Richard Nolan

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, had I been present on rollcall vote No. 611 (on passage of H.R. 1900) I would have voted ``no.'' personal explanation

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Madam Speaker and Members of the House, I rise in support of the motion to recommit. I would like to also commend Chairman Shuster, Ranking Member Rahall and, in particular, my colleague Sean Patrick Maloney for bringing this important issue to the attention of the House and, Mr. Maloney, for your motion to instruct. We clearly have 14,000 dams throughout the country that have been designated as high hazards. That is a well known fact. Another fact is that there are 20,000 dams that are over a half a century old. These facts underscore the neglect, as well as the profound need, to put forth better inspection plans and to invest more in the rebuilding of our dams and our infrastructure. Quite frankly what the whole WRRDA bill is really all about is not just investing in our dams, but investing in our roads, our bridges, our ports, our rivers, our lakes, our health, our safety, our tourism, and our economy. In some respects, that is what has laid the foundation for the great economic success and prosperity that we enjoy here in this country. We have neglected it, and this is an important and profound motion to address the dam issue, if you will pardon the expression in that manner. This whole bill is important for us to embrace. I commend the members of the committee for putting this together. I hope that we will all join and continue through this House in the way that we did in committee, in a bipartisan manner, to recognize the profound need that we have here and start reinvesting in America. It will create jobs. It will increase our prosperity. It will help reduce the deficit in our budgets. It will have so many profound and positive rippling effects throughout our country and throughout our economy. It is with great pleasure that I have the opportunity to stand here and embrace this and urge my support for the motion to recommit, and perhaps even more importantly, the importance of passing the WRRDA legislation.

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 581, I was inadvertantly detained and missed the vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, distinguished Member from Florida, I rise in support of the Water Resources Reform and Development Act. I am a proud cosponsor of this legislation. It is a good example of bipartisanship and cooperation and common sense, as opposed to some of the politics that have dominated this Chamber. As a member of the Subcommittee on Water Resources, I was pleased to have had a part in several bipartisan provisions beneficial to the economy, to the environment, and to conservation. We are creating jobs and stimulating the business economy with this legislation. We are putting a stop to raids on the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund. We are expanding the definition of invasive species, now limited to plant life, to include animal life species like zebra mussels and Asian carp, and we are closing the lock and dam at St. Anthony Falls to prevent the spread of Asian carp through the precious lakes and rivers of northern Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, by passing this bill, the Congress demonstrates that we are still capable of achieving reasonable, bipartisan solutions that solve problems and get things done here in this country.

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, the time is long overdue for us to put an end to this government shutdown and the tremendously harmful effects it has had on the people in our great Nation. We need to get behind the Senate's reasonable, bipartisan plan that has been put together to open up our government, pay our bills, and put an end to this shutdown. Failure, by the way, means that 5 million disabled veterans won't receive their benefits in November. Failure means that 10 million Americans won't receive their Social Security checks on October 23, and 26 million more people will not get their Social Security checks on November 1. Failure means $36,000 in additional interest on an average home loan and an additional $1,000 on an average student loan. Failure means hundreds of thousands of public employees won't get paid, with the businesses and the jobs and the people they serve being at enormous risk. Mr. Speaker, the simple truth is that we need to end this government shutdown and stop the harm and damage it is causing.

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the House bring up the Senate amendment to House Joint Resolution 59 to open the government and to go to conference on a budget so that we can end this Republican government shutdown so hurtful and harmful to the American people.

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the House bring up the Senate amendment to House Joint Resolution 59, the clean CR, so that we can go to conference on a budget so we can end this Republican government shutdown.

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the work that has been done here in this bill. I want to commend Chairman Lucas and Ranking Member Collin Peterson for the tireless work that you and your staffs and your subcommittee chairs put into writing this legislation. It is the product of many years and a wealth of experience that has brought consumers and producers together, that has brought urban and rural people together, and that has produced an abundant supply of food for people here in this country and all over the world. American agriculture is just absolutely one of the wonders of the world. I believe that this motion helps to keep that great success and progress moving forward. Last but not least, I want to say how refreshing it was to be part of that committee markup. As you know, I was on a 32-year hiatus--the longest in history.

