Peter DeFazio

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington State (Ms. Schrier).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Panetta).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his kind words. We find many opportunities to work together. There are times when we have significant policy differences, and we get through it. And we will keep plugging. This bill is great for our Nation. On a daily basis, of our Nation's 58 largest ports, they only have about 40 percent of their capability due to deferred dredging. We have jetties failing around the Nation. We heard from Conor Lamb from Pennsylvania. We did great engineering work in the 1800s and early 1900s. I viewed a lock in his district built in the early 1900s, but these things do have a lifetime. The increase in cost share for inland waterways is going to make a great difference. We are finally going to spend the $10 billion that the American people have put into an account for harbor maintenance on harbor maintenance. Things take a long time in Washington, D.C. I started on that with Bud Shuster in 1996, but finally, we are going to get there. This money can and will be very productively spent. It will put people to work, and it will make our Nation more competitive. We had, for quite some time, a dispute among the various ports, large, small, and in between. We worked all of that out. It is easier to do when there is more money. So, this bill is going to be good for large, medium, and small ports, and emerging harbors. And just to be parochial, it is going to be great for my district. We have many, many dangerous bar entrances. Fishers, particularly commercial, sometimes recreational, die there. The dredging needs are always going to be there. Also, we have failing jetties that need replacement, so the additional cost share there will help. Then an additional cost share by statute for the Great Lakes, although I did talk with Ms. Kaptur, and she feels that we didn't quite get it right. We will work on that in conference. I would like to thank staff: Ryan Seiger, who is chief counsel on the subcommittee; Camille Touton; Alexa Williams; Navis Bermudez; Joe Sheehy, who works for Grace Napolitano, who couldn't be here today; and legislative counsel Kakuti Lin. Legislative counsel has been fabulous. Then, the other side of the aisle: Ian Bennitt, Victor Sarmiento, Jon Pawlow. Again, thanks to my friend and colleague, the ranking member. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I will vote in support of H.R. 6395, the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2021. Make no mistake: I have opposed NDAA legislation in previous years, and I still have concerns about a number of provisions included in this year's legislation, but this year's Democratic-led legislation also contains numerous policy priorities that I strongly support. First, this legislation grants our men and women in uniform a well- deserved pay raise of 3 percent. This is the very least we can do for those who continue to make extraordinary sacrifices for our country. As Chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, I fought to successfully include vital provisions important to Oregon coastal communities. This includes the Maritime Transportation System Emergency Relief Act, which authorizes the Maritime Administration to provide financial assistance to stabilize and ensure the reliable functioning of the U.S. Maritime Transportation System in the event of a national emergency or disaster, as well as the Elijah E. Cummings Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2020, legislation to authorize funds for, reinforce, and support the United States Coast Guard. Given the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's jurisdiction over the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), I am proud that this legislation makes a long-overdue correction to ensure that the more than 45,000 FAA employees, as well as VA and other federal civilian employees who were inexcusably left out of last year's bill, receive twelve weeks of paid parental leave. I am also pleased that this legislation prohibits the Department of Defense from excluding any civilian employees from their collective bargaining rights. As a long-time advocate for strengthening Congress's constitutional authority to declare war and limiting executive authority to engage in armed conflict without Congress's consent, I strongly support this bill's provisions to prohibit U.S. participation in the Saudi-led coalition's war in Yemen without congressional authorization. I also voted in strong support of an amendment which was adopted to prohibit President Trump's dangerous and unnecessary proposals to initiate new nuclear weapons testing. Given President Trump's ongoing and disturbing use of force on peaceful protesters exercising their First Amendment rights--including his use of National Guard service members to quell peaceful protesters outside the White House--I am pleased that an amendment which I voted for, and which was adopted, will add crucial oversight and transparency guardrails when a President deploys active duty military within the United States. I am also a strong supporter of this legislation's provision to require federal law enforcement officers deployed in response to public protests to visibly display their name and agency on their uniform. This requirement is especially crucial given Trump's appalling use of unidentifiable federal agents and unmarked vehicles to detain peaceful protesters in Portland, Oregon. I am pleased this legislation includes provisions to bolster our country's COVID-19 response, including granting important funding for the Maritime Security Program (MSP) to enable MSP carriers to keep their ships fully crewed despite the lack of cargo as a result of COVID-19. To further increase our country's pandemic preparedness and response, this legislation establishes a Pandemic Preparedness and Resilience National Security Fund and provides additional funding to the Department of Defense's (DOD's) Cooperative Threat Reduction Program to focus on detecting and confronting biological threats. I also strongly support an amendment--which I cosponsored--to ensure the president finally uses the