George Miller

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I know how hard you worked to try to get the accurate figures of what the blowout meant in terms of volume of oil going into the gulf. I just wonder, if we had had whistleblower protections and one of the employees at BP who knew what the real volume was as opposed to what the executives were telling the American people and the rest of the world, we might have had information sooner which would have allowed us to respond in a different fashion than we did when we had bad information because of the concealment of the accuracy of which we found when you finally got the cameras turned on.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), the subcommittee chair on the Education and Labor Committee.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), a coauthor of this legislation and the author of the whistleblower protection provisions of the Energy and Commerce bill.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield the gentleman 2 additional minutes.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, I hope that all of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle will support this Whistleblower Protection Act. I hope that they understand that many, many thousands, millions of American workers work in work sites where every day they pose an inherent danger to those workers. The question of whether or not those workers will be safe or not very often is decided by the employer, who decides how they will structure the work site, what the work rules will be, and how the work and the process will proceed. But very often those employers sometimes shortchange safety. They choose to pick production over the safety of their workers. They choose to pick cost cutting over safety of their workers. They choose to pick hurrying up the job over the safety of their workers. They choose to pick getting certain parts of the job done and get them off-site over the safety of their workers. In today's economy, and in every economy, for many of these workers, it's a terrible choice to think about if I raise my hand on behalf of safety, will I lose my job? If I raise a question about the process that we are about to engage in here and how dangerous it is, will I lose my job? I represent a district where people work in these industries, in the chemical industry and the refining industry. You know what? We lose workers in those jobs all too often, and all too often we find out the mistakes that were made and we wonder. And even those workers, who are covered by whistleblower protection, know the trade-off. Because, don't forget, all whistleblower protection does is give you a right to try to proceed to get your job back. Many times that's delayed and workers go months and months without pay because they had the courage to invoke their rights. This Whistleblower Protection Act is consistent with the other Federal protections for workers throughout this country, but these workers today on the Outer Continental Shelf have no protection at all with respect to their personal safety, and we are simply filling that gap and making sure that they will have that right. Now, many companies--and I have talked to the CEOs of some of these companies--say, you know, we give you the right at any time to pull the switch, to shut down the job, to stop it, if you think it's unsafe. One company gives out a card. You get a card and you put the card down. It's sort of like in the World Cup--you get a time-out. Do you know what the supervisors tell the employees that card is? A get-fired card. Play that card, get fired. So the company says play this card any time you want, but the supervisors make it clear what the pressure is. That's why we need this whistleblower protection for the workers on the Outer Continental Shelf. I have to believe, given the concerns that are documented in the hearings of this Congress, that had these workers had that kind of protection, there would have been a far greater chance that they would have said, wait a minute, because they had concerns about the procedure as they started to withdraw from this drill site. They had concerns about the condition of the rig. They had concerns about the overriding of safety alarms. Yet we saw the explosion and the tragedy and the loss of life of these workers. Let's do something in their memory that will protect their colleagues on the Outer Continental Shelf. Let's pass this bill with large bipartisan support. In the name of these workers, these workers who fell into a gap in the protection laws of this Nation, let's fill that gap. Let's provide them the protection, and let's make their death not be in vain with respect to their coworkers. I ask for support of this legislation. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I thank the chairman for this legislation, and I am very happy that this legislation includes a responsible bidder so that the American people will know that those companies that bid on the Outer Continental Shelf, those lands that belong to all Americans, that the companies will be responsible, that we will check their safety records. We will not once again have a company like BP, which is out there with hundreds and hundreds of violations, while so many of the other companies that operate on the Outer Continental Shelf have minimal violations, one and two, and this company is completely out of control. We've got to make sure that the American taxpayer, that the American environment and the American Outer Continental Shelf are protected by responsible bidders.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, if we accept this moratorium, it's to suggest that we as a Congress of the United States of America have learned nothing since the Deepwater Horizon blew up in a tragic accident. We have learned nothing in the last hundred days to simply say we're going to go back to business as usual. Mr. Melancon has given us a way to lift the moratorium, but to do it because the things that we have learned in our congressional investigations, that the Coast Guard has learned and others. This is to suggest that we would not redesign the levees around Louisiana; we would just give them the money. Because we did that for 30 years, we have to take lessons learned. In every tragedy, the lessons are learned. And you have businesspeople all along the gulf who are losing millions of dollars in business. You have fishers who are losing their livelihood, and the question is will they ever get to come back. And if we do it right in lifting the moratorium, yes, they will get to come back. We will have energy development, and we will have a cleaner gulf than we have today because we learned something. You take this vote home to your constituents and you're telling them you have learned nothing in the last hundred days about the operation. We're talking about an oil company that blew up a rig that killed 15 people in Texas City, refused to fix it afterwards, and paid $87 million in fines. We're talking about a company that disregarded their workers. We have got to change those laws so this doesn't happen again. And we're on our way, thanks to Mr. Melancon and others.