George Miller

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I want to thank the gentlewoman for introducing this amendment. It's an important amendment so that we can preserve the quality of these programs, and we can make sure that they remain accessible to all those who want to participate. This will help such grantees as the Boys and Girls Club of America, the Student Conservation Association, and so many other organizations that are responsible for covering this cost. This will help them out in that effort. They clearly are putting their own resources into this program. This is the Federal Government providing up as a good partner to increase the opportunities that the gentlewoman from Colorado has supported and spoken to the committee about. We support the amendment. Thank you.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Will the gentleman yield for 30 seconds?

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I just want to commend him for offering this amendment, for all of his work on behalf of not only our veterans, but service people on active duty and in support of his constituent from Indiana that came up with this idea to start sending care packages to our troops in service in the theaters of battle. We clearly think this is a consistent use and allowable use under the National Service Act, and we welcome the amendment and support it.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to thank him for bringing this to the committee and offering this amendment. All of us in our congressional offices know how thin the support services for the veterans as they seek out occupational opportunities, therapy opportunities, all of the needs that our returning veterans have. The gentleman is making a great contribution to this legislation, especially since this is the first time that we have fully integrated veterans into the national service corps of this Nation. These kinds of services are in desperate need in so many areas of the country. This is a very important amendment to making sure that our veterans are able to proceed with all of their needs when they return home. I thank the gentleman for offering the amendment, and I urge passage of the amendment.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the instructions of the House on the motion to recommit, I report the bill, H.R. 1388, back to the House with an amendment.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Clerk be authorized to make technical corrections in the engrossment of H.R. 1388, to include corrections in spelling, punctuation, section numbering, cross-referencing, and the insertion of appropriate headings, and that the Clerk make the correction that I have placed at the desk.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding and for bringing this legislation to the floor. I particularly want to strongly support those items for title 16 of the Reclamation Act for water recycling and reuse. The projects in this bill are very good projects that are not in my district. They are all over the State in the southwest that have been authorized, but it's most important, as we enter again the third year of this drought, with continued stress put on all of the water systems throughout the West and the Southwest, that we get into recycling and reuse, this will allow communities to take control of their water resources to be more efficient in the use of them. It allows us to develop, just in this legislation alone, that these projects go forward and there is money in the stimulus for this. There was money in the appropriations bill for this. We are seeing a savings of about half a million to a million acre feet of water in the West. That's real water. It's valuable water, and we have the ability to reuse it. I want to thank the gentleman for this legislation and the subcommittee Chair, Mrs. Napolitano, a champion of water recycling and reuse. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that this bill also protects the beautiful Passaic Falls in Paterson, New Jersey.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, in the three times that I have visited Afghanistan, the commanders in charge of our military-NATO combined effort in Afghanistan have said to the delegation that their problem is across the border in Pakistan, that al Qaeda is not in Afghanistan other than at such times as when the Taliban brings them to engage our soldiers for practice and for training. Yet we see the government of Pakistan entering into an agreement with the Taliban in the Swat in the northern frontier areas of Pakistan to turn that rather large geographical area of Pakistan over to the Taliban and to dismantle the military presence in that area. What we have seen since this agreement was reached, an accommodation to the Taliban, is that the training camps have expanded, people have been tortured and murdered, the military has removed from the area, checkpoints have been set up so that the Taliban can examine everybody who moves in and out of the area of whether they are pro-Taliban or anti-Taliban, and somehow we are told that this is good for Pakistan and this is good for America. It can't be, and we had better be careful before we send any more money to the Pakistani government.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, as Chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor, I was called to the White House for a series of meetings with the President on health care reform. Accordingly, I missed two votes, that on H. Res. 146 (rollcall vote No. 98) and H. Con. Res. 14 (rollcall vote No. 99). Had I been present, I would have voted in favor of both resolutions.