patterns of pay inequity, and it really works. All our offices have pay transparency. When I am trying to figure out how much to pay a legislative correspondent or legislative director or front office, I know that everyone can go online and figure out what everyone else is making. That is a powerful incentive for us to make sure that people are paid fairly and paid equally. All we are trying to do is bring the same transparency to American businesses across the country. Mr. Chair, I thank my friend for her support of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BEYER. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. BEYER

Mr. BEYER. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BEYER. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. BEYER. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chair, I am very pleased to be able to offer this amendment with my good friend from the First District of North Carolina, Mr. G. K. Butterfield. Madam Chair, I am the father of four, and for the last 40 years I have tried always to take one of my children into the voting booth with me until they got too old, one by one, to come in because I wanted them to see by example how important it was to vote. I tried to show them that this is a really big deal. Our dinner conversations for these 40 years have been always about the world, the country, inevitably, then about politics and then about government, because nothing is more important to our representative government than this idea of self-determination, that every one of us has the obligation to be part of our political process. But, sadly, as we all know, way too many young people do not participate in our process. If we get to 10 percent, 11 percent, 12 percent under the age of 29, we are thrilled that they show up. So their voice is lost far too often. So our amendment simply authorizes $25 million, over the next 2 years, in grant money to be issued to the Election Assistance Commission, and that is for them to give to eligible States money to be used to carry out plans, policies, and programs to increase youth involvement in elections. It does things like encourage States to implement methods to promote the preregistration of young voters. I know this is probably already part of the bill itself, the requirement for preregistration, but in the 20 States that have it that you can register at age 15 or 16--not vote until you are 18--but if you do that, then you get a much higher voter participation. It petitions States to modify the curriculum of secondary schools to promote civic engagement and activities to inspire young people to engage. Madam Chair, I try to accept every invitation that I get from a high school to come be part of their classes. I came to 84 high school graduations when I was Lieutenant Governor because I get so discouraged when not just kids, but even adults don't know the names of their Governor or their U.S. Senators or certainly not their Congressman, and they have no idea how the Constitution works and how valuable it is. We have to educate them, and this is a small investment in encouraging States to provide those curricula and others that can make it. They need substantive opportunities to participate in our political process and contributing to practical solutions. Madam Chair, I feel deeply, if you can give good practice to kids, that will lead to good habits, good habits to good character, and as we all know, character is destiny. So this small, humble amendment simply authorizes the Appropriations Committee to invest $25 in the Election Assistance Commission to help get our kids involved in politics at the best and young ages. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BEYER. Madam Chair, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren).

Mr. BEYER. Madam Chair, I want to say that all we are doing is giving the Appropriations Committee the flexibility to do this. We are going to spend over $700 billion on defense for people fighting for our democracy. We can spend a tiny, tiny fraction of that to make sure that American citizens understand what they are fighting for. This is a really important thing. By the way, it is never an attack on teachers. Every teacher I have talked to would like more resources so they can do their job more effectively. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BEYER. Madam Chair, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.

Mr. BEYER

Mr. BEYER. Madam Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing Ms. Anne. M. Brennan for her 32 years of outstanding Federal service as a civilian attorney for the Department of the Navy (DON) Office of the General Counsel (OGC). Since she began her distinguished career with DON OGC in 1986, Ms. Brennan has held several attorney positions. Notably, she became a member of the Senior Executive Service in April 2004. In January 2008, she was selected to serve as the Deputy General Counsel, and in August 2009, she was designated Principal Deputy General Counsel. During her tenure in these latter positions as the DON's most senior career attorney, she twice served as the Acting General Counsel of the Navy--a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed position--from May 2009 to March 2010, and from January 2017 to February 2019. From advising the Secretary of the Navy in the wake of the Washington Navy Yard shootings to serving as a lynchpin of efforts between senior DON leadership, numerous DON stakeholders, the Department of Justice, and a United States Attorney's Office on an extremely high-profile criminal fraud case, Ms. Brennan has distinguished herself as an extraordinary attorney, who has consistently exceeded expectations by working tirelessly to provide proactive, accurate, and innovative legal advice on legally complex, politically sensitive issues implicating business, procurement, fiscal, labor, ethics, environmental, and intelligence law. Additionally, she has demonstrated an unmatched record of leadership while overseeing and coordinating the provision of legal advice by more than 750 civilian and military attorneys within DON OGC, ensuring the successful execution of the Navy and Marine Corps missions worldwide. Throughout her illustrious career, Ms. Brennan has received various awards for her outstanding contributions to the DON, the Department of Defense (DoD), and the Nation. These include the DON Meritorious, Superior, and Distinguished Civilian Service Awards, the DoD Distinguished Civilian Service Award, the Presidential Rank Awards of Meritorious and Distinguished Executive, the William R. Molzahn Leadership Award, and other performance-related accolades. Madam Speaker, for these reasons, I ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing Ms. Anne M. Brennan as she retires from Federal service.

