Chaka Fattah

Mr. FATTAH

Mr. FATTAH. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I also rise in support of the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. FATTAH. I thank the gentleman. I also oppose the amendment. The business of our country is, I think, appropriate in making sure that our businesses are not locked out of a market around the world. Only 2 percent of American businesses export anywhere, and we need to have a robust effort because 90 percent of the world's consumers live somewhere else. We do have a reality that other governments are aggressive about promoting their business opportunities. If we want Americans to have jobs here, some of those are connected to these opportunities. So I thank the chairman, and I suggest that this is not an amendment that would be in the interest of the American business community or workers.

Mr. FATTAH. We have an Earth in which the majority of it is covered by oceans. As a nation, we have more responsibility territorially for the world's oceans than any other nation. You agree that this is a major issue. It is funded at a level that we think should be increased. I hope that the chairman will work with us as we go forward to see whether we can improve and make even more robust our stewardship, which is our responsibility, as I would understand it. Even though there are other areas in the bill where we have made important sacrifices, maybe this is an area where we can do more.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, we will work together on this. This is a very important area of interest for me, and I thank the gentlewoman for offering her amendment.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me first, since this is my first appearance on the floor since the tragic news of the Vice President's son's death, offer my condolences. I am sure all of my colleagues and the people of Philadelphia consider the Biden family one of our own since they are nearby neighbors. I also want to offer my sincere condolences and concern for the people of Texas, given the tragedy of the deaths and the severe weather incidents there that have occasioned the flooding. We rise today in moving an appropriations bill, the Commerce, Justice, Science bill. The chairman and the ranking member from New York have assisted the subcommittee in its work. I want to thank the subcommittee chairman for all of the cooperation that has been extended. He has pointed to a number of the circumstances in which he has helped make sure that priorities that we were interested in were accommodated in the bill, and I want to talk a little bit about that. One is in the area of brain science, neuroscience. The BRAIN Initiative is critically important. We have some 50 million Americans suffering from brain-related diseases or disorders. Fifty million in a country of a little over 300 million is a very significant number. The diseases themselves, everything from Alzheimer's to epilepsy, autism, brain cancer--in the case of the Vice President's son--a whole host of challenges that cost our country in not just financial ways, but affect so many families. I want to thank the chairman for his continued cooperation and work with me on what I think is the most important area of scientific discovery that we need to be focused on as a nation. Also, in the area of youth mentoring, the work in terms of supporting our efforts to make sure that millions of the Nation's young people have the appropriate guidance that they need, such as the great congressionally chartered organizations like the Boys & Girls Clubs of America; the YMCA; and Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, which is celebrating their 100th anniversary this month. I want to thank him for that. I could go on through a laundry list of areas, manufacturing and the like, in which we have worked very closely together; and there is nothing that could be improved upon in terms of the process between the interactions between the majority and the minority on this bill. There is an elephant in the room, no pun intended, in the sense that the majority has an absolute view about the budget allocations, given the Budget Control Act, and see that as something that limits our ability to meet the challenges of our great Nation. The minority has the view that we need to move away from that budget control agreement and move away from these automatic caps and meet the needs, as the Constitution indicated that the Appropriations Committee's job was, to meet the needs of our great Nation. We know that there are needs that are not going to be met. The chairman just talked about how important our system of laws were. Well, in this bill, we fall short, at least at this moment, of what we need to fully do to fund the Legal Services Corporation, which was established under a Republican administration; but it provides services, not to Democrats or Republicans, but to Americans all across our country, to provide access to the courts and to make sure that they can have due process in civil litigations. We know that we are short there. We have a constitutional responsibility to fund the Census. We are going to, at this moment, fall shy of that. Now, we hope that we will improve this bill. We can't improve the process, but we can improve the product as we go toward a conference with the Senate. There are areas related to NASA, even though we funded above $18 billion, which is a historic commitment to NASA, that we still are not dealing with the pressing issues of fully funding Commercial Crew which requires--we have now paid out $500 million to our Russian counterparts to transport astronauts to the International Space Station, and we are going to have to continue that longer than we need to because we are not able, under the allocation, to meet our responsibilities and the needs on the Commercial Crew appropriations. Now, Galileo, 400 years ago, pointed us toward Europa. I agree with the chairman that the need to fully explore and to bring back a sample and to do everything else necessary to fully understand what the potential may be is an important effort, but also funding space technology and our Commercial Crew Program--and I know the chairman agrees with me--are going to be important efforts for us to try to improve in this bill as we go towards conference with the Senate. The minority can't shirk its responsibility to point out these shortcomings. Having pointed them out, I do want to make the point, though, that the working relationship is one that I think appropriately reflects the kind of process we want to have in the House. We want all views to be considered, and I know that every offering of a view from the minority has been fully considered by the chairman. I thank him, and I want to thank his staff, and I want to thank my staff of the committee because they have worked very hard for us to come to this moment. We are at a point in the process in which the majority will have its way. There eventually will be a Senate bill, but we also have to weigh in the administration's viewpoint in order to have a law of the land. The administration has issued a statement on this bill, and in appropriate ways, it compliments the subcommittee for its foresight on a range of points, but it also strongly recommends changes in directions in appropriations in a variety of areas that the administration thinks would hold our country back. I think that there is a lot to be said about fiscal prudence. We need to make sure that we are operating in a fiscally responsible way. This Nation at its founding, at the point in which we had to separate ourselves from the British, we borrowed a few dollars. It costs us something at almost every point in the history of our country, as in the case for most families and most businesses, in which you have to make investments and which sometimes those investments cause you to have an imbalance for a moment or for a period of time. There is a reason why we have mortgages, so that people can buy homes, and we invest in student loans so that young people can get an education. There is a need for our country, from time to time, to look beyond the immediate balance of the books to understand what our calling is. We say, sometimes, that we are an exceptional nation. Exceptionalism requires us to have some foresight. We know that this is an age of innovation and scientific discovery. Some have suggested that there is nothing new under the Sun, but we know that that is not so. Just in recent months, we found the largest volcano on Earth--just discovered. We found in drought-stricken parts of Africa, deep down underneath the earth, some of the largest aquifers of water. We have now discovered a warmblooded fish for the first time ever and a new species of bird in China. This is not an age in which discovery is not possible. This is a time for our country where we should be investing in science and innovation. We have a need to as a country, as I mentioned, of just some 300-million plus, when we compete against billion-plus populated countries like China and India, we can't afford to leave any of our young people in the shadows. We can't afford to not invest in science and innovation. I want to thank the chairman for what he has done. I want to tell him that we will continue to work with him as we go forward because I believe what we have here today is not a perfect bill, but the foundation for what will be, I think, the best Commerce, Justice, Science bill that could be produced. It is a beginning of that process, and I want to thank him. I look forward to the debate in the amendment process. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), the ranking member and a great leader for our team on Appropriations.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The chairman and the staff have done a remarkable job working on a whole range of issues related to fish, not just in the Gulf of Mexico and Texas, but throughout the questions around salmon in Washington State and the issues related to even our part of the country where we fish a little bit. So I want to thank the gentleman for his comments. I now yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from the great State of California (Mr. Honda), my colleague on the subcommittee, who has really helped us on the subcommittee, particularly around areas related to innovation and science and advanced manufacturing.