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, in just a few weeks, we will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the enactment of the Social Security Act. Americans have benefitted greatly from this extraordinary program over the past 75 years. In fact, almost half of today's elderly would live in poverty without it. It is the most successful domestic program in our nation's history. There can be no better time to renew our commitment to defend this program, to reinvigorate it and to do everything we can to ensure that Social Security is funded, solvent, and available for generations to come. From its very inception, Social Security was a promise of economic security and stability for older Americans after a lifetime of hard work. Over the years, that promise has been strengthened to protect Americans in case of severe disability and the death of a breadwinner as well. Year after year, Social Security continues to deliver on that promise. For three-quarters of a century, through 13 recessions, Americans have been able to depend on benefits that arrive on time and in full. More than 50 million Americans rely on Social Security now. Six in 10 seniors rely on Social Security for more than half of their income. And more than 6 million children--nearly one in 10--receive part of their family income from Social Security. For 75 years, we have stood by the program that we created: strengthening it in the 1950s and '60s, and preserving its solvency in the '70s and '80s. Now, as we all know, the retirement of the Baby Boom generation will create new and real challenges for Social Security. And we need to respond to those challenges with innovative solutions that guarantee the system's long-term strength for generations to come. But make no mistake, opponents of Social Security have not given up their effort to undermine this great program. Republicans in Congress continue to deliberately exaggerate the system's problems in an attempt to scare the public into supporting the radical idea of privatizing Social Security. The Senior Republican on the House Budget Committee, for example, unveiled his Party's plan to eliminate Medicare and privatize and cut Social Security, rehashing the failed policies that President George Bush tried to carry out but was stopped, thanks to Democratic opposition in Congress. According to the Washington Post, ``Some GOP lawmakers also have endorsed [Rep. Paul] Ryan's alternative budget plan, which would wipe out deficits in part by privatizing social security and replacing traditional Medicare benefits with an insurance voucher for people age 55 and older.'' Their strategy poses a risk to all Americans, and experts concur that privatizing Social Security will not solve the challenges facing the system. The recent economic meltdown on Wall Street reinforces the folly of trying to tie the Social Security Trust Fund to the ups and downs of a volatile stock market. When the market crashed in 2008, investors lost 30 percent or more of their savings. Social Security recipients didn't lose a nickel in benefits. Had previous efforts to privatize Social Security succeeded, seniors would have lost trillions more in the recent stock market meltdown and economic recession. The American people deserve the income security they have earned. In the wake of the current economic crisis, Social Security is more important than ever. Social Security was created at a time when the American economy had crumbled and was struggling to recover. Pensions were almost non-existent, and a majority of seniors were unable to support themselves after retirement. Thanks to Social Security, millions of seniors today can live their lives with dignity and independence instead of poverty and despair. In December of this year, the President's Bipartisan Commission on Fiscal Responsibility will release recommendations on meaningful ways to improve America's long-term fiscal outlook, including the future of Social Security. I look forward to reading the report and reviewing their recommendations to ensure that Social Security is strengthened, not weakened. As we approach August 14, the date of the 75th anniversary of Social Security, we can all be grateful for the creation of this program and we can all rededicate ourselves to ensuring its continued success. I remain committed to preserving Social Security's guaranteed, lifelong, inflation-protected insurance benefits for retirees, disabled workers and their families, and the survivors of deceased workers for generations to come.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, I rise to commend to my colleagues the following article on one company's attempts to do the right thing--inspired by the consumer choices made by thousands of students across the United States who say that there should be ``No Sweat'' in their sweatshirts. For years I have fought against the use of sweatshop labor, exploited adult labor and exploited child labor, around the world. For many years now, the student movement in the United States has played an important role in helping to bring the issue of sweatshop labor to the attention of political leaders, corporate boardrooms, and the college and university community. I applaud them. Now, one company is trying to do the right thing by making apparel without sweatshop labor. That is good for workers and good for our consumers. I applaud Knights Apparel and urge other companies to follow their example. I am especially pleased by this development because of the history of the Alta Gracia factory in the Dominican Republic where Knights Apparel is producing its goods. This same factory was unceremoniously shut down in 2007, leaving over 1,000 employees out of work and in dire economic straits--many of them forced to sign agreements that they didn't understand waiving their right to receive adequate severance pay. As this new factory moves forward, it can become a shining example of a new trade model that works by ensuring that all workers are able to take advantage of broader prosperity, rather than by starting a race to the bottom that leaves only a select few better off. The world looks to the United States to set standards for human rights, labor rights, and democracy. By making products with a decent wage and union rights, this company is setting the finest example of corporate responsibility for the world to see. The article follows: [From the New York Times, July 16, 2010] Factory Defies Sweatshop Label, but Can It Thrive? (By Steven Greenhouse) Villa Altagracia, Dominican Republic--Sitting in her tiny living room here, Santa Castillo beams about the new house that she and her husband are building directly behind the wooden shack where they now live. The new home will be four times bigger, with two bedrooms and an indoor bathroom; the couple and their three children now share a windowless bedroom and rely on an outhouse two doors away. Ms. Castillo had long dreamed of a bigger, sturdier house, but three months ago something happened that finally made it possible: she landed a job at one of the world's most unusual garment factories. Industry experts say it is a pioneer in the developing world because it pays a ``living wage''--in this case, three times the average pay of the country's apparel workers--and allows workers to join a union without a fight.