Rush Holt

Mr. HOLT

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

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, today the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season officially begins, and so I come to the floor to speak for increased resources to prevent flood damage, as they have devastated our communities in New Jersey and around the eastern United States. In H.R. 5325, Chairman Frelinghuysen and the committee have provided for the U.S. Corps of Engineers $1.5 billion for planning, training, and other measures to ensure the readiness of the Corps to respond to floods, hurricanes, and other natural disasters. I thank the chairman and the committee for that work. This amount is $216.7 million below the amount that the Corps received for flood preparation in 2012. My amendment would provide an additional $2 million so the Corps can continue critical lifesaving flood preparation work. Although this won't close the funding gap, my amendment would demonstrate the commitment of Congress to addressing proactively the variety of problems that can result from severe weather events and flooding. Last August and September, many central New Jersey residents experienced flood damage due to Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee. Evacuations and property damage can be a heavy burden to bear for many of our constituents. In recent years, there have been deaths in New Jersey from such flooding. I was traveling through my district during and after last year's hurricane and saw firsthand the flooding damage in the Delaware and Raritan River Basins and elsewhere. When Hurricane Irene hit New Jersey last year, it cast more than 10,000 people from their homes and left more than 190,000 utility customers without power; 11 inland rivers and their tributaries crested, with some at record levels. The best time to address flooding is before the severe weather occurs. Unfortunately, it seems that severe weather events like floods and droughts will become only more common as the Earth's temperature continues to rise. There are a number of critical infrastructure and public works projects throughout central New Jersey that the Corps is at work on, that the Corps is aware of, that the Corps is planning to deal with, and they must continue in order to prepare for these severe weather events. Again, I appreciate the foresight and the wisdom of Chairman Frelinghuysen. This amendment would provide additional funds and incentives to the Corps to continue with these important projects. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 3541, which should be called the Straw Man Act of 2012. Our first priorities in the House of Representatives must be helping to foster job creation and supporting middle class families. Instead, the Republicans once again have chosen to continue their radical assault on women's health care in the guise of preventing gender discrimination in abortion. I am concerned about gender discrimination. That is why I support legislation that will address gender bias like the Paycheck Fairness Act, the Violence Against Women Act, and the health reform law that will give women access to preventive health care. Unlike those bills, H.R. 3541 does nothing to address sex discrimination or gender bias in society, but instead would punish health care providers for performing a legal medical procedure. Offensively, this bill would create a right for a woman's husband or family member to sue to stop her from obtaining abortion care, which is a constitutionally protected right. Besides being misguided and offensive, H.R. 3541 is dangerous. This bill would give the federal government the right to inspect people's medical records and interfere with a private doctor-patient relationship. I oppose this anti-choice and anti-woman bill. I urge my colleagues to vote no on this offensive, misguided and dangerous piece of legislation and would encourage them to support authentic pieces of legislation that address gender discrimination.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. I thank my friend. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule which covers, in part, the Intelligence authorization debate. I want to address not what the bill contains, but what it does not. It does not contain any prohibition on the executive branch using drones to target American citizens for death. I offered a commonsense proposal to address this matter, but the Rules Committee declined to allow it to come to the floor for a vote. Also missing from this bill is any kind of protection for national security whistleblowers who seek to report waste, fraud, abuse, or criminal conduct to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. I offered a proposal to address that problem, expanding on language from a whistleblower provision that passed this House in 2002 as part of the bill creating the Homeland Security Department--a proposal that likewise was blocked from being considered on the floor. Finally, among other things, this bill contains no provision to tell Americans in simple raw numbers how many Americans have had our private communications intercepted by the government over the past several years. Just the number is all we were asking for. That proposal as well was blocked from floor consideration. The Intelligence authorization bill should never serve simply as a rubber stamp for funding and programs that the intelligence community wishes. This committee, the Intelligence Committee, was created to provide oversight of that community, particularly for the most controversial programs and practices. The bill before us today fails on those counts, which is why the rule and the bill should be opposed.