Mr. FATTAH. May I inquire of the time remaining on both sides?

Mr. FATTAH. In reclaiming my time, I am glad that we are all in agreement. I don't want families to be left alone, though, if they have someone who is suffering from mental health illnesses. The reason that question is asked in a community survey is so that, when we are doing funding for communities for mental health services, we know where the impact of those dollars can be most applied. The census is taken for a good reason, but let us agree for the moment on the amendment, and let's move on. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

Mr. FATTAH. Will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chair, I also would work with the gentlewoman and the chairman on this. You know, the premise of our entire judicial system is that we would rather a guilty person go free than any innocent person be in prison. Forensic science has brought a lot to the business of better understanding actually what has taken place and to make sure that we don't have innocent people incarcerated.

Mr. FATTAH

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I have visited the Intrepid Center over in Bethesda. We have been working with our veterans on post-traumatic stress. I know, in Houston, some of the best work in the Nation is being done at the University of Texas, at the Center for BrainHealth in Dallas, and your work in Houston. I had my own experience with this. I had a young man, Bill Cooper, who on his last day in Iraq went out on patrol, and he was the victim of an IED. Some 59 operations later, he ended up working for me in my district offices. He is just doing a wonderful job helping other veterans in the Philadelphia area, but post-traumatic stress is a circumstance that far too many of our veterans have faced. I want to thank my colleague from the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, area, Congressman Pat Meehan, who has helped to lead this effort on veterans courts, and the chairman and I support it. I thank the gentlewoman for her amendment. I am prepared to yield back the remainder of my time because, again, I am not in opposition. I am in favor of the amendment.

Mr. FATTAH. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I should report to the House that Bill Cooper got married, just had a new son, and got his graduate degree on the GI bill that we passed. He is just another example of what can happen for our veterans when we take care of them. I thank the gentlewoman from California, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition even though I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that we modify the amendment and, rather than strike line 12 on page 46, strike line 7.

Mr. FATTAH

Mr. FATTAH. Reclaiming my time, we are talking red snapper, right? I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. FATTAH. But for the recreational fisherman, taking your sons out to fish for the day, there is a limit of 10 days?

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I concur.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman and I thank the gentleman from Texas for offering this amendment. I also support it. We have already put some dollars available for this purpose, but adding another additional $10 million gets us closer to the goal that we want to seek in this effort, so I thank the gentleman. We have got a circumstance here where we are in total agreement and on one accord.

Mr. FATTAH. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, we made some significant progress, but more needs to be done. I want to thank the gentleman for his amendment. The committee has made this a very high priority. I thank the chairman for his leadership in this regard. We are all in concurrence here.