Jim McGovern

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield to the gentlewoman from New Hampshire (Ms. Shea-Porter) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. McGOVERN. I do.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cardenas) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Roybal-Allard) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Ruiz) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Horsford) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I am proud to yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy), my colleague, for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Loretta Sanchez) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Dr. Charles E. Hanrahan, Senior Specialist in Agricultural Policy in the Resources, Science, and Industry Division of the Congressional Research Service (CRS). After a distinguished career of 47 years of federal service, including more than 29 years of service to Congress on agricultural trade and international food aid issues at CRS, Charles will be retiring on January 31, 2014. Charles Hanrahan's work on international food aid issues has been of enormous value to the Members and staff of the House Hunger Caucus, which I co-chair. He was famous for his ``International Food Aid 101'' briefings that helped every congressional office understand the importance of our global food assistance programs, how they worked, the challenges they face, and how they might be strengthened and improved. My staff and I relied on his insights and we will miss not being able to pick up the phone or send him an email seeking information and advice. During his tenure at CRS, Charles has achieved a remarkable record of accomplishment providing invaluable support to the authorizing and appropriations committees and Members of Congress on agricultural trade, global food security, and international agricultural development. Over his illustrious career, he has worked on 10 omnibus farm bills, 3 multilateral trade negotiations, and numerous bilateral and regional free trade agreements, and has been indispensable in congressional consideration of these measures. His unparalleled institutional knowledge on these issues will be greatly missed by Congress. Charles began his federal career working part-time in the offices of his representative and senator from his native Kentucky and operating an elevator here in the U.S. Capitol while earning his Bachelor of Science at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. After graduation, he volunteered for the Peace Corps and served over 2 years in Guinea, West Africa where he taught agricultural economics and farm management. When he returned stateside, he earned his Ph.D. in 1972 at the University of Kentucky. Before coming to CRS in 1984, Charles worked at USDA's Economic Research Service where he rose to deputy director in international economics, and earlier served at the U.S. Agency for International Development as a senior economist in the Africa Bureau, and as a staff economist at the National Academy of Sciences. With this wealth of experience, Charles quickly established himself as a leading expert on agricultural trade and international food aid issues at CRS when he arrived in 1984. During his CRS career, he has written more than 200 reports and confidential memoranda and conducted hundreds of briefings for Members and staff, all of which were completed with authoritative and objective analysis and the skills of a masterful teacher. Just over a year after his arrival at CRS, his comprehensive knowledge of world hunger issues were tapped by the Select Committee on Hunger as Charles testified at a public hearing on food supplies in drought ravaged sub-Saharan Africa. His expert testimony at this hearing and his accomplished work in the nearly three decades following have gone a long way in keeping Congress informed on the important humanitarian issues of international food aid and agricultural development. In addition to his many years of excellent direct support to Congress, Charles has served in acting supervisory and mentoring roles within CRS, including most recently as acting deputy assistant director in his division and as division reviewer of the reports and memoranda of CRS analysts. In these roles, he has earned the great respect of his CRS colleagues for his deep knowledge, fairness in evaluating their work, and his ability to manage challenging administrative problems. In retirement, Charles plans to pursue his favorite extracurricular pursuits of travel, reading, cooking, dining out and spending time with his beloved family. We wish him the very best in his retirement and thank him for his dedicated and stellar record of service to Congress, the American people, and vulnerable people around the world.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, today we mark the 50th anniversary of the war on poverty--a dedicated legislative and policy effort by President Lyndon Johnson to reduce and eventually eliminate poverty in America. Yet, despite the many successes of the war on poverty--and there have been many successes over the past 50 years--there are those in this country and in this House who would destroy the programs that help people in need, those who have replaced the war on poverty with a new war on poor people. Unfortunately, that is what is happening right now with the farm bill. I am honored to serve on the Agriculture Committee and as a member of the farm bill conference committee. I want--and America needs--a strong, comprehensive, and forward-thinking bill. I represent farmers and farms, conservationists, and agriculture research institutions, and like every other Member of Congress, I represent people who rely on the nutrition programs in the farm bill to put food on their tables. That has been my primary focus as a conferee--to support and fight for the hungry in America. I believe the nutrition title--where SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, is authorized--is the most important part of the farm bill. This program provides food to 47 million food- insecure Americans--people who don't know where their next meal is coming from. Food insecurity, Mr. Speaker, is another way to say hunger. These people are hungry and they get food because they are on SNAP. We have been told that the House may vote on a farm bill conference report as early as next week. According to some reports, the bill would cut $8 billion from SNAP. Unlike the cut that took effect on November 1, where all 47 million SNAP beneficiaries saw their benefits cut by an average of $30 a month for a family of three, this $8 billion cut is