``We never had the opportunity to make wages like this before,'' says Ms. Castillo, a soft-spoken woman who earns $500 a month. ``I feel blessed.'' The factory is a high-minded experiment, a response to appeals from myriad university officials and student activists that the garment industry stop using poverty-wage sweatshops. It has 120 employees and is owned by Knights Apparel, a privately held company based in Spartanburg, S.C., that is the leading supplier of college-logo apparel to American universities, according to the Collegiate Licensing Company. For Knights, the factory is a risky proposition, even though it already has orders to make T-shirts and sweatshirts for bookstores at 400 American universities. The question is whether students, alumni and sports fans will be willing to pay $18 for the factory's T-shirts--the same as premium brands like Nike and Adidas--to sustain the plant and its generous wages. Joseph Bozich, the C.E.O. of Knights, is optimistic. ``We're hoping to prove that doing good can be good business, that they're not mutually exclusive,'' he says. Not everyone is so confident. ``It's a noble effort, but it is an experiment,'' says Andrew Jassin, an industry consultant who says ``fair labor'' garments face a limited market unless deft promotion can snare consumers' attention-- and conscience. ``There are consumers who really care and will buy this apparel at a premium price,'' he says, ``and then there are those who say they care, but then just want value.'' Mr. Bozich says the plant's T-shirts and sweats should command a premium because the company uses high-quality fabric, design and printing. In the factory's previous incarnation, a Korean-owned company, BJ&B, made baseball caps for Nike and Reebok before shutting it in 2007 and moving the operation to lower-wage countries. Today, the reborn factory is producing under a new label, Alta Gracia, named after this poverty-ridden town as well as the Virgin of Altagracia, revered as protector of the Dominicans. (Alta gracia translates to ``exalted grace.'') ``This sometimes seems too good to be true,'' says Jim Wilkerson, Duke University's director of licensing and a leader of American universities' fair-labor movement. He said a few other apparel companies have tried to improve working conditions, like School House, which was founded by a 25-year-old Duke graduate and uses a factory in Sri Lanka. Worker advocates applaud these efforts, but many say Alta Gracia has gone further than others by embracing higher wages and unionization. A living wage is generally defined as the amount of money needed to adequately feed and shelter a family. ``What really counts is not what happens with this factory over the next six months,'' Mr. Wilkerson says. ``It's what happens six years or 10 years from now. We want badly for this to live on.'' Santa Castillo agrees. She and many co-workers toiled at other factories for the minimum wage, currently $147 a month in this country's free-trade zones, where most apparel factories are located. That amount, worker after worker lamented in interviews for this article, falls woefully short of supporting a family. The Alta Gracia factory has pledged to pay employees nearly three and a half times the prevailing minimum wage, based on a study done by a workers' rights group that calculated the living costs for a family of four in the Dominican Republic. While some critics view the living wage as do-gooder mumbo- jumbo, Ms. Castillo views it as a godsend. In her years earning the minimum wage, she said she felt stuck on a treadmill--never able to advance, often borrowing to buy necessities. ``A lot of times there was only enough for my kids, and I'd go to bed hungry,'' she says. ``But now I have money to buy meat, oatmeal and milk.'' With higher wages, she says, her family can move up in the world. She is now able to borrow $1,000 to begin building her future home and feels able to fulfill her dreams of becoming a minister at her local evangelical church. ``I hope God will continue to bless the people who brought this factory to our community,'' she says. In many ways, the factory owes its existence to an incident a decade ago, when Joe Bozich was attending his son's high school basketball game. His vision suddenly became blurred, and he could hardly make out his son on the court. A day later, he couldn't read. A doctor told him the only thing that would cause his vision to deteriorate so rapidly was a brain tumor. So he went in for an M.R.I. ``My doctor said, `The good news is you don't have a brain tumor, but the bad news is you have multiple sclerosis,' '' he says. For three days, he couldn't see. He worried that he would be relegated to a wheelchair and ventilator and wouldn't be able to support his family. At the same time, a close friend and his brother died, and then one of his children began suffering from anxiety. ``I thought of people who were going through the same thing as my child and me,'' Mr. Bozich recalls. ``Fortunately, we had the resources for medical help, and I thought of all the families that didn't.'' ``I started thinking that I wanted to do something more important with my business than worry just about winning market share,'' he adds. ``That seemed kind of empty after what I've been through. I wanted to find a way to use my business to impact people that it touched on a daily basis.'' He regained his full vision after three weeks and says he hasn't suffered any further attacks. Shortly after Mr. Bozich recovered, Knights Apparel set up a charity, weKAre, that supports a home for orphans and abused children. But he says he wanted to do more. A national collegiate bodybuilding champion at Vanderbilt, Mr. Bozich was hired by Gold's Gym after graduation and later founded a unit in the company that sold Gold's apparel to outside retailers. Building on that experience, Mr. Bozich started Knights Apparel in 2000. Still solidly built at 47, he has made apparel deals with scores of universities, enabling Knights to surpass Nike as the No. 1 college supplier. Under Mr. Bozich, Knights cooperates closely with the Worker Rights Consortium, a group of 186 universities that press factories making college-logo apparel to treat workers fairly. Scott Nova, the consortium's executive director, says Mr. Bozich seems far more committed than most other apparel executives to stamping out abuses--like failure to pay for overtime work. Knights contracts with 30 factories worldwide. At a meeting that the two men had in 2005 to address problems at a Philippines factory, Mr. Bozich floated the idea of opening a model factory. Mr. Nova loved the idea. He was frustrated that most apparel factories worldwide still paid the minimum wage or only a fraction above--rarely enough to lift families out of poverty. (Minimum wages are 15 cents an hour in Bangladesh and around 85 cents in the Dominican Republic and many cities in China--the Alta Gracia factory pays $2.83 an hour.) Mr. Bozich first considered opening a factory in Haiti, but was dissuaded by the country's poor infrastructure. Mr. Nova urged him to consider this depressed community, hoping that he would employ some of the 1,200 people thrown out of work when the Korean-owned cap factory closed. Mr. Bozich turned to a longtime industry executive, Donnie Hodge, a former executive with J.P. Stevens, Milliken and Gerber Childrenswear. Overseeing a $500,000 renovation of the