Alan Grayson

Mr. GRAYSON

Mr. GRAYSON. Reclaiming my time, I appreciate my friend from New Jersey answering those questions. I would maintain that the simpler answer is that abortion is not murder; it is not the taking of human life. I yield 1 minute to my colleague from New York (Mr. Serrano).

Mr. GRAYSON. I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano).

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. GRAYSON

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Speaker, I want to make a statement regarding the passage of H.R. 5293, the Department of Defense Appropriation Act, 2017. Specifically I would like to make a statement about my amendment, Grayson Number 58. My amendment moved $5 million from the Operation and Maintenance, Defense-Wide account to the Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Army Account's Advanced Concepts and Simulation program. These funds allow universities to focus on advancing component technologies required for real time modeling and simulation training. A promising use of this program is the development of a more effective protocol for treating combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder for active duty, retired, and discharged personnel and their families. The use of modeling and simulation technology has enabled new innovative and immersive therapies to be developed, which can extend trauma management therapy protocol. I support the use of modeling and simulation and thank my colleagues for their support of my amendment.

Mr. GRAYSON

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

Mr. GRAYSON. Madam Chair, this is an amendment that is identical to other amendments that have been inserted by voice vote into every appropriations bill considered under an open rule during the 113th and 114th Congresses. I extend my thanks to the Rules Committee for ruling this amendment in order. My amendment expands the list of parties with whom the Federal Government is prohibited from contracting due to serious misconduct on the part of the contractors. I hope that this amendment remains noncontroversial, as it has been, and will again be passed unanimously by the House. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Mr. GRAYSON. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAYSON

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, we are talking about a minimum wage of $4.25 an hour. That is less than $700 per month. Tell me how anybody can survive anywhere on the island of Puerto Rico on less than $700 a month. It simply isn't possible. The cost of living in San Juan is no lower than it is in Orlando, or much of the mainland for that matter. I don't know where you can even find a one-bedroom apartment for $700 a month that would be worth living in. I don't know how you can pay for lunch and dinner and breakfast for $700 a month. I don't know how you can find health coverage for $700 a month. I don't know how you can find transportation to get to that job for $700 a month. I just don't get it. Any one of these things would be enough to break the budget and put you into bankruptcy if you are only making $700 a month, and that is before you even have to pay taxes. What we are doing is we are taking a Spanish-speaking population, 3.5 million of them, and we are condemning them to low wages to the point where 45-year-old men will lose their jobs to 20-year-old sons because the 20-year-old sons are forced to work for only $4.25.

Mr. GRAYSON. This is the lesson that we are teaching those young men and women who we are supposedly trying to help. The lesson is this: hop on an airplane from San Juan to my district in Orlando for $168, and you can get a 70 percent increase in your wages because that is what the difference is already under current law between what you are talking about, a $4.25 hourly wage and $7.25 that you can earn legally--it is actually more than that under State law--in Orlando. That is not teaching people how to work. It is teaching people to disrespect work.

Mr. GRAYSON

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

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is identical to other amendments that have been inserted by voice vote into every appropriations bill considered under an open rule during the 113th and 114th Congresses. The amendment simply expands the list of parties with whom the Federal Government is prohibited from contracting due to serious misconduct on the part of the contractors. I hope that this amendment remains noncontroversial. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAYSON

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk, Grayson No. 1.

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is identical to other amendments that have been inserted by voice vote into every appropriations bill considered under an open rule during the 113th and 114th Congresses. My amendment expands the list of parties with whom the Federal Government is prohibited from contracting due to serious misconduct on the part of the contractors. I hope that this amendment will remain noncontroversial and be passed unanimously again by the House. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAYSON

Mr. GRAYSON. Madam Speaker, I rise today to address the great American bathroom controversy. On my right, this is a picture of someone who may or may not be recognizable to many Americans today. I will say her name. The name may be more recognizable to some. Her name is Christine Jorgensen. Christine Jorgensen was born in 1926. She grew up in the Bronx, like I did. She went to high school at Christopher Columbus High School, which was near the public housing where I grew up in the Bronx. In fact, my father taught history at Christopher Columbus High School. I don't know whether he taught Christine or not, but it is possible. In 1945, Christine was drafted and served in the U.S. military. Now, that may be a puzzle for some of you listening to me right now who say: I didn't realize that women were drafted in the 1940s. Well, at that time, Christine's name was George, George Jorgensen. That is the name she was born with. She was, in fact, on her birth certificate male, something that she struggled with greatly all through the time that she was growing up-- being a male--something that she struggled with being in the military, and then after leaving military service. In 1951, she heard about the possibility of changing her gender. So she went to Denmark and underwent three or more surgeries, plus a very substantial amount of estrogen treatments, came back to the United States, and then forever thereafter, after 1953, was known as Christine Jorgensen. Christine Jorgensen was out. She was well known in America as someone who was transgendered. I knew about her story when I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s. She made no effort to hide. She didn't feel any shame about it. In fact, she was proud of the fact that she had been able to take advantage of what medicine had to offer and live the life that she felt she would have been able to live from the beginning if she had the proper gender. She had some degree of fame. Republican Vice President Spiro Agnew referred to her once in a speech to mock one of his political opponents. She performed both as a singer and as an actress all through the 1950s, through the entire 1960s, and well into the 1970s. She was the most famous, if you will, transgendered person in America probably to this day. Now, I have to tell you I don't know exactly where she went when she had to go. I don't know exactly whether she went into a men's room or a ladies' room. But here is an interesting thing. Even though this is something new under the Sun, even though America never had to address this issue before, no one ever even bothered to ask. I don't remember anybody saying ``Christine Jorgensen ought to go to the men's room. She was born a male'' or, for that matter, ``Christine Jorgensen identifies as a female. She should go to the ladies' room.'' Isn't it odd that America in the 1950s seems to have shown a lot more maturity than America is showing today with our great bathroom controversy right now, where the cisgendered people of America try to dictate to the transgendered people of America where they can go to the bathroom, or, at least, frankly, the more bigoted among us. Now, we had a law passed recently in North Carolina. I am going to go out on a limb and say that it passed almost exclusively with cisgendered Republican votes in which they tried to dictate which bathroom Christine Jorgensen would have to go to if she were alive today and had to relieve herself. Amazingly enough, they actually decided in their wisdom that Christine Jorgensen, if she were alive today, like all of her transgendered brothers and sisters, would have to go to the bathroom that she didn't identify as but, instead, the bathroom that was on her birth certificate. Now, this is particularly ironic. There was one form of discrimination that Christine Jorgensen did actually face during her lifetime. She was not allowed to get married. She was not allowed to get married to a man because her birth certificate said she was a male. She was not issued a marriage license on account of the fact that a male was trying to marry a male. Well, my goodness, here in America, just in the past 12 months or so, we finally managed to solve that problem. Christine Jorgensen could get married today to her lover. Now we have a whole new problem. Now, thanks to Republicans and bigots in North Carolina, we have a law that would require Christine Jorgensen to go to the men's room. Think about that. Think about that. In fact, the natural consequence of that law is what I am about to show you right here. That. So you folks in North Carolina who are obsessed with where the transgendered go to the bathroom, this is the result you have come up with, to have people who self-identify as women, people who look like women, people who act like women--they somehow are being driven into the men's room. The same thing is true of the transgendered who identify as men. You are going to force people who look like men, act like men, identify as men--you are going to force them into the ladies' room. My God, what is wrong with you? That doesn't make any sense at all. Now, let me tell you something. If I had been back in the day growing up in New York and Christine Jorgensen happened to walk into the men's room--it never happened, but let's say it did--I would have thought that is odd, but I wouldn't have said a word about it. I wouldn't have gone over to her and said to her: Excuse me. I don't think you are supposed to be here. On the contrary. I would have just made an appropriate mental note, assumed that she probably found herself in the wrong men's room, and I would have let it go. I would not have felt any fear. I would not have felt any hatred. I would not have felt anything that would indicate to me that somehow I should discriminate against this person. Nevertheless, I would have thought it was odd. What this law does is guarantee that experience or, worse, to have people who identify and look and dress and act like women forced to go into a men's room, to have people who identify and look and act and dress as men forced to go into a ladies' room. Are you nuts? Listen, I have heard that the Republican Party is the party of small government. I have also heard that, on the issue of abortion, the party of small government wants government small enough to fit into a woman's uterus. Now it turns out that the party of small government wants government small enough to fit underneath a toilet seat. Can't we all be adults about this? Can't we all be adults about this, the way we were in the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s? Do we really need a new law on this subject, much less a stupid law, a bad law, a ridiculous law? I understand that it is possible, even in the absence of this law, that there might be some conceivable problems about this kind of situation. I am not sure exactly what they are. I am pretty sure that, if everybody exactly acted as an adult, we could get beyond them without having to litigate over it. I am wondering how you even enforce a law like this. What are we going to do? Have to give saliva samples every time we want to go to the bathroom to see what gender we were born with? My goodness. Bear in mind that there is a law against loitering. There is a law against wide stances in a bathroom. A Republican Senator learned that a few years ago. There is a law against disorderly conduct. There is a law against voyeurism. There is a law against indecent exposure. In fact, in a really bad situation, there are laws against assault and even rape. So why do we need a law to dictate that people who identify as men have to go to the ladies' room and people who identify as ladies have to go to the men's room? We had laws like that once. We used to say that we didn't want White people to have to be uncomfortable going to the room with Black people. I represent part of the State of Florida. I can remember when we had laws like that. And then somehow or another we pulled ourselves together and we realized how ridiculous that was. Well, how is this any different? Thank goodness the Attorney General recognizes that it is not. People who are cisgendered have no right to dictate where people who are transgendered urinate any more than people who are White have the right to dictate where people who are Black do it. That is not America. Let's show some common sense. Now, if we did actually want to deal with real problems, we could deal with this one. A little boy and a little girl, both looking into their diapers, and the caption is: Oh, that explains the difference in our wages. Now, if you want to talk about gender in America in the early 21st century, we could start with that. Why is it that women still make only 79 cents for every dollar that a man makes in countless occupations and professions even today? Why is that? If you want to get to the heart of what is really going on between the sexes in America today, why don't we do something to address that problem? And if we want to be more dramatic about it, let's remember the fact that, in America today, 91 percent of the victims of rape are women. Could we take our legislative energy and possibly apply it toward dealing with that problem, which actually is a problem that affects countless women across the country? Let's not protect them from having to go to the same bathroom as a transgendered person by insisting that people who look and act and identify as men go to the bathroom with them. Let's instead try to pass wise laws that would equalize pay between men and women, oh, and if we possibly could, reduce the incidence, the terrible incidence, of rape. But getting back to this North Carolina law, there is a deep legal principle that this law offends. It offends me and it offends a lot of people with a good conscience. That deep legal principle is this. It goes by four letters: M-Y-O-B. That is an even higher law than the law that was passed by the North Carolina legislature. MYOB: Mind your own business. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAYSON

Mr. GRAYSON. Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. GRAYSON

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

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, my amendment would ensure that first responders are included for membership on the Pain Management Best Practices Interagency Task Force. This is a commonsense amendment. First responders, like police officers and other emergency room staff, are the first on the scene when a person overdoses. And they are the first to administer emergency treatments and resuscitation programs. These are the people who have the first contact with victims of opioid overdose. It would make sense that if we are putting together a task force to address the terrible opioid problem--and specifically pain management best practices--we should include the views and opinions of those who are first on the scene and in the best position to save lives. Being first on the scene to overdose emergencies, first responders often interact with patients in pain. Yet, most first responders, especially EMS responders, have no pain management standards as part of their accreditation. The Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services does not include a pain management standard as part of its clinical assessment, nor is pain management a major part of EMS education. As a result, first responder attitudes vary. According to a 2012 Yale study, there is a widespread reluctance within the EMS community to administer opioids to those who legitimately need it out of a fear--perhaps unfounded--that patients could be addicts seeking drugs. First responders certainly do encounter people who are not prescription painkiller dependent. However, it is often not possible for paramedics to know with certainty if a patient is an addict or even whether the addict is also experiencing legitimate pain. This level of uncertainty and varying degrees of attitudes within the first responder community, along with the unique experience and insight into the opioid epidemic, warrants the inclusion of first responders to the Pain Management Best Practices Interagency Task Force membership. Mr. Chairman, this is very simple, we are putting together a Pain Management Best Practices Interagency Task Force. We should include police officers. We should include paramedics. We should include people who are on the front lines of fighting this battle every day that is a battle of life and death. I urge the support of my amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAYSON

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. GRAYSON

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Speaker, I would like to discuss something that may not otherwise be discussed this year in this Congress: the wretched state of racial relations in America today. We passed a bill here about a month ago in the House of Representatives to eliminate the term ``Oriental'' from the law books. I submit that eliminating a term does not eliminate the racism that embodies that term, and I think it is about time that we recognize what this problem is, the fact that it still festers in America, and give some thought to what we can do about it. I want to begin by relating two stories, both from my home State of Florida. The first one involves a 16-year-old girl. She was White. She had an encounter with police officers who were also White. She lived on the Atlantic Coast, which is largely White, and I heard about this from a friend of a friend. What happened to her is that her parents got a call from the police officers late one night. They didn't tell her why they were calling, but they said: You have to come to this location. We need to talk to you about your daughter. She is here with us. The mother went to that location, spoke to the White police officers. They informed her that her daughter had been drinking in a car with her boyfriend, and they needed to take her home. She was shaken up a bit, so was the daughter, but everybody ended that night alive. Now I want to tell you a different story. It didn't end so nicely. This was on the Gulf Coast, the coast of Florida that is heavily African American; and on the Gulf Coast one night there was a theme park, you could call it a fairgrounds, that was open to all students without having to pay. They could go on the rides, enjoy themselves one day each year. This is done in Tampa. Now, teenagers being teenagers, some of them got a little bit out of hand. Many African Americans frequent that area, and they were out in force that night at the fairgrounds. There was a great deal of friction that night between the White police force and the African American teenagers who were there that night. Some of them actually started running around, might have bumped into a few other people as they were running around. Someone started to scream. You will notice that apart from that physical contact, nothing I described is actually against the law, like, for instance, drinking in a car with your boyfriend when you are 16 years old. A number of them, about a hundred African American youths, were arrested that night 2 years ago in Tampa. The White police officers insisted that they strip to the waist. That apparently was for the purpose, in the minds of the police officers, to see whether they had gang colors on their bodies--at least, that is what they said. Now, one of them, Andrew Joseph III, actually hadn't done any of that running around, any of that screaming, any of that casual bumping. He hadn't done any of that, but he saw his classmates being arrested. He came to see what was going on. He saw that one of them had his hat fall off his head. He went over and he picked it up. The officer said: I didn't say you could do that. They arrested him for picking up his friend's hat. They took Andrew Joseph, a 14-year-old boy, 2 miles away from the fairgrounds, and they pushed him out of the police car and said: You are on your own. A 14-year-old boy who has parents who were reachable by a telephone, they pushed him out in a neighborhood he had never seen before, never been to before, had no idea where he was. He remembered that his father was going to pick him up at the fairgrounds. He felt pretty shaken up because he had just been arrested and was told to strip to the waist and, frankly, felt humiliated. He found his way, as best he could, back to the fairgrounds 2 miles away. He didn't call his parents because, frankly, he was scared, embarrassed, didn't want them to know. He almost got as far as the fairgrounds. He tried to cross the interstate highway to get to the fairgrounds. In the midst of traffic in both directions, he was struck by a car and died right on the spot, immediately. One 16-year-old girl, White, alive today; one 14-year-old boy, African American, dead. This is his picture, Andrew Joseph III. This is what this boy looked like. He was a good student, quite an athlete, had a wonderful future ahead of him. But not being White, his parents didn't get a call that night to say to come pick him up. I submit to you, this is not just one person's tragedy. It is not just the tragedy of these parents standing at his gravesite. It is the tragedy of America. We persist in being a country of sometimes casual racism, racism that sometimes goes unnoticed. If you say a bad word that begins with the letter N and there happens to be a recording device nearby, you will certainly be scolded and to some degree held accountable, that much is true. But institutionalized racism, racial profiling, redlining is not treated the same way because it is just too hard. It is much like the concept that, if we close our eyes to it, it will somehow disappear. A 1-year-old, maybe a 2-year-old might think that way, but a country of 330 million, why do we ever think that way? Now, I wish I could tell you that the story somehow had a happy ending. It doesn't. This kind of institutionalized racism goes on today. I asked the FBI to investigate whether there is racial profiling by the police force in Tampa. They are thinking about it. I don't know if they are going to say yes or they are going to say no. I can't tell for sure. That is their decision, not mine. I remember when I was a boy, a great man said he hoped to see a day in America where his four children were judged not by the color of their skin but by their character. I submit to you, this boy was judged by the color of his skin, and he is not the only one. We live in an America today, a country where 29 percent of White adults have college degrees; 18 percent of African Americans have college degrees. If Andrew Joseph III had lived, then his chance of getting a college degree would have been stunted, perhaps even forbidden, by the color of his skin. Now, if he had lived, whether or not he had gone to college, he would have grown up in a country where African Americans like him have an average household income of $37,000. Whites have an average income of $57,000. The color of his skin, you could say, if he lived, would have cost him $20,000 a year. That is our new poll tax, $20,000 a year. If he had managed to get across that highway--I imagine him being picked up safely by his father that night, whom you see here on my right--then, as an African American male, his life expectancy would have been 73 years. The life expectancy of White males in this country, including me, is 78 years. Now, it is a great tragedy--a great, great tragedy--that we stole 50 years of life from this one boy, but how much greater tragedy is it that we steal 5 years of life from 40 million? We are in danger at this point of becoming a society that is not colorblind, not blind to color, but, rather, a country that is blind to racism. There is an easy way to end this problem. It is called doing something about it. It is called pulling ourselves together in the same way that we began to do in the 1960s: acknowledging these differences, and then remedying them. I well recall that in the current Presidential election, the former Governor of my State, Jeb Bush, spent $125 million on his campaign and got four votes--four votes, convention votes. But I remember that it never came up that Jeb Bush wiped out, destroyed, eliminated, blew up affirmative action in my State of Florida--and now it is gone. So the question before us is, writ small: How do we acknowledge that Black lives matter? How do we acknowledge that a terrible tragedy took place here and robbed this good young man of his life? And, writ large, what do we finally do--finally, finally, finally--50 years after the civil rights movement began, to end inequality in this country, end it? It starts with justice, and it ends with equality. Not just the pablum of equality of opportunity, that buzz phrase that we use in order to solve our consciences, but, rather, the equality of results: an America where an African American boy is just as likely to go to college as a White boy; an America where an African American is just as likely to earn as much money as a White, and, for God's sake, an African American can live as long as a White man does. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAYSON