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Omnibus Appropriations Act. The legislation before us today invests in key priorities for our country from energy to education, and will help address critical needs that were ignored under the previous Administration. In addition to the other important work that this Omnibus Appropriations Act will do alongside the Recovery Act to make our economy stronger, I want to call special attention to the work this legislation will do to respond to the serious drought that we face in California. The bill before us today provides significant funding for the federal water reclamation and reuse program administered by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. That program, known as Title XVI, helps local water managers to treat wastewater and use the clean water that results for commercial irrigation and industrial processes. Under Title XVI, the federal investment in water recycling is matched many times over by monies from state and local agencies, so it's not only environmentally sustainable, it's cost-effective. The Title XVI funding in today's bill builds on the historic investment in the program that was contained in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. I am hopeful that this important program will continue to thrive under President Obama and Secretary Salazar. In the San Francisco Bay Area, including in Pittsburg in my congressional district, water managers have put together a regional planning effort to invest in water recycling infrastructure. This bill bolsters that regional cooperative effort by providing $8 million for the Bay Area Regional Water Recycling Program. On behalf of my constituents and the communities around our region, I want to sincerely thank Chairman Obey, Chairman Visclosky, Ranking Members Lewis and Frelinghuysen, and especially the Committee staff, for their support for this important funding. The funds will quickly create and sustain jobs, and will provide a reliable water supply for local planners and residents. I look forward to working with the Bureau of Reclamation to ensure that they expeditiously enter into individual agreements with the local implementing agencies so that the Bay Area projects are quickly funded through the Bay Area Clean Water Agencies or its successor. I also know that some of the local water agencies in the Bay Area had to begin their projects before this bill was completed so that they did not lose their state and local funding matches. It is my understanding that the authorized federal funding may be used for reimbursement of construction costs already underway and carried out. As the Bureau works with the local agencies to disburse the funding in this bill, those agreements should provide for reimbursement of the projects' construction costs as necessary. I strongly support the FY 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this resolution to honor the life and accomplishments of Paul Newman, a truly great American and a man I am proud to have called my friend. Sadly, Paul passed away late last year. Paul was a magnificent human being. While he played the anti-hero on the silver screen, in real life he was a true hero. Like his character Cool Hand Luke, Paul Newman was not afraid to rock the boat. Paul never limited his horizons--in his acting, his advocacy, or his vision of our world. He once admonished some of his colleagues who shied away from politics, he said, ``Do you abdicate the responsibilities of citizenship merely because you carry a Screen Actors' Guild card . . . Or do you dig deeply and become as knowledgeable an expert as you can and speak your piece and hope your weight was being thrown on the right side?'' I knew Paul before he knew me, and when our friend, Lizzie Robbins, introduced us to one another, I realized I had never met anyone like him in public life before. He was modern despite his age, he remained curious throughout his life, he had an enormous passion and steadfast commitment. He started the Hole in the Wall Gang kids camp for kids with life-threatening diseases, and they attended the camp free of charge. He was an advocate of nuclear disarmament, early childhood development, and a healthy environment. He even helped to pioneer alternative fuel technologies to cut carbon emissions. It was an honor to be on the receiving end of his exultations, his missives, his opinion pieces for the vision that he and I shared for peace and justice for this world--even while the right wing tried to punish him in the marketplace for his willingness to speak his mind. But the right wing could never win that argument because America knew Paul Newman, and they trusted him. With Paul's enormous success in acting and business where he raised over $250 million for the charity of his Newman's Own brand--and that's in addition to giving away half of his income a year.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. In giving away half his income to causes he supported, it was especially striking how humble Paul had remained throughout his life. But Paul was the first to acknowledge luck in his life. He said, ``The beneficence of it,'' he said, ``in many lives and the brutality of it in the lives of others, especially children, who might not have a lifetime to make up for it.'' Paul once asked what he owed his fans after all of these years, to which he humbly replied, ``Thank you.'' And that's exactly what the world owes him. I want to thank Congressman Cohen for introducing this resolution, and I want to offer, obviously, my best wishes to Paul's family--the kids and the grandkids--and to that magnificent partner of his in a magnificent relationship, Joanne, and thank them for sharing Paul with us during his great life.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker and Members of the House, we all know, and the people know, that the American economy is in a crisis. It's not that this bill in and of itself will fix the American economy, but this bill takes a major step to fill in the huge gap, and that is the loss of spending at the local level among our school districts, our water districts, our cities, our counties, and our States. Why is that happening? Because they're hemorrhaging a huge loss. And over the next couple of years, over $2 trillion will be missing in economic activity. This is a bill that's designed to stimulate those local economies. In the education area, there's $56 billion that's available to local school districts for the rehabilitation, the repair, and the renovation of school buildings so that children will go to school in safe, well- lighted, modern facilities so that they will be green. They can put in new heating, new air conditioning systems, $600 million for new technologies so every school in this country