factory, Mr. Hodge, now president of Knights, called for bright lighting, five sewing lines and pricey ergonomic chairs, which many seamstresses thought were for the managers. ``We could have given the community a check for $25,000 or $50,000 a year and felt good about that,'' Mr. Hodge said. ``But we wanted to make this a sustainable thing.'' The factory's biggest hurdle is self-imposed: how to compete with other apparel makers when its wages are so much higher. Mr. Bozich says the factory's cost will be $4.80 a T-shirt, 80 cents or 20 percent more than if it paid minimum wage. Knights will absorb a lower-than-usual profit margin, he said, without asking retailers to pay more at wholesale. ``Obviously we'll have a higher cost,'' Mr. Bozich said. ``But we're pricing the product such that we're not asking the retailer or the consumer to sacrifice in order to support it.'' Knights plans to sell the T's for $8 wholesale, with most retailers marking them up to $18. ``We think it's priced right and has a tremendous message, and it's going to be marketed like crazy,'' says Joel Friedman, vice president of general merchandise at Barnes & Noble College Booksellers. He says Barnes & Noble will at first have smaller-than-usual profit margins on the garments because it will spend heavily to promote them, through a Web campaign, large signs in its stores and other methods. It helps to have many universities backing the project. Duke alone placed a $250,000 order and will run full-page ads in the campus newspaper, put postcards in student mailboxes and hang promotional signs on light poles. Barnes & Noble plans to have Alta Gracia's T's and sweats at bookstores on 180 campuses by September and at 350 this winter, while Follett, the other giant college bookstore operator, plans to sell the T's on 85 campuses this fall. Still, this new, unknown brand could face problems being sold alongside Nike and Adidas gear. ``They have to brand this well--simply, clearly and elegantly--so college students can understand it very fast,'' says Kellie A. McElhaney, a professor of corporate social responsibility at the University of California, Berkeley. ``A lot of college students would much rather pay for a brand that shows workers are treated well.'' Nike and Adidas officials said their companies have sought to improve workers' welfare through increased wages and by belonging to the Fair Labor Association, a monitoring group that seeks to end sweatshop conditions. A Nike spokesman said his company would ``watch with interest'' the Knights initiative. To promote its gear, Knights is preparing a video to be shown at bookstores and a Web documentary, both highlighting the improvements in workers' lives. The T-shirts will have hanging tags with pictures of Alta Gracia employees and the message ``Your purchase will change our lives.'' The tags will also contain an endorsement from the Worker Rights Consortium, which has never before backed a brand. In a highly unusual move, United Students Against Sweatshops, a nationwide college group that often lambastes apparel factories, plans to distribute fliers at college bookstores urging freshmen to buy the Alta Gracia shirts. ``We're going to do everything we can to promote this,'' says Casey Sweeney, a leader of the group at Cornell. ``It's incredible that I can wear a Cornell hoodie knowing the workers who made it are being paid well and being respected.'' One such worker is Maritza Vargas. When BJ&B ran the factory, she was a stand-up-for-your-rights firebrand fighting for 20 union supporters who had been fired. Student groups and the Worker Rights Consortium pressed Nike and other companies that used the factory to push BJ&B to recognize the union and rehire the fired workers. BJ&B relented. Today, Ms. Vargas is president of the union at the new plant and sings a very different tune. In interviews, she and other union leaders praised the Alta Gracia factory and said they would do their utmost to make it succeed and grow. Mireya Perez said the living wage would enable her to send her 16-year-old daughter to college, while Yolando Simon said she was able to pay off a $300 debt to a grocer. At other factories, workers said, managers sometimes yelled or slapped them. Several said they were not allowed to go home when sick, and sometimes had to work past midnight after beginning at 7:30 a.m. Comparing this factory with other ones, Ms. Vargas said, ``The difference is heaven and earth.''

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1855, the Strengthening Employment Clusters to Organize Regional Success or SECTORS Act, which promotes strategic approaches to addressing skills shortages. Sector strategies is an approach that brings employers in a certain industry together with education, labor, workforce, and other groups to identify and provide training that is tailored to meet the sector needs of that region's economy. The SECTORS Act would support existing industry partnerships or help leverage funding from employers, educators, labor, and the workforce system to adopt a sectors-based working partnership that comes together to identify economic trends and shared workforce issues and develop the tools required to meet the growing demand in that targeted industry. As some industries maintain signs of recovery, you would expect that employers would have an easy time filling their openings. In manufacturing, the June 2010 ISM Report on Business showed that economic activity in the sector grew for the 11th consecutive month. The manufacturing industry has added 136,000 jobs since December 2009. Yet many American companies, including manufacturers believe they cannot find workers with the qualifications needed for these jobs. A recent New York Times article highlighted a contract drug company in Ohio that needed to hire 100 workers. Despite reviewing 3,600 job applications, the company has only offered jobs to 47 people so far. In a July 2009 survey of employers, the Business Roundtable's Springboard Project found that more than 60 percent of those surveyed indicated that they were having difficulty finding qualified applicants to fill current vacancies, and almost half indicated that there was a gap between the skills of their current workforce and company requirements. In a survey of manufacturing organizations conducted by Deloitte, The Manufacturing Institute, and Oracle found that skill shortages persist, especially for the most profitable companies. Almost one-third of responding companies reported some level of shortages today, and over one-half reported shortages for skilled production workers. With the economy improving, companies are retooling the way they operate in order to remain competitive against their global rivals and in assessing its short and long-term talent needs, businesses are calling for higher-skilled workers. In the current economy, workers need a wide range of services and support to reenter and succeed in the labor market. Job training is one important part of that solution, particularly for workers who have experienced extended unemployment and need to rebuild their skills; dislocated workers who are moving into new industries as local and regional economies are revamped; or even incumbent workers who need to upgrade their skills as industries adopt new technologies, including