Mr. BEYER

Mr. BEYER. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff who led us in the opening prayer today. Rabbi Resnicoff is an American conservative rabbi who served as a military officer and military chaplain. He served in Vietnam and in Europe before attending rabbinical school, and then went on to serve as a U.S. Navy chaplain for almost 5 years. He promoted the creation of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and delivered the closing prayer in its 1982 dedication. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan spoke on his eyewitness account of the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing. After retiring from the military, the rabbi served as the National Director of Interreligious Affairs for the American Jewish Community and then special assistant to the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, serving at the equivalent military range of brigadier general. Across his career, he received several awards including: the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Department of the Air Force Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service, and the Chapel of Four Chaplains Hall of Heroes Gold Medallion. He has always been a spiritual inspiration, and now inspires me to Google how far the golf balls were hit on the Moon. Madam Speaker, I am honored to welcome Rabbi Resnicoff to the House of Representatives today, and personally thank him for his leadership and for offering the opening prayer.

Mr. BEYER

Mr. BEYER. Madam Speaker, I received an email Friday night from a young lawyer I know in northern Virginia. I met him last year when he had just hung out his shingle for a solo practice. He was desperate. His one big client is a Federal Government contractor who told him he would not be paid for December or for January because of the government shutdown. He wrote me because he had just received an eviction notice from his landlord: come up with the rent for January by Wednesday, noon, or face immediate eviction. I connected him with our local government office on emergency assistance. He got some meaningful help. He reached out to a few nonprofits and got some more. He was only $800 short yesterday, and the landlord agreed to wait another month. Yes, the shutdown has left 800,000 Federal employees without the money for life's necessities, but it is also harming American citizens far and wide, cruelly and unnecessarily, victims of the inevitable multiplier effects of a Federal Government failing its fiscal responsibility. This should be the last ever Federal shutdown. We must never again give a President the power to hold the most powerful and best managed government hostage to his whims, obsessions, and political knavery. Mr. President, let our people go.

Mr. BEYER

Mr. BEYER. Madam Speaker, my Northern Virginia district includes more Federal workers--almost 87,000--than any other, and my people are suffering. This week we entered the second month of a shutdown which President Trump began by rejecting a Republican bill which passed overwhelmingly in the Senate after promising that he would, in fact, shut down the government. The undeniable fact is that if the President told Senate Republicans today to vote for the exact same bill they already passed, the exact same bill he promised to sign, then this shutdown would end. But he refuses to do so because his demands are unmet. President Trump's complaints of a crisis, Madam Speaker, are correct in one respect: they are a crisis for the people I represent and for people in every district across this country. The President has said many things since he promised that he would shut down the government, but few of his comments are directed to the Federal workforce. I have gotten many hundreds of calls, emails, and letters, and they are overwhelmingly opposed to the shutdown. They are about tuition they can't pay, rent, healthcare premiums, insulin and other drugs, and groceries. I am particularly concerned because so many of the folks who work in northern Virginia have security clearances, and the number one reason people are denied a security clearance is because of a financial blot on their record. It is the number one reason their security clearance is taken away. If they are late on car payments and mortgage payments, they can actually lose their jobs. I am concerned about the impact on contractors. These are the folks like guards at the Smithsonian or food service workers or people in cleaning crews. They tend to be minimum wage. They tend not to have savings, and often no benefits. They are not getting paid, and they have nothing to fall back on. All the people who serve in our community--waiters, dental hygienists, auto mechanics, and hairstylists--are seeing their ability to make money day after day disappear. President Trump says his shutdown is about making the country safer, but that doesn't make any sense if you talk to the people who are suffering today. I have heard from furloughed FBI agents, air traffic controllers, State Department officials, workers at TSA, the Department of Homeland Security, the Coast Guard, and even Customs and Border Patrol, and they all vehemently oppose the shutdown. Madam Speaker, we all support effective border security, but keeping these people furloughed or making them work unpaid doesn't make us any safer. But on the positive side, as the pain has gotten worse for our community, I have also seen something else, which is that communities are coming together to make sure that no one gets left behind. Business after business throughout the country and throughout northern Virginia are helping with free sandwiches, free meals, and free services. Nonprofits are stepping up their efforts to meet the worsening conditions created by the shutdown, and government officials, furloughed and unfurloughed, are doing everything they can to pitch in and lighten the blow on their unpaid colleagues. Yesterday, I was helping serve food to Federal employees at Chef Jose Andres' World Central Kitchen. There was a line around the block, and it was D.C. police officers on their lunch break who came to help serve. By the way, Madam Speaker, I think I handed out more than 300 meals, and not a single person said: Open up the government. Give Trump his wall. We are better than this. We are good, kind, and industrious. The American people don't deserve this shutdown. It is axiomatic that we shouldn't negotiate with hostage takers, but the President has taken our government hostage. If we give him what he wants, he may well use this tactic again and again and again. President Reagan said: ``Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.'' We say: President Trump, tear down your wall--your unreasonable obsession with an obsolete, medieval, ineffective way to secure our borders--and open up our government.

