John Garamendi

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chairman, congratulations to the chair of the committee and the ranking member for putting together a unanimous bipartisan bill. There is much to say in this bill that is good, and I would like to say about two things. One, the ISR capabilities of the military, particularly the Air Force, are maintained in this bill. The U-2 and the Global Hawk will continue to operate and provide critical intelligence to our military, operating now in the Sahel of Africa, chasing off Boko Haram. This bill also provides us with the continuability to get to where we need to go. The KC-10 will remain in the force for the foreseeable future, until it is fully replaced by the KC-46s. All of this is good. You need to know what is going on around the world, and you need to be able to get there, and this bill provides for that. However, there are issues in this bill that we need to spend some time working on. It has been some 20 years since we have taken a hard look at the nuclear triad, an extraordinarily expensive and extraordinarily dangerous part of our military apparatus. We are talking nuclear weapons here and the triad--the bombers, the ICBMs, and the submarines. How do they fit? What do we need? How much do we really need to spend upon them? Also, the nuclear weapons that go with them. The rebuilding of our nuclear weapons is a 20- to 30-year process, and we are talking about tens of billions of dollars. Too much? Enough? Maybe. Too much? Probably. We also have to dispose of some 43 tons of unnecessary plutonium. How is that going to be done at the Savannah facility? There is money in this budget to continue a dead-end process. We ought to take a new look at that. And there will be amendments that will be proposed. And finally, the big elephant in the room. We are talking about Afghanistan. $74 billion in this bill not debated, not discussed. We must do that. It is our obligation as Members of the House of Representatives and the representatives of the people of the United States to talk about what we are going to do in Afghanistan, and that needs to be done.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Rahall and I would like to also compliment the chair for the great work on getting this bill together--obviously, bipartisan. For my district this is extremely important. First of all, one of the reforms that came out of this is a ``3x3,'' which is now going to move across the country so that projects get done--at least the early studies--$3 million, 3 years done, and question then before the House whether we are going to move forward with that project. The Sutter project, providing critical protection for Yuba City and that area. Also Notomas--I notice my colleague from Sacramento is here--providing critical protection for part of Sacramento. The harbors, being able to use the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund to deepen the harbors, all critically important. This is an important bill. When we couple this with the Buy American/ Make It In America, we have an opportunity to really move forward the American economy, not only with the infrastructure jobs, but also with the manufacturing that could follow along. Congratulations to the chair and the ranking members and the subcommittee chair and ranking members.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I stand on the House floor today to congratulate a star athlete from my district, an athlete who rose to the national spotlight with a remarkable win, with millions of people watching on TV and in front of a crowd of more than 160,000 people. I am talking of course about California Chrome, the winner of the 2014 Kentucky Derby. California Chrome is a resident of Yuba City, where he lives with his human friends Perry and Denise Martin. The Martins bought California Chrome's mother for only $8,000, a bargain by horse racing standards. California Chrome's storybook rags-to-riches tale is sure to delight horse racing fans for years to come. Congratulations, California Chrome, his jockey Victor Espinoza, and the Martin family. I know my family will be watching as you, California Chrome, aim to get one step closer to the Triple Crown at the Preakness on Saturday, May 17. You have made California's Third Congressional District proud. Thank you, California Chrome.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chairman, let's see. There are 435 of us in this House and maybe another 100 over on the other side, give or take a few who may be retiring or who are on their way to other jobs. Each and every one of us has constituents come to us, seeking help and seeking our assistance in solving a problem. It is our work. That is what a Representative is. We represent the people in our districts, and we help solve their problems. The veterans have a very special place in our offices, in my own notion of what I am supposed to do as a Representative. I know they have in Mr. LaMalfa's and, quite probably, in the offices of every other Member of this House. We have over 130 active cases with veterans in our districts, working through the problems that they have with the Veterans Administration. I must tell you that one thing that sets me off is when my staff tells me that we are not able to contact the Veterans Administration because they have sent the case to another office and that that office won't respond to us. We talked about this amongst ourselves, Mr. LaMalfa and I and other Representatives in our area, and, frankly, we have had enough. We are the legislature of the United States Government. And the Veterans Administration has a task, and they had better be responsible and responsive to veterans and to those who represent veterans, namely the 435 Members of this House. It is part of our job. When the Veterans Administration office in some far-off land or county or other State has been given a file from our district to handle and to work through because of an overload in our area and then they don't respond to us, then they get this piece of legislation. Mr. LaMalfa, thank you very much. This ought to become law, notwithstanding the objection. We thank you for carrying this bill. Let's make this part of a law, and let's make this organization responsive to us and to our constituents.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. I yield an additional 15 seconds to the gentleman.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Bonamici).

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson).

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the good lady from Los Angeles, California (Ms. Hahn).