green technology. It is critical that we ensure that workers have the right skills for today's labor market and that those skills help them move into jobs and careers. One of the best ways to do this is to ensure that federally funded training is developed in partnership with local and regional employers. The SECTORS Act will help businesses in growing industries plan for their talents needs while ensuring education and workforce provide the learning for workers to match the skills required by employers. By promoting sector strategies, employers can take control of the design and work in coordination with education and job training providers from the public and private sectors to develop strategies that will quickly train workers for waiting jobs, and develop long-term solutions to grow that industry as part of a community's economic recovery. Specifically, the SECTORS Act would establish a new Sector Partnership Grant program administered by DOL to provide designated funding and distinct performance measures for industry partnerships. SECTORS help both workers and local firms in the same industry, to help ensure that workers are getting the skills that employers need and the employers can find and hire the skilled workforce they need to compete and lead the world in the global economy. Federal investment that encourages best practices in the workforce development field, supports efforts already going on in communities around the country, and ensures that federal investments improve the skill of our nation's workforce, will efficiently and effectively support our nation's economic recovery. In addition, sector partnerships can have a positive impact on workers, especially those that are low-income. Public/Private Ventures found in their study of sector-based training those participants in the program earned an average of about $4,500 more than those not engaged in training sponsored by a sector partnership. More than 200 sector partnerships are active, comprising 23 industry sectors in 41 states. For example, Pennsylvania has nearly eighty partnerships serving more than six thousand firms across the Commonwealth, and more than 70,000 workers have received training as part of the program. The SECTORS Act will drive strategic alliances that advance a region's economic vitality and make sure workers have the skills in place to move forward industries that are pivotal to keeping our economy growing. Madam Speaker, I want to thank Congressman Loebsack and Congressman Platts for introducing this legislation that is so important to our regional and national economy. I urge support of H.R. 1855, which helps to strategically position our growing industries with a highly-skilled workforce ready to innovate and complete in the 21st Century global marketplace.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, our country lost a true education civil rights pioneer last week. William L. Taylor was a friend, an ally, a trusted advocate and true hero to our nation's children. His work helped all children succeed and profoundly impacted the way we educate children in this country. Both the Washington Post and the New York Times ran obituaries on his passing. I have submitted these for the Record as well as the eulogy by Ralph Neas given at his Memorial Services. Bill will be deeply missed. My thoughts and prayers are with the Taylor family during this difficult time. [From the Washington Post, June 30, 2010] William L. Taylor, 78; Washington Lawyer, Champion of Civil Rights (By Emma Brown) William L. Taylor, 78, a Washington lawyer and civil rights activist for more than half a century who fought discrimination on many fronts and was particularly dedicated to desegregating the nation's schools, died June 28 at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda of complications from a fall. In a career spanning six decades, Mr. Taylor worked largely behind the scenes in courtrooms and on Capitol Hill, advising members of Congress, drafting legislation and taking advantage of changing attitudes about race and equality to strengthen the nation's civil rights laws and their enforcement. One of his early mentors was Thurgood Marshall, who later became the first African American Supreme Court justice. Mr. Taylor went to work for Marshall at the NAACP Legal and Education Defense Fund in 1954, months after the Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawed public school segregation. In 1958, Mr. Taylor helped write the NAACP's legal brief for the Supreme Court case that compelled schools in Little Rock--and required schools across the nation--to comply with Brown v. Board and integrate public schools. During the 1960s, Mr. Taylor was the general counsel and staff director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He played a key role in organizing on-the-ground hearings and investigations into discrimination against African Americans in the Deep South. The resulting recommendations by the commission became the foundation for the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. In the late 1960s, he left the government to become a government watchdog. He launched two organizations to monitor the government's efforts to enforce civil rights laws, the Center for National Policy Review at Catholic University, where he taught law, and later the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights. During the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Mr. Taylor lobbied for and helped draft stronger laws to address discrimination in housing, employment and voting. He also was in the group that led the fight against Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. They examined every article, every speech, every decision, every statement that Robert Bork ever made and put together the book on Bork--and that was literally and figuratively the foundation for Bork's rejection by the Senate, said Ralph Neas, the former executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, who chaired the Block Bork coalition. Mr. Taylor was perhaps best known for his efforts to force states and cities to make good on the promise of equal schools for all. Through the courts, he pressed for the desegregation of a number of urban school districts. In St. Louis, after a parent challenged the segregated school system, Mr. Taylor led negotiations in the 1980s that established the nation's largest voluntary metropolitan school desegregation plan. In recent years, Mr. Taylor helped draft No Child Left Behind, the 2002 federal law intended to boost the quality of the nation's schools by measuring student progress on standardized tests, and he defended it against legal challenges. In his eyes, ensuring excellent schools for all students was a matter of civil rights. ``He was a huge champion for closing the achievement gap, for accountability--just a hawk, and I use that as a huge compliment because he was ever-vigilant about that cause,'' said Margaret Spellings, who was secretary of education under President George W. Bush. William Lewis Taylor was born Oct. 4, 1931, in Brooklyn, N.Y., the son of Jewish emigrants from Lithuania. Growing up, Mr. Taylor was the target of anti-Semitic slurs. He graduated from high school in 1947, the same year that Jackie Robinson went to bat for the Brooklyn Dodgers, drawing countless