will be connected to the best technology in the world. They will be able to engage in curriculums that now are impossible for them. They can have modern labs. That's the promise of America in this. And who will do those jobs? Local contractors, heating contractors, electricians, plumbing contractors, building contractors from our local communities who will hire other people in our local communities. That's what will happen with this legislation. That's the promise of this legislation. It will help school districts from keeping to lay off teachers. In the matter of a few weeks, California will start issuing its advanced pink slips. Hundreds of thousands of teachers across this nation will be in this same situation. Now, school districts will know that they're going to get $13 billion in title I in IDA money that will help them reduce the number of people who will be unemployed if we do nothing. If we do nothing, unemployment will continue, and we know that it will continue for the next few months. But we're trying to mitigate against the increased unemployment through school construction, through highway construction, making sure the students can stay in college as their families are under pressure because of the loss of jobs, the diminished work hours, the loss of pay. We want to make sure that they can stay there so we provide an additional increase in the Pell Grant. This is very important to this Nation. It's very important to our students, and it's very important that we have an opportunity to create in this economic crisis a 21st century education plan. You know, it's just amazing. We always hear that history repeats, and here we see it again. And if you go back and you look at Arthur Schlesinger's study of the failures of the Hoover administration leading up to the elected of 1932, this book, ``Crisis of Old Order,'' we see that today, history is repeating itself. Today, when this country cries out to help this economy, to help America's families who are unemployed, who are losing income, who are losing jobs, President Obama stepped forth with the American Recovery Act. The Republicans stepped forth with saying ``no.'' That was reflected when Minority Leader John Boehner gave instructions to his colleagues to oppose the bill. Even as President Obama was traveling the Hill to meet with them and discuss this bill with them, they decided in advance of that meeting they would say ``no.'' Minority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia has said that ``no'' is going to be the Republican strategy on this economic crises. ``No'' is going to be their strategy, he said. The Republican national spokesman of late, radio host Rush Limbaugh, added that ``no'' is the strategy by asserting on the air that he wants President Obama to fail. Does he understand if President Obama fails that the American families lose income, they lose their jobs, and the crisis continues? And here we see the repeating of ``no.'' It was President Hoover in the midst of the Depression with his policy that the Federal Government could do nothing to help this Nation, and he was so wrong. He asked Will Rogers to think up a joke that would stop hoarding by the American public. He asked Rudy Vallee, Can you sing a song that would make people forget the Depression? I will give you a medal. He asked Christopher Morley, Perhaps what this country needs is a poem.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. This economic crisis will not be solved by a song, a poem, or a good joke. It will be solved by this Congress going to work with this new President to meet this crisis head on. It will be solved when we provide jobs in this country, when we free up the credit markets, when we force the banks to lend as they should be doing, and we provide this stimulus bill. All Members of Congress should be very proud to vote ``aye'' on this legislation and yield to the cries and the needs of American families and workers.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, in response to the gravest economic crisis to face our country in generations, Congress is on the verge of approving President Obama's economic recovery package to save or create between three and four million jobs and put our country on a path toward economic growth. That is a good thing. And it is happening despite the opposition of every one of my Republican colleagues in the House. Their opposition is rooted in the history of saying no to government intervention in times of crisis; they were wrong during the Great Depression and they are wrong today. The public is being told by critics of this plan, which invests in education, renewable energy, transportation, and health care, that it spends too much money and is not the answer to what ails our economy. The critics say that we would be better off relying on the private sector and tax cuts--the same strategy that got us into this mess in the first place. It was this very same Republican strategy that turned a record budget surplus into a record budget deficit and sent the economy into a nose dive. When the House approved president Obama's plan last week, not a single Republican in the House of Representatives voted for it. When the Senate approved it this past weekend, only three Republicans there voted for it. For months now, economists from across the political spectrum have warned Congress and the President that we had to act in a bold and swift manner to rescue the economy. The economy, they said, was literally shutting down. The housing and banking crises froze the credit markets, sent our economy into a tailspin, and wiped out trillions in personal wealth. Nearly 600,000 Americans lost their jobs in January of this year alone, and 3.6 million Americans have lost their jobs since December of 2007. These numbers are staggering, and they are only going to get worse. In the face of this crisis, the President called on the nation to heed the advice of the economists and pass his economic recovery plan. It is true, this is a very expensive plan that we will vote on again tomorrow, costing nearly $800 billion over the next two years. But the economy will lose far more value than that over the same period of time if we do not act. President