Jerrold Nadler

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. How much time do I have remaining, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Well, you have to remember the reason why Amtrak was created in the first place. We didn't have public railroads in the 19th century. We didn't have public railroads in the first half of the 20th century, but by 1960 and 1970, many of the freight railroads were going bankrupt, and certainly, the passenger lines could no longer pay for themselves. They were all going bankrupt. Congress faced the reality in 1970 that if it didn't create something called Amtrak--it was named Amtrak--but something as a public corporation or publicly funded corporation, there would be no passenger rail in the United States. The States did the same thing. What became various commuter rail agencies, like MTA in New York or SEPTA in Philadelphia and others, were created out of the bankrupt passenger operations of the private rail lines. No one could make money at it. Amtrak has survived and has flourished in the sense of attracting more and more passengers, and it now has 77 percent of the market against the airlines in the Northeast corridor; and, thank God, it saves energy and time and congestion, despite the fact that it has been grossly underfunded by Congress. The only section of Amtrak that makes money is the Northeast corridor from Washington to Boston. It subsidizes everything else. There would be no rail lines outside the Northeast corridor--not to Florida, not to Chicago, not to Denver, not to any place outside the Washington to Boston corridor--if they had to pay for themselves. We, the Northeast corridor, subsidize the rest of Amtrak. From my point of view as a New Yorker, I would rather that weren't the case; but I am an American. I think everybody ought to have the ability to travel and the ability to have an economy that functions, and so we cross-subsidize. It would be better if Congress put money in and other sections of the country could become self-sustaining in rail, but the fact is the history is that is very difficult. I am not aware of any rail system or public transit system in the world that isn't publicly subsidized. We subsidize every transportation system in this country. We subsidize the highway; we subsidize the airlines with the air traffic control, and we do it because we know the country has to move. If we want an economy that generates goods and services for people, it has to move. Freight has to move. It has to move by rail. It has to move by barge, by boat. We have to invest in it. If Amtrak stops funding the line to Florida, that line wouldn't exist anymore; everything would be on the road. The roads would be more congested; people would waste more time. The one exception to that right now is the Northeast corridor. We are willing, because we are Americans, to participate in a national system, and the rest of the country should be willing, too.

Mr. NADLER. You are obviously completely right, and that is why I quoted the figures I did earlier in my remarks. Prior to 1980, roughly, we used to spend about 4, 4\1/2\ percent of GDP on infrastructure. Now, we are spending 1.7 percent of GDP on infrastructure. Of course, we are underinvesting, and our infrastructure is decaying. By infrastructure, I mean roads, highway, bridges, rail, airports, broadband--you name it. China is spending 9 percent of GDP on infrastructure. We are competing with China. We are competing with other countries. If they can move goods and people more efficiently, that means their economy is going to be more efficient; their economy is going to be more competitive; they are going to be able to sell things more cheaply, generate things more cheaply, and outsell us. We have to compete in a world economy. We can't be insulated. If we are going to compete in a world economy and have an economy that can generate the jobs, we can only compete if we have a transportation system. We also need an efficient energy system and other things, too, but an efficient transportation system. We are eating our seed corn. We benefited from prior generations' investment, and now, we are not doing that investment. I hear rhetoric on this floor all the time that we shouldn't leave a debt. We have to have a balanced budget, and we shouldn't leave a debt to our children. Frankly, I would rather leave a debt to our children if we use that debt to build up the investments in this country so that there are roads for our children to travel on, rails to ride on, airports to land in, schools to attend. That is an investment. We have to make a distinction. It is one thing to waste money or spend it on something ephemeral. But to invest it so that our children inherit a country with a functioning economy and with assets that we give them that they can use to make a more functioning economy, that is worth it.

Mr. NADLER. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, for well over a decade we have failed to adequately invest in transportation infrastructure. According to DOT, there is an $808 billion backlog of investment needs on highways and bridges, including $480 billion in critical repair work. Public transit has an $86 billion backlog of critical maintenance and repair needs, which increases by $2.5 billion each year as bus and rail infrastructure ages. The American Society of Civil Engineers has given U.S. infrastructure an overall grade of D-minus because 54 percent of our major roads are rated poor or mediocre. One out of every four bridges in the United States, or 147,000 bridges, is structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, and 45 percent of Americans do not have access to transit. Federal land management agencies need over $11 billion to address deferred maintenance needs on our roads and bridges. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that the cost of upgrading and repairing our deteriorating bridges is over $106 billion. An investment of $20 billion annually by all levels of government is needed through 2030 to draw down the backlog. Bringing existing transit assets just up to a state of good repair will require an annualized investment level of $18.5 billion through the year 2030, an amount far in excess of current funding levels. An additional $4.3 billion over current spending levels from all levels of government is needed annually to eliminate the current backlog by 2030. To accommodate future transit ridership growth and preserve transit systems, as much as $24.5 billion per year would need to be invested compared to only $14.2 billion currently invested, a gap of $10 billion a year. The cost to our economy of not meeting our infrastructure needs is great. According to the 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers report, 42 percent of America's major urban highways remain congested. Congestion costs commuters $121 billion a year in wasted time and fuel, or an average of $818 per commuter. I would guarantee you each commuter would rather spend the equivalent amount in taxes than waste that money sitting on a clogged highway. In 2011, congestion caused urban Americans to travel 5.5 billion hours more and to purchase an extra 2.9 billion gallons of unnecessary fuel. Without existing transit services in place in 2011, travelers would have suffered an additional 865 million hours of delays and consumed 450 million more gallons of fuel. Despite the condition of our infrastructure system caused by years of underinvestment, we are spending way too little today on roads, bridges, transit, and rail. The highway trust fund currently collects about $35 billion per year for the highway account and $5 billion for the transit account. According to CBO, the highway trust fund faces a shortfall of about $170 billion over the next 10 years. By 2020, the highway trust fund's purchasing power will have dropped by nearly half since 1990 because of inflation at a time when the country's population will have increased 30 percent. We currently spend about $50 billion a year on highways and transit, and most of the recent fights over revenue for the transportation bill have been merely to fill the gap to maintain current funding levels. The discussion should be much broader. It should be about how we can fund the program at a higher level to eliminate the backlog, increase capacity, meet a state of good repair, and eliminate the congestion in this country. Today, this country spends about 1.7 percent of GDP of the entire economy on infrastructure. We used to spend almost 4 percent on infrastructure. Europe is spending 4 to 5 percent, and China is spending 9 percent. Who do you think, 30 years from now, is going to have a competitive economic system which depends on adequate up-to-date competitive transportation infrastructure and broadband? In particular, for example, we have been underinvesting in our rail infrastructure as well. The passenger rail system needs at least $52 billion, or $2.5 billion per year for 20 years, just to meet ridership demands such as capacity improvements, such as tunnels to New York and to bring the system into a state of good repair. Of that amount, $21 billion is necessary for the backlog of projects on the Northeast corridor. The Northeast corridor serves 51 million people and is the major corridor for Amtrak in the country. The $21 billion for the backlog of projects includes $13.8 billion in major infrastructure project backlog and $7.2 billion in basic infrastructure backlog. Some of these major project needs include $1.5 billion to replace the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel, which dates back to 1873; $950 million to replace the Gunpowder and Bush River Bridges; $850 million to replace the Susquehanna River Bridge; $350 million to replace the Highline Bridge and add a fourth track between Newark and New York; $750 million to replace the Portal Bridge, which can stop the entire Northeast corridor if it should fail; $1 billion for catenary, communication, and signal upgrades and bridge replacements near New Haven; $2.8 billion in upgrades to other movable bridges; $1.8 billion in additional catenary upgrades from Washington, D.C., to New York. All this is basic backlog, just to make sure that the current system continues to operate and doesn't fail. Additional funding over and above the $21 billion backlog, for a total of $64 billion, is needed for service improvements and projected increases in capacity on the Northeast corridor; yet Amtrak gets just $1.4 billion in the annual appropriations bill--or less than 2 percent of Federal transportation funding. The Appropriations Committee recommended the other day that this be reduced to $1.1 billion, with a $64 billion backlog. The fiscal year 2016 transportation appropriations bill, just marked up in committee the day after the accident north of Philadelphia, cuts capital funding for Amtrak by $290 million, providing only $1.1 billion in FY 2016, $1 billion below the President's request. The President's request for this year's budget includes $5 billion for rail. Half of that is for Amtrak, to bring the system to a state of good repair, including $550 billion for the Northeast corridor. As we await the results of the full investigation, the tragedy of Amtrak train 188 shows the importance of a reliable rail system to the Northeast region of this country. We cannot continue the decades of neglect that have left our system desperately underfunded and resulted in a multibillion-dollar backlog to bring the system to a state of good repair. It should not require a tragedy to spur action to address the glaring deficiencies in our transportation and infrastructure network. We should act before accidents occur. Rail safety is not a luxury; it is of fundamental importance to our citizens and our economy. Thousands of businesses and commuters in the Northeast depend on the rail for commerce and transportation every day. Congress must finally provide the resources necessary for ensuring the safety and reliability of our transportation and infrastructure system. While this Congress has failed to make transportation funding a priority, the administration has taken the lead and proposed a long- term surface transportation reauthorization bill. The GROW AMERICA Act provides a total of $478 billion over 6 years, a 45 percent increase for highways, bridges, public transportation, highway safety, and rail programs. It provides $317 billion for programs under the Federal Highway Administration, an increase of 29 percent over current levels. It allocates $18 billion for a new dedicated multimodal freight system. How is our economy supposed to operate without an efficient freight transportation system? It provides $115 billion for programs under the Federal Transit Administration, an increase of 76 percent over current levels, and significantly boosts New Starts funding. It provides $28 billion for programs under the Federal Railroad Administration, $6 billion for vehicle safety programs under the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, $4.7 billion for truck and bus safety programs, and $16 billion for the Highway Safety Improvement Program. It provides $7.5 for TIGER grants and $6 billion for TIFIA that could support $60 billion in loans. It provides $3.5 billion to leverage research and innovation to move people. Several of the members of the Transportation Committee just introduced the GROW AMERICA Act in the House. Not all of us agree with everything in that bill. For example, the Transportation Committee's Special Panel on Freight, which I was the ranking Democrat on, made several unanimous bipartisan recommendations, including providing dedicated guaranteed funding for projects of national and regional significance. Reauthorizing this program is a top priority for many of us on the committee and should be included in any final bill. It is important to start moving a long-term bill, where we can have an opportunity to shape these policy provisions, and the GROW AMERICA Act would serve as a good starting point. The last surface transportation bill, MAP-21, expired last fall. The President first proposed the GROW AMERICA Act last spring to provide an alternative for MAP-21 before it expired. Unfortunately, we failed to reauthorize MAP-21 on time and passed an extension until the end of this month, to give us more time to work on a long-term bill. We just passed another 2-month extension, the 33rd extension, to take us to the end of July. We have known for months that this day was coming; yet we have made no progress in finding a solution to funding highways, transit, and other important surface transportation programs. MAP-21 itself was only a 2-year bill, breaking the tradition of Congress passing 5- or 6-year bills to provide the reliable funding necessary to complete long-term capital plans and projects that require a commitment beyond 1 fiscal year. The last time we passed a long-term bill was 10 years ago, in 2005, in SAFETEA-LU. That bill was underfunded because of a resistance to raising the gasoline tax and identifying new revenue sources. House and Senate leadership couldn't come up with the additional $60 billion needed to fill the gap in the highway trust fund just to do a long-term bill at current levels, but this week, they put on the floor a tax extender that will cost $182 billion over 10 years, completely unpaid for. The priorities of this Congress are completely out of whack. Our infrastructure is crumbling around us, and the majority continues to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, while leaving transportation funding to wither on the vine. I am concerned we will be back here in July having this same conversation. We must demand now that this Congress spend the next 2 months, once and for all, making transportation funding a priority. We must realize that what we have based our transportation program on since 1955, the gasoline tax, is a wasting asset. It is down 30 percent since 1993 because of inflation, and every year, we use fewer gallons because of an intelligent policy of energy conservation, of higher mileage per gallon; but that means fewer gallons of gasoline. We must either raise the gasoline tax or bring in a new source of revenue or both. Finally, let me say that interest rates are at negative rates now. When interest rates are at negative rates, when you can borrow money and pay it back more cheaply, that is the time to borrow money to invest so that our children inherit not a great debt, but inherit an efficiently functioning economy and an investment in the country that makes the economy function. We have always known this. The Republican Party and their precursor, the Whigs, have always known this. They were the party in the 19th century of the American systems. What was the American system? Henry Clay's system to invest public funds in internal improvements in roads and canals and bridges and railroads, rather than the European system of letting the private sector do it. Abraham Lincoln continued that tradition with the transcontinental railroad at a time of civil war, and Dwight Eisenhower did the Interstate Highway System, which we are still living with. These were Republican Party projects. I only wish the Republican Party wasn't completely turning its back on its own heritage. We have, for the last century, a bipartisan heritage of funding our infrastructure so that the country can grow and the economy can prosper, but the Republican Party seems to have turned this back on this. I urge you to reconsider. Stop turning your back. Join us in the Democratic Party in continuing our tradition of making this an economy that can function for all our people, where people can move and not waste their time sitting in traffic jams, where goods can move and the economy can function, businesses can flourish. That is what is at stake.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill to extend highway and transit programs for 2 months, but with reservations. The last surface transportation bill, MAP-21, expired last fall. At that time, we passed an extension to the end of this month to give us time to work on a long-term bill. We have known for months that this day was coming; yet we have made no progress finding a solution to funding highways, transit, and other important surface transportation programs. MAP-21, itself, was only a 2-year bill, breaking the tradition of Congress passing 5- or 6-year bills to provide the reliable funding necessary to promote long-term capital plans and projects that require a commitment beyond 1 fiscal year. The last long-term bill we passed was SAFETEA-LU in 2005. That was 10 years ago, and that bill was underfunded because of a resistance to raising the gasoline tax or to identifying new revenue sources. For over a decade, we have failed to address the funding challenges necessary to break the cycle of underinvestment and put this country back on a competitive path with the rest of the work. Today, we spend about 1.7 percent of GDP on infrastructure, while China spends 9 percent and Europe spends 4\1/2\ to 5 percent. We used to spend 4\1/2\ to 5 percent also. According to DOT, there is an $800 billion backlog of investment needs on highways and bridges, including $479 billion in critical repair work. Public transit has an $86 billion backlog of critical maintenance and repair needs, which increases by $2.5 billion each year as bus and rail infrastructure ages. While our infrastructure crumbles around us, House and Senate leadership refuse to come up with the additional $60 billion needed to fill the gap in the highway trust fund just to do a long-term bill at current levels; but this week, they will put on the floor a tax extender that will cost $182 billion over 10 years, completely unpaid for. The priorities of this Congress are completely out of whack. I am concerned that we will pass this 2-month extension and be right back here in July having this same conversation. I will support this extension, but only with the understanding that we must spend the next 2 months, once and for all, making transportation funding a priority so that our citizens don't have to risk unsafe transportation so that we can invest in our infrastructure and we can be competitive in our economy going forward.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have?

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would strike from the bill section 3121, which attempts to undermine our efforts to destroy unnecessary nuclear weapons that have already been retired and scheduled for dismantlement. Section 3121 of the bill was a last-minute addition to the NDAA that is both totally unnecessary and counterproductive to our long-term national security goals. Our Armed Forces and National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA, firmly oppose this provision to limit the dismantlement of surplus nuclear weapons. Section 3121, which my amendment would strike, does three things. First, it caps at $50 million a program that is scheduled to cost about $50 million, thereby having no practical impact whatever. Second, the section prohibits for 5 years the scheduled dismantlement of the W84 nuclear warhead. The W84 warhead was retired back in 2007, 8 years ago, and was recently retired again in favor of keeping the W80 for the long-range standoff option. There is no reason to keep the W84 around longer than necessary. Storing and securing unneeded and retired nuclear weapons wastes a large amount of money in maintaining them. Third, there is a large queue of warheads waiting for dismantlement. There are approximately 2,500 retired nuclear warheads scheduled for dismantlement. Storing these warheads costs money. Why would we want to slow down the process of dismantlement of retired warheads? We have about 5,000 active nuclear warheads, and 2,000 would suffice to destroy the entire world. Why waste money maintaining retired warheads beyond the 5,000 active warheads sufficient to destroy the world two and a half times over? In fact, by seeking to limit nuclear dismantlement, this section of the bill sends the wrong message to the rest of the world about the value of nuclear weapons, and it undermines our efforts at nuclear nonproliferation. We have promised, as part of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, to reduce our nuclear warheads eventually to zero. The other nuclear nations have made the same promise. On that basis, the nonnuclear nations have undertaken not to develop nuclear weapons. By delaying dismantlement of retired weapons, we are sending the wrong message of nonadherence to the nonproliferation treaty. Contrary to the claims of the authors of section 3121, this section of the bill is not about unilateral disarmament. All of these weapons have already been retired and are scheduled to be dismantled. This section, by delaying dismantlement by 5 years, would simply waste a large sum of taxpayers' money, would not contribute at all to national security--because having retired weapons in the storage bin doesn't help national security--and would send the wrong message on nonproliferation. It is a total waste of money for no useful purpose whatsoever. I urge all my colleagues to support this amendment to strike section 3121. We must not needlessly restrict the Defense Department's ability to determine the appropriate rate of warhead dismantlement of retired and surplus warheads. I urge the adoption of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, the central flaw in the argument against this amendment is that we are not talking about disarmament, unilateral or otherwise. Retired weapons do not add security. All they do is waste money to maintain them. What this amendment says is do not prohibit the administration from dismantling already-retired weapons. Now, talking about the threat from Russia, okay. There is a threat from Russia. I don't deny that. Modernization of nuclear weapons maybe should be a priority. That is a separate issue; but dismantling retired weapons doesn't weaken us versus Russia, doesn't help us--in fact, maybe it helps us by freeing up money for modernizing weapons. It is simply a waste of money to retain retired weapons. If we should have more active weapons, that is a different question; but, once we have retired the weapon, it costs money to maintain it. It also is a potential target for a terrorist to grab it or get the plutonium out of it or whatever. Retired warheads should be dismantled, regardless of the threat elsewhere. The question is: How many active warheads do we need? That is a separate topic. A retired warhead does not protect us. Dismantling a retired warhead just saves money. A retired warhead doesn't help us against the Russians or anybody else. It is simply a question of not wasting money. If modernization is a priority, fine. I don't agree with that, but spend money on modernization. Why waste money on keeping retired warheads in the storage bins? I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. I thank the chairman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I listen to this debate, and it sounds as if we have forgotten everything we ever learned about American justice and American liberty. We are told that 29 percent of the people released from Guantanamo have returned to terror. Well, that simply says that the Bush administration did a lousy job in deciding who should be released because, since then, it has been a tiny percentage. Yes, a large percentage of those the Bush administration released became recidivists. So the argument is everyone held in Guantanamo should be held there forever. That is the argument. The amendment we just considered a moment ago would make it even harder, make it impossible, to release anyone from Guantanamo. The opposition to this amendment is for the same purpose. We are told that these are the worst of the worst. Who says? Some of them have never been charged with any crime, have never been charged with any terrorism, have been judged safe to release, and have been told, have been labeled by our military as not being terrorists, not being threats to the United States, and yet we continue to hold them indefinitely. Why? And by what right? KSM is a great menace; indeed, he is. He should be brought to the United States and placed on trial in a Federal court. He has been waiting for trial for almost 14 years now because we can't get our military tribunals to work, put him on trial in an article III Federal court, and sentence him to life imprisonment without parole, as others have been. Nobody escapes from our supermax prisons, but justice ought to be done. It ought to be meted out. We are told that people will be released here. We are not demanding that everyone be released or even that anyone in particular be released, certainly not into the United States. We are saying that the normal processes of justice should go forward. We are saying that the fact that someone lived in Afghanistan and that some other tribe had a grudge against his family and turned him in for a bounty, even though he had nothing to do with terrorism or anything else, we ought to know that. And when we know that, that person ought to be releasable because we know that about some people. Instead, what we are faced with is a statute that says nobody ought to ever be released; we ought to hold people indefinitely for life for no crime and no reason. That is against American justice, and it poses a threat that the President under the authority of the 2012 law can hold Americans in Guantanamo indefinitely, and we should close it to prevent that, too.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, it is truly astonishing that in 2015 the United States continues to hold people indefinitely who have not been charged, let alone convicted, of any crime, who have been judged not to pose any threat to the United States. Our continuing to hold prisoners indefinitely without charging them, without trial, is a rebuke to our professed support of liberty. Now, I know some will say they are dangerous terrorists, and some are. But some of them are not. They are people who were captured in some way, who have been judged by our military not to pose a threat to the United States, who have not been charged or judged as terrorists. Some of them may be simply victims to the fact that we paid bounties to people in Afghanistan to turn in people who they said were terrorists. The Hatfields turned in the McCoys because--why not?--we were giving them a bounty of a few thousand dollars. We have, for those who need it, supermax prisons in the United States, from which no one has ever escaped. There is no reason to spend all the money in Guantanamo and have this continuing shame on the reputation of the United States. I oppose this amendment.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to note the passing of one of this nation's preeminent bankruptcy attorneys, Harvey R. Miller. Harvey was a giant of the profession, having played a leading role in some of the most significant cases of the last half century. These cases included Texaco Inc., Drexel Burnham Lambert Group Inc., Eastern Airlines Corp., Continental Airlines, R. H. Macy, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Enron, Lehman Brothers, and General Motors, just to name a few. Harvey was also a mentor to some of this nation's top practitioners, and an outstanding law professor. He even took the time to help me understand the Bankruptcy Code and many complex legal issues arising from it when this House considered a rewrite of the Code a decade ago. Speaking to the New York Times in 2007, he said, ``Life should be an adventure. My practice at Weil was and still is exactly that. By working on reorganizations and restructuring work in so many different businesses--such as energy, retail, manufacturing and even satellites-- that's the glory of the practice and that's what I love about it. I've always said that about restructuring practice. It is probably the last area of the generalist.'' As a member of the National Bankruptcy Conference, Harvey worked with his colleagues in the profession to advise Congress on changes to the Bankruptcy Code, advice that was both scholarly and informed by the real world experience of the nation's top practitioners. That advice was too often ignored by this institution and the state of the law is the poorer for it. Harvey was a consummate New Yorker. He would note with satisfaction that his office in the General Motors building on Fifth Avenue was ``across from Bergdorf's men's shop and close to Barneys.'' He was also a great lover of the opera, and served as an Advisory Director of the Metropolitan Opera. Mr. Speaker, I was proud to count Harvey Miller, a fellow son of Brooklyn, as a friend. He was greatly admired by all who knew him. His contributions to the profession, and to the development of bankruptcy law in the United States, are incalculable. I ask all my colleagues to join me in honoring the life and work of this great legal scholar and practitioner, and to join me in extending to his wife, Ruth, our deepest sympathies.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 36. For more than 40 years, the Supreme Court has clearly and consistently held that women have the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability or at any time to protect the life and health of the mother. This bill is unconstitutional as it violates both of those provisions. The bill provides a narrow exemption to protect women's lives, allowing physicians to terminate pregnancy after 20 weeks only if a woman's life is at imminent risk. This exemption fails to account for the many severe health issues that may arise late in pregnancy and forces physicians to think about legal implications rather than about a patient's health. Perhaps most cruelly, this legislation includes only a very narrow exemption for victims of rape and incest, requiring that any woman seeking an abortion after 20 weeks prove that she either reported the rape to the authorities or sought counseling services. The unfortunate reality is only 35 percent of sexual assaults are ever reported, and we know that there are many reasons for not reporting a rape: the toll our criminal justice system takes on victims, the humiliation and intimidation faced by victims of assault, and even the additional risk to their personal safety. So why place this limit on the rape exception? What does this narrow exemption say about our Republican colleagues' view of women? It is quite simple. This bill says they believe women lie. The Republicans seem to think that women are too dishonest to believe when they say they have been raped. This bill continues a too long tradition of treating women like second class citizens. Measures introduced at the State and Federal level to restrict abortions imply that women lie about rape, that women are misinformed about their own pregnancies and must undergo invasive tests and exams, and that women are immoral for ever making the choice to terminate a pregnancy no matter what the circumstance. That is insulting. It is, frankly, none of our business. Enough is enough. Doctors, not politicians, should be providing women guidance, support, and medical advice throughout their pregnancy, and particularly when making a deeply personal decision to terminate a pregnancy. And women, not politicians, should make that decision for themselves. We must defeat this unconstitutional bill and continue to afford women their constitutional right enjoyed by every man, without question, to make decisions about their health care in the privacy of their doctors' offices. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this terrible bill.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman. Mr. Speaker, the USA FREEDOM Act represents a return to the basic principle of the Fourth Amendment, the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures. Before the government may search our homes, seize our persons, or intercept our communications, it must first make a showing of individualized suspicion. The intrusion it requests must be as targeted and as brief as circumstances allow. The Fourth Amendment demands no less. That is why we are here today. We have learned that the government has engaged in unreasonable searches against all of us. It has gathered an enormous amount of information about every phone call in the United States. It has deemed all of our phone calls relevant to a terrorism investigation. It is intolerable to our sense of freedom. Today, we are acting to stop it. The bill before us prohibits the intelligence community from engaging in bulk data collection within the United States. This practice, the dragnet collection without a warrant of telephone records and Internet metadata, is the contemporary equivalent of the British writs of assistance that early American revolutionaries opposed and that the Fourth Amendment was drafted to outlaw. It has never complied with the Constitution and must be brought to an end without delay. The legal theories that justified these programs were developed and approved in secret, and that practice must also come to an end. There must not be a body of secret law in the United States. Section 215 says tangible things may be seized if they are relevant to a terrorism investigation. The government's interpretation that this means ``everything'' is obviously wrong, could only have been advanced in secret, and cannot withstand the public scrutiny to which it is now subjected. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals threw out this notion last week, and now, we must do so as well. This bill further requires the government to promptly declassify and release each novel or significant opinion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. In the future, if the government advances a similarly dubious legal claim, there will be an advocate in court to oppose it. If the court should agree with the novel claim, the public will know about it almost immediately, and the responsibility will lie with us to correct it just as quickly. Before I close, I want to be clear. Not every reform I would have hoped to enact is included in this bill. We must do more to protect U.S. person information collected under section 702 of FISA. We must act to reform other authorities, many of them law enforcement rather than intelligence community authorities, to prevent indiscriminate searches in other circumstances. I will continue to fight for these reforms, among others, and I know that I will not be alone in taking up that challenge in the days to come, but I am grateful that we have the opportunity to take this first major step to restore the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects and to do so without in any way endangering national security. I thank Chairman Goodlatte, Chairman Sensenbrenner, and Ranking Member Conyers for their continued leadership on this legislation, and I urge every one of my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R. 1732. This bill would halt efforts to clarify the scope of the Clean Water Act, a clarification necessary to protect the environment, to protect wetlands, and to protect drinking water for a third of the population. For over a decade, there has been great uncertainty about the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act, particularly as it applies to wetlands and streams, as a result of Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006, and of guidance documents issued under the Bush administration. In an effort to provide regulatory clarity--a goal universally shared by State and local governments, industry, agriculture, and environmental organizations--the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers have conducted a formal rulemaking process. The resulting clean water rule was proposed over a year ago and represents the culmination of years of study, independent scientific review, and unprecedented public comment and outreach. Just as the rule is at OMB and before it has even been published so people could read it, this bill guts all that work and requires EPA and the Corps, essentially, to start over. The bill has no justifiable purpose. It kills the new rule before anyone has even had a chance to read it. It requires the agencies to conduct what appears to be two additional public comment periods, bringing the total up to six public comment periods in the last decade. It requires the agencies to consult with stakeholders again, even though the rule was developed after 400 meetings with stakeholders, with comments filed by over 800,000 members of the public. My Republican colleagues are always complaining about regulatory uncertainty, the resulting increased costs on businesses, bureaucratic delay, and waste of taxpayer dollars; yet this bill is unnecessary, repetitive, and serves no legitimate purpose other than to delay. The harm it will cause is extensive. There is perhaps no greater responsibility than to protect the Nation's water supply. This bill would leave our environmental resources unprotected and the drinking water for 117 million Americans at risk. The rule is up in the air, unread, unseen, undecided, and unknown. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate John Jay College of Criminal Justice in my district in New York City, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. Located steps from Lincoln Center in the cultural heart of New York City, John Jay College is one of the nation's leading liberal arts institutions of higher education with a mission of educating for justice. This theme is at the core of each of its programs across arts, sciences, and humanities. An international leader in educating for justice, John Jay offers a rich liberal arts and professional studies curriculum to upwards of 15,000 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 135 nations, including over 47% first generation students and more than 500 veterans. John Jay College is ranked #3 in the nation as a ``Best for Vet'' institution by Military Times in its 2015 national college rankings of 600 universities and colleges. The original catalyst for the school came from increasing concerns among civic leaders in New York over ongoing relations between the police and the community and the increasing complexity of police work. A small and dedicated group of academic visionaries came together to develop a plan for a new college named the College of Police Science within the City University of New York. Within a year, the college was renamed the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to reflect broader aspirations and achievements in criminal justice, leadership, and public service. John Jay, of course, was the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court and served as governor of our New York. The challenges and hard work envisioned when John Jay College was created continue today. John Jay College is a critical part of our community. The essence of John Jay College of Criminal Justice can be found in its students, Pulitzer Prize-winning faculty, and enthusiastic administrators who form a civic-minded community of motivated and intellectually curious individuals committed to public service and global citizenship. The accolades are many: Just a few weeks ago, the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations (NECO) established a scholarship at John Jay College in memory of New York City Police Department Detectives Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu who lost their lives in December 2014 while serving the citizens of New York. The scholarship was announced on March 11 during the college's NYPD alumni reception held in celebration of the longstanding partnership and collaboration with the NYPD. The National Network for Safe Communities at John Jay College, led by Professor David Kennedy, supports strategic interventions to reduce violence and community disorder. These strategies combine the best of law enforcement and community-driven approaches to improve public safety, minimize arrests and incarceration, enhance police legitimacy, and rebuild relationships between law enforcement and distressed communities. Attorney General Holder just announced six host pilot sites in Birmingham, AL; Fort Worth, TX; Gary, IN; Minneapolis, MN; Pittsburgh, PA; and Stockton, CA for the National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice, a three-year multi-million dollar project under the leadership of the National Network and John Jay. As part of a larger effort, each pilot site will assess the police- community relationship and develop a detailed site-specific plan that will enhance procedural justice, reduce bias, and support reconciliation in communities where trust has been harmed. John Jay College was called on to provide expert advice and testimony to President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing, including expert testimony from President Jeremy Travis, Professor Delores Jones- Brown and Professor David Kennedy. September 11, 2001 had a profound impact on the campus and served as a catalyst to honor the 67 students, faculty and alumni that lost their lives that day. John Jay established a variety of initiatives, programs, research centers, and scholarships including the creation of the Center on Terrorism to study global terrorism and the Christian Regenhard Center for Emergency Response Studies, named after a probationary firefighter killed at the World Trade Center. As one of the leading institutions in the country in the field of criminal justice and public safety, John Jay College is one of the few institutions to offer M.A. students a certificate in the critical study of terrorism. John Jay College's commitment to diversity is shown by the fact that it has the highest Hispanic enrollment of any four year college in the northeastern United States, and it has ranked #1 in the nation in awarding bachelor's degrees in protective services, #3 in psychology degrees, and #7 in public administration. John Jay's undergraduate, graduate and doctoral forensic degree programs are tops in the country. The College's Master of Public Administration programs recently received the Diversity and Social Equity Awards by the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs and Administration. The nationally- recognized Program for Research Initiatives in Science and Math (PRISM) at John Jay College engages underrepresented students in careers in science and math by providing an opportunity for them to participate in faculty-mentored scientific research in areas like molecular biology, toxicology, criminalistics and computer science, and partake in professional research conferences while completing their degree. Since its inception, graduation numbers from the College's science majors have tripled, and the number of students, and especially underrepresented minority students, moving on to doctoral and medical degrees has grown five-fold. John Jay's faculty personify excellence--they include Pulitzer Prize winners, Presidential scholars, recipients of prestigious book awards, presidents of leading professional organizations and editors of prominent scholarly journals. They have been recognized by their peers, and even by the White House, for their dedication to teaching, research and mentoring. The College's students regularly win prestigious scholarships, including the Marshall Scholarship, internships, including the White House Internship, and fellowships, including Fulbright, JK Watson and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. They are also accepted to high-profile graduate and professional schools. Their alumni number more than 54,000, many of whom hold leadership roles in public sector agencies, including the United States Marshals Service, the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the National Parks Service, the State Department, Peace Corps, the United Nations, and private companies in the U.S. and worldwide. Affordability is an essential component of the College's core mission. At a time when over 37 million Americans are saddled with over $1 trillion in student debt, John Jay College recently was named one of the top ten colleges where students graduate with the least debt. Only 20% of John Jay students were compelled to borrow money to finance their college education, less than one third of the national average. And the vast majority of John Jay students graduate debt-free--enabling them to become successful in service for others without having to spend years paying off their student loans. In fact John Jay College was recently ranked #4 in the ``Best Bang for the Buck'' in the northeast rankings in Washington Monthly's College guide. John Jay develops fierce advocates for justice--each committed every day to building a better democracy. I am proud to represent John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the values that it stands for and works for every day. Congratulations to John Jay College on this very important day and its 50 year record of fighting for justice.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert my statement in the Record that the House should focus on the real priorities of Americans instead of another attack on women's health care.

Mr. NADLER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, this Nation is founded on two simple and powerful principles, liberty and equality. In the 18th century, our Founding Fathers saw liberty as freedom from the dictates of a tyrannical government and fought to the death to protect it. What they could not foresee is a modern form of tyranny, the tyranny of employers who seek to impose their beliefs on their employees and control their personal decisions. I am saddened that, today, my Republican colleagues are bringing up yet another bill to enable employers to control their private, personal decisions of their employees. Today, this body may, with a single vote, strip over 650,000 American citizens of their essential liberty to make their own choices about their health care and their families. Make no mistake, the District of Columbia's new law, the Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act, is about liberty. We are not talking about an employer who objects to paying for insurance that covers contraception. D.C. passed this law to protect the citizens from an employer who tells a woman that she will be fired for using contraception or for using in vitro fertilization to start a family or for engaging in any other conduct that violates the employer's religious beliefs. The D.C. law we are asked to overturn says your employer should not be able to impose his religious beliefs on you. You should not be fired because your religious beliefs differ from those of your employer. The D.C. law protects religious liberty. The disapproval resolution imposes religious coercion. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle who claim so vociferously to support freedom and liberty stand here today and say to the American people: you do not have the right to make decisions about when and how to start a family; your employer has the right to make those decisions for you. I challenge any Member of this body to go home this weekend and explain that to their constituents and why they must now live under the yoke of their employer's tyranny. The American people will not stand for it, and we must not stand for it today. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule and ``no'' on the disapproval resolution. We must send a strong message to the American people that freedom and religious liberty still exist in this country.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would strike section 512 of the bill, which prohibits the use of funds to construct or expand any facility in the United States to house any individual detained at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Simply put, this section is designed to prevent the closure of Guantanamo. Mr. Chairman, we are still holding 122 people at Guantanamo, 57 of whom have been cleared for release. These people have been found guilty of nothing, are believed to be guilty of nothing, and have been judged not to pose any danger. Nonetheless, they are not released. By what claim of right do we continue to imprison them? As for the detainees who have not been cleared for release, this bill is designed to ensure that we will continue to hold them at Guantanamo indefinitely. We don't know whether these people are enemy soldiers or not or are guilty of anything or not. Some of them may be, and some of them probably are not. Those facts must be determined in a fair proceeding of some sort, but, at Guantanamo, there are no proceedings. The military tribunal process at Guantanamo has been at a complete standstill for years, and we cannot hold civilian trials at Guantanamo, so we are holding people for no purpose with no proceedings, no hearings, no opportunity to determine their guilt or innocence, and we are holding them, essentially, forever. I recall a briefing last year at which Representative and now-Senator Cotton said that these people had been determined to be guilty by Congress. Aside from the fact that Congress has not determined anybody to be guilty and aside from the fact, if Congress tried to determine someone to be guilty of a crime or of anything, that it would be a violation of the bill of attainder section of the Congress, it is simply not true. These people have been determined to be guilty of nothing, and they deserve, like anybody else, to have a day in court. How long will we let this shameful episode in American history continue? To overcome this challenge to one of the founding principles of the United States, which is that no person may be deprived of liberty without due process of law and, certainly, may not be deprived of liberty indefinitely without due process of law, we must close the detention facility at Guantanamo now so that they can be properly charged and tried in a Federal court. This will afford the detainees no additional constitutional rights. The Supreme Court has already ruled that detainees at Guantanamo have the same constitutional rights as they would if they were to be brought to the United States. The government should transfer to Federal court any detainee against whom it has evidence. The Federal courts, in contrast to the military tribunals, have an excellent record in prosecuting and convicting terrorists. Anyone not charged should either be classified as a ``prisoner of war'' and treated as such or should be released back to his home country or elsewhere if that prevents a problem to his life or safety. This is not a radical suggestion. It has been our tradition for the entire history of our country and has been our unbroken legal practice until now. The President can and should without delay authorize the Secretary of Defense to use existing certification and waiver procedures to repatriate and resettle abroad all prisoners who have been cleared for release, and he should arrange trial in the United States for all prisoners who are not cleared for release. We must close this facility. We must try and convict and sentence the people who are guilty of acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States or, in accord with our moral and constitutional principles, release those who are not guilty of offenses against the United States. Only so can we restore our national honor. This amendment is necessary to start this process because without our bringing some of these prisoners to the United States for trial, we cannot try them. I urge all of my colleagues to support this amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I note in his opposing this amendment that the gentleman simply said it is part of a larger policy discussion about Guantanamo. He is correct. He said that there is identical language in other bills. He is correct. He said that we should remove that language from the other bills, and he points out that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other high-value prisoners are at Guantanamo. He is correct. We are to bring them to the United States. We are to try them and convict them and either sentence them to death or to life in prison without parole or whatever. That is our tradition. We don't simply declare someone is a bad guy and hold him forever without a trial. Our Federal courts in the United States have an excellent record of trying and convicting people accused of terrorism. In the military tribunals at Guantanamo, they can't even run a trial. It has come to a complete standstill. It is really missing the point to say that there are some very bad people at Guantanamo. Yes, there are. There are also some perfectly innocent people at Guantanamo. Those people ought to be released. The people who we think are guilty of something should be charged and tried. To simply say that someone is not going to be charged and tried but be held for life imprisonment without a trial is not what this country is about. I yield back the balance of my time.