Peter DeFazio

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. So, we can talk a lot about making a major investment in infrastructure. We have been hung up on how are we going to pay for service, transportation; 47,000 bridges need repair or replacement; 40 percent of the National Highway System is deteriorated to the point we have to rebuild it, not just recoat it; and there is a $100 billion backlog in transit just to bring it up to a state of good repair. Those are just the needs in surface. Then you go to wastewater. Then you go to airports. Then you go to drinking water. But guess what? For every single one of those things, we are going to have to raise revenues one way or another. But this one thing, the need to invest in our harbors, we have the money. It is sitting in the bank, and we are being told, because of the budget caps, it can't be spent. Seriously? The President himself said, when I was there, ``Spend that money.'' So if we get the bill through the House, if they don't derail it and it gets through the Senate, the President will sign it, plain and simple. This is common sense outside the beltway, but just budget weirdness inside. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2502) to amend title 40, United States Code, to require certain prospectuses for public buildings to be made publicly available, and for other purposes.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, I have the right to close. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of my time. Well, again, in response to my good friend, the President said hundreds of times: Mexico is going to pay for the wall. They are not. We have the transcript of the phone call where he called the new President of Mexico and said: Look, I know you are not going to pay for the wall, but you can't say that. We are going to pay for it. So, that is one thing. Also, he talked about moving the Embassy to Jerusalem. The President was going to deliver a peace plan for the Middle East. Where is it? There are a lot of things this President said he was going to do that haven't happened. Getting close to the President is sort of like being in the orbit of a black hole, which sucks in everything. And that sucked in a lot of things and a lot of people who have been, then, blown back out at some point by the President. His current Acting Chief of Staff--I don't know how long he has been acting now; a year, a year and half, something like that. The President likes them to be acting because he can get rid of them more easily, he thinks. When he had his own opinions, when he wasn't in the orbit of the black hole of Donald Trump, he said about walls, Mick Mulvaney, the President's acting Chief of Staff: ``You go under, you go around, you go through. What they need is more manpower and more technology.'' Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said that August 25, 2015, when he had his own opinions, when he worked here in the United States House of Representatives. He can't have his own opinions anymore. He thought a wall was stupid then and it wouldn't do anything. And he said what we have been saying; we inspect six percent of the semi- tractor trailers that roll across the border, and we have testimony in the conviction of a drug lord, Joaquin Guzman, in New York, we have testimony in that trial. They are bringing the drugs in in just boatloads, or truckloads, boatloads--we already talked about the Coast Guard--and truckloads across the border because we only inspect a fraction of them. So what if they lose a few? Hundreds of millions of dollars; that is the cost of doing business. This is a multi-billion-dollar business, these cartels. And as Mick Mulvaney said in an honest moment, we need manpower. We already heard that they have only got four people at the border crossing in Arizona. Why do they only have four people? We have appropriated more money for more Border Patrol people consistently, year in, year out. But they are way behind in their numbers. They haven't been able to hire up to the numbers we have authorized. And technology, which is what I am talking about, they don't have that either. There is also--I mean, you know, people over there are pooh-poohing child care centers for the troops in the military and things like that. They don't need it. Their kids don't need it. Really? And then also the President is taking hundreds of millions of dollars out of the European defense initiative. I have been to Poland recently, and I have seen the Suwalki Corridor. That is the Russian invasion route into Europe. For years it was the Fulda Gap, but now it is the Suwalki Corridor since Germany is reunified. And we are going to cancel projects in countries to defend that area and give them better capability to defend themselves against the Russian invasion. But since Vlad--that is Mr. Putin, whatever dictators are called in Russia--is buddies with the President; they have secret phone calls, secret conversations that aren't transcribed, the President is withholding money from Ukraine to defend itself. And now we are going to cut money for our allies, the European defense initiative, to build a stupid, useless wall on the border. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I believe I have the right to close. I have no further speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I just would comment, the gentleman just said it is insignificant--or whatever--because he just demeaned a childcare center for the troops at Andrews, and he heard about the conditions that those children are living under: sewage, mold, and collapsed roof, but he doesn't think that is necessary for the troops or the troops' kids. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Brownley).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, just in quick response to my colleague from North Carolina, a member of the committee of jurisdiction, the Coast Guard has interdicted more drugs than all of the other Federal agencies combined, yet they say they are only acting on 20 percent of them. So that is a pretty big hole. But the second thing is, she is right. We are not interdicting very many drugs at the points of entry because we only inspect 6 percent of the semis with high technology. And Guzman's buddies said: That is how we bring it in. We put fake floors in the semis, and we are bringing tons of drugs across. He is right. We are not intercepting them because we don't have the personnel and we don't have the technology. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Castro).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, just in quick response to the gentleman, as I pointed out earlier, first off, the immigrants attempting to come to the United States seeking asylum or otherwise are walking up to border control points. They are not sneaking across the desert. Building a wall will do nothing. As I pointed out earlier, drugs are not being smuggled in backpacks through the desert. We know they are coming by sea, and we know they are coming through our border control points; and we know we don't have the technology nor the personnel necessary to stop them. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the remaining time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I would like to again inquire as to the time remaining.