more targeted. That doesn't mean it is any less harmful. This cut would change the way SNAP benefits are affected when a beneficiary gets a LIHEAP benefit. Many have described the application of this SNAP/LIHEAP connection--sometimes called ``Heat and Eat''--as a loophole, but calling this a loophole avoids the real issue at hand. The truth is that changing the way that Heat and Eat works--closing this so-called loophole--will reduce an already meager benefit for millions of Americans, a benefit that didn't last a full month even before the November 1 across-the-board cuts took effect. Even worse, closing this so-called ``loophole'' would disproportionately affect poor seniors and the disabled--precisely the kinds of Americans we should be looking out for during difficult economic times. There has to be a better way. SNAP has been cut twice to pay for other programs--first, to offset programs that help teachers, firefighters and other social services, and a second time to offset improvements in the Child Nutrition Act. Now, these are good programs that deserve to be funded, although not at the expense of the hungry. I am all for compromise when all sides negotiate in good faith, but why does compromise in Washington always mean helping those who are well off at the expense of the poor? Remember, Mr. Speaker, this cut will reduce the SNAP benefit by about $90 a month for ``heat and eat'' households. Three million poor families would see their food assistance cut by an average of $90 a month. And would these billions of dollars in cuts go back to helping other needy people? No. In a farm bill that continues to subsidize big agribusiness and special interests and that further subsidizes a crop insurance program that is rife with fraud, waste and abuse, it is just one more cut to a program that helps our most vulnerable neighbors. Mr. Speaker, the November 1 cuts were devastating for 47 million hungry people. Just ask any food bank director in the country. Adding another $8 billion cut to another 3 million families will cause even more damage. If my friends insist on changing the LIHEAP provision, then they should at least have the decency to reinvest those savings into SNAP. Both Democrats and Republicans are talking a lot these days about the issue of income inequality. That is a good thing. So why on Earth would we pass a farm bill that makes the rich get richer and the poor get poorer? We can and must do better. It is a scandal that in the richest country in the history of the world we have a hunger problem. Members of Congress rush to the microphones to promote tax cuts and ease resolutions on Wall Street. All the while, there are people in this country--men, women and kids-- who do not have enough to eat. I will oppose any farm bill that makes hunger worse in America, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. In conclusion, let me say to my colleagues: there are some things worth fighting for. Ending hunger--making sure our fellow citizens have enough to eat--is absolutely worth fighting for.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, the time has come for our military to leave Afghanistan. Afghan President Karzai's refusal to sign the bilateral security agreement should be the last straw in putting an end to what is becoming America's longest war. After more than 12 years, hundreds of billions of dollars, and over 2,100 American servicemen and -women killed in combat, it is time to bring all of our troops home now. In poll after poll, the American people have made it clear that they want our troops home. Certainly, our brave men and women in uniform and their families have done everything that we have asked of them and more. We must not ask them to continue to fight, bleed, and die in Afghanistan for another 10 or 12 years to support a government more interested in extorting America and ripping off our tax dollars than working with us to strengthen its own security. Mr. Speaker, President Obama needs to turn this interminable conflict over to the Afghans. As of yesterday, 2,153 members of our Armed Forces have died in Afghanistan since 2001; another 19,526 have been wounded; and every Member of this Chamber knows that tens of thousands of our troops have returned home with invisible wounds to their minds and spirits. Suicide rates among our veterans are among the highest ever, and they continue to climb. For many, the care required to help heal these wounds will last a lifetime. It is estimated that health care and veteran benefits for the men and women deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost trillions of dollars. In both human and fiscal terms, we simply cannot afford to waste more lives and dollars in Afghanistan. The President has not made a case about how any number of troops remaining in Afghanistan after 2014 can improve the confidence of Afghan forces when our current greater and more intensive engagement over the past decade has not been able to do so. It is completely unclear whether the April elections will improve the Afghan Government, given its ingrown corruption, sectarian divisions, and Taliban insurgency. There are no compelling reasons to remain. We need to turn Afghanistan over to the Afghans now, not 10 years from now. We need to bring our troops home by no later than the end of 2014, just as President Obama promised. If this is the so-called ``zero option,'' then it is the best option. We do not need to keep another 10,000 to 12,000 American troops in Afghanistan for another 10 years at the cost of about $80 billion or more each year. They will continue to be in harm's way; they will continue to be carrying out dangerous operations; they will continue to be wounded body and soul; and they will continue to be killed. For what? So one of the most corrupt governments in the world can continue living off of our blood and treasure? So military contractors can continue lining their pockets? We are cutting programs right and left in the budget, but we are supposed to keep pouring tens of billions of dollars into Afghanistan for another decade? All of it is borrowed money charged to our national credit card. I say enough is enough. In June, 305 Members of this House voted in support of an amendment that I offered along with Congressmen Walter Jones and Adam Smith to bring our troops home by the end of 2014 and to accelerate that process if possible. It clearly stated that if the President determined to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014, then Congress should vote on authorizing that mission. Senators Merkley and Lee were ready to offer a similar amendment in the Senate when the defense bill was to be