Conor Lamb

Mr. LAMB

Mr. LAMB. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of these amendments en bloc, which provide for the consideration of 21 amendments sponsored by Members on both sides of the aisle. The amendments contained in this en bloc amend various divisions of the bill. These amendments include granting the Secretary of Transportation the authority to reset interest rates on certain existing TIFIA loans for borrowers impacted by COVID-19. Banning the interstate and international transportation of horses bound to be slaughtered for human consumption. Allowing States to use their National Highway Traffic Safety Administration grants to educate the public on the safe and proper use of passenger vehicle trailers. Establishing a new grant program for culvert restoration programs that improve or restore passage for anadromous fish. Ensuring that Federal funds administered through the TIFIA program are protected by adequate payment and performance security requirements. Increasing the Tribal Transportation Program safety set-aside. Codifying the Rural Opportunities to Use Transportation for Economic Success initiative, a DOT program to help rural communities and Indian Tribes. Authorizing a competitive grant program for States and localities to educate the public on the dangers of drugged driving. Directing the Comptroller General to study threats facing the U.S. transportation system from ransomware and other cybersecurity threats. Reauthorizing certain national heritage areas set to expire at the end of fiscal year 2021. Establishing the Western Riverside County National Wildlife Refuge. Establishing clear Clean Water Act permit limits for the discharge from PFAS chemicals. And prohibiting industrial dischargers from secretly using our network of sewers as dumping grounds for these harmful and persistent chemicals. I look forward to hearing further discussion of these amendments from the various sponsors. I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for offering these amendments to improve the INVEST in America Act, and I urge adoption of the amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LAMB. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Kilmer).

Mr. LAMB. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Carter).

Mr. LAMB. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Schrier).

Mr. LAMB. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson).

Mr. LAMB. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. LAMB. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Oregon.

Mr. LAMB. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I simply rise again to encourage my colleagues to support amendments en bloc No. 2, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LAMB. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield).

Mr. LAMB. Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LAMB

Mr. LAMB. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this bill. I would like to point out to my colleagues and anyone watching at home that I actually think that, today, the difference is not really between business and labor; it is not between regulation and nonregulation; it is really not even between Democrats and Republicans. I think what separates supporters of today's bill from its detractors are those who are thinking in the long term versus those who are thinking in the short term. In the long term, climate change truly is a threat to American national security. The Marine Corps, in which I served, has already had to consider whether it should move some of its historic bases, including Parris Island, perhaps the soul of the Marine Corps, simply due to sea level rise. The number of $1 billion catastrophic events in our country last year was 22. The average is seven over the last 40-year period. This is getting more expensive and more dangerous every year. In the long term, businesses that have to compete for capital and compete for market share in markets all around the world understand this, that this is our world now, that decarbonization is an absolute requirement to compete successfully both as the United States and as an individual business in the world that we are going into. The businesses that are thinking long term have already taken steps to do this, and the businesses that are thinking short term are pointing to the costs, the drawbacks, and the requirements, all of which are real. None of us stand here today to causally make anything more difficult on an American company that is trying to preserve jobs and succeed in this economy, but there are some things we just have to do. To use the words of an executive at Southwestern Energy Company: What some in the industry do not get is that we are transitioning to a low-carbon economy. We need to show the climate benefit of our product. Or, you could take the word of the chairwoman and president of BP America: ``We have to reduce methane emissions for natural gas to realize its full potential.'' And in my own hometown of Pittsburgh, we are happy to have headquartered the largest producer of natural gas in the United States, EQT. And even though under the Trump administration the EPA came to Pittsburgh to announce this absurd rollback of a rule that's good for business and good for the environment, EQT's president and CEO just 2 days ago said that tackling methane represents an opportunity for the United States because our natural gas, American natural gas, can become the decarbonizing commodity of choice. So I have heard some of my friends on the other side point out, that, yes, the United States has done quite a lot already to reduce emissions and is doing more, and not all our competitors, like Russia and China, are doing the same. That is okay. Our market opportunity will come from attracting businesses among our allies, South Korea, Japan, the European Union. And if you just picture now a politics of the near future where the European Union is placing carbon tariffs on every product that comes in and out, lower carbon, American L&G will simply out-compete Russian products, or Iranian products, or any other product. That is the world that we live in now and that is what it will mean for us to compete. Today's bill is about one thing and one thing only: the national interest of the United States. Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support it.