Defense Production Act to its full extent in order to meet our country's most critical needs to combat COVID-19, including securing vital personal protective equipment, testing supplies, and more for our frontline healthcare workers and citizens in Oregon and across the country. Furthermore, this legislation accelerates the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility by lifting a restriction on transfer of current detainees. This unnecessary prison--estimated to be the most expensive in the world--costs approximately $540 million each year to house 40 prisoners and has been used as a top recruiting tool by terrorists. This prison has been a black eye for the U.S., eroding relationships with our allies, undermining U.S. missions abroad, and putting U.S. troops and citizens at risk of retaliation. While Congress must do much more to achieve racial justice in this country, H.R. 6395 takes first steps to move closer to this goal. I am pleased that H.R. 6395 takes the long-overdue action of requiring the DOD to change the names of all military bases and infrastructure named for Confederate individuals within one year, prohibits display of the Confederate flag on DOD installations, and adds diversity requirements for DOD military and civilian personnel. This legislation includes hundreds-of-millions in funding for the construction of additional housing and barracks for training and enlisted personnel, as well as for oversight and improvement of the Military Housing Privatization Initiative (MHPI) program. The bill also includes a number of provisions to support the education of military dependent students, childcare services for military dependent children, and maternity uniforms for pregnant servicemembers. The NDAA. also continues Congress's work to address the military's culture of sexual misconduct by including provisions to enhance the prevention of and response to incidents of sexual trauma. Far too many of our veterans, especially those that served in Iraq and Afghanistan, are grappling with the serious medical complications linked to burn pits. While I believe Congress can and must do more to care for these veterans, I am pleased that this legislation takes modest steps to improve the identification of and care for veterans exposed to burn pits. I am also pleased this bill includes provisions to assist student loan borrowers who have privately held debt, providing $10,000 in immediate assistance to pay down the student loan. These students received no financial relief under the CARES Act. This provision will ensure the 200,000 servicemembers who owe nearly $3 billion in student loan debt receive some form of student debt relief during the pandemic. This bill includes necessary provisions that help to address PFAS and PFOA contamination on military bases that pose a public health threat to our military members and Americans living near installations. It requires the DOD to make public vital information about the level of PFAS contaminates in drinking water and groundwater at these sites. Although more can always be done to protect our environment, the bill makes an effort to fund climate change research initiatives and includes several public lands bills that will help to preserve and protect parts of America's wilderness for generations to come. It also makes strides toward protecting our most spectacular natural treasures, like ensuring the area around the Grand Canyon will not be polluted or scarred by mining. While I strongly support many provisions in this year's NDAA, I believe this legislation should have included additional provisions to rein in our bloated and wasteful defense spending, take back Congress's constitutional war powers authority, and more. I believe this legislation could have made responsible cuts to our defense budget without jeopardizing the safety of our troops or undermining our national security. For years, Congress has continued to increase the Pentagon's budget despite overwhelming evidence of its waste and abuse of taxpayer money. That's why I supported an amendment to responsibly reduce the Pentagon budget while retaining exceptions to protect service members, civilian employees, and the vital Defense Health Program from this reduction. In particular, I have always opposed the DOD's Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account, a fiscally irresponsible fund that is not counted in the budget, recklessly adds to our mounting debt, and has no congressional/oversight. OCO is a Pentagon slush fund that gives a blank check to fund endless wars that Congress hasn't authorized. I will continue fighting to finally eliminate this irresponsible fund. I have long supported a financial audit of the Pentagon. Unlike every other federal agency, the DOD has yet to pass a financial audit. For two years in a row, the Pentagon has spectacularly failed full audits, both of which highlighted numerous examples of waste and abuse. It is ridiculous to provide the Pentagon a massive spending increase--as this bill does-- when the Pentagon cannot even account for how it spends taxpayer money. That's why I offered an amendment to require and incentivize each DOD component to pass an audit by FY25. Unfortunately, my amendment did not receive a vote. Along with Yemen, I believe this legislation should have included more provisions to take back Congress's constitutional war powers authority. That's why I cosponsored an amendment to prevent the president from using unauthorized force against Iran and voted in support of an amendment to accelerate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. I also believe this legislation should have repealed the long-outdated 2001 and 2002 authorizations for the use of military force (AUMFs), as well as prohibited funding for the deployment of dangerous low-yield nuclear weapons. However, I am encouraged that this year's House Defense Appropriations bill repeals both the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs and prevents use of funds for any unauthorized use of force against Iran. I am also disappointed that several amendments I supported were not made in order, including amendments to add several diseases to the VA's list of presumptive diseases connected to Agent Orange, to curb the Pentagon's 1033 program that transfers surplus military equipment to local law enforcement agencies, to block the Trump administration's cruel ban on transgender individuals serving in the military, and my amendment to abolish the military draft. I also believe this legislation could have done far more to prevent the president from raiding billions more in funding for his unnecessary, ineffective border wall. The bottom line is that fiscal responsibility and accountability at the DOD would allow for taxpayer funds to be better spent supporting the needs of our troops, meeting our obligations to veterans, and ensuring our legitimate defense needs are prioritized while also bolstering long-underfunded domestic priorities. I strongly encourage the Senate to keep the strong House NDAA provisions and not water the bill down.