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. H.R. 4005, the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2014, is bipartisan legislation. Maintaining a safe, reliable, and efficient maritime economy enables foreign and domestic trade to fuel the U.S. economy, and it remains vital. This legislation will provide the Coast Guard with the resources and policy tools it needs to fulfill its vital missions. I want to thank Chairman Hunter and his staff for their willingness to work with me and several of the Democratic Members, and I also want to commend Chairman Shuster and Ranking Member Nick Rahall for their valuable contributions to this bill. We thank the gentlemen. H.R. 4005 will provide not only the budget stability for the Coast Guard for the next 2 years, it will also advance several important initiatives to revitalize our U.S. maritime industry. For example, H.R. 4005 will better align the Coast Guard's mission needs with its long-term capital planning and annual budgetary processes, and explicit cooperative agreement authority is also granted. It provides a new multiyear procurement authority for the offshore patrol cutter, the OPC, a critical and new asset. It directs the administration to enforce our cargo preference laws. No way out, guys. Enforce those laws and regulations, something that is long overdue. It will streamline the administrative processes to make it easier for our veterans to get their civilian licenses and find jobs in the merchant marine. Now, natural gas is a strategic American asset that is allowing America to enjoy low energy costs and a resurgence of American manufacturing. The export of LNG at a modest level could create even more American jobs if that LNG is transported on American-made LNG tankers flying the American flag with American sailors. The currently approved export terminals will require approximately 100 LNG tankers. This tanker fleet could be American made, phased in as the LNG export terminals come on line and LNG exports grow. American shipyards could build these tankers over the next decade and beyond, creating thousands of jobs and maintaining a vital industrial base for America and our Navy. This legislation does direct the Government Accountability Office, the GAO, to assess how future transport of LNG on U.S. tankers could affect American job creation in the U.S. maritime industry. It is a good first step, but we should be doing more. This legislation also directs the Department of Transportation to develop a new national maritime strategy, a much-needed revision and new thought into what that strategy could be. The bill authorizes a needed increase in the funding for the Federal Maritime Commission, and the bill reauthorizes the Small Shipyard Grant Program through fiscal year 2017 to improve the quality and competitiveness of our small, domestic shipyards. There is more to be done. Specifically, title 11 needs to be rewritten and redone so that our American shipyards will have the loan guaranties that they need to construct the ships, perhaps those LNG tankers. In closing, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4005 is responsible legislation. It deserves an ``aye'' vote, and I want to thank all of who have been involved in writing it. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. First, I just wanted to say that Congressman Rick Larsen entered his statement in the Record, and his statement speaks to the issue of the Coast Guard providing icebreaking services in the Arctic, and particularly the reconstruction of the polar sea. I want to thank Mr. Hunter and the staff, Republican staff, and our staff on our side, David, and the people that worked on this particular piece of legislation. This legislation is very important to the Coast Guard and to the American economy because it deals with the international trade. Ninety percent or more of the trade and services go by water. This bill provides the Coast Guard with the materials that it needs, with the budget authority, and with important reforms. The legislation also provides considerable support for the Merchant Marine elements in our committee. It deals in part with the necessity for the national defense. Chairman Hunter spoke to the issue of the Maritime Security Program. Similarly, the bill does speak to the Ready Reserve program as well as the breaking of ships, that is, the disposal of ships that have lost their usefulness. It is a comprehensive bill. There are a few more things that we should be doing in this piece of legislation that hopefully we will be able to take up in the Senate or in the conference committee. I spoke earlier about the export of liquified natural gas, LNG. This is an enormous opportunity for America to rebuild its Merchant Marine. More than 100 ships will be needed to export that LNG. Those should be American-made ships, manned by American sailors, flying under the American flag. I think we need, also, to work on title XI, the Loan Guarantee Program for ships that are built in the United States. It is very restrictive in its present form. Chairman Hunter in his opening remarks also talked about the problem of the appropriations. While this bill does provide authorization authority that should be sufficient for all of these elements, the ultimate money available would be through the appropriation process. I am very concerned about the austerity budgeting that has consumed this Congress for the last 3 years and appears to be continuing for the next 2. If that happens, all of the good intentions in this bill may be lost upon the shoals of an austerity budget. We need to pay attention to that. It is a good piece of legislation. It has been a great honor to work on this subcommittee as the ranking member. I yield back my remaining time, asking for a positive vote on this bill.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen).

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, might I inquire as to the amount of time I have remaining?

Mr. GARAMENDI. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee). (Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. GARAMENDI. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Office Specialist Debbie D. Wold who is retiring after nearly 25 years of service to the City of Fairfield. Debbie was hired on August 21, 1989, as a Public Service Clerk for the Investigations Bureau. In 1992, she was reclassified to Transcriber and received a Department Commendation for her outstanding ability to completely and accurately transcribe complex police reports and interrogations in 1996. On November 19, 1999, Debbie was promoted to Office Specialist and has provided superior administrative support to the Investigations Bureau, Training Unit, and Support Services Division over the years. Debbie received numerous commendations from co-workers and citizens for her teamwork, customer service and friendly demeanor. Debbie was also selected as the Police Department's Employee of the Quarter for July- September, 2011, and the Police Department's Employee of the Year in 1996 and 2011. Debbie is known to be reliable, detailed-orientated, and provides high quality of work. Debbie has been a valued employee and her commitment to the City of Fairfield and its constituents was evident on a daily basis. She is admired for her hard work, dedication, and selfless contributions. Debbie has been a valued employee and her commitment to the community was second to none. Debbie was a loyal representative of the City of Fairfield and admired for her hard work, dedication, and positive work ethic.