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I had the privilege of participating in the Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony in honor of the 65th Infantry Regiment, known as the Borinqueneers. I want to once again express my most heartfelt congratulations to the Regiment on this important and long overdue recognition. This all-volunteer Puerto Rican unit, of more than 100,000 soldiers, served in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. The Borinqueneers have been recognized with one Medal of Honor, 10 Distinguished Service Crosses, more than 250 Silver Stars, over 600 Bronze Stars, and nearly 3,000 Purple Hearts. Yesterday, they receive the highest award Congress can bestow. Hundreds of these veterans and their families have made my district in Central Florida their home. I am honored to have been a co-sponsor of the legislation that finally awarded them the Congressional Gold Medal. I am also proud to have urged the President to expedite the striking of their Medal, and in accordance with Public Law No. 113-120, a single gold medal was struck to honor the 65th Infantry Regiment. This medal honors the lives of soldiers like Richard Acosta, a resident of my district. Originally from Arroyo, Puerto Rico, Mr. Acosta bravely fought on the front lines during the Battle of Outpost Kelly in Korea. He recounts how he almost lost his life when his rifle jammed in the middle of the battle and when he went to go inform his Lieutenant, he felt the whizzing sound of bullets that narrowly passed within inches of his head. Immediately taking cover, Mr. Acosta continued to battle without a rifle until he was able to reach his Lieutenant to get a new one. Similarly, the Freytes-Menendez Brothers, Celio, Erasto, and Anibal, were among the first U.S. troops to engage the enemy when they landed in Korea. Dennis Freytes, son of Celio Freytes-Menendez and an advocate for veterans in my district, recounts how his father, who served in World War II and Korea, survived a mortar shot that landed in a foxhole he had just left, which sadly killed four of his fellow Borinqueneers. For his heroism, Freytes-Menendez was awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge and the Bronze Star for Valor. I've heard countless stories of many brave Borinqueneers who did not come back home. Rafael Sanchez Saliva, whose family lives in my district, served in the 65th Infantry Regiment in Puerto Rico and later in the U.S. Army Ranger Regiment. He served two tours in Korea and was tragically killed in action by a tank mine while serving in Vietnam. Puerto Ricans have fought for the United States as far back as the American Revolution, and continue to do so honorably to this day. Thousands have given their lives defending our values of freedom, justice, and equality, despite enduring decades of segregation and second-class treatment. It was a privilege to have joined the Borinqueneers on a day of recognition and remembrance as our nation honored their pioneering military service, devotion to duty, and many acts of valor in the face of adversity.