Mr. LAMB

Mr. LAMB. Mr. Speaker, on June 11, 2021, western Pennsylvania lost Officer Jerrod Withrow of the Mount Lebanon police, who passed away after a heroic battle with cancer. Officer Withrow had a long and distinguished career in law enforcement, but one moment stood out. In October 2018, he responded to the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh where a mass murderer attacked a peaceful religious gathering with an assault rifle and killed 11 members of our community. It is hard for most of us to understand the bravery and the raw physical courage that it takes to run toward gunfire rather than away from it, but that was the kind of person that Officer Withrow was. It was who he trained himself to be, and we thank him and honor him for his courage. On behalf of the people of western Pennsylvania and on behalf of our national government, I wish to extend our condolences to Officer Withrow's wife, Lisa; his sons: James, Brayden, and Ben; and all of his family. I am proud to remember Jerrod Withrow today in our Nation's Capitol and hopeful that our service here will be worthy of all those Americans like him who every day put their community and their country first.

Mr. LAMB

Mr. LAMB. Mr. Speaker, I think the key term that Ranking Member Bost used was ``common sense.'' That can sometimes be in short supply around here. When we found out that the VA has roughly the same number of EEOC counselors today--38--that it had in 1997, you ask yourself the simple question: Well, what else has happened at the VA since that time? Their workforce has nearly doubled. Since 1997, the VA has become one of the largest Federal agencies, with a workforce of over 400,000 people, which means those same 38 EEOC counselors are handling roughly double the amount of complaints of unfair and illegal discrimination today that they were in 1997. See, the law placed an artificial cap on the number of counselors, but it did not place a cap on the amount of unjust discrimination in our society. That has continued. If anything, the last year has shown us how deep and intransigent racial discrimination, sex discrimination, and other illegal forms of discrimination remain in our society and how we have to take active steps to dismantle them wherever we find them. Unfair and illegal discrimination exists at the VA. It doesn't make me proud to say it as a veteran, as a lawmaker, as a public servant, but it exists there just like it exists everywhere else. These folks know how to deal with it. They know how to listen. They know how to make the employees feel like they have a safe place to go and tell their side of the story. They know how to stick up for these employees who are giving their careers to helping our veterans. All we need to do is lift the cap, and the VA will hire EEOC counselors who can do their job effectively and take care of those who are taking care of our veterans every day.

Mr. LAMB

Mr. LAMB. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of my amendment, to make perfectly clear that transfers of firearms between family members do not require a background check, are not subject to the strictures of this bill. We should make that clear in order to confirm what we have all said here today, that this is a bill that targets those who break the law, not those who abide by it. My amendment shows respect for the important tradition within many families in western Pennsylvania and elsewhere of passing down a shotgun or a hunting rifle from a father to a son. That is allowed under our bill. And a further and more important sign of respect will come when we vote for final passage tomorrow to strengthen the right of those who obey the law by keeping those who break it away from your right to own a firearm.

Mr. LAMB

Mr. LAMB. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition.

Mr. LAMB. Madam Speaker, I came here tonight prepared to talk about the place I represent and how well the Democratic and Republican county officials ran our election. I wanted to point out that in my home county of Allegheny County, in the place they were counting the votes, there were 31 video cameras--31--in the same place, just showing people counting votes, every single one of them on paper, with representatives from both campaigns watching. Madam Speaker, I wanted to point out to all these great lovers and supporters of the Pennsylvania legislature that it was the Republican Pennsylvania legislature that passed a Republican bill that they all voted for and supported that set up the system under which we just ran the election, and that the reason the President lost was because he was not as popular as other Republicans in our State. He got fewer votes than all of them. Madam Speaker, I wanted to lay out all this evidence because I thought it was a sign of respect for my colleagues and for all the Americans out there who don't know who to trust. I was raised on that. I was raised on that respect, which makes this a hard speech for me to give. Because to do this with any kind of honesty means admitting and declaring in this House that these objections don't deserve an ounce of respect--not an ounce. A woman died out there tonight, and you are making these objections. Let's be clear about what happened in this Chamber today. Invaders came in for the first time since the War of 1812. They desecrated these Halls and this Chamber and practically every inch of ground where we work. For the most part, they walked in here free. A lot of them walked out free. There wasn't a person watching at home who didn't know why that was--because of the way that they look. My point, Madam Speaker, is this: Enough has been done here already to try to strip this Congress of its dignity, and these objectors don't need to do anymore. We know that that attack today didn't materialize out of nowhere. It was inspired by lies, the same lies that you are hearing in this room tonight. And the Members who are repeating those lies should be ashamed of themselves. Their constituents should be ashamed of them. We know what is going to happen as soon as I walk away, what has happened all night tonight, what will continue to happen. They will take these same symbols, these same concepts, smuggle them into their arguments, and make the same arguments. I want people at home, anyone who is still watching, to know that these arguments are not for them; they are for you. None of the evidence we wanted to discuss here tonight will change their opinions or what they are about to say. But you need to know that is not the end. It is not as if there is nothing we can do because of that. And if there was, I don't think this Nation would have made it to almost 250 years. The fact is, Madam Speaker, that at the end of the day, people-- Point of Order