Mr. HOLT

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

Mr. HOLT. Madam Chair, our Nation just marked another Memorial Day at war and another year in which the epidemic of suicides of our country's servicemembers and veterans continues. In April of this year, The New York Times' columnist Nick Kristof noted that for every American lost on the battlefield, about 25 servicemembers and veterans are dying by their own hands. These are silent casualties of war. And if we're to stop the epidemic, we must recognize it. I want to thank the ranking member, Representative Bishop of Georgia, and the subcommittee chair, Representative Culberson, for their recognition that continued funding for suicide prevention and outreach programs for our veterans must be a national priority. I'm pleased that the committee looked favorably on my request and included an additional $20 million for suicide prevention outreach programs, including social media in this bill. This is the second year in a row that the House has taken this step because the administration and the VA have yet to create a dedicated programmatic funding stream for suicide prevention and outreach. Let me take this opportunity to urge the administration and our President to direct the Office of Management and Budget to create such a dedicated funding stream for such programs. Our suicide prevention response must be coordinated and must be funded properly over the lifetime of our veterans, because this is not a problem that will go away once the guns fall silent. I thank my colleagues on the committee for all they have done to craft a bill that will help provide the services that our veterans need and deserve. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chair, I rise in strong support for Project Labor Agreements (PLAs). Today the Republican majority is again playing politics. They have brought to the House floor a bill to support our Nation's veterans and provide them with the care they earned. This bill should be approved by a unanimous vote; we all support our veterans and want to fully fund the various programs that care for them after they cared for us. But in a cynical and politically motivated attack on working women and men across the country the Majority has tucked into this bill a ban on the use of PLAs. They are attempting to ban PLAs based on their ideology not based on any evidence. This is one more part of their anti-worker agenda. I have always supported PLAs. PLAs are important, they have been used for many years and they work. PLAs ensure high skilled workers complete high quality work and provides fair local wages and benefits for all workers. I will be voting to support working women and men by repealing this anti-PLA provision. On February 6, 2009 President Obama signed Executive Order 13502 encouraging federal agencies to consider requiring the use of PLAs for large-scale construction projects. In the Executive Order, President Obama noted correctly that by setting the terms and conditions of employment and coordinating the various employers, PLAs provide stability and help contribute to the efficient completion of Federal construction projects. Last year, I joined a majority of my colleagues in the House to beat back this same anti-worker attack on PLAs and I am hopeful that we will be successful again today. President Obama has already indicated that he will veto this bill if the attack on PLAs reaches his desk. While Republicans play politics today, I will be standing up for and voting for working women and men across the country and opposing this continued attack on them.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chair, I am in opposition to this bill. Let me begin by praising our ranking member, the gentleman from Washington, Representative Adam Smith. Ranking Member Smith brought forward a number of excellent proposals that would have significantly improved this bill, especially his effort to eliminate the indefinite detention provisions that were included in last year's bill. He also supported efforts to rein in excess Pentagon spending by supporting Representative Barbara Lee's amendment to trim $8 billion from the bill. Had the amendment passed, it would have restored the funding level in the bill to what Democrats and Republicans had agreed to in this year's Federal budget bill. Unfortunately, the majority chose to vote down both of those amendments and thus continue a misguided, counterproductive detainee policy and still more reckless spending. Moreover, the majority is attempting to interfere with the President's ability to negotiate arms control agreements with Russia, a potentially unconstitutional action. Additionally, this bill continues to fund Cold War legacy weapon systems like the F 35 and V 22 which we neither need nor can afford. Indeed, it's worth remembering that if we proceed with the procurement of the F 35, that program will cost taxpayers in excess of $400 billion--$50 billion more than the entire defense budget was a decade ago. We need to think anew about how best to defend our country, not continue to buy weapons to deter a Soviet Union that ceased to exist over 20 years ago. Finally, this bill continues the deadly folly that is the war in Afghanistan, now the longest war in our country's history. There is no good reason for us still to be involved in combat operations in Afghanistan. We invaded Afghanistan to get Osama bin Laden and his key lieutenants--the men who were responsible for the 9/11 attacks on our Nation. Last year, President Obama authorized the operation that eliminated bin Laden. The chief planner of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, has been in our custody for years. The Al Qaeda we went to war with in 2001 effectively no longer exists, and thus the reason we sent our troops to Afghanistan no longer exists, which is why they should come home now but won't, thanks to this misguided bill. It is for all these reasons that I will vote against this bill.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chair, I rise in strong support of this amendment. Just this month, we learned from a leaked Air Force Instruction on intelligence activities that their drones ``incidentally'' collect imagery of ``US persons or private property without consent'' during the course of normal training operations. Neither I nor Mr. Landry intend to prevent Department elements charged with training UAV operators from being able to do their jobs. At the same time, we have a responsibility to ensure that data that is collected is not misused. That is precisely what Mr. Landry is trying to do today, and I am pleased to join him this effort. This amendment will have no impact on the training activities of our unmanned aerial vehicle operators. What it will do is ensure that any imagery of American citizens, their homes, business, etc. that is collected cannot be used in any court proceeding in the absence of a judicial warrant issued on the basis of probable cause. I commend my colleague from Louisiana from offering this amendment, and I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting it.