Mr. GRAYSON

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Speaker, during Roll Call vote number 111, 112 and 113 on S. 2426, H. Con. Res. 75, H. Con. Res. 121, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted yea. My flight, JetBlue 2224, was delayed by 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Mr. GRAYSON

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chair, I want to state my support for H.R. 3293, the Scientific Research in the National Interest Act. This bill, in an effort to enhance transparency and accountability at the National Science Foundation (NSF), would include a determination by the NSF that any grant or cooperative agreement by the NSF promotes the progress of science by being in the national interest. Under this bill's broad definitions of what ``is in the national interest'', I expect that for virtually all successful grant applications, the NSF would have no difficulty in making the certification. Section 2(b)(2)(G)'s ``promotion of the progress of science for the United States'' is such a broad justification for determining if research is within the national interest, that it likely covers all current research being funded by the NSF and could cover all future directions that the Foundation would like to explore. Any research that advances the frontiers of knowledge and drives technological innovation promotes the progress of science for the United States. I would like to point out that all the justifications of Section 2(b)(2) can be construed both broadly and liberally. For example, Section 2(b)(2)(A)'s inclusion of ``increased economic competitiveness in the United States'' could encompass all funding that promotes the progress of engineering, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, and mathematics in order to build and strengthen our national capacity for innovation and production. Section 2(b)(2)(B)'s ``advancement of the health and welfare of the American public'' could include research into biology, life, the natural world, and the environment. Behavioral and social science research could also fall under the ``advancement of the health and welfare of the American public'' justification as well, because behavioral and social science build fundamental knowledge of human behavior, interaction, and social and economic systems that underpin the health and welfare of our society. Section 2(b)(2)(C)'s ``development of an American STEM workforce that is globally competitive'' could be seen as promoting STEM education at all levels and in all settings, including both formal and informal settings. Having a well-informed workforce that has access to the ideas and tools associated with STEM education serves to enhance the quality of life of all citizens while promoting U.S. economic competitiveness, advancing the health and welfare of the American public, and supporting the national defense. To reiterate, I believe that Section 2(b)(2) of this bill is to be construed broadly and liberally. I believe that the inclusion of Section 2(b)(2)(G)'s ``promotion of the progress of science for the United States'' likely covers all current and future research engaged in by the NSF. Further, I believe that the fact that the Foundation is provided the discretion to make the determination allows the NSF ample room to continue its desired research. And I expect that for virtually all successful grant applicants, the NSF will have no difficulty in making this determination applaud Chairman Smith for his work on this important legislation.