Obama has said, and I agree, that doing nothing is not an option. Similarly, he has been honest by saying that he cannot promise that this plan alone will turn our economy around. The plan we will approve tomorrow over the objections of my Republican colleagues is not a silver bullet. Alone, it will not right the wrecked ship that is our economy. However, along with a strong plan to unfreeze the credit markets and help homeowners afford their mortgages, this plan will help rescue the economy and put people back to work. Unemployment will continue to rise in the near future no matter what we do. That is always the case in a recession. But if we enact this plan, the unemployment rate will not rise as fast. Fewer people will lose their jobs if we act now, and many more people will have economic opportunity ahead when the economy does recover. Madam Speaker, it is regrettable that despite the evidence of the need to act, the other party has chosen as their response to America's problems to stay the course and just say ``No.'' They are saying in effect, we will not help you. You are on your own. They do this much like their predecessors did when they faced the Great Depression. The Republicans were wrong then and they are dead wrong now. And the American people should not for a minute be fooled into thinking otherwise. If people will remember back to the days before President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Democrat, rescued the economy from the grips of the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover looked into the economic abyss and said, don't worry. For 75 years, Republicans have carried the sad mantle of Hooverism because of their obliviousness to the severity of the coming Depression of the 1930s and the need for government action. Today, as in the 1920s, Republicans are trying to frame Democrats as wasteful spending interventionists and themselves as guardians of the U.S. Treasury and the private sector. Not only are they misleading the public and hiding their own record of deficit spending, they are severely misreading the public mood for bold action. My Republican colleagues, for reasons of antiquated ideology and partisan opportunism, have failed to appreciate the urgency of the situation. I encourage my colleagues to dust off the book, Crisis of the Old Order, historian Arthur Schlesinger's study of the failures of Hoover leading up to the election of 1932. It is instructive of the mistakes Hoover made then and points to the grave errors the Republicans are making today. When the country called out for action, the President Obama answered, the Republicans said ``No,'' as reflected by Minority John Boehner's instructions to his colleagues to oppose the bill, even as President Obama came to the Capitol to extend his hand and urge their cooperation. The Minority Whip, Eric Cantor of Virginia, said the ``no'' was going to be the Republicans' strategy to the economic crisis. The Republican national spokesman of late, radio host Rush Limbaugh, added to the ``No'' strategy by asserting on air that he wanted President Obama to ``fail.'' From Schlesinger's book, we see that in 1931-32, as the economic crisis was worsening, President Hoover similarly was clueless. ``Nobody is actually starving,'' he said. ``The hoboes are better fed than they have ever been. One hobo in New York got 10 meals in one day.'' Hoover shunned the idea of strong government action, as Obama is calling for today. ``What the country needs is a big laugh,'' he said in 1932. ``If someone could get off a good joke every 10 days, I think our troubles would be over.'' In 1932, Hoover asked Will Rogers to think up a joke that would stop hoarding. He told Rudy Vallee, ``If you can sing a song that would make people forget the Depression, I'll give you a medal.'' And he told Christopher Morley, ``Perhaps what this country needs is a good poem . . . Sometimes a great poem can do more than legislation.'' Compare those comments to what Roosevelt said. ``We need to correct, by drastic means if necessary, the faults in our economic system from which we now suffer . . . The country needs . . . and demands bold, persistent experimentation . . . Above all, try something.'' Hoover declared he wanted ``to solve great problems outside of Government action.'' For the federal government to act would undermine ``the very basis of self-government.'' The Depression, Hoover declared, cannot be solved ``by legislative or executive pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action of the cells of the economic body.'' Again, suggesting the private sector in all circumstances needs to solve economic crises. Republicans for generations have stood on the sidelines, and they are doing it again, when the country is calling for their assistance. Tragically, they are deaf to the needs of the American people, they remain locked in ideological indifference and partisan politics, taking as their model the failed Hooverism of the 1930s which let the nation slide into Depression while waiting for poems and songs instead of taking bold action. They brought nothing but negativism and political posturing to the table when President Obama offered an opportunity to join in a bipartisan effort to rescue the nation. Their actions are a tragedy. Fortunately, however, my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate, and a small number of courageous Senate Republicans, have joined President Obama's call to action and will this week answer the pleas from average Americans for help. We will act now, and we will continue to act until we have turned the economy around for the benefit of every American and our nation.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to H. Res. 87, I call up the Senate bill (S. 181) to amend title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, and to modify the operation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, to clarify that a discriminatory compensation decision or other practice that is unlawful under such Acts occurs each time compensation is paid pursuant to the discriminatory compensation decision or other practice, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hare), a member of the committee.