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chair, I want to thank Chairman McKeon and Ranking Member Smith for accepting this amendment. When the long-running problems at the Dover Port Mortuary were revealed to the public last year, all of us were appalled and ashamed at how the remains of fallen warriors had been mishandled. It took a number of people, including a constituent of mine who is the widow of a deceased Iraq veteran, as well as several brave whistleblowers--public servants in the truest sense--to bring these problems to light. What we now know is that multiple Air Force IG inspections missed the mishandling of bodies, improper cremations and other serious problems that plagued the Dover Port Mortuary for years. Clearly, a higher, more sustained level of oversight of Dover and of our overall process for military mortuary affairs is called for. My amendment would provide that higher level of oversight by creating a Federal Mortuary Affairs Advisory Commission. The amendment requires the appointment of family members with direct experience in dealing with Dover, as well as the appointment of outside specialists in mortuary affairs. We owe it to our fallen warriors and their families to make this painful process as dignified and respectful as possible. Creating this Commission will help us do that, which is why I ask for my colleagues to support it. Without world class linguists we would not have found Bin Laden. It was an important reminder about the need to improve foreign language education and ensure our national security and defense officials have the skilled linguists they need to get the job done. Since it was created as a pilot program in 2005, The National Language Service Corps (NLSC) has help meet the growing need for linguists and my amendment will ensure that this program becomes permanent. The NLSC is a corps of on-call language-certified experts who are available to supplement Federal agencies' language capacity. It is designed to provide a surge capability for meeting short-, mid-, and long-term requirements through the identification of a reserve workforce with expertise and skills in over 120 languages that are either currently or potentially critical to the Federal government. The NLSC currently has over 1800 members who are proficient in a critical foreign language. My amendment will help our government have the linguists needed at a moment's notice. I appreciate the committees understanding of the importance of American having a strong foreign language capacity for our defense and non-defense needs.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman. Let me give one example of how important this legislation is and how this bill before us would eliminate important provisions to protect women from abuse. Several years ago, a teenage girl from Trenton came to my office for help. She'd been abused by her parents and abandoned by them. When she came to my office, she was living in a shelter participating in a transitional living program that required part-time employment. She had come to the United States legally, but she needed help. Because of VAWA, I was able to show her how she could secure her permanent resident status and work authorization. After I helped her get work authorization and permanent resident status, she got her life back on track. VAWA made that possible. This bill would remove essential provisions of VAWA that allow victims of abuse to petition for permanent residency by themselves; and by removing those provisions, this bill would leave this girl and countless other victims of domestic abuse with no help, no support, and potentially at the mercy of their abusers. Vote ``no'' on this rule. Vote ``no'' on the bill.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member. The threat of nuclear proliferation is the greatest threat to world peace. A nuclear Iran would destabilize the region and threaten the United States and our allies. This resolution is not an authorization for military force. It is not a call for war. I would not support this resolution if it were. Our shared goal must be to persuade Iran to end its nuclear weapons program. That's President Obama's purpose in agreeing to negotiations. That's our purpose here. The world does not have many tools available, but we should use, and the world is united in using, economic and diplomatic pressure. This does not preclude diplomatic resolution. In fact, it makes diplomatic resolution more possible. Of course, ultimately, Iran should decide that it's not in her people's interest for Iran to pursue nuclear weapons. And we and all nuclear powers should stop behaving as if we think nuclear weapons are beneficial for a country. This resolution will help move us in that direction.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation. As a life-long supporter of our most important ally in the Middle East, Israel, I am pleased that the United States and Israel have built a strong, unique and special relationship. I have had the pleasure of traveling to Israel on many occasions, and I clearly understand Israeli concern about Iran's nuclear ambitions. These visits have only reinforced my strong conviction that the world needs Israel to survive and thrive for all that Israel represents and that Israel has the right to defend her citizens. The bill before us will do that by strengthening existing channels of security cooperation between America and Israel, as well as creating some new ones. The political changes that are sweeping through North Africa and the Middle East are creating new uncertainties for the United States and Israel. The revolutions that are underway may not produce the much- hoped for democratic ``Arab Spring''. Even now in Egypt, extremists are fomenting inter-religious and ethnic hatreds that have sparked fresh violence. And we know that conventional weapons formerly in the late Colonel Qaddafi's arsenal have made their way into the hands of extremists in the region. H.R. 4133 is another reminder to the region and the world that America will stand by Israel during these increasingly chaotic and uncertain times.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. HOLT. I yield to my friend from Massachusetts.

Mr. HOLT. I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. HOLT. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT

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

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, the purpose of this amendment is simple: to prohibit any Federal funds from flowing to law enforcement organizations that engage in any form of racial, ethnic, or religious profiling. It's been a matter of concern for decades among minority communities when policing organizations engage in profiling, but recent events have brought the problem into sharp focus. Starting last August, the Associated Press published a series of disturbing stories about the systematic racial, ethnic, and religious profiling conducted by the New York City Police Department against Muslim and Arab Americans in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Louisiana. In September of last year, I asked the Department of Justice to investigate what we now know was a pattern of surveillance and infiltration by the New York Police Department against innocent American Muslims in the absence of a valid investigative reason. These Muslim communities were mapped, infiltrated, and surveilled simply because they were Muslim. Profiling is wrong. Profiling on the basis of the race, ethnicity, and religion is a violation of core constitutional principles. Profiling is also wrong because it is not good policing. Profiling is an unthinking, lazy, unprofessional approach to police work and intelligence work, and it only raises the risk that the real plot will slip through the cracks. Indeed, profiling is counterproductive. The sloppiness of the NYPD surveillance effort was such that several non-Muslim establishments were labeled as being owned by Muslims and, contrary to the blanket assertions by some that the tactics have kept New York City safe, the NYPD failed to uncover two actual plots against New York City, those perpetrated by Faisal Shahzad and Najibullah Zazi. In Shahzad's case, the FBI was surveilling both the mosque he attended and the Muslim Student Association of his accomplice. In Zazi's case, the NYPD actually took actions that let Zazi be tipped off about the FBI's investigation. The NYPD's surreptitious, uncoordinated, and unprofessional approach to counterterrorism prevention within the American Muslim community shows that they have learned nothing from the lessons elucidated from the 9/11 Commission's report. Now, let me be clear. This amendment is not aimed solely at one particular law enforcement organization. Over the decades, law enforcement agencies across the country have profiled against African Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities. Indeed, the Department of Justice has specific guidance prohibiting this practice because it has become widespread, and it has conducted litigation against Police Departments for using race or ethnicity to target citizens for arrest in California, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and other States. My amendment would ensure that no Federal funds are flowing to any law enforcement entity that the Department has identified as engaging in racial, ethnic, and religious profiling. Racial, ethnic and religious profiling by police is not something taxpayer dollars should be spent for. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time. People for the American Way, Washington, DC, May 9, 2012. U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Member of Congress: On behalf of the hundreds of thousands of members of People for the American Way, I urge you to support Representative Holt's amendment to H.R. 5326, the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2013. A vote is anticipated this afternoon. This amendment would prohibit federal funds made available through the act to be used for programs or activities that involve racial, ethnic, or religious profiling by any federal, state, or local law enforcement organization. Such profiling undermines America's status as a nation founded on Equal Justice Under Law. The story of America is one of a nation founded on timeless ideals of liberty and equality, and struggling generation after generation to make those principles real for those not included. Society's ``outsiders'' are brought in and made to know that they in fact belong to the community that is America. Profiling damages that process. It sends a powerful message to entire communities that they are, in fact, not quite the equal members of society that we said they were. It tells them that their very existence raises suspicions. It harms the individuals profiled, as well as those who live in constant apprehension of being profiled. The practice undermines our nation's principles, and our federal government should not be funding it. Profiling does not even produce the benefits that it is purported to provide: It is counterproductive. When limited law enforcement resources are spent targeting innocent people simply because of their real or perceived race, ethnicity, or religion, that is not an efficient use of resources. Nor is it efficient to alienate entire communities, making them feel resentful toward or fearful of law enforcement. People living in America should be able to rely on law enforcement as a partner in making their lives safer. But those who feel unfairly targeted by profiling will be far less likely to cooperate with law enforcement when their cooperation is needed, whether it is a case of local violent crime or national security. That does not make our nation or our communities safer. A practice that undermines both our principles and our safety is not one that the federal government should be funding. We urge you to vote for Representative Holt's amendment. Sincerely, Marge Baker, Executive Vice President for Policy and Program. Paul R. Gordon, Senior Legislative Counsel.

Mr. HOLT. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOLT. Thank you. This is completely consistent with an appropriations bill for the Department of Justice. Just as we have spent decades getting away from the practice of harassing people for driving while black, we've got to get away from the practice of harassing people for shopping while Muslim.

Mr. HOLT. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOLT. Reference was made to the Deputy National Security Advisor of President Obama's, Mr. Brennan. What Mr. Brennan actually said was that, for the NYPD to be effective, they need the cooperation of the Muslim community. In fact, if you talk with the Muslim community, they are not only outraged by this behavior; they are intimidated by it. They see it as profiling. My colleague from New York and my colleague from Pennsylvania can say, well, of course everybody is operating under the law.

Mr. HOLT. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOLT. I would hope that the gentleman would find a place for this instruction to the Department of Justice in order to make sure that the recipients of their grants do what they are, indeed, supposed to do. We're talking about money spent. We should make sure that the taxpayer money is spent for good policing.