taken up over there. They had more than a dozen bipartisan cosponsors on their amendment. Instead, the FY14 NDAA went into conference negotiations without debate by the full Senate. In those negotiations, the principal Senate conferees demanded that the House amendment be completely watered down. The conference language only requires the President to ``consult'' with Congress about any post-2014 deployment of troops. That is worthless. It is absolutely worthless, Mr. Speaker. We don't need consultation. What we need is a vote. I call on Speaker Boehner and Leader Pelosi to take seriously the call of 305 Members of this House and schedule a vote next year on keeping thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Whether or not you support such a decision, the House needs to vote on it. It is time for us in Congress to do our job. It is time we stop asking our troops and their families to sacrifice their lives in a war that has outlived its purpose. It is time to bring our troops home. It is time to get out of Afghanistan. [From the New York Times, Nov. 23, 2013] The Long Goodbye in Afghanistan (By the Editorial Board) From his first campaign for the White House, President Obama has vowed to end more than a decade of war, bring the troops home and put America on a less militaristic footing. He has reduced the forces in Afghanistan from about 100,000 in 2010 to about 47,000 today and has promised that all American and international combat forces will be out by the end of 2014. But he has also indicated that a residual force of American troops will remain in Afghanistan to train Afghan security forces and engage in counterterrorism missions. In all this time, he has not made a clear and cogent case for any particular number of troops or explained how a residual force can improve the competency of Afghan forces when a much broader and intensive American engagement over the last decade has not. Yet last week the Obama administration announced that it had reached an agreement with Afghanistan on a long-term bilateral security arrangement that, officials say, would allow up to 12,000 mostly American troops to be in that country until 2024 and perhaps beyond--without Mr. Obama offering any serious accounting to the American people for maintaining a sizable military commitment there or offering a clue to when, if ever, it might conclude. The administration's focus, instead, has been on whether an Afghan tribal council and the Afghan Parliament will formally approve the pact and whether President Hamid Karzai will sign it. Even now, key details of the security agreement are unclear. Mr. Karzai has spoken about a force of 10,000 to 15,000 American and NATO troops; President Obama has not yet announced a figure, but officials have talked of 8,000 to 12,000. Officials have said the troops' main role will be to continue to train and assist the 350,000-member Afghan security force. The capability of the Afghan security force has improved, but it still cannot defend the country even after a $43 billion American investment in weaponry and training. Proponents of a residual force also argue that it is needed to protect Kabul, to prove that the United States is not abandoning Afghanistan and to pressure the Taliban to negotiate a political settlement, which military commanders say is the only path to stability. In addition, since Afghanistan cannot finance its security apparatus, American officials say Congress is unlikely to keep paying for the Afghan Army and police, at a cost that could range from $4 billion to $6 billion per year, unless Americans are there to verify that the money is properly spent. The American forces are also expected to conduct counterterrorism missions when needed. The draft agreement allows United States Special Operations forces to have leeway to conduct antiterrorism raids on private Afghan homes. As Mr. Obama's letter to Mr. Karzai says, American troops will be able to carry out the raids only under ``extraordinary circumstances involving urgent risk to life and limb of U.S. nationals.'' (Under current protocol, Afghan troops take the lead in entering homes.) The pact also gives American soldiers immunity from Afghan prosecution for actions taken in the course of their duties. The failure to reach agreement on this immunity issue blocked a long-term security deal between the United States and Iraq and led to the final withdrawal of troops there. President Obama said in May that the United States needs to ``work with the Afghan government to train security forces, and sustain a counterterrorism force, which ensures that Al Qaeda can never again establish a safe haven to launch attacks against us or our allies.'' Managing a productive relationship with Afghanistan has always been difficult with Mr. Karzai, who is an unpredictable, even dangerous reed on which to build a cooperative future. And it is unclear if Afghanistan, driven by corruption, sectarian divisions and the Taliban insurgency can have any better governance when elections are held next April. Mr. Karzai's long record of duplicitous behavior is just one of the many reasons it is tempting, after a decade of war and tremendous cost in lives and money, to argue that America should just wash its hands of Afghanistan. There is something unseemly about the United States having to cajole him into a military alliance that is intended to benefit his fragile country. Regardless of what he, the tribal council and the Afghan Parliament decide, President Obama still has to make a case for the deal to the American people.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. I thank the ranking member for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, let me, first of all, begin by congratulating Congressman Ryan, Congressman Van Hollen, and Senator Murray for coming together and trying to work out a bipartisan budget deal. It is far from what I would deem as perfect, but it begins to chip away at this awful sequestration that my Republican friends seem to be so enamored of. But I want to come here on the floor to echo what the ranking member said in terms of expressing outrage over the fact that my Republican friends want to leave town without addressing the issue of extending unemployment compensation for 1.3 million Americans. They are going to leave town tomorrow; and on December 28, after they have opened up all their presents and wished everybody a merry Christmas and had a wonderful dinner, on December 28, 1.3 million of our fellow citizens will be cut off totally from their unemployment compensation. I want to put this in perspective. On November 1, the American Recovery Act funds ran out, in terms