Sander Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I now yield 1 minute to Mr. Critz from the great State of Pennsylvania, a gentleman who is most active on these issues.

Mr. LEVIN. I now yield 2 minutes to our ranking member on the Rules Committee, the gentlelady from New York (Ms. Slaughter).

Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself the balance of our time. The need is clear, the answer is clear, and I hope the vote will be clear. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a dedicated, compassionate and effective public servant Steve Truman, who is retiring after serving the people of the City of Roseville, Michigan, for 32 years, the last eight as City Manager. Mr. Truman graduated from Eastern Michigan University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Secondary Education and he also earned a Masters Degree in Urban Planning from Wayne State University. Mr. Truman began his career in the private sector as a city planning consultant. He started working for the City of Roseville in 1979 as the Executive Director for the Roseville Housing Commission. In 1983 he was appointed as the Director of Building and Inspections, and in March 2005 he became City Manager and has served in the capacity successfully to the present date. Although City Manager is not elected position, Mr. Truman truly devoted himself to the community and was constantly visible everywhere throughout the city. He is a member of the Roseville Optimist Club, as well as a number of other community and professional organizations. Mr. Truman made it his goal to improve the City's financial future, and under his leadership, the City has continued on a path of sound financial footing despite immense economic challenges, while still providing quality services to residents. It has been a true pleasure for my staff and me to work with Mr. Truman on collaborative efforts that have resulted in some important local initiatives. On one such occasion we worked together on a project to combine three municipal police and fire dispatch centers to consolidate and form one regional police and fire dispatch authority that provides greater efficiency and increased productivity. This type of forward and creative thinking has saved the City of Roseville $2.5 million over a five-year period and is just one example of Mr. Truman's abilities as an effective leader. In addition to his dedication to providing quality government service, Mr. Truman has also been a passionate advocate for education, serving on the Utica School Board for almost a decade. Since 2010 he has been a member of the Utica Schools Foundation for Educational Excellence. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the dedicated public service of Steve Truman and his numerous achievements over a 32-year career. I am so pleased to join with the entire community in paying tribute to his achievements, and thanking him for years of talented service. I am confident he will continue to play an important role in the community where he is highly thought of, in addition to enjoying a bit of retirement. Importantly, he and his wife Pam now get to enjoy spending time visiting their four children and three grandchildren Ben, Jack and Avery.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I now yield 2 minutes to Mr. Waxman, a member of the conference committee and the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. (Mr. WAXMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks and include extraneous material.)

Mr. LEVIN. How much time is left for Mr. Camp and myself?