Mr. LAMB. Madam Speaker, the fact is, at the end of the day, it hurts. It hurts them; it hurts this country. It hurts all of us. But the fact is that the people have made this country work by not giving in. Go ahead. Shout it out. One last thing to say, Madam Speaker. And I thank you for your patience. All people need to know tonight, Madam Speaker-- Madam Speaker, the truth hurts. But the fact is this: We want this government to work more than they want it to fail. After everything that has happened today, we want that more than ever. Know that. Know that, the people watching at home. We want this government to work. We will make it work. They will not make it fail. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. LAMB

Mr. LAMB. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the retirement of Tom VanKirk, Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer at Highmark Health on December 31, 2020. Mr. VanKirk joined Highmark Inc. in March 2012 following a 41-year career at Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney. In addition to overseeing the acquisition of West Penn Allegheny Hospital System and Jefferson Hospital as well as the formation of Highmark Health in 2013 and its affiliation with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of northeast Pennsylvania in 2015, he has managed the legal affairs of the company and the legal department, and serves on the company's leadership team. He was also instrumental in the formation of Highmark Health's strategic partnerships with Johns Hopkins Medicine and Penn State Health. Mr. VanKirk also serves as the secretary of the board of directors of Highmark Inc. and Highmark Health. Prior to joining Highmark in 2012, Mr. VanKirk served as Chairman and CEO at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney from 2003 until 2009, and Chairman until 2012, where he provided strategic leadership, client relationship development and attorney recruitment. He also managed the merger of three major law firms into Buchanan. Mr. VanKirk served as COO for 18 years from 1985 to 2003 before becoming CEO at Buchanan Ingersoll. He was a corporate takeover and antitrust trial lawyer and corporate advisor to many Fortune 1,000 companies. As a community leader, Mr. VanKirk is involved in many civic and non- profit initiatives throughout the Pittsburgh region. He serves on the Executive Committee of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, the Pennsylvania Economy League and Chaired the Pennsylvania Business Council Board. In addition, Mr. VanKirk is a trustee of the University of Pittsburgh, the YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh, United Way, the Board of visitors of the PITT School of Social Work, The Carnegie Museum, and on the board of Penn State Health. Mr. VanKirk and his wife Bonnie have been involved in the founding of both the Hillman Cancer Center and the August Wilson Center, two vital Pittsburgh institutions. He is a graduate of two great Pennsylvania schools. Bucknell and Penn State Dickinson School of Law. [From Penn State University Newswire] According to a recent news article looking back on his life and contributions to our community, ``When Mr. VanKirk, 1970, attended Penn State Dickinson Law five decades ago, it was a time of tremendous unrest. The civil rights movement and protests against the Vietnam War were peaking, and VanKirk felt drawn to the field of law.'' Said Mr. VanKirk of this experience, ``I think the law has always been a great place to make a meaningful and lasting impact on society.'' On behalf of the constituents of Pennsylvania's 17th Congressional District, I would like to congratulate Mr. VanKirk on his retirement and thank him for his tireless work to enhance the quality of life of our community.