racial insults as he broke the major league color barrier. ``The very first awareness I had about prejudice against blacks came from watching what Robinson went through,'' Mr. Taylor said in a 1999 interview. In 1952, he graduated from Brooklyn College, where he met his future wife, Harriett Rosen. He graduated from Yale University's law school in 1954. Mr. Taylor had served since 1982 as vice chair of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights in Washington and taught education law at Georgetown University. His wife of 43 years, who became a D.C. Superior Court judge, died in 1997. Survivors include their three children, Lauren R. Taylor of Takoma Park, Debbie L. Taylor of San Francisco and David S. Van Taylor of Brooklyn; a brother, Burton Taylor of Rockville; and three grandchildren. At Brooklyn College, Mr. Taylor was editor of the campus newspaper for two issues before it was shut down by the college's president, Harry Gideonse, who thought the paper was too sympathetic to Communist interests. When the New York Times printed a story about the closing, Mr. Taylor recalled in his 2004 memoir, ``The Passion of My Times,'' he was called into Gideonse's office. ``I hate to ruin anyone's career,'' he remembered the president saying, ``but in your case, I'm prepared to make an exception.'' Years later, Mr. Taylor obtained his FBI file, which showed that college officials had urged the federal government not to hire Mr. Taylor when he was being considered for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. They criticized him for his involvement with the student government, which one official said had ``espoused liberal causes such as the rights of the Negro in the South.'' In 2001, Brooklyn College gave Mr. Taylor an honorary degree, honoring his efforts to secure civil rights for all Americans. ``It was a character-building experience,'' Mr. Taylor said at the time. ``I learned that you could speak out for things you believed in and that nothing bad would happen to you. I have spent my life doing that.''

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I want to thank the gentlewoman for offering this amendment and for yielding me time. This is an important amendment. The time has come to understand what is taking place in Afghanistan and the incredible price that our soldiers are paying in that country and the incredible price that the American taxpayer is paying to fund this war. We've got to understand that the ingredients for victory, as people identify it and discuss it and describe it, are simply not present in Afghanistan: The idea that we would expand the franchise of an honest central government to the countryside so we could stabilize the countryside. There is no honest central government in Afghanistan. It's rife with corruption, including the President of the country and his family and his relatives and his warlords and his ministers, and that's got to stop; The idea that we are going to get help from the neighbors. We're getting minimal help from the Pakistanis. We're getting no help of any consequence from the Russians or the Chinese or the Indians because they're all engaged in the same game. They are protecting their position while America bleeds, while America bleeds the blood of our soldiers, while our Treasury bleeds the dollars of our taxpayers, and that's been going on and on and on and on. We know how these Taliban were created. We know who supported them. We know the double accounting they do. We know the protections that they run. We know the sanctuaries that they provide them. And yet our soldiers are required to go in and ferret it out over and over and over again. We're told that we are going to develop this nation, that if we bring development, we'll have peace in Pakistan. One of the first requests from the generals 8 years ago, 9 years ago was to send small-scale agriculture. You know what the request is 9, 10 years later? Send small-scale agriculture. Get us a police force that is honest. Get us troops that are honest, that will fight. None of that has been matched. But what has been matched is the death and the maiming and the injuries of our American soldiers. It is time to bring them home.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Mr. Richard Diran Kloian, who passed away on May 1, 2010. Mr. Kloian was founder of the Armenian Genocide Resource Center of Richmond, California. Richard Kloian and the AGRC were best known for ``The Armenian Genocide: News Accounts from the American Press, 1915-1922,'' a landmark 1985 collection of articles reproduced from the New York Times and other sources. Painstakingly compiled from microfilm in the years before digitization and the Internet made historic newspaper stories widely accessible, this coverage of what America's newspaper of record had once called ``systematic race extermination'' made a powerful impact just as denial of the genocide was accelerating. Originally published in 1980 and 1981 as ``Armenian Genocide: First 20th Century Holocaust,'' the collection's subsequent editions were expanded to cover the Hamidian massacres of the 1890s and the Adana massacre of 1909. A fellow scholar called him ``an indispensable bridge'' between genocide researchers, historians, educators, and the public. Richard's interest in the Genocide was inspired by his discovery of his father Zakaria's memoir and the harrowing story of survival of his grandmother, Khanum Palootzian, which he recorded in 1972. Realizing the effectiveness of personal narratives as a teaching tool, he would later encourage others to send family memoirs to Armenian studies centers where the stories could be preserved and shared. To facilitate the teaching of the Armenian Genocide, Richard compiled hundreds of articles from scholarly journals and published scores of booklets and readers. He collected, edited, produced, and distributed a 400-page resource manual of maps, web sites, photographs, news reports, primary-source documents, scholarly articles on the genocide and its denial, and U.S. state-level curricula that mandated teaching about the Armenian Genocide. Israel Charney, Executive Director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem wrote, ``I consider him a GIANT on behalf of Armenian Genocide recognition and memory. His devotion to his work in enabling education and memory about the Armenian Genocide was immense.'' May Richard's life and work live on through the tremendous contributions he made to the study and teaching of the first genocide of the 20th century.