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 5 of the House Resolution 1028, I offer amendments en bloc.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Schneider).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Pressley).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers on my side, and I am prepared to close if the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Graves) is ready to close.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. In response to that, I will revisit a little bit of yesterday's debate. President Trump ran on the issue of infrastructure. President Trump met with us a year ago in March. We started out saying we needed $1 trillion to $1.3 trillion for infrastructure. He went to $1.9 trillion, and then he ended up at $2 trillion. We discussed and agreed on what would be in an infrastructure bill: roads, bridges, highways, transit, wastewater, drinking water, rail, and broadband. All of those are part of this package. The total package is less than what the President requested a year ago March. He said $2 trillion. This is close to $1.5 trillion. Those components of the bill are about $1 trillion. So, that would be very close to what he wanted. The other components have become necessary because of COVID. I was talking to the chairman of Education and Labor, and it has become clear that 50 percent of the schools in America do not have HVAC systems that can handle COVID--50 percent. A lot of these schools are pretty darn decrepit. So we are investing a bunch of money to safely educate our kids. Mr. Speaker, my hometown, Springfield, Oregon, a great place, people have a great public spirit. We have voted to bond ourselves several times for new schools. We have a fabulous new middle school, absolutely incredible. It has a very big trades department, because not all kids are going on the high school track, and we need more trades. We are going to need trades to implement our infrastructure bills. So we need to help. I remember I went to a post-World War II, brand-new elementary school. That school is still sitting there, and a lot of these schools are not suitable for children at this pandemic time. It also includes money for housing. We have a housing crisis in most of America. Certainly, on the coast; although, of course, this administration cares nothing for the people who live on the coast. But even in some of the middle of the country, there is a housing crisis. This bill begins to deal with that. It also begins to deal with our absolutely decrepit public housing. That is Federal public housing, much of which is 50, 60 years old when the Federal Government did things like this, and it needs rehabilitation. So, yes, we have added a couple of elements to this bill that weren't discussed with the President, but they became necessary because of COVID. And also the Postal Service, which is more essential today than ever. Trump hates it because Jeff Bezos has Amazon, and he thinks Amazon is getting subsidized by the Postal Service. Actually, no, the Postal Service makes a bunch of money by delivering Amazon packages, but it is difficult to penetrate. So he wants to destroy the Postal Service, which will actually disproportionately affect the people who voted for him in red States, and particularly rural areas. They are getting their prescriptions and other things delivered by the USPS. Now, rain, shine, night, day, COVID or not, the Postal Service is doing it, doing it in 35-year-old delivery vehicles. They are decrepit and incredibly expensive to maintain. This bill would help them buy a new fleet and would help them to get through this crisis. So, yes, there are some other things in this that were not in a traditional infrastructure bill. As far as the portion of the bill that comes from our committee, the President had seven infrastructure weeks, and we were promised numerous times that they were imminently going to propose a bill. The only bill they ever proposed would have shifted the entire burden to the States and said: Oh, and the private sector will take care of the rest of it. There wasn't a Republican I am aware of who even supported that stupid proposal. That is it. But now we are told: Oh, they are on the cusp again, $2 trillion coming soon. Well, we are trying to help them deliver here. We heard: Oh, Presidents don't propose these things. They don't do these things. We are here on the anniversary of JFK putting transit into transportation. We are here the day after the anniversary of a Republican President, Dwight David Eisenhower, signing the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act and funding it with a trust fund, which hasn't been supplemented since 1993 because the Republicans have been in charge most of that time, and they won't raise the user fee. Their alternative bill, by the way, doesn't raise the user fee. So they are about $120 billion out of whack with a bill that only increases highways by 10 percent, zeros out any increase in transit, and does nothing for rail. So, yes, this is a different product. But this amendment--and I misspoke earlier. Eight of the amendments in this package are fully Republican amendments; the others are bipartisan amendments. So you can raise concerns about the overall process and the overall bill, but this part is solid, and it should be approved by a large majority in the House. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Slotkin.)