of supporting the SNAP program, which means that everybody on SNAP has received a cut. So the average family of three, Mr. Speaker, received a $30 reduction in their SNAP benefits. That is their food benefit. That is about 16 meals. It may not sound like a big deal to some of my friends on the other side of the aisle; but for millions of family in this country who are struggling just to put food on the table, it is a big deal. On top of that, they are going to say to these 1.3 million people and their families, We don't care. We don't care. We are leaving town. And since when did my Republican friends have to wait for a bicameral, bipartisan deal on anything to bring this to the floor? They brought a repeal of the Affordable Care Act to the floor about four dozen times. Since when do they wait to get a backroom deal with the Senate before we are allowed to vote on something on the House floor? That is an excuse, and it is a poor excuse. We ought to be doing the people's business, and that means not turning our backs on millions of Americans who are struggling during this difficult economy. We ought not to be making excuses. We ought to do something, and this is an opportunity to do it. Defeat the previous question, as the ranking member said, and we can have a vote on extending unemployment compensation for these 1.3 million people. And it is paid for. If you don't want to do it, you can vote ``no.'' But for those of us in this Chamber who believe we have a moral obligation to those people, we want that vote. And let us vote for the extension and then send it over to the Senate. Let's take some leadership on this issue. Let's not turn our backs on the most vulnerable in this country. It has become unfashionable in this country to worry about the poor. It has become unfashionable to stand up for these programs just to help people get by. This is the holiday season. Have a heart. We ought to do something here. We ought to help these people and not just skip town. So there are no excuses. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote ``no'' on the previous question. Let us vote on extending unemployment compensation, and let us do the right thing. Let's not make excuses.

Mr. McGOVERN. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. McGOVERN. I guess my question to the gentleman is that, on December 28--I think it is indisputable--1.3 million people will lose their benefits. They have also had their SNAP benefits cut. What do these people do on December 28? What do they do? Where do they go?

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on Friday, the Republican leadership has decided we will adjourn for the holidays. Notwithstanding the fact that we haven't done immigration reform, we haven't passed a jobs bill, we haven't extended unemployment insurance, they have all decided it is time to go home and enjoy the holidays. So on Friday, we will all leave and go back to our districts. The one thing we will all have in common, Democrats and Republicans, is we will go back and we will enjoy the holidays, and we will partake in many celebrations. And the one thing that we will not have to worry about is whether or not we will have enough to eat. Our concern, quite frankly, will be overeating. But the fact is, for millions of our fellow citizens, close to 50 million Americans, they will have to worry about whether they will have enough to eat for them and their families. Fifty million people in this country, the richest country in the history of the world, are hungry; 17 million are kids. All kinds of people fall in that category. Sadly, close to 1 million of our veterans rely on food assistance programs because they don't have enough to eat. Mr. Speaker, the fact that so many people in the United States of America are hungry is a national disgrace. We should be outraged. There should be outrage in this Chamber. There should be a sense of urgency that we need to solve this problem. Yet what we see is indifference and, in some cases, outright hostility toward those Americans who happen to be poor. The House of Representatives recently passed a farm bill that cut the SNAP program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is designed to ensure people have enough to eat. They cut that program by $40 billion. In the Senate version, they cut it by about $4.5 billion. There is now a conference committee going on, and press reports say that maybe they will decide on an $8 billion cut. Eight billion dollars, what does that mean? That means that 850,000 families in this country will be impacted in a negative way by that cut; 1.7 million people. For those people who would be impacted by that $8 billion cut, it is about a $90 cut per month in the benefit that they get. Every single person on the SNAP program received a cut. That cut that happened on November 1 for an average family of three would be about a $30 cut. So you add the $30 plus the $90 that we are now talking about, that is now a $120 cut per month for these families. That is a lot of money. The fact of the matter is the SNAP benefit, as it stands, is not overly generous. In fact, I would say it is too stingy. It doesn't provide enough for people to be able to afford food, never mind nutritious food. A lot of the people who show up at our food banks and our food pantries are on the SNAP program. But to cut an average family of three's benefits by about $120 per month is outrageous. We don't have to worry. No one in this Chamber has to worry about whether or not they can afford to put food on the table for their families. Why aren't we more concerned with the fact that there are so many people in this country who are food insecure and who are outright hungry? We need to do something about this. Mr. Speaker, I have heard my colleagues say, Well, we are not really trying to cut people's benefits; all we are trying to do is reform the program. We are trying to combat a culture of dependency. When you cut this program that provides food to poor people, what you do is you don't deal with an issue of a culture of dependency. What you do is make their lives more miserable. The fact of the matter is the majority of people on SNAP are children, senior citizens, and disabled people. Of those who can work, a majority of them work. There are people who work full time and still are so poor they qualify for SNAP assistance. And the response of this Congress is going to be to make their lives more miserable? I ask my colleagues who support these cuts, is that what you came here for, to make the lives of the most vulnerable in this country more miserable? Is that what you are here for? Is that the purpose of your service in the United States Congress? Give me a break. We need to solve these problems. The fact of the matter is that increasing hunger in America costs us a great deal. Hungry kids don't learn in school. Senior citizens who can't afford their food and their medication and take their medication on an empty stomach end up in our emergency rooms. There is a cost to hunger. In fact, it is more expensive to tolerate the hunger in America than it is to solve the problem. We were elected to solve problems, to lift people up, and not put people down. I would just finally close, Mr. Speaker, by saying I urge the White House to get more involved in this issue, to get involved in this fight. There are some things worth fighting for. Ending poverty and ending hunger in America is worth fighting for. Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to reject cuts in the SNAP program that will increase hunger in America.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, today, December 10, is International Human Rights Day. Sixty-five years ago in 1948 the first 58 members of the United Nations, fresh from the wounds and memories of World War II, adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They put aside profound disagreements about their political, economic, and social ideologies, their cultural and their religious differences. Together they created a document remarkable for its breadth of human rights protections and outlined a bold vision of a world built on the premise that ``all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.'' The Universal Declaration articulated mankind's greatest aspirations to respect and protect the dignity of every person, regardless of his or her race, ethnicity, beliefs, or social standing. The Universal Declaration became the cornerstone for developing international standards for the protection of human rights and helped inform the moral and legal basis for legislative action here in Congress. I am privileged to be the cochair of the bipartisan Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, dedicated to promoting human rights and educating our congressional colleagues on the importance of standing up for human rights. Through hearings and initiatives, we have focused on some of the most critical human rights challenges around the world. This year we began the Defending Freedoms Project, where Members of Congress can adopt prisoners of conscience. I congratulate those Members who have adopted prisoners and boldly advocated for their release. I invite all my colleagues to join the Commission in its Defending Freedoms Project. As my colleagues are aware, the U.S. Congress has a long history of standing up for the disenfranchised and the abused. It has stood on the side of immigrants and championed the rights of those whose governments forbid them to emigrate. It has worked on behalf of the disappeared and tortured in Chile and the gulags of the former Soviet Union. It has stood up for the rights of workers, journalists, and other human rights defenders. I hope this Congress and future Congresses will not abandon that history, but will continue to stand up for the rights of the disenfranchised, not just abroad but right here at home. Along with my colleague Frank Wolf, I am proud to carry on the tradition as the bipartisan sponsors of the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, which Congress approved last year and the President signed into law. The Magnitsky Act responds to the ongoing pattern of brutality against those speaking out for truth and justice in Russia. It bans U.S. visas and freezes the assets of some of Russia's gross violators of human rights, and affirms our commitment to safeguarding human rights and fighting impunity regardless of where such transgressions occur. In an increasingly interconnected world, the Universal Declaration challenges us to place our commitment to human rights firmly and uncompromisingly at the center of our foreign policy. Too often we fail this test. For example, despite China's relentless crackdown on the Tibetan people, we continue business as usual with China. The toll of this oppression on human dignity is seen in 19 self-immolations-- Tibetans' desperate protest against China's policies and an appeal to the world for action. The Universal Declaration also demands that we press our friends and allies when they are responsible for human rights abuses. In Bahrain, since the 2011 uprising, we have seen reports of torture, multiple cases of forced confession, and the unjust prosecution of medical personnel. Peaceful political and human rights leaders have been arbitrarily jailed to the detriment of political reform and stability. Instead of leveraging our good relations with Bahrain to achieve greater respect for human rights, we have chosen to renew military sales and abandon our past demands for increased human rights protections. Finally, International Human Rights Day reminds us to recommit to respecting human rights in our own Nation. We must eliminate torture in all our policies. We must work harder to prevent human trafficking on our own soil, and we must protect and advance such basic rights as access to adequate food, a fundamental human right under article 25 of the Universal Declaration. Forty-eight million Americans, including 16 million children, don't have enough to eat in this country. Yet in September, we saw devastating cuts to our SNAP program, with maybe even more on the way in the final version of the farm bill. The Universal Declaration and our own American values demand that we do better. With the passing of one of the greatest champions of human rights, Nelson Mandela, I would like to close with words he offered in this very Chamber to a joint meeting of Congress in 1990: To deny any person their human rights is to challenge their very humanity. To impose on them a wretched life of hunger and deprivation is to dehumanize them. As we remember Nelson Mandela, let us draw inspiration from his dedication to the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration, and let us rise to the challenge of that document's vision to respect, protect, and promote the human dignity of every person so that we might achieve a more peaceful, just, secure world.