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I would like to commend Congresswoman Woolsey for her leadership on the work-life balance issues in her capacity as Chair of the Workforce Protection Subcommittee. Her commitment on these important issues is a great asset to the Education and Labor Committee in this Congress. I am pleased to serve with her and support her legislation before us today to recognize family-friendly workplaces. The Work-Life Balance Act will recognize employers of any size for their exemplary work-life balance policies. Not only will the award set a standard for best practices, it will shine a much-needed light on the concerns of working families. Over the past 40 years, America's working families have changed dramatically. While once a single breadwinner could support a middle- class family, today that situation appears to be a relic of the past. Women now make up half of the workforce and share a greater responsibility for financially supporting the family. While women now are full partners in providing for families, many remain the primary caregiver for their children and other family members. Balancing the career and family responsibilities can seem impossible at times. But in today's economy, achieving balance is necessary. Women are not doing this alone. Increasingly, men are becoming more involved with child care and elder care responsibilities. Good employers recognize this and understand the importance of providing flexibility to their employees. They have rightly revamped family leave policies to attract and retain best workers. Employers understand that family-friendly policies not only help workers balance work and family, but also improve employers' bottom line. These policies increase retention rates, decrease absenteeism, improve productivity and morale. What's good for the modern family is good for business. Businesses that are doing the right things to promote a better work-life balance should be recognized. It goes to the heart of our Nation's competitiveness and how we value our Nation's families. Parents should never have to choose between their paycheck and taking a day off because their child needs to see a doctor. This is precisely why I am a strong supporter of the bill before us today, the Work-Life Balance Award Act. This award will serve as a benchmark for companies who wish to improve their current policies so that they can be more accommodating to the needs of their workers. It will also give prospective employees a leg up when they're looking for family-friendly workplaces to go to work. The proof will be in the results. When employers choose to implement pro-family policies, they reap the benefits of a healthier, more productive workforce. I urge my fellow colleagues to vote ``yes'' with me today on this important and necessary bill. Thank you very much, again, to the author of this legislation, Congresswoman Woolsey.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding. A year-and-a-half ago, this country was suffering from a recession created by years of extreme economic and fiscal policies under the previous administration and the financial scandals of Wall Street. There were 800,000 jobs a month being lost when President Obama was sworn into office. Thanks to the Recovery Act, we are now seeing positive job gains. Over the last 3 months, we have added an average of 187,000 jobs, but people still are not able to find jobs in sufficient numbers. People are still losing their health care as they lose their job. People are losing their homes because of the extended term that they are spending as unemployed Americans. And we have got to help these people. The idea somehow that we can now wind this down or these people really are not now looking for work--in all of our communities, when jobs are advertised, 10 times, 20 times the number of people as there are jobs show up seeking that job, seeking that opportunity to help their families. We have got to be able to respond to that. That is what this legislation does. As the economists have told us, it is one of the best things we can do for Main Street, because, unfortunately, these people need to spend this money immediately, whether it is on groceries, or clothing, or rent, or utilities, to try to keep their families together. We have got to pass this legislation.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the chair of the Rules Committee for bringing this rule to the floor of the House and to thank the ranking member, Mr. Dreier, from California for his cooperation and support for this resolution. I, too, associate myself with the remarks of the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), who probably has more experience and understanding of these tragedies than any Member who doesn't live in the coal regions of our country, and has spent a lot of time with myself and others on our committee discussing these issues of coal mine safety, tragically throughout the years as we have had one accident after another over that time. The resolution that the Rules Committee brings to the House floor today reflects the seriousness with which Congress takes the issue of mine safety. Last month we watched the tragic events unfold in the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia. The memory of the 29 miners who lost their lives in that disaster must stand as a reminder of the work that remains to be done to keep our Nation's miners safe. There is much to be learned about the disaster at the Upper Big Branch mine. I have been heartened by the swift and decisive action taken so far by the Department of Labor and the Mine Safety and Health Administration. I expect their investigations into this particular tragedy will be comprehensive. The resolution we are discussing today, however, will be in furtherance of our committee's broader oversight duties regarding the health and the safety of our Nation's coal miners. Last year, our committee staff began looking into issues relating to the backlog of cases at the Federal Mine Safety Review Commission. This commission and its administrative law judges hear mine operators' contests of the citations Mine Safety and Health Administration inspectors issue against the operators. This backlog has potentially severe ramifications for miners' safety. The backlog has prevented MSHA from placing mines on what is called a pattern of violations because so many of those mine citations remain bound up in the litigation. Because of this increased scrutiny it would bring, mines warned by MSHA that they are about to be designated as having a potential pattern of violations generally significantly improve their mine safety record. But the mine owners have figured out a way to game that system, and therefore, the miners and their families are robbed of this very powerful tool that would ensure greater safety of their workplace and perhaps avoid some of the tragedies that we have just witnessed. In February, our committee explored a recent uptick in the citation contests and how it might ultimately affect safety in the mines. In the wake of the Upper Big Branch mine disaster and our hearings on mine operator citation appeals and backlogs, I am deeply concerned about what coal mining conglomerates have done to encourage or discourage safe mining practices. That is why I believe that our committee's oversight responsibility would benefit from the authority to hold and compel witnesses' attendance at depositions. Deposition authority is a powerful tool for many investigations, but some investigations would particularly benefit from the tool. Last Congress, Congress granted the committee deposition authority in our investigation of the Crandall Canyon mine disaster in Utah. This successful investigation led to a criminal referral to the Department of Justice, in large part because of the evidence that our staff obtained in those depositions. I understand that the Department of Justice continues to investigate our referral. I believe that the deposition authority is equally justified in this case. A deposition can serve as