Chaka Fattah

Mr. FATTAH

Mr. FATTAH. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey, Rush Holt, my friend, the great science leader here in the Congress. He is the only one among us who has a terminal degree in nuclear science, and he is also retiring this year.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the great State of California, Congressman Sam Farr.

Mr. FATTAH. I move to strike the last word.

Mr. FATTAH. The chairman and I sat through some hearings last year, listening to and learning about the hatcheries in Washington State and learning about both the treaty responsibilities and the natural hatchery programs. I think we funded it at the level that was requested and then above that. On top of the fact that we are at a level beyond what was requested, this, again, would diminish the accounts for the census. We have a constitutional responsibility. We swear our oath to the Constitution. It requires the United States Congress to fund a census, and even though the hatcheries in Washington State deserve appropriate support, I think that the committee has moved in that direction. I have to oppose this on the basis that it, again, attacks an account that we have a responsibility to protect, even though it may not have the same level of political or popular support as some of these items. I love eating the fish, but we have got to make sure we count the census, so that we can live up to our responsibility as a Congress. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. FATTAH. The gentleman moved back and forth from the original allegations to today's report from the inspector general, but left out some very important points, and I want to make sure the House is operating from full information. The allegation that veterans died for a lack of care was not proven by today's report. In fact, the inspector general said today they have no ability to determine this issue. The actual whistleblower who made this allegation in the first place was on FOX News on Sunday and said that he had no ability to tie the death to the delay. I think we don't want to create a situation where we don't have veterans seeking care based on misinformation. So what I want to do is just take a minute and make sure the House is aware that under every analysis, the care at the VA is good or excellent. This is from the actual veterans' care organizations and their testimony before the Congress, House, and Senate. In fact, today, I had a young woman who was a paralyzed Vietnam war veteran. She walked into my office. She is involved in a spinal cord program at the Bronx VA that has got her up and walking. It is part of the ReWalk system. She was first denied some benefits because her autoimmune deficiency was caused by agent orange, and that had been denied for many years. But under General Shinseki, they have allowed this. And now, because she had more than a 50 percent disability, a quality wheel chair and other access. I want to make this point clear. One is that no one anywhere has found that some veteran died because of a lack of service. It has not been proven. It is an allegation. There is an investigation. And we should see the investigation to its conclusion. But the one thing we don't want to do is create a situation where veterans who need care don't pursue it. And especially in spinal cord and in terms of artificial limbs and traumatic brain injury, there is no better care that our veterans can get than at the VA. So I just want to make this point that we are not dealing with the substance of the amendment, but that on the facts of this investigation the House would be well served to let us have an investigation and then let us react to what the facts are. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. I want to take a minute to acknowledge someone else who has played a very important role in our country's science activities and is now retiring. I spent some time over at NASA headquarters, and I also went out to visit the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to see the Mars Rover land after 8\1/2\ months of travel. The NASA team is an extraordinary team. One of its members, the head of the Education Office, a former astronaut, is retiring, and I wanted to take a minute during general debate to acknowledge his great service to this country. Leland Melvin hails from the chairman's great State of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and we want to wish him well and thank him for his service to our country. I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski), my colleague who has worked here on small business and research connections to science to commercialize technology and to help build the American economy.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I concur with the chairman and look forward to working with the gentleman from Delaware on this issue of horseshoe crabs because they are critically important to both biomedical research and to the economy. We look forward to working with him as we go forward. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. I rise in support of this amendment and thank the chairman for accepting it. I join with the chairman in asking for a recorded vote. My home State, like many of our States, rushed forward with hundreds of thousands of names into the system after the Newtown shooting of 20 schoolchildren, but names that should have been in the system from the beginning. So I think it is very important that, if we are going to have this system, that we have the information in it, and this amendment provides the resources, and none of the offsets are from the census account. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I resemble some of the remarks that have been made as of late on the floor. I want to say a couple of things. One is that a lot of us like to hold onto things, but, you know, life moves on and the country moves on. There is a point in time in which the country made a decision around alcohol and put it in a different category than other things, and, seemingly, the public is making a decision about marijuana. Now, it may have something to do with the last few Presidents we have had, who all agreed that they smoked marijuana, or it may have something to do with medical marijuana and the notion that it can help in terms of dealing with the pain that people feel when they have chronic pain and diseases. Whatever is going on, the truth of the matter is that the Congress, we are probably the last to hear of it. But the Nation has kind of moved on, and you see this in the State actions. You see it in my hometown, where the district attorney got elected 4 years ago and decided he was not prosecuting any more marijuana cases, where the people had just possession for use. And now, 4 years later, the city council has finally decided, well, maybe the police shouldn't lock people up since the DA is not going to prosecute them. So sometimes those of us who are in political office, we get dragged along a little slower. But it doesn't matter what we decide on this issue. There are decisions being made, and the country is moving in a different direction, very similar to the decision that was made on the prohibition in terms of alcohol. So the point here is that we will vote however we may vote. It will not be the deciding issue in this regard, because local communities are deciding. Just like in Kentucky now, you have Mitch McConnell and others talking about what we are going to do about hemp. There is going to be some movement here on some of these issues, and those of us who have got a few gray hairs, we might just have to hold on and know that the country has made changes on some of these social issues. But there is still the reality that when we made the change on alcohol, we went from shooting up and down the street during prohibition over it, with Eliot Ness and crew, to a point where we have accepted it as part of, as you said, our culture. Now, it is still not healthy; it is still addictive; it is still a drug; but it is not criminalized in our Nation. And that might be where America is headed on the question of marijuana. And some of us, at times, have to accept change for what it is. It is a change because people have grown to a different point of view or, as the President has said, you evolve on some of these issues. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I ask for a recorded vote on the last one.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I also rise in support of the amendment. This is a crisis any way you look at it in my home State of Pennsylvania whether it is in the Pocono Mountains area or in the city of Philadelphia. All throughout the country, we see this epidemic. People are losing their lives, and extraordinary action needs to be taken. I do want to say that our side, even though we support this particular amendment, is concerned about the offset. Just so that we can start to make sure that everyone understands that we are concerned about it, we will want a recorded vote on this, and I will vote in favor of it as we do have a responsibility at some point to think about funding the census. So I will stop there. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. FATTAH. I indicated in my remarks that we were asking for a recorded vote. Would you like to read back my remarks?

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. FATTAH. That being granted, I also think it is a great amendment and from a great Member. I thank the chairman for agreeing to it. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. FATTAH. I have no further requests for time during general debate, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, first of all, I appreciate the majority leader. I know for certain that he has an interest, particularly in these areas that he has spoken about, because on one day, at the end of a long week, the two of us ventured over to the National Institutes of Health to sit and learn a little bit more about the merit-based selection process for investment and investigations to end diseases, and Lamar Smith, who is a great Member, led the effort on patent reform. However, I think that both are misguided in this attempt to move away from the world-renowned merit-based selection process at the National Science Foundation. All of our competitors are actually trying to mimic the merit-based selection process that the National Science Foundation utilizes, and it is critically important that the National Science Board, in the ways that these decisions are made, is not going to be influenced by politics. That was in the wisdom of the creation of this, and it has worked so well that we now lead the world. If we want to continue to lead the world, the last thing we want to do is to interject politics into the decisionmaking process of what basic scientific research should be supported. There are more proposals that come in than can be funded that are done on a peer-review, science-only basis, and I think it would be a very unwise signal for this Congress to send if we were to move in this direction. I hope that our colleagues, even though we have great respect for the majority leader, would act with more respect for basic science and for a merit-based selection process. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I respect your decision then, and we will proceed. Thank you. Amendment Offered by Mr. McNerney