Mr. BEYER

Mr. BEYER. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Timothy W. Coy for over four decades of extraordinary public service. Mr. Coy will retire this month from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense as a Team Chief after nearly a decade of providing accurate, rapid, and actionable guidance on a broad range of issues including legislative proposals and appeals, congressional hearing support, and statements of administration policy. Preceding his role with the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Mr. Coy served his country in the United States Air Force (USAF) . He received assignments as a member of the USAF ``Thunderbirds'' and the initial cadre of the F-117 ``Stealth'' fighter program. Mr. Coy worked through the ranks to receive the title of Crew Commander, where he became the Aide-de-Camp and Executive Officer for the Commander, 4th Air Division. More recently, Mr. Coy was selected to be one of nine Air Force Legislative Fellows and, in this capacity, specialized in defense policy for Senator Wayne Allard. After graduating the program, Mr. Coy worked for the United States Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), where he advocated for JFCOM programs on Capitol Hill as the Chief of Legislative Affairs. After a successful 27 years in the military, Mr. Coy retired from the USAF in 2004 to become the Deputy Director and, later, Director of Legislative Affairs for the Missile Defense Agency. During his service with the Agency, Mr. Coy advocated for a $9 billion budget in Congress to help develop new missile defense systems that protect the United States and its allies from hostile ballistic missile attacks. Mr. Coy has received numerous accolades throughout his distinguished career. In addition to earning the title of ``Top Performer'' in his Minuteman III training in Officer Training School, Mr. Coy has been selected as one of Strategic Air Command's top missileers for assignment to the TOP HAND Program. Mr. Coy also attended Harvard University as a Senior Executive Fellow, where he earned a Certificate in Public Policy. All who knew and worked with Mr. Coy will miss his leadership and strong work ethic. I am sad to see him leave, but even more proud to congratulate him on a well-earned retirement as he starts a new chapter in his life.

Mr. BEYER

Mr. BEYER. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Gregory E. Saunders for his extraordinary public service as he retires from his current position as Director of the Defense Standardization Program Office. Director Saunders leaves the federal government after 49 years protecting our country through a variety of posts within the Defense Department. His tireless efforts procuring and overseeing materiel have helped keep our nation's military effectively armed and combat-ready. Prior to his leadership as Director of the Defense Standardization Program Office, Mr. Saunders served as the Deputy Director for Acquisition Processes in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and staff member of the Defense Material Specifications and Standards Office. This is hardly the first time Director Saunders's prowess has been recognized. He is the recipient of many well-deserved awards, including the Department of Defense Civilian Service Award, the Joint Meritorious Unit Award, and the Vice President's Golden Hammer Award. Engineering societies from around the world have recognized Director Saunders's rigorous methodology and skillset, awarding him with recognition from the Standards Engineering Society, SAE International, and the industry's Equal Partner Award. Perhaps most notably, Dr. Saunders has received the Silver Star of the Polish Army. Director Saunders exemplifies the ideals of service and will be sorely missed. I am sad to see him leave, but even more proud to congratulate him on a well-earned retirement after a distinguished career in civil service.

Mr. BEYER

Mr. BEYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate The MITRE Corporation on its 60th anniversary this year. MITRE is a not-for-profit corporation whose mission is to solve problems for a safer world. The company operates seven federally-funded research and development centers, each of which is sponsored by one or more federal agencies. MITRE works in the public interest, free from commercial conflicts of interest. The company's roughly 8,700 employees are located at its two primary locations in McLean, Virginia and Bedford, Massachusetts, as well as at other sites across the country and overseas. MITRE's employees support their federal sponsors across a full spectrum of analysis, planning and concept development; research and development; engineering; and systems acquisition work. They focus on some of the most challenging technical problems facing our nation-- work that requires intimate knowledge of their federal sponsors' operating landscapes, demands objective analysis, and often involves sensitive or proprietary government and industry data. MITRE has made immense contributions to our nation's security and safety over the last 60 years. I congratulate its leadership and staff and wish them many more years of success.