an intermediate step between a full public hearing, an executive session, and informal staff interviews. It creates a formal record; yet it allows us to explore issues in a more sustained manner than would be practical at a hearing. Indeed, it allows us to realize that the potential witness does not have the knowledge of particular issues to justify calling them at a hearing. It was because of the usefulness of this investigative tool that our committee this Congress approved the committee rules package to include deposition procedural rules. We wanted to build on our successes and our execution of the deposition authority granted last Congress, and we wanted to be ready should the circumstances justify seeking the authority again. Unfortunately, the tragic deaths at Upper Big Branch have again highlighted the importance of our investigative work on mine safety and that our committee again investigate the issues related to mine safety. The committee's deposition rule respects and affirms the rights of those individuals being deposed and respects the rights of the minority on our committee. It has been worked out with the minority on our committee. It is the result of a bipartisan process began last Congress and reaffirmed with the adoption of our committee rules this Congress. We have used the tool sparingly and effectively in the past, and I assure the committee that we will use it sparingly and effectively in this investigation. Next week, my committee will be conducting a field hearing in West Virginia with Congressman Rahall. We will be hearing from the families of the victims of the Upper Big Branch mine explosion. Just as we made sure to hear from the families of Sago and the Crandall Canyon, we will hear the concerns of these families. With every such hearing we pledge to the families to never turn a deaf ear to their concerns, their knowledge, to make sure that mining is safer. I intend to keep that pledge, and the resolution before us is part of keeping that pledge. Again, I want to thank the ranking Republican on our committee, Congressman Kline, and his staff who worked closely and effectively with me and my staff in framing the deposition rules and in framing our future investigations and going before the Rules Committee to ask for this authority from the Rules Committee. Again, I want to thank the chair and the ranking member for bringing this matter to the floor and thank Congressman Rahall for his support for our committee having this authority.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman, and I yield myself 2 minutes. Congressman Stark mentioned Pat O'Brien, and I want to thank him because he has been such a wonderful manager of this system, along with his entire staff, and certainly all of the volunteers who come to the park, which number in the thousands, all of the time to take care of these parks and make them accessible to the public, to host special events. I thank the magnificent staff, the rangers of the park system, who live in our communities and know the people who use the parks and accommodate them. It was said at one time, I don't know if it is accurate or not, but it was suggested you could get on horseback and ride for 7 days and never leave the park and never use the same trails. The park hosts numerous stables that the private sector has outside of the park. Again, thousands of people a year use the parks on horseback. It is a great opportunity for children to be around horses and see people riding them and learn about them from their owners. This is a remarkable community asset in the midst of one of the most urban areas in the United States in terms of density, and clearly highly appreciated by the people. I would hope that all of my colleagues in Congress would join us in voting for and supporting the 75th anniversary recognition of this world class park system of the East Bay Regional Parks.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 211) recognizing the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the East Bay Regional Park District in California, and for other purposes.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, as a lifelong citizen of Contra Costa County in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay area, I have witnessed firsthand the East Bay Regional Park District's steady drive to protect open spaces, benefiting millions of East Bay residents over several generations. The East Bay Regional Park District is today the largest regional park agency in the country. Over the last 75 years, they have preserved nearly 100,000 acres of parkland, established 65 regional parks, and built over 1,100 miles of trails. Almost every weekend, I visit the East Bay Regional Parks on one of their trails, one of the regional park systems, to walk with my family and enjoy the outdoors in the parks. Generally it is the Briones Regional Park that is near my home. I commend the East Bay Regional Park District and all of the various board members throughout the last 75 years on not only reaching this milestone, but the vision that they conceptualized many, many years ago to provide this incredible asset to the residents of the San Francisco Bay area, specifically to the East Bay of San Francisco Bay. I rise in strong support of this resolution commending the 75th anniversary of the East Bay Regional Park District. I want to thank Chairman Rahall, Chairman Grijalva, Chairwoman Bordallo, and Ranking Member Bishop for their work to bring this resolution to the floor. As a resident of this area, and very often talking to my neighbors and to people I represent in this area, the pride that our area has in the East Bay Regional Parks, the support that the citizens of this region have given the park district over the last 75 years is testament to a well-run system of parks throughout our area, of recreational facilities, of trails, of support for families with children, for people who ride horses, people who ride bikes, people who run, people who walk, and accommodating the open spaces and historical and cultural uses of the areas within the boundaries of the East Bay Regional Parks in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. I don't represent this area alone. I share the representation of the park district with Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Congressman Pete Stark, Congressman John Garamendi and Congressman Jerry McNerney, and I know all of them share the pride that I do in the East Bay Regional Park System. As I stated earlier, the vision that they have presented to the public and the support that it has received, and the cooperation they have received from farmers, from ranchers, from cities, from the counties, has just been an incredible model for other areas that have to deal with the issues of preserving open space and the competing uses of that space by various governmental jurisdictions and private landowners. I also want to pay tribute to the grand old man in implementing this plan and working with all of the various landowners and the local jurisdictions and procuring these lands at a fair price to the taxpayers of our region, and that is Hewlett Hornbeck, who for so many years brought about the implementation of that vision of the board of directors of the regional parks. I reserve the balance of my time.