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to welcome all of my colleagues back from their Thanksgiving holiday, and I trust that, like me, everybody had a great Thanksgiving along with a wonderful meal. But I'm here today to remind my colleagues, so that they don't forget, that for millions of our fellow citizens, they were without a Thanksgiving dinner. In fact, for millions of our fellow citizens, they go without meals on a regular basis. Men, women, and children, close to 50 million Americans, go hungry in our country, the richest country in the history of the world. It is a national scandal, and it is something that we need to do something about. Mr. Speaker, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, otherwise known as SNAP, helps struggling families put food on the table. It's a good program that, sadly, has come under attack by some--not all--but by some of my Republican friends, and for the life of me, I can't understand why. The average SNAP benefit is about $1.40 per meal. The No Kid Hungry campaign, launched by the group Share Our Strength, recently did a chart which shows that the average cost of one Thanksgiving dinner is about $49.04. That's equal to about 35 SNAP meals. The fact is that our food banks are at capacity. I went to a Thanksgiving dinner sponsored by my bishop that was filled with people looking for food. That same group run by the Catholic Charities delivered well over 1,000 meals to people in my community on that one Thanksgiving Day. But the notion that somehow charity can do it all, or that food banks can do it all, or that churches or synagogues or mosques can do it all, is just wrong. I would urge my colleagues to visit a food bank, to visit a food pantry, talk to the people who run those organizations and let them inform you of who is showing up at their doorsteps. Talk to the people who go to these food banks. These are average people. Many of them are working families who earn so little that they still qualify for the SNAP benefit. The White House released a report over the Thanksgiving holiday talking about the importance of the nutrition assistance program. The report highlights, among other things, that in 2012 SNAP kept nearly 5 million people out of poverty, including 2.2 million children. SNAP reduced child poverty by 3 percentage points in 2012, the largest child poverty impact of any safety net program other than refundable tax credits. The program's benefits are targeted to those most in need and designed to support work. The large majority of SNAP participants are children, the elderly, or people with disabilities, and about 95 percent of Federal spending on SNAP goes directly to subsidizing the food purchases of eligible households. It is one of the most efficiently run Federal programs. I wish the Department of Defense was run as efficiently as this. Our deficit would be much lower. Among SNAP households with at least one working age non-disabled adult, more than half work--more than half work--and more than 80 percent worked in the year before or after receiving SNAP. Now, the legislation that the House Republican leadership rammed through this Congress and is now part of a negotiation on the farm bill would cut the program by close to $40 billion. That would result in nearly 4 million Americans losing access to SNAP next year, including working families with children, seniors, and veterans. Nearly 170,000 veterans would lose their benefits. In addition, 210,000 children and these families would also lose free school meals. These cuts would come on top of the significant benefit reduction already experienced by all SNAP recipients as a result of the American Recovery Act moneys running out. I would say to my colleagues that what that cut that went into effect on November 1 means is that the average family of four would see a reduction of about $36 per month in their SNAP benefit. We're talking about food. We're talking about making sure in the richest country in the history of the world that nobody goes hungry. I know that these are tough budgetary times, but if you want to find ways to save money, I would suggest we listen to my colleague, Mr. Jones of North Carolina, and get the hell out of Afghanistan. Stop supporting one of the most corrupt regimes on this planet today, the Karzai regime. Take those millions and those billions and reinvest it here at home. Reinvest it in a way that we end hunger now. Mr. Speaker, for millions of our citizens who are hungry, what they worry about and what they fear is not halfway around the world. It is halfway down the block. We ought to make sure we get a farm bill that does not make hunger worse in this country, and if we have a farm bill that cuts SNAP significantly, I would urge all my colleagues to not only vote against it but fight against it. We can do better. Let's get a farm bill, but let's not make hunger worse.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. I want to thank my colleague from Massachusetts. It is a real privilege to be here with my colleagues to honor Barry Sullivan. And when I heard about his retirement, I couldn't help but think that this is the end of an era. As my colleague Bill Keating mentioned, both Barry and I came here under the mentorship of a great man, Joe Moakley, who understood what public service meant in the best tradition. And I think one of the things that I admire about Barry is that he has been a public servant in the highest tradition. He has been the go-to guy for everything and anything. You know, a lot of people don't understand who don't work here about all the people who kind of work behind the scenes, who work longer hours than we do, and Barry is amongst that group of people, always here, early mornings, late nights, separated from his family at times when we couldn't get our act together here in the Congress. He has just been incredible. So we are going to miss you, Barry, for a whole bunch of reasons, and I am going to miss you also because of your friendship. You and Barbara have been great friends to Lisa and me. You have given us advice on how to raise our kids and where to send them to school, and we appreciate that very, very much. But I want you to know that there are so many of us here who have high regard for you and who value your service and your friendship. And I will just close by saying that I am grateful, but I want you to know that we are going to be friends for life.