Mr. LAMB

Mr. LAMB. Mr. Speaker, for the last 2\1/2\ years, I have been a member of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs; and during that time, one of the things I have seen is the way that our veterans service organizations, particularly the American Legion, the VFW, the Vietnam Veterans of America, but several others, too, play an essential role in connecting all of the good things that we are trying to do with government programs with the people who actually need to benefit from them and take advantage of them. So often in government, we have a hard time getting our ideas and our solutions beyond the walls of the Federal office building and into the communities and streets and homes where we want them to be, and these organizations are very, very good at doing that. So I want to thank my colleague, Republican Representative Van Taylor from Texas, for partnering with me on these amendments to bring in these veterans service organizations as part of signing people up and enrolling them in apprenticeship programs so that the veterans who are out there who are most in need of up-skilling or creating a new career path can actually find out about these opportunities and take advantage of them. There is probably no one in America more qualified and a better bet for this investment than a veteran. On-the-job training is what we do. These people have the patience and discipline to complete these programs and make our entire workforce stronger and better off, and I know that the veterans service organizations will help us get there.

Mr. LAMB

Mr. LAMB. Mr. Speaker, if I would have come before this House in 2005 and said to my colleagues, ``I have a policy proposal. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs in parts of the country that have lost them. It will help free us from wars in the Middle East. It will save middle-class families hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year on their energy bills. And the best part is, it will allow us to reduce carbon emissions for the first time in the history of the United States,'' that would sound like a Democratic policy--more jobs, less war, lower bills, less carbon. That policy was the shale revolution, and it was, in truth, a partnership between government research and entrepreneurs in Pennsylvania and Texas and other places that figured out new techniques to get natural gas out of the ground. Some have opposed the continuation of natural gas drilling simply because it is a fossil fuel, and I ask them: Who gets credit for the reduced carbon emissions over the last 15 years? Natural gas has made a bigger difference than anything. But we still have a duty to continue trying to improve that process. A lot of people don't realize that the National Energy Technology Laboratory, NETL, that exists in western Pennsylvania, has never given up on trying to clean up these processes. They have made great gains, particularly in the area of produced water and taking the water that is used to get the gas out of the ground and removing the contaminants so that the water can be recycled and used over and over again. We have already seen that in the short life of shale drilling in western Pennsylvania. The NETL has improved recycling of water immensely. My amendment would give additional money to the Secretary of Energy to double down on this research and, most importantly, establish a demonstration project for the first time ever to better recycle and dispose of this water right onsite, eliminating the loud and noisy trucks that drive through people's neighborhoods and the risk of contaminating our water table. This has been a tremendous technology for western Pennsylvania and the United States, and we can continue making it better.

Mr. LAMB

Mr. LAMB. Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman for his hard work bringing us this bipartisan, bicameral compromise that will get things done for our Nation's veterans. Madam Speaker, my contributions to today's bill are sort of a mix of old and new. We are dramatically increasing the investments and availability of age-old practices like acupuncture, meditation, yoga, nutritional counseling, things that, when you talk to the veterans themselves, whether younger millennial-age veterans or grizzled Vietnam war veterans, they will tell you these are some of their favorite offerings at the local VA and some of the practices that make the biggest differences for people with chronic pain, stress, and anxiety. I have heard my Republican colleagues make the point many times that we have increased the VA's budget without seeing much progress on the suicide rate. I agree. That is unacceptable. These are some of the least costly offerings that the VA has to make: acupuncture and chiropractor. They come up again and again, and they are a minuscule part of the VA's budget. We can make a small increase and make an enormous difference. We are also investing in another great opportunity to do research for biomarkers, precision medicine that will tell us how we can better treat the invisible wounds of war with new technologies; again, a small down payment today for the possibility of much more effective and much more cost-effective treatment going forward. The other important mix of old and new that we see today, Madam Speaker, is that we are making new investments--investing in new technology, offering new services to veterans--but we have done it in an old-fashioned way, which is that both sides work together. This will probably be my last chance to recognize our ranking member, Dr. Roe, before he leaves us at the end of this Congress. I just want to say, when I came to this Congress 2\1/2\ years ago, my first committee assignment was on the Veterans' Affairs Committee when he was chairman. Dr. Roe was kind to me from beginning to end, taught me a lot about the needs of our Nation's veterans from the standpoint of a practicing physician, always with an eye on cost, but, above all, on veterans' well-being. We thank Dr. Roe for his service, and our Nation's veterans are better off for it.