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

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on S.J. Res. 54.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), the chair of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the President has declared a national emergency so that he can divert funds from the Pentagon and other agencies to deal with the national emergency on the border. The largest diversion of funds is going into a wall. The President says the emergency is mostly about the smuggling of drugs. Interesting. As we know from testimony when Carlos Guzman was tried and convicted in New York, a big drug lord from Mexico, his hench-people and others testified that the cartels don't use people with backpacks through remote areas of the desert. That is too inefficient for a multibillion- dollar business. What they do is send trucks, which they have modified, semis, through our border control points, where we only inspect 6 percent of the trucks, so they lose one every once in a while. So what? With tens of millions of dollars, it doesn't matter to them. It is just the cost of doing business, kind of like taxes. What is the President doing about the border control points? Nothing. We are not buying the new technology we need and reconfiguring them so that we can inspect every truck that comes across the border. They have another way of getting the drugs in, which they are using more and more and more. That is that they use semi-submersibles and other boats and ships to smuggle the drugs around, on the coasts of the United States. The Coast Guard is our prime line of defense against this. The retired last Commandant of the Coast Guard said that we have actionable intelligence on 80 percent of the drug shipments coming into the United States, but the Coast Guard only has resources to intercept 20 percent. Just last week, the Coast Guard intercepted a semi-submersible that had 12,000 pounds of cocaine on it. That would be a heck of a lot of people with backpacks coming across the border, as the President alleges--no, that is not the way they do it--worth over $165 million. What is the President doing? He is diverting money from the Coast Guard to the physical, land-based border and saying that somehow this is going to help us stop the drug shipments. Here is the Coast Guard with a prior drug shipment that they intercepted. Now, they just intercepted another. We have all seen the videos of them jumping onto these semi- submersibles out in the middle of the Pacific, with 6- to 8-foot swells, jumping on there and stopping and arresting these people. What is the President doing? He is cutting the Coast Guard's capability of doing this. Back to the border. Again, there are a few things we could be doing. Oh, look, there is something just like what the President wants, a big, tall fence with slats. People seem to be climbing over it. Here is the border control point. Six percent of these vehicles will be inspected. Here is a tunnel under it. There is a drone over it. Some of these people are really ingenious. They even are imitating the Middle Ages, using catapults to throw drugs over where there is an existing wall. Here we are, cutting $6 billion from the Pentagon for critical needs of the Pentagon for housing where troops are living in mold-infested barracks, for training facilities for the National Guard, for firefighting facilities on our military bases, and from daycare centers for our troops' kids. And we don't pay these troops a heck of a lot of money; they can't afford to send their kids off base to daycare. The President says all that stuff is going to be cut because we have to build his stupid wall, which isn't even targeting the way drugs are really brought into the United States of America. This is just an abysmally stupid waste of money, but he is delivering on a campaign promise. Oh, wait a minute. Mexico is going to pay. Who is going to pay? Mexico. Who is going to pay? Mexico. Then he had a phone call with the President of Mexico saying: I know you are not going to pay it--we have this transcript, too--but you can't say publicly you are not going to pay for it. We are going to pay for it. The taxpayers of the United States are going to pay for his stupid, useless wall, cutting essential things from the Coast Guard, which does real, dangerous work every day intercepting drugs; cutting funds from the military, which needs these facilities for their troops, troop morale, and the safety and security of our troops. All for a stupid wall. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 591, I call up the joint resolution (S.J. Res. 54) relating to a national emergency declared by the President on February 15, 2019, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. On his last rejoinder, my good friend and colleague said that the President said something about declaring an emergency. Well, the President says an awful lot of things that he doesn't do, so I don't know how we were supposed to give credibility to that. He said Mexico--he said, probably a hundred times, maybe more than a hundred times: ``Mexico is going to pay for the wall.'' ``Who is going to pay for the wall?'' ``Mexico.'' I mean, he got cheers. He just would brighten up, this was so wonderful. But, of course, that is not happening. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Brown), a member of the committee of jurisdiction.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, well, I saw an extraordinary clip of President Trump at a fundraising event where he is accusing the intelligence agents who rightly reported his conduct of committing treason. Let's see. Russia has invaded Ukraine, Ukraine is dependent upon the United States for military assistance to defend itself, Trump is withholding the aid, at the same time asking them for dirt on his political opponent. He is jeopardizing the national security interests of the United States. If anybody is committing treason, and I believe that is an impeachable offense, it is the President of the United States, Donald Trump.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I will vote yes on H.R. 4378, which funds the federal government through November 21, 2019, although I do have several concerns regarding what is in the bill. The House has completed nearly all of its appropriations bills. The Republican Senate has passed none. Because the Senate has not done its work, bridge funding is needed to keep the government open past September 30. Let me be clear: it is imperative that Congress provide long-term stability and funding. Congress, specifically the Senate, needs to get its work done and halt the ridiculous and irresponsible lurching from short-term fix to short-term fix. Shutting down the government does nothing but harm Americans. The shutdown earlier this year resulted in Coast Guard personnel going without a pay check for 35 days. I have a bill to ensure that never happens again. The continuing resolution includes provisions that I strongly support. I am glad it contains language to stop roughly $1.2 billion in cuts to transit formula funding from going into effect on October 1, 2019. Had this language not been included, the so-called ``Rostenkowski test'' would have been triggered for the first time ever, leading to a roughly 12 percent cut in funding to transit agencies. This test, originally intended to prevent overspending from the Highway Trust Fund, is no longer relevant given that the Trust Fund now consistently relies on General Fund transfers and should ultimately be repealed. It also includes funding for Community Health Centers, which provide a vital lifeline for health care services to thousands of Oregonians and millions of Americans in rural and underserved communities. It also modifies Medicaid's drug rebate program to ensure that rebates paid to the federal government and the states by brand name drug manufacturers are calculated based solely on the price of a brand name drug, and not on generic drug prices. It includes language to ensure the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has the funding it needs to process claims from Blue Water Navy Veterans impacted by Agent Orange as well as critical provisions that will significantly expand enrollment in the World Trade Center Health Program, aiding 9/11 first responders and survivors. Importantly, the bill provides $250 million in aid to Ukraine to help it defend itself from Russian aggression, which President Trump suspiciously delayed this summer. Disturbingly, Trump may have even tried to use this aid as leverage to coerce Ukraine into conducting politically-motivated investigations to help Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and to target former Vice President Joe Biden's family. However, I am extremely disappointed that the continuing resolution did not address a highway program funding issue created by the Republicans in the last surface-transportation reauthorization bill. Section 1438 of the Fix America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act rescinds $7.6 billion of Federal highway funding on July 1, 2020. State Departments of Transportation are very concerned about the impact of the rescission on planning, construction, and repair of roads and bridges, and it is imperative that we address this before we finalize the fiscal year 2020 appropriations bills. I also have serious concerns with the bill's attempt to reimburse the Commodity Credit Corporation for trade relief that has been disbursed to farmers and ranchers hurt by President Trump's trade war with China. While's there's no doubt that farmers and ranchers have suffered under President Trump's trade policies, this legislation essentially clears the way for the president to continue his erratic trade policies unchecked by providing an absurd bailout of more than $20 billion. I hope the Senate can get its work done during the next eight weeks so we can stop the budget gimmicks and spend our time working on important issues like improving access to health care and repairing our dilapidated infrastructure. That is what Americans expect, and that is what they deserve.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, on September 17, 2019, I was unable to be present for Roll Call Vote 532, on the Motion to Close Portions of the Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act Conference. Had I been present, I would have voted Nay.