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, next week is Thanksgiving. All of us in this Chamber will go back to our districts, and we will celebrate this holiday with our families, usually with a big turkey dinner with all of the fixings and with all of these wonderful desserts; but, Mr. Speaker, for millions and millions of Americans, they won't have anything to celebrate next week because they don't have enough to put food on their tables for their families. There are close to 50 million people in the United States of America--the richest country in the history of the world--who are hungry. Close to 17 million of them are kids. Mr. Speaker, in the face of these terrible statistics, we have a Congress that is working overtime to make life for many of these people even more miserable. There has already been a cut in SNAP as a result of the ending of the Recovery Act moneys that provided an extra boost to the program. So everybody who is on this program, on November 1, received a cut in their benefit--a benefit that is, on average, about $1.50 per meal per day. They received a cut. On top of that, the House of Representatives passed a farm bill that has an additional $40 billion cut in this program. That would result in millions of families who currently receive the benefit losing it altogether. It would result in hundreds of thousands of children who right now are able to take advantage of a free breakfast and lunch program at school to lose that benefit. It would also result in about 170,000 veterans losing the benefit. So I want to talk a little bit today about our veterans and about how they are being adversely impacted by some of the policies that we are pursuing here in the House of Representatives. On November 1, Jonathan Capehart of The Washington Post wrote a column entitled, ``Oh, SNAP. Veterans Get Dissed by the GOP.'' I want to read the first few paragraphs of his piece: Remember all the howling by Republicans about the closed monuments and war memorials during the Ted Cruz government shutdown? Remember how they helped World War II vets storm their memorial on the very first day? Remember how one of the Members of Congress snarled at a Park Service ranger for trying to abide by the law and keep the memorial closed to the public? Remember how the likes of Cruz and Sarah Palin railed against President Obama for the cuts to veterans' benefits that resulted from the Cruz-caused shutdown? ``Our veterans should be above political games,'' Cruz said at the Million Vets March on October 13. ``Veterans have proven they are not timid, and we will not be timid in calling out anybody that uses the military as pawns.'' Palin said at the same event, ``We can only be America, home of the free, if we are America, home of the brave.'' So, pardon the forthcoming blue language: Where the hell are they now that a multi-billion-dollar cut to the food stamp program has hit thousands of veterans squarely in their wallets? He is referring to the cut that occurred on November 1. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, ``In any given month, a total of 900,000 veterans nationwide lived in households that relied on SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, to provide food for their families.'' In any given year or in any given month, millions and millions of dollars of SNAP funds are spent at military commissaries to help feed military members and their families who struggle against hunger. Mr. Speaker, I raise this issue because there seems to be somewhat of a contradiction here in this people's House of Representatives. We are all very good at kind of talking the talk. People get up time and time again, and they talk about how important and how wonderful our veterans are. We all go back to our districts on Veterans Day and on Memorial Day, and we praise our veterans, and we thank them for their service to their country and for their sacrifice; but when it comes to making sure that our veterans have enough to eat, that they have enough food to put on their tables for their families, we are worse than indifferent in this House of Representatives. We are making things worse for them. If this cut that the House of Representatives passed goes into effect--this $40 billion cut in SNAP--as I said, 170,000 veterans and their families will lose their benefit altogether. This is on top of a cut in their benefit that they have already received. I don't know what people think is meant by praising our veterans. But instead of talking the talk, we ought to walk the walk a little bit more. We ought to make sure that the men and women who served our country, who this Congress voted to send over to Iraq and send over to Afghanistan, we ought to ensure that when they come back that they at least have enough to eat. Many veterans that come back have a tough time getting back into the workforce, and yet some of the language that was put in the House farm bill would actually make it almost impossible for them to get this benefit. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues as we approach Thanksgiving to not forget our veterans.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me the time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. I also rise in opposition to this rule and to the underlying bill. Mr. Speaker, it appears that this Republican-controlled House of Representatives is incapable of doing anything that matters in people's lives. When the history is written on the 113th Congress, especially as it pertains to the House of Representatives, they have accomplished nothing. They have made a lot of noise. They shut the government down. They whine about the health care bill every chance they get, but they have accomplished absolutely nothing. And it is frustrating because our country is facing great challenges. Our economic growth is slower than it should be, thanks to the Republican shutdown of government, and their willingness to play politics with the debt ceiling has had a negative impact on our economy. Job growth is too slow, and we should be working together to invest in education and in job training and in infrastructure projects to help put people back to work. We ought to have a long-term highway bill. I think every Governor in the country, Republican and Democrat, would agree with me on that statement. Yet this House of Representatives just seems incapable of accomplishing anything to help rebuild our infrastructure. The sequester that my Republican friends embraced has taken a terrible toll on our science and research programs. Talk to the people at NIH. Potentially lifesaving research into diseases like cancer and Parkinson's disease have been crippled, yet there is no urgency over on the side of my friends on the other side of the aisle to try to do anything about it. They just sit there and twiddle their thumbs and life goes on; meanwhile, we are losing our competitive edge in medical research and in science. The Senate has passed a bipartisan, comprehensive immigration bill. The Republican leadership claims that we simply don't have the time to take it up. That is nonsense. We had time to take up this horrible bill that my colleague from Iowa (Mr. King) authored that would allow for the mass deportation of young, undocumented immigrants, the so-called