Mr. LEVIN. I support the conference report.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself such time as I may consume. The basic fact is that this legislation is very different from the December House Republican bill, very different, and any efforts to mask that are faults. That House bill was the main bill before the conference committee. The basic fact is the conference committee made major changes to the House bill that passed in December essentially on a partisan basis. Therefore, this legislation is much better for the American people. The Speaker said this about this bill: Let's be honest. This is an economic relief package, not a bill that's going to grow the economy and create jobs. That's not an honest statement. It's wrong. This is a bill that relates to the economic growth of the United States of America. We're recovering, and this bill will provide a boost to continue that recovery. It continues the 2 percent payroll tax through the calendar year; and it is not offset, as was true of the House Republican bill in December. It had massive harmful cuts that would have been countercyclical and that would have undermined further economic growth. In that respect, this is very different. It's also very different in terms of unemployment insurance. Let's be clear about that. The bill that the Republicans passed through the House that was the main bill before the conference committee would have slashed 40 weeks of unemployment insurance for millions of Americans in every State regardless of the unemployment rate in that State. This bill essentially changes what was in the House bill. It extends unemployment insurance through the rest of the year up to--this is the maximum--up to 89 or 99 weeks through May, up to 79 weeks through August, and up to 73 weeks through December, depending on the level of unemployment. Let me just say, our chairman has talked about job search and now a requirement that people be looking for work. That's already in the law of every State. That isn't a meaningful reform. In terms of job search, everybody not only registers, but also, as I said, is required to look for work. I find it an insult to the unemployed of this country to say, essentially, that we're simply giving them a check instead of a paycheck. If you talk to the unemployed, through no fault of their own, they are looking for work. They had a paycheck in most cases year after year after year. They worked for their unemployment insurance. To simply label this an effort to get people off of unemployment insurance-- unemployment insurance is not a welfare program. People work for it, and they need that subsistence as they look for work. The bill that passed through the House had a GED requirement. That is out. To say to people you don't get a check if you're not in a GED program when there are 160,000 people in this country who are on waiting lists for education, that's out of here because it deserved to be out of here. In terms of the drug programs, the effort to test people for drugs, it is so limited. So it is really masking the reality to call this major reform. It freezes the reimbursement for physicians through December. Let me just close by saying a few words about the limits on this bill, because there are limits. It would have been much better to treat unemployment insurance as an emergency, as we have for 20 years. This is the highest level of long- term unemployed on record in this country, which is another reason not to blame the unemployed for the unemployment, as the House bill in December did and some of the rhetoric on this floor continues to do. We were not able to obtain this, and I want to say this in terms of a precedent. In my judgment, it should not serve as a precedent. The precedent is 20 years treating it as an emergency. Let me also say, it is deeply unfortunate that some on the other side insisted that Federal workers carry a disproportionate share of the cost of this bill, even after there were put forward bipartisan pay- fors that would have covered the cost of UI. In the bill that came through here on a partisan basis in December, there would have been an impact on Federal employees of $67 billion. This bill has a provision that will apply to pension programs, $15 billion over 10 years compared to the $67 billion that was in the bill that the House Republicans passed. Let me just say in closing, this argument provides tax relief to working families, certainty for unemployed workers that a framework is in place for the year, and a real commitment--and I emphasize this--by us Democrats to aggressively continue to pursue efforts to strengthen the economy and boost job growth so that those hardest hit by the recession can return to work as they desperately want to. I just want to reiterate how wrong the Speaker was when he said: Let's be honest. This is an economic relief package, not a bill that's going to grow the economy and create jobs. The opposite is true. The provisions in this bill will help to continue economic growth, the payroll tax. Most economists say that. Unemployment insurance people spend, and that is not only good for their subsistence but good for the economy of our country. For all those reasons, I urge support of this conference committee. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN. It's now my pleasure to yield 1 minute to our distinguished leader, Ms. Pelosi, from the great State of California.

Mr. LEVIN. I now yield 2 minutes to another conferee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra).

Mr. LEVIN. I yield 2 minutes to another hardworking member of the conference committee, Mrs. Schwartz from the State of Pennsylvania.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield 1 minute to the distinguished Representative from California (Ms. Eshoo).

Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. LEVIN. I now yield 1 minute to the distinguished Representative from Maryland (Ms. Edwards).

Mr. LEVIN. I yield now 1 minute to the very distinguished Representative and a leader in our caucus, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn).

Mr. LEVIN. How much time is there for each?

Mr. LEVIN. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself the balance of my time. I think this has been a healthy discussion, and I think all of us respect very much the positions that have been put forth. I think we need to look at where we came from. The main bill before the conference committee was the bill that passed on a partisan basis here in December. It essentially would have countermanded the effort at continued economic growth through the payroll tax bill. It would have required very inimical pay-fors. It would have threatened the pay of 160 million people. That bill also would have drastically cut unemployment insurance. Cutting unemployment insurance is not reform. It is not reform. People have worked for it. These are people looking for work who can't find it. We have worked so hard--so hard--to defend and to preserve the lifeline of unemployment insurance as best we could; and essentially it does preserve it in major ways through the rest of this year. For seniors, we have made sure that health care and their physicians are available. With respect to differing points of view, I strongly urge support for this conference committee report. It is said it isn't perfect, and it is often said no bill is perfect; but we have worked to preserve the basic ingredients to promote economic growth and to preserve the unemployment insurance so critical for the unemployed of this country. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the surface transportation bill before the House of Representatives this week and the partisan and contorted process the Republican Leadership is using to ram this bill through the House. For as long as I have served in the House, transportation bills have always been bipartisan. That's because every one of our states confront unmet transportation needs, and infrastructure investments are critical to jobs, economic growth, and competitiveness. But this bill throws bipartisanship out the window. Secretary of Transportation LaHood--himself a former Republican House Member from Illinois--recently said that this is, and I quote, ``the most partisan transportation bill that I have ever seen.'' Secretary LaHood also declared that this is ``the worst transportation bill I've seen during 35 years of public service.'' That's quite an indictment coming from a man who is respected on both sides of the aisle. Some of our constituents may be watching and wondering why Speaker Boehner decided to take the transportation package and divide it into three separate bills. The reality is that the bill probably can't pass as a single, stand-alone piece of legislation. So the Leadership has broken the bill into pieces that will move separately through the House. Later, the clerk will be directed to sew all the pieces back into one bill and it will be deemed passed without a single member of the House voting for it. Today we're considering the portion of the bill that opens up vast swaths of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as well as the Eastern Gulf of Mexico and the pristine Arctic Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. The bill also approves the controversial Keystone Pipeline and there is not even a guarantee that any of the oil that it transports to the Gulf of Mexico will remain in the country to benefit Americans. What does handing out more goodies to the oil companies have to do with transportation policy? The oil industry made record profits last year. They don't need the special interest provisions contained in this bill. Although this portion of the transportation package is not before the House today, I want to state my complete opposition to the provision of the larger package that undercuts mass transit. This provision undermines the very structure of the highway trust fund by eliminating guaranteed funding for transit and replacing it with monies from the general fund. The loss of dedicated revenue will make it impossible for public transit systems across the country to plan for long-term investments. I will continue to strongly support efforts to correct this unnecessary and harmful attack on mass transit. I urge defeat of the bill before the House. We need to go back to the drawing board and craft a bipartisan transportation bill.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I introduce today the Carried Interest Fairness Act of 2012. The Carried Interest Fairness Act provides that the ``carried interest'' compensation received by investment fund managers will be taxed at ordinary income rates and treated as wage income subject to employment taxes. In exchange for providing the service of managing their investors' assets, fund managers often take a portion of a fund's profits, or a carried interest, usually equal to 20 percent of such profits. The bill clarifies that this income is subject to ordinary income tax rates rather than the much lower capital gains rate. For a technical explanation of the Carried Interest Fairness Act of 2012, please visit my website at www.house.gov/levin.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. LEVIN. I thank the gentleman from Washington. It is my pleasure now to yield 3 minutes to another distinguished gentleman from the State of Washington and member of our committee, Mr. McDermott. (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise very much in support of the Ultralight Aircraft Smuggling Prevention Act of 2012. It is crucially important in two respects: It is important in and of itself. It's clear we need to act. Every year, hundreds of these aircraft are flown across our borders. They are carrying drugs. Smugglers favor them because they are hard to detect, they are inexpensive, and they can often avoid radar detection. The problem is that under current law, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, and the prosecutors don't have the authority to charge the users, these offenders, with the existing statute, so they can't seek the higher penalties or lower the burden of proof. This bill--and this is the second significance--was introduced by Representative Gabby Giffords, and it would close this loophole. So I think for all of us, colleagues and friends, this is a special moment. This legislation was characteristic of the devotion, the dedication, and the hard work of Representative Giffords, representing so ably the people of her district, the people of her State, and the people of our entire Nation. Gabby Giffords has been a spectacular star in the congressional galaxy. And we say, as friends, with love and affection, we know that that star will continue to shine brightly, and it will inspire us all. Gabby Giffords will be sorely missed, but her dedication, her vitality, and her courage have set an example that I think, hopefully, will lead us to undertake our duties with the same devotion as she has given to her work here in the House. I reserve the balance of my time.