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am not quite certain what the gentlewoman is objecting to. Now, I realize her State has a $7.25 an hour minimum wage. Great, work 40 hours a week, live in abject poverty. Okay. So the wages for Davis-Bacon projects in her State aren't much better. These aren't living wages. They aren't family wages. They aren't wages where you can go home to your family, not have to hold a second job, raise your kids, clothe them, send them to school, give them a good education, maybe help them pay for postsecondary education. No, she is complaining about carpenters under Davis-Bacon in her State, they earn $25,000 a year under Davis-Bacon. Wow. Wow. 25,000 bucks a year. That is outrageous. If they worked for the State minimum wage, we could get that down to less than $20,000 a year. That is great. What kind of carpenter are you going to get for that wage? I don't think you are going to find any living in your State anymore. Ironworkers, well, they get a bit more, kind of up there on the heights and all that. They get up to almost $28,000 a year. $28,000 a year for an ironworker? Amazing. Oh, and then truck drivers. The heavy truck drivers who work on construction, they get $13.50 an hour. So she is alarmed at these outrageous wages that are being paid to these people and how it is impinging upon projects in her State. Why, they could get lots of people to do that for $7.25 an hour. Of course, they wouldn't have any skills, but what the heck. So, you know, what we have found, first off, these aren't union negotiated, these are done by locale because, yes, these wages would be much higher in other areas. Apparently, in her State you can buy a house for 15 or $20,000 down there or rent a nice apartment for 400, 300 bucks a month, so you can live on those kinds of wages. But other places it is not so inexpensive. And what we are trying to prevent is history. Low-bid contractors that often come in from out of State provide shoddy workmanship, but, yes, it was cheaper, it is cheaper. If you want a crappy job, hire somebody who is the low-bid contractor, who has unskilled people working for them. We are setting a standard here. Studies show that the most in any region around the country, because these are done in very discrete regions--there are quite a number of regions in her State, I was using the averages here; some of them are even lower, a few are higher. But the average, under a dispassionate analysis by the EPI, would be it could raise wages by as much as 10 percent. Wages are one-quarter of the job cost. So 10 percent of one-quarter would mean you would add 2\1/2\ percent to the job so people could have a decent living wage, decent benefits and raise a family, maybe even own a home, car. Wow. Of course, they couldn't take transit to work if the Republicans were successful in their version of this bill. You know, we found higher productivity that comes from this. This is a fight we have had many times on this floor, and I am afraid that there will be a number of Republicans who oppose her amendment. I certainly will be asking for a recorded vote. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I certainly did not mean to have her interpret I am disparaging her State. It is a beautiful State. I visited there. You have some fabulous breweries based there, one from Colorado and one from San Francisco because you have clean water. Of course, if one of these other amendments earlier is adopted, you would not have clean water and the breweries might go away, but that is okay, that is just a Republican philosophical talking point. The gentlewoman said the average wage is $20 an hour, so I don't know what she is concerned about. I have two pages of Davis-Bacon prevailing wages in North Carolina, and I only see one of about 50 entries that is $20.92 an hour, so it doesn't seem there is much purpose to her amendment. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jeffries), the Chair of the Democratic Caucus.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. I stand corrected. There are three categories out of 50 that get more than $20 an hour. Blaster. Do you want a blaster that earns $7.25 an hour? I don't think so. That might not be too good. A crane rough, all terrain up there, they earn $21.25 an hour in North Carolina. And a slipform machine, laying concrete. So there are three categories who could have their wages reduced or all of these people could have their wages reduced because many are at $14, $15, $16, $12 an hour even. And under her amendment, those protections go away. We can have a rush to the bottom. And she somehow is implying that minority contractors want to pay people less or will pay people less or can't afford to pay people. We have very strong disadvantaged business enterprise provisions in this bill. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Iowa (Ms. Finkenauer).