DREAMers who were brought here as children by their parents. They have time to demagogue these issues, but to actually fix our broken immigration system, they claim we don't have any time. Mr. Speaker, I will insert into the Record today's Washington Post editorial, ``John Boehner Must Act on Immigration Now.'' And just so my colleagues understand this, when my friends on the other side of the aisle say they don't have time, the Republicans will take 4 out of 5 days off for the rest of the year. That is how hard they are working on behalf of the American people. Four out of 5 days remaining from now until the end of the year they are going to take off. That is not doing your job, Mr. Speaker. That is not doing your job. Instead of dealing with these important issues, we have this bill before us now that has come to the floor, H.R. 1900. The bill before is rather curious. Rather than solving a problem that actually exists, it is a solution in search of a problem, and it is just another partisan messaging bill that is going nowhere in the Senate. The White House has already said they would veto it. H.R. 1900 would require FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, to approve or deny an application for a natural gas pipeline within 12 months of its filing date. FERC already decides 92 percent of permit applications within 12 months, and the GAO has concluded that its pipeline permitting process is predictable and consistent and gets pipelines built. The small percentage of applications that have taken more than a year involve complex proposals that deserve a more thoughtful review. Instead of speeding up the permitting process, this bill will lead to unnecessary permit denials and increased litigation that will ultimately slow the process down. If FERC cannot properly review permits within the rigid 12-month deadline, they may be forced to deny applications that would otherwise end up being approved. For me, the most troubling part of H.R. 1900 is that it may result in truncated or inadequate environmental analysis, which threatens the health and safety of communities these potentially hazardous pipelines run through. Just last week, a Chevron pipeline exploded in Milford, Texas, forcing the entire town to evacuate. Mr. Speaker, it isn't too much to ask the oil and gas industry to go through a process to make sure that these pipelines are safe. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule and on the underlying bill, and I urge my Republican colleagues to get back to work on solving real problems on behalf of the American people. Enough of the press releases, enough of this polarizing rhetoric and these meaningless debates that we seem to be consumed with here in the House of Representatives. People want us to work on their behalf, to do things that will improve their lives, that will strengthen our country; and instead, my friends on the other side of the aisle seem to be cheering for our country to fail all the time and bringing this kind of stuff to the floor, which is going nowhere and is meaningless. At this point, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. [The Washington Post, Nov. 19, 2013] John Boehner Must Act on Immigration Now (By Editorial Board) Poor John Boehner. The beleaguered House speaker can't even eat breakfast in peace. The other day, a pair of teenage girls, activists for immigration reform, accosted him at Pete's Diner, his early-morning hangout, to ask how he'd like to be deported. ``How would you feel if you had to tell your kids at the age of 10 that you were never coming home?'' 13-year-old Carmen Lima, of California, asked Mr. Boehner. ``That wouldn't be good,'' allowed the Speaker. He got that right. The rest of his remarks on immigration that day, not so much. Mr. Boehner, who pledged to press ahead with immigration reform a year ago following Mitt Romney's dismal performance with Latino voters, now says the House will not negotiate with Democrats on the basis of the sweeping reform bill passed by the Senate in June with bipartisan support. Translation: Don't hold your breath for immigration reform this year, and don't get your hopes high for next year, either. Mr. Boehner says he still wants to ``deal with'' immigration, but ``in a commonsense, step-by-step way.'' The trouble is, no one knows what those steps would be. The only immigration bill on which Mr. Boehner has permitted a vote by the full House would allow for the mass deportation of young, undocumented immigrants brought to this country illegally as children by their parents--the so-called Dreamers. Deporting hundreds of thousands of youngsters who grew up and went to school in the United States does not seem an especially promising way to resolve the broader issue of the nation's broken immigration system. Neither does heaving billions of dollars more at border security without tackling the entire problem. Some partial reforms, such as opening the visa spigot for high-tech engineers, scientists and mathematicians, may make sense, but they don't get at the fundamental problem. As it happens, border security and high-tech visas are addressed in the Senate bill, along with more fundamental reform; that's why it's 1,300 pages long, a fact that Mr. Boehner cited to dismiss its viability as the basis for negotiations. In the wake of Obamacare's rollout troubles, large-scale reforms are in poor repute, we understand. But there are 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. The country needs to deal with them in some way. When it does so, it needs to set up a sensible system for future immigration so we don't wind up in the same fix 10 or 20 years from now. That requires legislation of some complexity, it's true, but members of Congress are elected to solve complex problems. President Obama said Tuesday that he is open to dealing with immigration in a piecemeal fashion. But the House can't dictate that only border security and deportation are on the table. Mr. Boehner should let House Republicans vote on the parts of immigration reform they consider priorities and take that ``sensible step-by-step'' approach into negotiations with the Senate. It is unserious, and unconstructive, to tell the Senate what it can and cannot bring to the table in negotiations with the House.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, at this time, it is my privilege to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, at this time, it is my privilege to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), our distinguished whip.

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield an additional 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland.