Ben McAdams

Mr. McADAMS

Mr. McADAMS. Exactly.

Mr. McADAMS

Mr. McADAMS. Mr. Speaker, in the lead-up to the Apollo 11 Moon landing's 50th anniversary, people across our country, including many from my State, Utah, have been sharing their memories of this historic event and its inspiration in their lives. Some of the lucky ones played a role in helping the space program reach this historic achievement. Brigham Young University graduate Charlie Bunker remembers watching from a common room of a boardinghouse in downtown Denver. Charlie's companion was an Amish gentleman who turned to him and asked if he thought the astronauts were really going to land on the Moon. Charlie said, yes, he was sure, because he worked at a place where they made the rockets that helped to get them there. Charlie was a physicist who remembers, as a 19-year-old, President John F. Kennedy issue his challenge to America to go to the Moon. And after graduating from college and getting married, Charlie landed a job with the Hughes Corporation in Los Angeles for a starting salary of $8,000 a year. He worked on Surveyor, a NASA-funded program that sent unmanned rockets to the Moon. That work led to being hired by Martin Marietta, a Denver-based aerospace company. Charlie and his family were living temporarily in the boardinghouse on the historymaking night of the Moon landing. Charlie worked for Martin Marietta for nearly 40 years, including the last few years in Utah. When the Deseret News asked readers to answer whether they remembered where they were on July 20, 1969, they received hundreds of responses. Several Utahns who were serving in the military wrote in, and one wrote: ``I was returning from a night mission over the Ho Chi Min trail in Laos as a pilot of a B-57. I remember it was a clear night with a full Moon, and my navigator and I were listening to the radio broadcast on Armed Forces radio at 30,000 feet. Later, my wife and I had Neil Armstrong to dinner in Paris while I was Air Attache to France.'' Another wrote: ``I was at building No. 9 Manned Spacecraft Center, now called the Johnson Spacecraft Center, in Houston. NASA set up big TV screens and chairs for NASA employees and their friends. I remember the pride and accomplishment of the mission and celebrations from NASA engineers and contractors. I remember it like it was yesterday.'' Apollo 11 and the Moon landing was a jewel in NASA's crown at the time. It set the foundation for many future American achievements in space. Sixteen years later, Utah Senator Jake Garn became the first sitting Member of Congress to fly in space when he flew aboard the space shuttle Discovery as a payload specialist in 1985. The closest I have gotten to the Moon--to date, anyway--is when, as the mayor of Salt Lake County, I placed the Clark Planetarium Moon rock into the Zions Bank vault for safekeeping. The planetarium was undergoing renovation, and we transferred our precious Moon rock under the watchful eye of law enforcement to its secure and temporary home. Our planetarium is one of many across the country that benefits from Apollo's legacy and brings science education to life for students in Utah. Those students will soon hopefully become the engineers, the mathematicians, and the explorers who will chart the next five decades of space research and space travel. Here in Congress, I am proud to sit on the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, where we continue our forebearers' legacy of bipartisan investment in our Nation's space program. Apollo inspired a generation of scientists and Americans, and some day soon, my four children may become space travelers themselves when space tourism becomes a reality. They will stand on the shoulders of the thousands of dedicated men and women who dreamed the impossible dream and then made it a reality.

Mr. McADAMS

Mr. McADAMS. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Staff Sergeant Stanley Nance. In May 1944, 1,100 U.S. military men joined ranks to form what would be called ``the Ghost Army.'' Composed largely of artists, this unit had unusual orders: not to avoid detection by enemy forces, but to actively attract attention through an ingenious optical illusion. One of them was Staff Sergeant Stanley Nance, signal Company Special of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops. The Ghost Army's tactics were to impersonate other Allied units, using inflatable tanks and jeeps made of sticks and burlap, to make the enemy believe that large factions of soldiers were on Omaha Beach and surrounding areas, after D-Day. Massive speakers were mounted to the back of military vehicles, blasting the ambient noises of a much larger unit. They sounded like they were coming from the battlefield, but in fact had been recorded months before in fort Knox, Kentucky. Kept a secret until 1985, the story of the Ghost Army and those in its ranks serves as a heroic tale of young Americans' bold actions to defend freedom. Decades later, Staff Sergeant Nance's great-granddaughter, Madeline Christianson, told his story through a history project, which recently won the World War II History Award at the National History Competition. Her project is an amazing re-creation of a story of skill, courage and triumph--unique in the annals of history. As we prepare to celebrate Independence Day 2019, we honor two extraordinary generations of Utahns--the soldier who helped defeat tyranny during World War II, and his great-granddaughter who is keeping the story of heroism alive.

Mr. McADAMS

Mr. McADAMS. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. McADAMS. Mr. Chair, I rise today to speak on my amendment encouraging the Department of Veterans Affairs to improve veteran credit reporting and to implement important financial protections for our veterans. I thank the bipartisan cosponsors of this amendment, Representative Axne from Iowa, Representatives Gonzalez and Stivers from Ohio, Representative Barr from Kentucky, and Representative Allred from Texas. Congress created the Veterans Choice Program to respond to inexcusable wait time delays for veterans receiving medical care at VA facilities. The Choice program allowed veterans to access non-VA medical facilities, providing for faster options in receiving necessary medical care. While veterans saw increased access to healthcare, their financial health took a hit as the VA and third-party providers failed to process payments in a timely fashion and actually made billing errors, resulting in negative credit reporting for our veterans even though those payments were often not the responsibility of the veteran. My amendment encourages the VA to make good on legislation that was enacted last year to ensure that these credit reporting errors are fixed. This legislation establishes a process in which veterans can dispute negatively reported credit scores due to VA billing mishaps. It also requires credit bureaus to remove information related to a veteran's fully paid or settled medical debt that has been characterized as delinquent, charged off, or in collection. This program will ensure our veterans are not financially inhibited because of government error. The VA was tasked with establishing a database and process to verify whether a medical debt is related to the billing errors and filing mishaps within a year of enactment. This 1-year grace period allowed the VA to establish a program to check medical debts, verify debt accuracy, and provide a solution for our veterans. However, the VA missed that 1-year period at the end of last month. My amendment is simple. It simply instructs the VA to submit to Congress an implementation plan, including expected timeline and resource requirements for the VA to come into compliance with the law and to establish these important protections for our veterans. Good credit for our veterans is the difference between qualifying for a home loan or not. It is the difference between investing in their education, being able to buy a car, or qualifying for a small business loan. This important issue cannot wait. Our Nation's veterans should not be punished because of government billing errors. They deserve better, which is why I encourage a ``yes'' on my bipartisan amendment. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McADAMS. Mr. Chair, I encourage Members to support this bipartisan amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McADAMS. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. McADAMS

Mr. McADAMS. Madam Chair, I thank Congresswoman Murphy for her leadership in our Future Forum and for focusing on the important healthcare issues facing our young people today. Madam Chair, I am proud to cosponsor this amendment to invest in the Garrett Lee Smith Youth Suicide Prevention grants to promote outreach, education, awareness, and prevention efforts to young people in our communities and to vulnerable students on our college campuses. Suicide is the leading cause of death among young people ages 15 to 24 in my State of Utah, and we know that we can do more to save lives. We have tremendous leaders stepping up in Utah to change the conversation on mental health and to reach people in crisis. In fact, Weber State University in Utah recently used a Garrett Lee Smith Campus grant to fund its peer-based support network to address mental health stigma and to expand students' access to mental health support. Madam Chair, I am proud to support this amendment and to expand our work to invest in the mental health of our young people.

Mr. McADAMS. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. McADAMS. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chair, I rise to offer my amendment to strengthen our national efforts to address the public health crisis of suicide in our country. I would like to applaud Chairwoman Lowey and Ranking Member Granger for their work on this bill, as well as my colleague from Utah on the committee, Representative Stewart, who has been a champion of suicide prevention efforts in Congress. For the first time, this legislation specifically provides funding for research, outreach, and prevention measures on the concerning public health issue of suicide through the Centers for Disease Control's Injury Prevention and Control programs. My amendment would build on this work by providing additional capacity at the CDC to ensure the agency can enhance its outreach and prevention work for youth at risk of suicide. My home State of Utah is grappling with a suicide crisis. From seniors experiencing isolation in rural communities to young people who face bullying in schools, we are seeing rates of suicide rise across multiple populations. In fact, one high school in my district recently lost seven students to suicide in only 1 year. Utah has the unfortunate distinction of being the State with the sixth highest rate of deaths by suicide, and suicide is the leading cause of death of Utahns 15 to 24 years old. According to the CDC, between 1999 and 2016, per capita deaths by suicide rose 46.5 percent in Utah, well above the concerning national increase of 25.4 percent over the same period. Our youth suicide rate more than doubled between 2011 and 2015. We have a bipartisan agreement in our State that we need to do more to understand and address this crisis. I thank our State Governor, Governor Herbert, for convening a youth suicide task force to lead this effort, and the public and community leaders who have been working on a number of initiatives. School leaders have been working to hire more mental health professionals and to offer services to help students in crisis. Our conversation in Utah on mental health wellness has continued to evolve and bring a focus to the health needs of vulnerable people. From suicide prevention lifelines, including those for at-risk populations like veterans, to mental health crisis training for first responders and care providers, we know we still need to invest in the services and infrastructure that serve people in crisis. Policymakers must continue to review how we are working to strengthen our public health education on suicide prevention and ensure that people with mental health and behavioral health needs can access affordable, quality care. I believe my amendment takes a strong step to ensuring our national and State public health experts have sufficient resources to investigate this troubling rise in deaths by suicide, particularly among young people, and to develop and implement prevention strategies. I look forward to continuing this work with my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee. Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. McADAMS. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McADAMS. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McADAMS

Mr. McADAMS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask Mr. Cicilline if he will engage with me for the purpose of a colloquy.

Mr. McADAMS. I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island.

Mr. McADAMS. Mr. Speaker, I want to confirm and clarify in our debate today that H.R. 5 does not change our Nation's longstanding First Amendment right to free religious exercise, speech, and association. I understand that houses of worship will not be affected in their religious observances by the public accommodations provisions in H.R. 5. The current exemption in title II of the Civil Rights Act remains in place, so chapels, temples, synagogues, mosques, and other houses of worship will continue to have legal certainty to practice their religion, conduct services, and affiliate with fellow members of their religion, as well as engage and welcome others not of their faith in their houses of worship for religious activity or faith practice, as they do now.

Mr. McADAMS. To also clarify, is it your understanding nothing in H.R. 5 compels a clergy member to perform a religious ceremony in conflict with their religious beliefs? That is, faith groups can continue to perform marriages, blessings, baptisms, and other practices for their own members and consistent with their beliefs, consistent with their First Amendment rights, correct?

Mr. McADAMS

Mr. McADAMS. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor two courageous teachers at a West Jordan, Utah high school and the students and faculty members who rallied around them when they were stricken by cancer. Cancer is an insidious disease that doesn't discriminate. It occurs in Utahns of all ages, incomes, professions and ethnic backgrounds. But students and faculty at Copper Hills High School in West Jordan have shown us how a community stands up to this disease. Recently, Megan Butler, a physical education teacher at the school, along with 17 other faculty members, students and community members, all shaved their heads--as part of a ``Brave to Shave'' event. It was part of the school's effort to raise money for children's cancer research. But the hair itself went towards making a wig for Megan Butler, who was diagnosed with breast cancer. The Copper Hills Grizzlies raised more than $4,000. Not only was the school dealing with Butler's illness, students also lost a beloved English teacher--Michelle Szetela--to the disease. She was diagnosed with Stage four adrenal cancer on March 11th and died just six days later. Tyler Carson, vice president of the school's National Honor society chapter, shaved his head in Szetela's honor. All the participants said that events like this empower them in the fight against a remorseless opponent. Their hair will grow back and someday, the money they contributed to cancer research will help produce a cure. Thank you to these heroic teachers, Megan Butler and Michelle Szetela, for their courage, strength and community leadership.

Mr. McADAMS

Mr. McADAMS. Madam Speaker, I rise to address what, for my constituents, is an urgent concern: the rising cost of healthcare. I hear about it everywhere I go. Healthcare is personal. Having access to quality, affordable care is central to our quality of life and our ability to decide where we live and where we work. At a healthcare townhall I held last week, I heard from people such as a small business owner who worried that, while the very poor and wealthy have coverage options, she struggles to find an affordable policy for her family. She said: Please don't forget about people like me. Another woman talked about how complicated her copays were for the drug treatment prescribed by her doctor, and another asked about the confusion surrounding billing codes and invoices. Healthcare is probably the most complex issue we will address in Congress. My top goals include to ensure that Federal law continues to protect people with preexisting conditions, to promote coverage and enrollment, and to find solutions to bring down costs. I believe that a good first step will be passing three bipartisan bills to make the drug market more competitive and prices more transparent: The CREATES Act, which address an outrageous action by some name- brand companies to unfairly stop generics; The BLOCKING Act, to stop ``first'' generic drug ``parking''; and The drug price STAR Act, to improve transparency. With the cost of prescription drugs increasing dramatically, we need to take steps now.

Mr. McADAMS

Mr. McADAMS. Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend the members of the Utah International Mountain Forum, a coalition of student clubs at Utah Valley University (UVU) on efforts to advance sustainable mountain development around the world. These accomplished 13 students help highlight how UVU's Student Engaged Learning (SEL) model gives students opportunities for both professional advancement and the chance to work with local, state, national and international leaders to foster sustainable development, particularly for women and girls. Through SEL, students take the lead in learning how to solve problems by collaborating with faculty mentors. Most of the students are nontraditional students who work full- or part-time, are 25 years or older and support a family while attending school. Months of preparation preceded the New York event. They partnered with two prominent NGS--the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and Utah China Friendship Improvement Sharing Hands Development and Cooperation--to submit goals for addressing food insecurity, education access and climate change effects in mountain communities. They participated in global events such as the 61st and 62nd Commission on the Status of Women and organized celebrations on International Mountain Day and International Women's Day that brought high-level diplomats from around the world to see Utah's efforts firsthand. During CSW63, the students hosted a parallel event to highlight the successful implementation of UVU's engaged learning model to address issues facing women and girls in Utah. It also showcased international women studying in Utah. Individual students presented their own work, including Hannah Bieker who spoke on her peers' service projects in support of impoverished women in Mexico; Megan Davis spoke on Utah's distinction as the first state to allow women to vote; William Gum- Causey spoke on Utah and UVU's efforts to address aspects of the state's rural/urban economic divide; and Aldon Trimble spoke on joint UVU-Oxford University research about Utah's air quality and how Utah addresses the problems of the children of incarcerated parents. These combined efforts and events allowed the UVU delegation to demonstrate the role that students--particularly nontraditional students--play in contributing to sustainable development in both Utah and mountain communities around the world. By empowering themselves, the students help empower other communities and the women and girls residing there.

Mr. McADAMS

Mr. McADAMS. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. McADAMS. Mr. Chair, I rise today to offer an amendment to H.R. 1644, the Save the Internet Act. As the father of four children, I worry about what my kids see on social media and online, and I know firsthand how important it is that illegal content doesn't pollute the internet. My amendment would affirm that this bill preserves broadband internet service providers' ability to block unlawful content, including disturbing and harmful materials like child pornography. We are here today to vote on legislation to protect the internet as an engine of innovation and open communication free from undue restrictions, such as blocking legal content and services, throttling service, and paid prioritization of content. While the bill does not, as currently written, revoke service providers' ability to block illegal content, I believe the House can agree that we should nonetheless affirm our commitment to stopping unlawful behaviors, such as viewing child pornography and copyright infringement. My amendment does not impose additional or onerous legal requirements on service providers to act as an arbiter of lawfulness but, rather, ensures providers can continue working with consumer watchdogs and law enforcement to keep our internet free from illegal content and to make it safe for our families. Let me reiterate this amendment also does not grant ISPs any new rights to block content that is lawful or decide what is lawful on the internet. My amendment simply stands for the proposition that unlawful content is not protected by net neutrality rules. It is one thing to say ISPs can block content subject to a valid court order and quite another to let ISPs make decisions about the lawfulness of content for themselves. This amendment strikes that balance. We have bipartisan consensus on the tremendous value of the internet's contribution to our society's innovation and communication, and I also know that there is bipartisan concern about severe illegal misuses of the internet's power. I believe my amendment offers us an opportunity to confirm our support once again for a free internet with unfettered access to legal content and to our vehement opposition to child pornography. Mr. Chair, I thank the members of the committee for their work on this legislation, and I urge a ``yes'' vote on my amendment. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McADAMS. Mr. Chair, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. McADAMS. Mr. Chair, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Michael F. Doyle) for the purpose of a colloquy.

Mr. McADAMS. Mr. Chair, yes, that is correct. Nothing in this amendment grants any sort of new rights to an ISP. Rather, this amendment simply stands for the proposition that unlawful content is not protected by net neutrality rules. In other words, blocking unlawful content does not violate net neutrality.

Mr. McADAMS. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.