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the legacy of Vacaville High School's Wrestling Program. Under, Larry Nelsen, who served as the Head Coach from 1961-1993, the Vacaville Bulldogs procured 26 League Team Titles, 160 Individual League Champions, 15 Northwest Team Sub Section Championships, 77 Individual Sub Section Champions, 6 Sac Joaquin Team Section Championships, 28 Individual Section Champions, 5 Sac Joaquin Section Dual Championships, 2 CIF State Champions, 28 CIF State Place Winners, and 2 CIF Team Place Winners. Under, Dave Nelsen, who served as the Head Coach from 1994-2000, the Vacaville Bulldogs procured 6 League Team Titles, 35 Individual League Champions, 6 Northwest Team Sub Section Championships, 27 Individual Sub Section Champions, 4 Sac Joaquin Section Dual Championships, 5 Individual Section Champions, 2 CIF State Champions, and 9 CIF State Place Winners. Under, Richard Penaluna, who served as the Head Coach from 2001- 2005, the Vacaville Bulldogs procured 5 League Team Championships, 39 Individual League Champions, 5 Northwest Team Sub Section Championships, 26 Individual Sub Sections Champions, 4 Sac Joaquin Section Dual Championships, 3 Sac Joaquin Team Section Championships, 8 Individual Section Champions, 2 CIF State Champions, 19 CIF State Place Winners, and 1 CIF Team Place State Winners. Under the current Head Coaches, Clint Birch and Adam Wight, who took over in 2006, the Vacaville Bulldogs have procured 9 League Team Championships, 97 Individual League Champions, 9 Divisional Section Championships, 46 Individual Divisional Section Champions, 7 Sac Joaquin Section Dual Championships, 7 Sac Joaquin Team Section Masters Championships, 20 Individual Maters Champions, 6 CIF State Champions, 25 CIF State Place Winners, and 7 CIF Team Place State Winner, of which all were in the top 10. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to recognize the impressive achievement of this fine school. I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating Vacaville High School's Wrestling Program.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Lieutenant Albert J. Bagos who is retiring after more than 29 years of law enforcement service to the City of Fairfield. After volunteering for over four years as a Cadet with the Fairfield Police Department, he was hired as a Police Officer on January 7, 1985. As an officer, he worked in various capacities that included Patrol, Investigations, Special Operations, Crime Suppression, and Field Training. Lieutenant Bagos joined the Special Activity Felony Enforcement (SAFE) Team in 1988 and was promoted to Police Corporal on December 31, 1999. On June 30, 2000, Lieutenant Bagos was promoted to Police Sergeant and supervised Patrol and Traffic teams before being promoted to Police Lieutenant on February 4, 2005. He also earned an Exceptional Performance Citation in 2005 for managing FPD personnel and ensuring the successful production of the television show ``Extreme Makeover- Home Edition'' that was filming in Fairfield and would ultimately have national exposure. Additionally, Lieutenant Bagos' knowledge and extensive experience in street level operations led to his appointment as SWAT Commander on May 1, 2006. Lieutenant Bagos' commitment to the community was evidenced by his positive, can-do attitude and handling of potentially dangerous situations on a daily basis. He is commended for his hard work and dedication. Mr. Speaker, we are truly honored to pay tribute to our friend and dedicated public servant Lieutenant Albert J. Bagos. I ask our colleagues to join with us in thanking Mr. Bagos for his long and dedicated service to the City of Fairfield and wishing him continued success in all his future endeavors along with a happy retirement.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to talk about a couple of issues that are on the floor. I really want to spend this evening talking about an enormous opportunity that America has to further jobs in this Nation. It is a piece of legislation that passed off the House floor this afternoon. H.R. 4005, a piece of legislation that deals with the Coast Guard and the maritime industry. But just a few words about the previous hour that was spent here talking about the 40-hour workweek. There is nothing in the Affordable Care Act that does away with the 40-hour workweek, not at all. The 40- hour workweek remains, and, in fact, Democrats are trying to strengthen the overtime provisions that are needed to be put into effect, when men and women across the United States work more than 40 hours and do not receive overtime, time-and-a-half pay. So that is another thing. We just basically heard yet one more effort by our Republican colleagues to eviscerate and otherwise put aside the Affordable Care Act, which now has perhaps 12 to 15 million Americans with some sort of insurance. Perhaps it is a new health insurance policy that they previously did not have available to them or they are on Medicaid or they are on their parents' health insurance. Well over 12 million Americans now have insurance because of the Affordable Care Act. They also have guaranteed coverage. No longer can an insurance company discriminate against them because they have a preexisting condition. No longer are newborn babies denied coverage because they are born with some sort of a medical problem. That is what used to occur in America before the Affordable Care Act. Also, it is kind of ironic, if you will, that we just heard an hour of discussion on the 30-hour workweek, the 40-hour workweek. The 30 hours only talks about when an employer must provide insurance for their employees. It doesn't take away anybody's 40-hour workweek at all. However, the ironic part is today, the Republicans announced the new Ryan budget, which seriously impacts every American's health care policy. The new Ryan budget repeals the Affordable Care Act and those guarantees of coverage that I spoke of just a moment ago. The guarantee that a newborn child with a medical problem has insurance was wiped out by the proposal that was introduced by Mr. Ryan today. The guarantee that every woman is no longer discriminated against because she is a woman, a female, that guarantee was wiped out by the proposal that was put forward by Mr. Ryan today. The guarantee that there are no more limits on coverage. Before the Affordable Care Act, if you came down with cancer and your insurance policy, as was common, had a total limit on the coverage, you would blow through that coverage and then bankruptcy was in your future. Oh, unless, of course, you didn't take the medical care. So these basic guarantees of health insurance availability were wiped out, or would be wiped out, by Mr. Ryan's budget that he proposed today. Similarly, something that is really important for every senior is seriously affected by the Republican Ryan budget that was put forth today. It was 1965 that Medicare went into effect. Lyndon Johnson signed that bill. I actually have a photo of the speech that he gave here on the House floor, calling for the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid. It was 1963, '64 when that occurred. The budget proposal that was put out by Mr. Ryan today would effectively end Medicare, as we know it. And if you are 55 years of age or younger, you would not have Medicare when you become 65. Instead, you would be given a voucher and told, go buy insurance in the health insurance market, which was so roundly criticized by our Republican colleagues today, and the improvements that have been made in that market by the Affordable Care Act. So let's try to get this straight. First of all, a proposal put forward today by the Republican majority in this House would effectively end Medicare for every American who is 55 and younger and put those people into a health insurance market that has had all of its guarantees of coverage, all of the consumer protections, all of the consumer Bill of Rights in the Affordable Care Act repealed. So on the one hand you repeal all of those protections, and then on the other hand, you take every American 55 years and younger and force them into that dog fight with no protections in the private health insurance market. I don't think we want to go there. I don't think we want to go there. What we want to do is to make sure that seniors have affordable Medicare insurance. But the proposal put forth today will deny those men and women that are currently in Medicare the opportunity to have the doughnut hole, the prescription drug doughnut hole, removed. Instead, the proposal put forth today would increase that doughnut hole, sending seniors back into the unaffordable prescription drug program that existed before the Affordable Care Act. So if you are a senior out there, beware. Beware of the budget proposal that was put forth here in the House of Representatives today because there is serious harm to you in 2016, should that proposal ever become law. We will fight that. We don't want Medicare to disappear, as we know it. We don't want a voucher program that forces seniors into the clutches of the private insurance companies without the protections that are presently in the Affordable Care program. I didn't intend to talk about this today. But following on the previous hour from my colleagues who were talking so vehemently against the Affordable Care Act, I thought we ought to have a discussion about what is in the Affordable Care Act, all of the protections that are there for every, every American, whether they are 65 or older. And oh, by the way, if you are 65 now and you are on Medicare, you have an annual free medical checkup--high blood pressure, diabetes, all of those things that can affect you--an annual free checkup which has already shown that it keeps seniors healthy longer and has dramatically reduced the cost of Medicare this year and will continue to do so in the years ahead. Now, what I really wanted to talk about was something really good and really positive that happened here on the floor of the House today, and that was the passage of H.R. 4005, the Coast Guard and Maritime legislation that reauthorizes the United States Coast Guard for 2 more years, expands their opportunities to protect our waterways, our lakes, and to protect America in the oceans that surround this great Nation. It also provides an opportunity for the mariners who want to enter that profession from the armed services, who may have been in the Navy, who have gained certain skills, so that they can get a license to be a mariner, to be a sailor, to be a ship's captain or an officer on one of our merchant marine ships. There is more that we can do with this piece of legislation, and I want to put it up here so that we can take a look at some of the opportunities that exist in this law. Here we go. About 20 years ago, there were several hundred American-flagged ships and several tens of thousands of American sailors that were bringing American commerce, exports, and imports into our ports. So if we support the growth of jobs and the growth of trade, then we need to support the merchant marine and Coast Guard renewal act that passed the House today because it provides these opportunities. This is not an LNG tanker. But the United States may very well be exporting liquefied natural gas. Rather than importing, we are likely to be exporting. Seven permits have been granted to the gas companies to export LNG, liquefied natural gas. That is good, to a point. Export too much of this, and a strategic American asset will be wasted, and we will lose the opportunity to have low-cost energy in the United States. That low-cost energy, a result of an abundance of natural gas that we now have in the United States, will be lost if we export too much of that gas through the liquification and the export of it. Right now, we are somewhere around 10 percent of the total supply would be exported; and economists tell us, at that level, we are not going to see a rise in the cost of energy in the United States. That is good, and it is good for the gas companies. They have been drilling, and if they are able to export this, they are going to make a substantial profit on that gas that they are allowed to export, a very handsome profit, because we have seen the Ukrainian situation with Russia threatening to shut down the supply of gas to Ukraine and quite possibly to Western Europe. Well, the cost of gas in those countries is two, three, and, in some cases, four times what it costs here in the United States; so the gas companies naturally want to export to that market, to take advantage of the higher prices there. All well and good, if it is limited. Even at that limited rate, we could see over 100 new, American-made ships handling that export. We need to be very aware here in Congress that American policy--the laws--have everything to do with American manufacturing; so if we are going to Make It In America once again, we need to use every opportunity to enhance our manufacturing base. The export of billions--and indeed trillions--of cubic feet of natural gas from those seven export terminals could lead to 100 or more new tankers, LNG tankers, in the export of that gas, sending that gas all around the world, liquified natural gas. We can build those ships here if we use our public policy wisely and simply require that American natural gas be exported on American-made ships built in American shipyards made by American workers and then flagged and sailed by American sailors, building, once again, the American merchant marine. We have this opportunity. We should not lose this opportunity. Now, we may run up against certain trade barriers put there by the World Trade Organization. We need to find a way to maneuver around those trade barriers and use every opportunity that this strategic natural asset gives to this country, to use that not just for the benefit of the gas companies and their profits, but also to the benefit of American workers, American steel companies producing the steel, American engine companies building the engines for these tankers, and American shipyards putting together these ships that will be exporting this natural gas. The liquefied natural gas industry opportunity must not be missed. We must, once again, rebuild the American shipping fleet by 100 tankers. It is a very real possibility. We must not lose that possibility. In the legislation that passed today, we see the opportunity for the Coast Guard to build new offshore patrol cutters. We see an opportunity for the maritime industry to enter into the manufacturing of ships from American shipyards, and we see the opportunity for the Coast Guard to protect America's ports. These are things that must be done, and this is public policy at its best. However, there is a threat to all of this. The threat is found in the reality that passing an authorization bill is the starting point. It authorizes the expenditures. The question then goes to: Will there actually be an appropriation that will fund those new ships for the Coast Guard, that will fund the merchant marine, the Ready Reserve fleet, and the maritime shipping programs? That is on the appropriations side, and that will bring me back full circle to where I started this discussion. The budget that was proposed today by Mr. Ryan and the Republicans decimates the programs that would fund the education of the mariners in the maritime academies, that would fund the new ships for the Coast Guard, would decimate the opportunity to build the marine security program that puts ships available for the military, shipping men and equipment to wherever they are needed in the world if there is some trouble out there that the military must respond to, that decimates the funding for the programs that are in the Coast Guard Maritime Authorization Act. We need to be consistent here. It is not enough to vote by unanimous consent off this floor a bill that authorizes a robust Coast Guard, that authorizes the rebuilding of the maritime industry, that authorizes the pay level for our coastguardsmen and women, and simultaneously put forth a budget that would defund or largely eliminate those programs. So the question is: Are we prepared to create jobs in our Nation or not? A final point goes to something that is really important in my district, and it is this: the levees that protect the tens of thousands of citizens in my district from flooding. This is a picture of a levee that broke in California some time ago, and the flooding devastated a community. This is a threat all across America. The question for us here on the floor of the House of Representatives is: Are we willing to put together an infrastructure program like the President had called for in his budget? Or are we going to go with the Ryan budget which reduces--significantly reduces--the investment in critical infrastructure that protects our communities? I could just as easily put a picture up here of a bridge that has collapsed and of roads with potholes. In this Nation, our water systems are antiquated, our sanitation systems are inadequate, our levee systems don't meet the needs to protect our community; and in California, with a major drought underway, we do not have the money to build the water storage systems to protect the world's largest agricultural sector, California agriculture, and certainly the Nation's largest agricultural sector, or the cities and the communities that depend upon the water. We have enormous infrastructure needs. The President, in his budget, put forth a major undertaking to fund new infrastructure by ending tax breaks for American corporations that are sending jobs overseas. On the other hand, put forward today by my Republican colleagues is a minimalist program--not a robust program that would put millions of Americans back to work--but rather a minimalist program that actually would continue the decrease in the expenditures on infrastructure. Let me just put up one more chart here, and this is a chart of where we are going with infrastructure spending at the Federal level. This is 2002. In 2002, we were spending somewhere in the range of $325 billion a year on infrastructure. In 2012--and we are not even at the lower level called for in the sequestration--we are down to less than $250 billion a year on infrastructure, all Federal expenditures--highways, levees, ports, water systems, and sanitation systems, all of that. From $325 billion, we have lost $75 billion. Those are American jobs that are not coming into play. If we take the budget proposal today from Mr. Ryan, this number will go even lower. We can't do that. This Nation is built on its infrastructure, it is built on its education, it is built on its support for seniors, and it is built on the humanitarian instincts that we have. And what are we getting from our majority? Less--less infrastructure; less for seniors; less for Medicaid, the poor, and the elderly; and less Pell grants for those kids that want to go to school. That is not how you build this economy. You build this economy on a great education system that has to be funded, kids that can go to college, not less Pell grants, but more, so that kids can find an affordable college education; more infrastructure investment, not less. But go with the President. He would have us back up to this number, 325 billion, not the 75 billion less that is in the current budgets, the current austerity budgets or the budgets that have been proposed by Mr. Ryan today. Are we going to build America or not? We put forward a major bill, the Coast Guard bill, and then we don't fund it; so it becomes hypocritical and devastating to the American economy. For those seniors that depend on Medicare, the Ryan budget, instead of closing the doughnut hole for prescription drugs that cost seniors that have serious health care an enormous amount of money, it opens it so, once again, seniors are going to have to pay for drugs that they cannot afford. The Affordable Care Act closed that. Choices, we are going to make choices here. We are in the process of deciding what the budget will be for the Government of the United States. Will it be a budget that provides the fundamental needs to grow this economy, education, and manufacturing so our shipyards and so our bridges can be built with American workers? Are we going to do that or not? Are we going to take care of the seniors? Are we going to educate our kids? These are the questions that we confront here, and I would ask our colleagues to stop the--I don't know--3-year effort now to repeal the Affordable Care Act and, rather, work on making that new system effective, efficient, and viable. It is the path we are on. It is not a government-run health care system. In fact, it is a private insurance system that has now been added with protections for the consumers, the consumers' health care bill of rights. Don't repeal it. Make it work better. Work with us to address those problems that we know exist in the system. No program has ever been perfect, and we can do better here. That is our goal. So today was a good day for me. As ranking member of the Coast Guard Maritime Subcommittee, we put forth a good policy--not complete--we need to add to it, and hopefully, that will happen when the bill is taken up in the Senate; but at the same time, we hear a continuing call to do away--to eliminate the patient's bill of rights. We don't want to do that. I am going to yield back my remaining time here and just put this question before all of us. This is a country that needs to grow. This is a country that needs to prosper, and we need to work across the aisle here, just as we did last week with my colleague, Mr. LaMalfa, a Republican, a conservative. We said we need to build something in California. We need to build a water storage system. So we have introduced legislation, the sites reservoir legislation, a bipartisan piece of legislation, a major infrastructure reservoir for the State of California, where we can store water for the drought that is going to come--not for the current drought, that opportunity was lost years ago--but for the next drought, nearly 2 million acre feet of water to be stored to be available for farmers, for the city, for the environment, to be used when needed when the rain is not there. That is the kind of bipartisanship that we need. We need to come together. We need to spend our money wisely and efficiently. We can do that in a bipartisan way. I want to thank my colleague, Mr. LaMalfa, for working on a project that is desperately needed in California. We need those levees all across this Nation. We need those shipyards building American ships to carry that natural gas all around the world. We don't need to do too much of it. We don't want to drive up the price in the United States. We want to make sure that if we are going to export a strategic national asset that all of America benefits--not just the gas companies, but all of America--the shipyards, the shipbuilders, the steelworkers, the plumbers, the pipe fitters, the electricians, those middle class jobs, 100 ships. It is possible. We need to work together to make that happen. We have got a full agenda ahead of us. An austerity budget won't make it. It is going to harm this Nation. It is going deprive us of what we need to do: to build the infrastructure, to educate, to do the research, and to make this country move forward. Hopefully we will make a wise decision With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back my remaining time.

Mr. GARAMENDI

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

Mr. GARAMENDI

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

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you, Mr. Tonko, for being such a leader on these issues. As I was about to turn around to the Speaker and sign off, I realized I had left off a major piece of the infrastructure. We have a major drought in California, and we know that for California to be able to address this issue in the future, we are going to have to prepare by building reservoir capacity. Well, I am not supposed to speak directly to anybody on the floor, but we are going to be putting forth a series of bills to build reservoirs in California. That is another critical piece of the infrastructure. It may be the pipes. It may be the plumbing. It may be the sanitation system. But we desperately need to store water in California, not only in surface storage, but also to store that water in the underground aquifers. If we do that, when the droughts which come occasionally to California, as they have in the past, we will be prepared to deal with them because we will have set aside the water that we needed. Somebody asked me about this a few days ago, and they said: Well, why do we need to do that? Well, people will just consume it. I said: Not if they listen and read Exodus in the Bible. It is there--7 years of good, 7 years of bad. You had better put it aside during the 7 years of good. So that is what we intend to do. We will be introducing legislation later this week on building one of the major reservoirs in California. With that, Mr. Speaker, I will look to you and say that I look forward to working with you on these projects, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much, Mr. Tonko, and thank you for your years of service in the area of energy and for moving this entire program forward. I think there is another very, very important piece of this, and that is that the climate is changing. The climate is changing. We know that the greenhouse gases have passed the 400 mark, which was thought to be the point of no return. Hopefully, that is not the case, but we do know that, in the President's budget, he goes after this issue of climate change with the kind of programs that you talked about, about the programs supporting renewable energy, making permanent the energy tax credits for renewables, which is very, very important in my district. I have a major wind farm that starts and stops, depending upon whether the production tax credit is renewed here in Congress. Right now, it is stopping, and that is a major part of the potential energy that we need. The President talks about an all-of-the-above strategy, and yes, we ought to do that. One of those strategies is a natural gas strategy, which is now replacing coal in our power plants and, when properly managed--that is, methane doesn't leak--it is clear that we will reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by that strategy. There are many, many different pieces to this. You spoke so well to it. I want to just pick up a couple of others very, very quickly, and it is a part of this Make It In America, particularly the manufacturing. The President proposes that we create more advanced manufacturing hubs. These are innovation hubs. There are several in the United States. He wants to put more of these out there. They have coupled the research with the manufacturing, and that allows for the advancement here. He also does one thing that is very important in this, and that is the education and the reeducation of our workers and our students. I was at an extraordinary manufacturing facility in Yuba City over the weekend, and they make bearings. I am not talking about these little ball bearings that you find in small appliances and the like. We are talking about bearings that are huge. These weigh several tons. They are the bearings on a shaft in a hydroelectric plant, maybe 2 or 3 feet in diameter. I had no idea this existed there, and the one thing they wanted me to know was that they cannot find skilled machinists that are able and capable of doing that work. In the President's budget, he has a major program to train and retrain the workers of tomorrow, men and women that will do not only the computer work, but also men and women that are capable of becoming the machinists of tomorrow, so that we are able, in America, to produce these very extraordinarily important, unique pieces of equipment, like the shafts, the turbines, and in this case, the bearings that are so important to make those things work. So there is this whole complex in the President's budget--education, early childhood education, going after climate change with energy, going after infrastructure--as we talked about earlier. There are many more pieces of this puzzle, and as we come back in the future, I want us to pick up each individual piece, talk to the American public about what is in the President's budget, and hopefully persuade our Republican colleagues to go along with this pro-growth deficit reduction budget that the President has proposed. I think, with that, I will turn it over to you, and if you don't have any more comments, we will call it a night.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for this opportunity to delve into what is a major piece of our work here in Washington, and that is the budget and the appropriation process. Today is one of those very, very important days in the process of government. Today the President delivered to Congress his proposed budget. It is required by the Constitution. George Washington did it, and every President since that time has done it every year, and today, we have President Obama's budget before us. I want to spend a few moments on that budget, together with my friend from New York, Mr. Paul Tonko and our East-West show. So we have got California and New York here. I would like to start off by kind of framing my own work and how I think we really need to approach what we do here. This is from Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression, and he laid out this test. It is on the Roosevelt Memorial here. It is etched into the granite stone there. It says: ``The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.'' It is how I like to frame the issues, and I think we can frame the President's budget that way, and also, this way: Those of you that have seen us here on the floor, Mr. Tonko and myself, we often and usually talk about this issue of Making It in America, rebuilding the great American middle class by rebuilding the manufacturing sector of America. Twenty years ago, actually 24 years ago, it was about 20 million, 19- plus million Americans were in that manufacturing sector. They were making everything from wine to automobiles and jet planes and even computers. Then we lost it. Maybe 11 million right now. We are beginning to see the rebuilding of the manufacturing base, and along with that, we will see the American middle class rise up once again and be able to support their families, be able to take care of those things like food and shelter and education. These are the seven ways that we talk about this. The President's budget picks up many of these, and I want to just focus on some of them tonight. My friend, Mr. Tonko, will pick up the energy piece. In the President's budget, there are these key sectors, tax policy, education, research, infrastructure. Let's start at the bottom and work to the top. The President has proposed a $305 billion, 4-year transportation program for the United States. Now, anybody that has driven today here in the East Coast or in the West Coast knows that we have gridlock, we have transportation problems of all kinds. So the President comes forward with this major initiative, really, a significant increase in what we have done in the past. He wants to focus it, first, on repairing what we already have, the potholes, the bridges that have fallen down and others that might, saying let's get to that. He then goes about building the more modern transportation systems that we need, expanding our highway program, but also the rail systems, the inner city rail, the inter-city rails, and the street cars and other kinds of mass transportation systems; very, very important. He proposes how we pay for it. He says, we ought not give the oil companies, the Big Four, a $5 billion annual tax break, literally giving them our money at the gas pump, but also giving them our tax money in unnecessary subsidies. He has other proposals in this part of the budget so that this would be fully paid for. That is the infrastructure piece. One of our colleagues here on the floor just a few moments ago was talking about deepening the Savannah River port. Yes, we ought to do that, and the other ports. We know the Panama Canal is going to be widened, and when it is widened, we are going to have larger ships, deeper draft. We need to deepen our ports. That is an infrastructure project, and the President's budget directly focuses on that. Why is this important for individuals? Because these are jobs, these are American jobs in construction, and if we will couple it with one more thing that I have proposed, and that is that these taxpayer programs buy American-made equipment so that the steel for the bridges, the concrete, so that the trains, so that the other things that will be part of this infrastructure, the pumps and all that goes with rebuilding the levees and the sanitation systems and the water system, that they be American-made equipment and supplies. In doing that, we not only put people to work on the infrastructure projects, but we, once again, make it in America, and we rebuild the American manufacturing. I would like now to turn to my colleague, Mr. Tonko, who wants to pick up a special piece of this, the energy piece in the President's budget.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the bill, and I thank Congresswoman Waters and Mr. Grimm for their work. This is desperately needed. There is a lot to be said, and a lot more work will go into this before this becomes law, but it is a major step forward. One example: Isleton, California, in my district, in a zone that was mapped with 100-year flood protection, was downgraded by the Army Corps of Engineers and is now a high hazard area. Last year, it cost $700 a year for the flood insurance. This year, it is $7,000, which is about twice the mortgage on that $115,000 house. It is not workable. We are seeing, across my area, insurance premiums of $10,000, $25,000. This bill would stop that, move things back, give us time to deal with what is the fundamental problem in flood insurance, and that is the catastrophic coverage, which has to be spread out across the Nation. More to be worked on, good progress, good bill. Let's vote it out of here and get this thing solved.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be back on the floor once again. I won't take a whole hour here, but I wanted just to talk about something that is so very important to America and, really, to the future of this country. I like to start these discussions with what are we all about? What should we really be thinking about? I find myself often going back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt during a very difficult time in America's history, the Great Depression. He put forth a principle, if you would, a values statement of what he was about and really what this country could and should be about. He said the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. It is a values statement. It is a statement of what I like to believe I am here for, to deal with this profound, important issue in this, another period of stress for the American family. We often find ourselves here on the floor, and I do this almost all the time, talking about this subject, the subject of Making It in America. This is a manufacturing strategy for America, and in this strategy there are many elements that we spend time on the floor talking about and legislation that we push here dealing with how to revive the manufacturing sector, and in doing so, give the American family, the American middle class, an opportunity that it once had: to find a good-paying job, to be able to make it in America with their family, to provide for a home, for food, for clothing, for education, vacations, sort of the American Dream, to be able to do those things. They knew that if they would work hard they would be able to make it. Well, one way of achieving that is with this strategy of rebuilding the American manufacturing sector to make it in America, whether that is manufacturing food, as occurs in my district--it is a big agricultural district--or some of the new technologies of biotechnologies of one sort or another. The high-tech industry, the automotive industry is coming back, and indeed, for a variety of reasons, some of it had to do with on our legislative agenda. We are seeing the revival of the American manufacturing sector. Good, wonderful. That is where the middle class jobs will largely come from. There are various pieces of this. There is the trade policy, and there is much debate here on the floor now and in the months ahead about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a new trade deal. Is it going to be fair trade or free trade? We don't need free trade. What we need is fair trade. The tax policies--certainly we see this in the kind of tax breaks that are out there. Does the oil industry need additional tax breaks? Their incomes, which are the largest profits in the world, do they need to be supplemented with American taxpayer money? Right now they are, the Big Five: $6 billion a year of American taxpayer money going to them. We talk about tax policy, talk energy policy, but I want to really focus this evening on these two issues, labor and education. We will leave aside the research issues--which are fundamental to future economic growth because you have to be out ahead, and that is where research comes in--and the infrastructure, which I will weave into this. But I really want to focus on labor and education. And I want to focus on a very important part of this equation, this very important part about the middle class and those who want to be in the middle class. Specifically, I want to talk about women, and I want to talk about a women's economic agenda, about why this is critically important not just to women and their children and the families, but also to America and to America's future. We know that the American family has changed. We know that, over the years, more and more families are raised by a single parent, and in most cases, that is a single mother. And so a women's economic agenda is critical for those children. It is also critical for the American economy because, when women succeed, America succeeds. This is a theme we are going to spend a lot of time talking about. We are going to talk about women in the American economy and their success. And here are three of the principles that we need to talk about. America's success is dependent upon the success of women because women are a major part of our workforce today, and they are a major part of the poverty issue in America. One in three women in America are living in poverty or are teetering on the brink of poverty. That is 42 million women, plus the 28 million children who depend upon them. And the American family has changed. Today, only one in five families has a homemaker, a mom that is a stay-at-home mom, and a working dad. Two out of three families depend on the wages of the working mom. Two out of three families depend upon the wages of the working mom who is struggling to balance caregiving as well as breadwinning. The average woman continues to be paid just 77 cents for every dollar that a man working in the same job, the same skill sets, and the same amount of time at that job earns, so the living wage and equal pay for equal work is critical. The average African American woman earns 64 cents compared to a man doing that same work, and an average Latina earns 55 cents. This is a huge problem for those individuals. It is also a huge problem for the American economy because a large portion of the American workforce is held back by simple discrimination, obviously discrimination based on race. An African American woman, a Latina woman, 55 percent of the wage that a man would earn in that same job, or 64 percent for an African American woman. It is discrimination, for which there ought to be no place in America. Closing the wage gap between men and women would cut the poverty rate in half. Closing the wage gap for an African American woman, for a Latina woman, for a European woman would reduce the poverty rate in America by 50 percent. Is this on the agenda for America? Is poverty on the agenda? You would think so, listening to the debate on the floor of the House of Representatives. How do you close the gap? End wage discrimination. That is how you do it. This is not a new issue. This is an issue that has been with us at least for the last 60 years. President Kennedy talked about this in the early part of his all-too-short Presidency. Women make up nearly two-thirds of the minimum wage workers in America, and a vast majority of these workers receive no paid sick days, not one, not one paid sick day; yet these are the mothers, these are the mothers that have the children, and these are the children that get sick. So what is that mother to do? She might very well lose her job. Even though she is earning less than a man, she might very well lose her job when she does what every mother wants to do, and that is to care for their sick child. More than half of the babies born to women under the age of 30 are born to unmarried mothers; and most of those mothers are White, a single-parent family and a woman, a White woman earning 77 cents doing a job that a man is paid a full dollar. There is something wrong with this, and this is something that the House of Representatives and the Senate must deal with, and I am sure the President would sign that bill. Nearly two-thirds of Americans and 85 percent of the millennials believe that the government should adapt to the reality of single- parent families and use its resources to help children and mothers succeed, regardless of their familial status. An overwhelming 96 percent of single mothers say paid leave in the workplace policy would be the most help to them, and 80 percent of all Americans say that the government should expand access to high-quality, affordable child care. A living wage, equal pay for equal work, paid family and medical leave, and affordable child care, this is an agenda. This is the Democratic agenda; this ought to be the Republican agenda; and it surely ought to be the American agenda, because when women succeed, America succeeds. Three things that have been on the agenda for America for a long time and that are obviously not yet done. A living wage, this is the minimum wage issue. This is swirling around the congressional debate. Should there be a living wage, a minimum wage, a minimum wage of $10.10 for every American? What would it mean to women? It would mean that half of the women in poverty would no longer be there. When you couple it with equal pay for equal work, suddenly, you have an American agenda where we can go after poverty, where the great debate about the equality of opportunity in America is addressed, where the equality and the wage disparity is addressed, where we can make some real progress in dealing not only with poverty, but also dealing with the well-being of our children. We are in America, where one out of four American children go to bed hungry. You want to deal with that issue? Then you deal with a living wage and the minimum wage issue, $10.10, which is actually just about equal to what the minimum wage was when Ronald Reagan was Governor of California, long before he became President, and then you pay equal for equal work. This is an agenda that ought to be the American agenda. Here is a little bit more on it. The challenge, the gender pay gap, where an African American woman earns 64 percent, or 64 cents, of what a male would be paid for in that same job, where a Latina earns 55 cents for what a man would earn doing that same job, and where, on average, across this Nation, it is 77 cents, the gender pay gap. The Paycheck Fairness Act, H.R. 377, raise the minimum wage, H.R. 1010--which, by the way, ought to be $10.10--these bills have been introduced. These bills have strong Democratic support. These bills are not heard in those committees that our Republican colleagues control. It is time for these bills to be taken up. It is time for America to end the gender pay gap with H.R. 377. It is time for the minimum wage to become, once again, equal to what it was in purchasing power when Ronald Reagan was Governor of the State of California in the 1960s, H.R. 1010, $10.10 an hour for every worker in America, wherever they are, whether they are a woman or a man. Working family, how is a parent to care for their children? If you care about family values, this is important. This is important if you care about family values. What is a working mother to do? Remember, roughly half of the American families are now headed by a single woman. If that child gets sick, in many places across America, that mother is faced with a terrible quandary. Are they going to go to work and leave the child at home sick? Or are they not going to go to work, lose a day of pay or, quite possibly, lose the job, which is not uncommon in America? So we put forth H.R. 1286, the paid sick leave act, something that is common, in fact, in every European country, advanced economies around the world understand family values, like ours should, too. They understand that parents, man and woman, husband and wife, single father or single mother want to take care of their children. We have six children. We have raised those children. We have 11 grandchildren. And we understand that those kids are little petri dishes that collect germs and get sick. We understand what it takes to care for a child. It takes the attention, the full attention, of the husband or the mother or the single mother or the single father. H.R. 1286 is languishing in the committees controlled by our Republican colleagues. We talk a lot about family values around here. If you really care about them, then you would let that parent have a paid sick leave so they can care for their child. Children, oh, we spend a lot of time talking about children, our future, the destiny of America, children. What can we do now to help every child in America? What can we do now to help every family in America? Well, I would suggest that we take a look at H.R. 769, the Permanent Child Tax Credit Act. We have a child tax credit. It bounces up and down, depending upon the whims of Congress and the Senate and the President. This would permanently increase the child tax credit so that every working family, from the top down to the bottom, those people that are on the edge of poverty, those people are not now earning $10.10 an hour, that are at just above the now minimum wage at the Federal level, say $7 an hour, so that those people would be able to at least have a little more income with the permanent child care tax credit. How long have we known that, if you could give a child early education, pre-K, prekindergarten education, that that child, in the formative years of their brain development, would advance faster and longer in the development of their mind and their capabilities to address the challenges that they will have out ahead? We have known this for decades. We know that, if you can get your child into pre-K, into early childhood education, that that child can be advancing faster, be better able to handle first grade, second grade, and on, all the way through college. This is not just an American issue. Around the world, countries that want to advance their economy, countries that want to have social justice, countries that want their families to have economic opportunity, they want early childhood education. So we put forth H.R. 3461, the universal pre-K education act. Universal pre-K, can we afford it? Of course, we can. When you consider the benefit to this Nation and when you consider the benefit to that individual child, you would say of course we can afford it, and, alternatively, we cannot afford not to do it. We cannot allow a large percentage of our children to not succeed in school, to not be able to keep up, to go into a classroom ill-prepared, whether it is kindergarten or first grade, to begin behind on the first day of school. It is not uncommon--I don't know, the percentage is probably somewhere less than 25 percent of the children in America are able to get pre-K education. But I will tell you who is able to get it: those families that have the upper income, those families that are not worried about the gender pay gap, and those families that are not worried about the minimum wage. Those families are able to send their kids to early childhood education courses of all kinds. And so when those children enter kindergarten, when those children begin the first grade, they are the ones ahead. They are the ones that are likely to stay ahead. And for those children that don't have this opportunity, they are the ones that are behind. They are the ones that are going to fail. They are the ones that will drop out and likely to become the troublemakers of the future. So why not give every child in America an equal opportunity to succeed? Can we afford it? You bet. We cannot afford to not do this. This is critical. This is our agenda. When women succeed, America succeeds. This is a family value agenda. This is an agenda where, if you care about the American family, if you care about its success, if you care about its health, then these are the issues that we ought to be pushing: the gender pay gap, equal pay for equal work, the Paycheck Fairness Act, H.R. 377; raise the minimum wage, H.R. 1010. I would ask our Republican colleagues who care deeply about family values--and I know they do--to consider these two pieces of legislation. And if you don't want a Democratic author, find a Republican author and we will support it. We don't care who carries the bill. We just want paycheck fairness, equal pay for equal work. We just want the minimum wage to provide enough for a family to at least survive and thrive. If you care about family values, then you will want to talk about paid sick leave so that a mother or father doesn't have to make a choice between their job and their child's health. H.R. 1286, let's give every family a chance. Let's give this a hearing. Let's give this bill a hearing in committee. And, finally, all of us will stand here on the floor and we will talk for hours about our children, but are we willing to actually do something? Are we really actually willing to fund early childhood education? And are we willing to make permanent a tax break, a child tax credit? Or are we just willing to yap and talk? Here is something positive. Here is something real. Take up H.R. 769, the Permanent Child Tax Credit Act. Take up universal pre-K education, H.R. 3461. If you are not willing to take these bills up, if you are not willing to introduce something similar to address these issues, then it is all talk. It is just a lot of hot air, for which there is justifiable belief that that is most of what is done around here. Give the American family a chance. Give American women the opportunity to succeed. Let's do it. And we can. So this is our agenda. This is part of the Make It In America agenda when we talk about labor, when we talk about education, we talk about women in the workforce, and we talk about their opportunity. We can Make It In America. We can make things. We can make locomotives, we can make solar cells, and we can make windmills. But if we want the American people to make it, if we want them to be able to take care of their families, if we want children to thrive, and if we really want the American family to make it, then we had better be thinking about women, and we had better remember that when women succeed, then this country will succeed. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.