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to remove Representative Cohen of Tennessee as a cosponsor of H.R. 3632.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I will vote in support of H. Res. 246, a resolution opposing the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. While it will be a difficult vote, I support this resolution because some individuals leading the BDS movement have engaged in anti- Semitic rhetoric and actions and have questioned the right of Israel to exist. While not perfect, this resolution sends an important message that anti-Semitism is unacceptable. Let me be clear: anti-Semitism, as with any other form of racism or discrimination, is antithetical to the values and aspirations of the American people. I am disturbed by the rise of anti-Semitism in the United States and other parts of the world, and I am troubled by the fact that the genocide that took place during the Holocaust is fading from memory. That's why I have taken substantive actions to combat anti-Semitism, including joining the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Anti- Semitism, voting in support of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Act of 2018, and voting in support of a resolution condemning anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry and intolerance. I am also a cosponsor of the Never Again Education Act, which would help address the rise in anti-Semitism by granting teachers across the country the resources and training necessary to teach our children the lessons of the Holocaust and the horrific consequences of hate and intolerance. At the same time, I agree with this resolution's statements that boycotts and related actions are legitimate forms of free speech protected under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. That's why I am cosponsoring H. Res. 496, a resolution affirming that all Americans have the right to participate in boycotts, as protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. I have also consistently opposed--and will continue to oppose--any legislation that would punish or criminalize individuals' constitutionally-protected right to free speech. I also agree with the stated support for a two-state solution in H. Res. 246. I have consistently supported a two-state solution throughout my time in Congress, and I am once again a cosponsor of legislation stating that any U.S. plan or proposal for peace in the Middle East must include and center on a two-state solution. A two-state solution will not only secure Israel's future as a democratic, Jewish state, it will also advance U.S. security interests in the region and enhance our ability to confront the threats posed by Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and other dubious actors in the Middle East. Unfortunately, this resolution does nothing to address the fact that the Trump administration and the Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have taken a number of actions that severely undermine a two-state solution. This includes the Trump administration's decision to recognize the city of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, to relocate the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, to greenlight the continuing expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and to discontinue U.S. contributions to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and bilateral assistance to the Palestinians--all decisions which I strongly oppose. Regrettably, the Trump administration's actions have undermined the confidence among Palestinians and Arab countries in the region that the U.S. desires to play a productive role as a neutral mediator in the Middle East peace process. As an ally of Israel, the United States invests more than $3 billion in aid to Israel annually. Accordingly, I believe it is only appropriate that lawmakers voice their legitimate concerns with Israeli policies in a constructive way, as I have done throughout my time in Congress and will continue to do. That's why I have joined my colleagues in urging the Israeli government not to demolish Palestinian communities in the West Bank, cosponsored legislation such as the Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act, and continued to urge President Trump to restore vital aid to the Palestinians. Protecting human rights, regardless of any ongoing tension between Israelis and Palestinians, should be a fundamental American value. It is only through thoughtful, respectful, nuanced debate that Congress can productively contribute towards resolving the Israeli- Palestinian conflict and addressing the legitimate needs of both peoples. The bottom line is it is critical that the U.S. pursue policies that will move Israelis and Palestinians towards a negotiated, two-state solution, and I will continue to push the Trump administration and Congress to do so.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3409) to authorize appropriations for the Coast Guard, and for other purposes, as amended.