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 insert extraneous material on S. 181.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. Speaker, today the House of Representatives meets to give final approval to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and send it to President Obama for his signature. What a difference a new Congress and a President make. Nondiscrimination in the workplace must be a sacred American principle. Workers should be paid based upon their merits, not an employer's prejudices. Yet, more than 40 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Supreme Court dramatically turned back the clock on this bedrock principle. Instead of abiding by decades of long-standing law, a narrow majority of the Supreme Court decided to commit legal jujitsu to satisfy a narrow ideological agenda. The Supreme Court simply told bad employers that to escape responsibility for pay discrimination all they need to do is keep it hidden for the first 180 days. The Ledbetter ruling has already dramatically impacted how Americans can remedy discrimination. It has been cited in hundreds of cases over the past 19 months since the ruling. Not only have pay discrimination cases been adversely impacted, but even fair housing protections and title IX complaints. The Supreme Court sent these lower courts backwards down the wrong path, and today the Congress will correct that course by passing this bill. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act would simply reset the law as businesses, most courts, employers and employees and the EEOC had understood it before the Court's 2007 ruling. Under S. 181, every paycheck or other compensation resulting, in whole or part, from an earlier discriminatory pay decision or other practice would constitute a violation of title VII. In other words, if an employer keeps issuing discriminatory paychecks, that employer will keep restarting the clock for filing charges. That's only fair. As long as workers file their charges, as Lilly Ledbetter herself did, within 180 days of a discriminatory paycheck, the charges will be considered timely. The legislation also clarifies that an employee is entitled to up to 2 years backpay as provided in title VII already. Finally, S. 181 ensures that these simple reforms extend to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act to provide these same protections for victims of age and disability discrimination. Correcting pay discrimination poses significant challenges to workers, made all the harder with the Supreme Court's Ledbetter decision. This is best illustrated by Lilly Ledbetter's own words from an Education and Labor Committee hearing in 2007: ``What happened to me is not only an insult to my dignity, but it had real consequences for my ability to care for my family. Every paycheck I received, I got less than what I was entitled to under the law. ``The Supreme Court said that this didn't count as illegal discrimination, but it sure feels like discrimination when you are on the receiving end of that smaller paycheck and trying to support your family with less money than the men are getting for doing the same job. And according to the Court, if you don't figure things out right away, the company can treat you like a second-class citizen for the rest of your career. This isn't right.'' I agree with Lilly Ledbetter: what happened to her wasn't right. Unfortunately, it's too late for Lilly Ledbetter to receive justice. But today, thanks to Lilly's incredible courage and perseverance, and thanks to millions of Americans making their voices heard, Congress will reject this ruling for the millions of Americans suddenly now subject to legal discrimination. The Ledbetter v. Goodyear Supreme Court ruling was a painful step backwards for civil rights in this country. Today, the House will correct this injustice and send President Obama his first bill to sign into law. All victims of discrimination are entitled to justice, and I urge my colleagues to support the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield myself 15 seconds just to say, according to the analysis done by the Congressional Budget Office, there is no new cost associated with this legislation because it creates no new cause of action, and no anticipated increase in litigation in spite of the remarks of the gentleman from the other side of the aisle. And that's what the independent analysis shows of this legislation. I would like now to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), the subcommittee Chair of the committee of jurisdiction.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), a champion of fair pay and equal pay for women.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I rise to speak against the motion to commit.