Mr. BEYER

Mr. BEYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, as we have heard today, our colleagues say that this bill is needed to mitigate human/livestock conflict, but that claim is just simply not compelling. Across the country, wolves account for only two-tenths of 1 percent of all cattle losses. Other predators, such as mountain lions, coyotes, and even stray dogs account for significantly more livestock kills. My friend from Minnesota talked about his neighbor's German Shepherd being killed by a wolf. We have small dogs and cats killed in our densely urban area all the time by coyotes and by foxes, and no one is talking about hunting the coyotes or hunting the foxes. For example, out of the 3.9 million cattle deaths in 2015, coyotes and dogs combined killed more than 164,000 livestock, compared to the 10,000 killed by wolves. That is 16 times as many. Not to mention that 93 percent of all cattle losses are due to disease or other natural causes. In the northern Rockies alone, which is where we have been talking about today mostly, wolf depredations account for less than 1 percent of all livestock losses: 256 sheep and 41 cattle over an 8-year period of time. The numbers don't lie. The claims that wolves are responsible for a massive slaughter of livestock is simply a myth used to justify lethal control of these animals. Instead of the shoot-first-ask-questions-later mentality, there are lots of great farmers promoting nonlethal methods that have been scientifically proven to mitigate human/wolf conflicts: livestock guardian dogs, fencing, and reducing attractants. There are solutions to this problem that don't involve the unnecessary killing of one of the most iconic and charismatic animals, not just in North America, but in human imagination. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BEYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the bill today. In a world full of lions and tigers entertaining the masses, have you ever seen a wolf in the circus? If you love your dog, thank a wolf. There is a line of poetry that says: ``A wolf eats sheep but now and then; Ten thousands are devour'd by men.'' Wolves are historic and vital keystone predators that have been hunted to near extinction in the contiguous United States. After being formerly designated as endangered and protected under the Endangered Species Act, wolf populations began to rise. However, they still inhabit just a fraction of their historic range, and continued protection under the Endangered Species Act is necessary. Instead, H.R. 6784 strips the protections that have allowed the species to begin to recover. Prior to widespread human settlement, hundreds of thousands of gray wolves roamed North America. They could be found from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic Coast. Today, sadly, the farthest east they can be found is in Michigan. Some of my colleagues might know that I would love to see the gray wolves in Virginia some day, but for now, it is important that we continue to protect the fewer than 6,000 that we have left in the lower 48. How did we get to only 6,000? As the human population grew in the 19th and 20th centuries, gray wolves were poisoned, trapped, shot, gassed--every possible way to kill them--and their population decline was exacerbated by habitat destruction. Removing Federal protection opens the doors to further baiting, hunting, and trapping of wolves. The war on wolves is based, in part, on a myth that wolves are dangerous to humans and livestock. The reality, of course, is that humans are far more dangerous to wolves than wolves are either to humans or wolves are to livestock. Wolves cause less than 1 percent of all livestock losses in the United States, which is a mino threat compared to health issues, weather, and even other predators. In fact, domestic dogs cause more cattle losses than wolves do. But no one is talking about trapping or poisoning dogs. Ironically, researchers at Washington State University have found that killing wolves leads to an increase in livestock losses caused by wolves. Wolves generally avoid people. There are only two known deaths from wolves in the entire contiguous United States in the 21st century. Far more Americans are killed by bees, dogs, or deer-car collisions than by wolves. It has also been proven that State agencies cannot successfully manage these species. We have to look at what happened when they were delisted in Idaho and Montana in 2011. In just those two States, hostile State management practices have caused more than 3,200 wolves to be killed through hunting and trapping. That is half the known wolves in the lower 48. Furthermore, we know that targeting wolves is not only cruel and detrimental to the species itself, but it is also detrimental to the other species and to the ecosystems in which it belongs. Many of us have seen the video, the documentary on what has happened to Yellowstone since the reintroduction of wolves. Before, when wolves were eliminated, the explosion of other populations caused defoliation, erosion, and an unbalanced ecosystem in the park. When wolves were reintroduced in 1995, everything changed. They were the keystone predator, the linchpin, that held together this delicate balance. When the deer and elk populations were managed, vegetation regenerated, which brought back species such as birds, beavers, mice, and bears. Riverbanks stabilized as plant life thrived and erosion decreased, and the whole landscape was transformed. Delisting decisions are best kept in the hands of scientists, and we can't allow any delisting decisions to happen because of politics, particularly not to a species so historic, majestic, integral, and charismatic to the ecosystem in which it belongs. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BEYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Huffman), my colleague.

Mr. BEYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. BEYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman from Oregon an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. BEYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Dingell).

Mr. BEYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Minnesota.