Mr. DeFAZIO. The gentlewoman has the right to close, so I am going to yield the balance of my time to my esteemed colleague from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Bonamici).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Garcia), a member of the committee.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I would just take this time to thank a few folks for this epic legislation, the transformative 21st century transportation bill and, of course, for things from other committees that we have explained during the debate: Helena Zyblikewycz, my chief counsel on highways and transit, incredible yeoman's work; Auke Mahar-Piersma, who took over rail; Garrett Gee; Jackie Schmitz; Brittany Lundberg, from my hometown; Chris Bell; Andrea Wohleber; Katherine Ambrose; Alice Koethe; Kathy Dedrick; Mohsin Syed, our committee counsel; Jill Harrelson; Maddy Pike; Edward McGlone; Michael Hudspith; Jamie Harrell; and many more on other subcommittees. I am just going to return to Kathy Dedrick for a moment. I do this sometimes; it always embarrasses her. We used to have a program here called the page program. I thought it was a great thing. A lot of pages went on, a number, to becomes Members of Congress or to come back and work in government service. Kathy was my first congressional page, obviously, a few years ago. She is from Lebanon, Oregon. She came back later and worked for me when we did the SAFETEA-LU bill, a few years ago, as my designated person when I chaired the Highways Subcommittee--I mean, when I was ranking member on the Highways Subcommittee. She worked for Al Gore. She worked downtown. At a very auspicious and appropriate time, she came back to be my chief of staff on the committee and has just done absolutely incredible work. Hopefully, I won't have to be disturbing her at all hours of the day and night and on weekends too much in the near future, and the same to many of my other staff who I have been bothering a lot as we worked through this process and other legislation in these very difficult times. Madam Speaker, I thank everyone who helped, and I thank those from other committees who contributed so much to the bill. Madam Speaker, I thank the Republican side. Paul Sass, Jack Ruddy--I am sure that Sam is going to do this, but I am going to do it anyway-- Corey Cooke, Michael Falencki, a dozen committees. I said all the other committees. Office of Legislative Counsel, they have been troopers in putting all this together: Wade Ballou, Karen Anderson, Robert Casturo, and Kakuti Lin. The Congressional Research Service, Christopher Davis sat in on our epic 24-hour markup and provided invaluable advice when we threatened to fall into the parliamentary black hole a couple of times. He kept us out of it. And then the floor staff and, of course, the Office of the Parliamentarian for their work as we determined jurisdictions and appropriateness of amendments. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of these en bloc amendments which provides consideration of 27 amendments sponsored by Members on both sides of the aisle. The amendments contained in this en bloc amend various divisions of the bill, and affect highways, transit, rail, safety, water, natural resources, and energy policy in the base bill. Some of these amendments include: A designation of a route through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia as a future Interstate 14, and designation of a route through Texas and New Mexico as future Interstate 27; Directing a study on the effectiveness of suicide barriers on physical structures other than bridges; Clarifying that replacement of functionally obsolete warning devices are eligible under the railway grade crossing program; Clarifying that transportation demand data and modeling directed by the bill must include an analysis of the level of accuracy of existing modeling tools; Granting Puerto Rico the authority to begin issuing commercial drivers' licenses, as all States have the authority to do; Allowing certain Surface Transportation Program funds to be used on local roads, including farm-to-market roads, in rural areas. There is a strong emphasis in this bill on rural areas; Making grant funds available to States who ban any non-navigational viewing of cellphones while driving; Requiring the Secretary of Transportation, within 2 years of enactment, to issue a motor vehicle safety standard for newly manufactured commercial motor vehicles to be equipped with a universal electronic vehicle identifier to identify the vehicle for the purposes of roadside inspections and enforcement; Requiring States that collect data on traffic stops as part of the racial profiling grant program to include the data on the mode of transportation associated with the stop. These are just a few. I look forward to hearing further discussion on these amendments from the various sponsors. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for offering these amendments to improve the Moving Forward Act. I urge adoption of the amendment. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I would point out that all of these amendments are bipartisan and two of them are solely Republican. So, you know, the gentleman may have general objections to the bill for other reasons, as we discussed yesterday, the emphasis on climate change, and other provisions of the bill for safe drinking water, a substantial increase in wastewater, and all that, but this en bloc should be virtually non- controversial. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Suozzi).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Dingell).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Cuellar).

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, pursuant to instructions of the House in the motion to recommit, I report the bill, H.R. 2, back to the House in its entirety with an amendment.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that in the engrossment of H.R. 2, the Clerk be authorized to correct section numbers, punctuation, spelling, and cross-references and to make such other technical conforming changes as may be necessary to accurately reflect the actions of the House.