Mr. LAMB

Mr. LAMB. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the chairwoman for bringing this bill to the floor. Madam Speaker, I come from western Pennsylvania, home of the first oil well, home of coal and steel, home of the first nuclear power plant, home of the fracking revolution, and most importantly, home of the people who built all of these things. And it is as a western Pennsylvanian today, not as a Democrat or Republican, but as a western Pennsylvanian that I am proud to have supported and contributed provisions to this bill. Both Democrats and Republicans will vote for this bill tomorrow--they will. And that is how it should be. Somehow people got the idea that energy was one more topic that should be politicized in America, and they are wrong. The future of energy is about jobs, not red jobs, not blue jobs, just jobs. And we know how to create jobs in America when we use our government to win the race to new technologies. That is why I have never thought the best analogy here is the New Deal, it is the Manhattan Project. Back then, when we had a threat from outside our country, it required us to double down on all the nuclear science and then get it out of the lab and into the factories, into the power plants, into the construction camps. We created jobs. And just like that was a competition against Germany, and just like today, we still thank the Greatest Generation for refusing to tolerate Germany beating us to the bomb. Today, we should refuse to tolerate China beating us to those jobs. Someone will get these jobs. Someone will build the next advanced nuclear reactor. Someone will figure out how to build a gas-fired power plant with carbon storage, and someone will win the race on batteries. It should be us. And this bill will give us a leg up in each one of those technologies. There is no more time to waste. My colleagues across the aisle have raised fair points about their own ideas and legislation, but make no mistake, this bill is a blueprint for more jobs, less carbon, more science, less partisanship, and we should all pass it without delay.

Mr. LAMB

Mr. LAMB. Mr. Speaker, others before me have said why it matters that we have working locks and dams. It has always mattered. The United States has more miles of navigable rivers, lakes, and canals than anywhere else in the world. It made us who we are as a nation. We could move iron ore to make steel faster, cheaper, and easier than all of our competitors because of our water, but especially because of our locks and dams that control the water. So we need to fix them, and this bill will help. I hope that America will take note of something else here today, which is that this Congress still works. It might not be as well as people would want every single day, but this is a major bill. This is a major infrastructure bill, and this is a major infrastructure bill that has been bipartisan from the very beginning and, hopefully, will end bipartisan when our friends in the Senate work with us to get this done. I want to give a special thanks to my Republican friend and colleague from Texas (Mr. Babin). Together, we led a big group of Members from both parties in support of a better way to fund these locks and dams. I especially want to thank Chairman DeFazio and Ranking Member Graves, who agreed. Now we have a better chance to rebuild the locks and dams and to deliver on the promise we made to the American people.

Mr. LAMB

Mr. LAMB. Mr. Speaker, I know a steel company in western Pennsylvania that makes compressors and turbines. They compete against General Electric, but they have found a way to survive as a hometown company that pays a union wage. Yet we tax this company. We tax them with our poor infrastructure. They ship their goods out of the Port of Philadelphia which should only be a 300-mile drive from their location, but it is a 900-mile trip for their trucks to find roads and bridges that can withstand the weight of their loads. So this company that builds American, that hires American, and that has stayed with us when so many have left pays three times what they should just to get their goods to market. For how long? How long until GE simply outlasts them? Or how long until they have to cut jobs because they simply cannot cut these trucking costs? So we can pay now by saving these jobs and create new ones building things, or we can pay later with more unemployment and the damage done by bad roads. That is the choice we are presenting with today's bill. Does it cost money? Yes. It is money that will go into the hands of people with jackhammers, shovels, and trucks. That is money well spent. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. LAMB

Mr. LAMB. Madam Speaker, a Senator said yesterday he would let local governments go bankrupt. And while he said that, our local county executive was busy loading food into people's cars. Cars that had toolboxes and work boots in them, and people who were nonetheless hungry. If the Senator has his way, it is these people whose towns will go bankrupt. He talks about the economy. And I asked, ``What happens to an economy where entire towns of firefighters and teachers and others lose their paycheck or their pension?'' We are moving the ball today, but no one should mistake this for a touchdown. The Senator would send our best players off the field. The American people will never accept that, and neither should we.