Mr. NOLAN. I have been asked time and time again how things are different from the way they were then. Believe me, there are a lot of differences, big and small; but one of the most refreshing things was to be a part of that Ag Committee open, bipartisan, free-wheeling markup, where anybody and everybody got their moment, got an opportunity to offer their resolution, got an opportunity to have a vote on it. I commend you, Mr. Chairman, for that kind of spirit. That is the kind of spirit that has moved this country and accounted for so much of our great success over the years. I urge adoption of this motion.

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Madam Speaker, listening to the debate here this afternoon, I am reminded of a statement from an old University of Minnesota law professor who once said that ``all political decisions revolve around who you're for.'' And I've heard both sides of this issue castigating one side or the other; but it becomes rather clear, as you listen to this debate, that the supporters of this resolution are in support of those multinational corporations and foreign corporations and foreign governments that stand to benefit from a change in our U.S. sugar policy. On the other side, the side that I choose to stand with, we have the producers such as the cane growers, the beet growers who put their crops in the field at risk every year, the men and women who work in the fields, who work in the plants processing sugar, and the consumers who benefit from a stable supply of reasonably priced sugar to satisfy our food needs here in this country. Madam Speaker, I strongly urge that we defeat this resolution and stick with the sugar program that has worked so well in this country for so long. In Minnesota alone, we have 32,500 people working in that industry. There are 142,000 people working throughout the country in this industry. Madam Speaker, this was a jobs bill. This was an American manufacturing and production bill. Let's defeat this resolution. Let's support the farmers. Let's support the workers. Let's support the consumers. Let's defeat this amendment.

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, I am proud to say that Rod was a constituent of mine in the last years of his life, running a small town radio station at which he did just a wonderfully good job. He was always so thoughtful and so dedicated to public service and so highly regarded by all who knew him. He was a wonderful public servant. He contributed much to the well-being of Minnesota and to this Nation and to the civility of this Chamber, itself. His contributions are enormous, and his presence will be forever apparent here, and we will miss him greatly. We extend our deepest, heartfelt sympathies to the family and to all of those who had the good fortune to know and work with Rod Grams.

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, the simple truth is--and everyone in this free world for that matter knows it--these amendments are intended for the soul purpose of shutting down the government. They're not going anywhere. Everybody knows it. To deny this House of Representatives an opportunity for an up-or- down vote is an affront to the American people, it's an affront to this institution, it's an affront to this democracy and every Member of this House. Mr. Speaker, Members of Congress, reject this rule so we can have a vote on a clean resolution and fund our government going forward.

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, it is time to put an end to the political stagecraft and the gridlock that's come to characterize this Chamber. It is time for a little common sense, some collaboration, and some compromise. Two hundred and thirty-eight years ago, the Founders of our great Nation risked their lives to establish this government. Imagine their reaction today as this body contemplates actions that would shut it down. I'm a business guy of 32 years. I've tried a lot of ways to fix problems over the years, but shutting down the store has never been one of them. Mr. Speaker, this is not a game. This is real life to the kids on Head Start, to the National Guard and the men and women in our Armed Forces being furloughed, to the seniors, to the students, the families struggling to get by, and to the millions of hardworking public servants who go to work every day on our behalf. Mr. Speaker, we need to put an end to this folly, pass a clean continuing resolution funding our government, and then get to work balancing our budget, ending the sequester, rebuilding America, rebuilding the middle class, and putting America back to work.

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to begin by commending and complimenting the gentleman from Wisconsin, Congressman Pocan, for the work that you're doing here in highlighting this important issue. There's so much to be said that one is not sure where to begin. You've provided a lot of the facts and a lot of the information, as have some of the other Members here. I'd like to just speak to the issue in a more general sense. To be sure, what's happening in this country has to be reversed. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is getting crushed. Corporations and banks are sitting on trillions of dollars. I'm a business guy. If there's a business opportunity out there, you invest in it; but if the middle class is broke, can't buy the goods and services, you're just going to sit on your cash and you're not going to invest it if there aren't customers there for your product. This is not only good for middle America and for poor people, raising the minimum wage is going to be so important for our whole economy. When I started my entry into the employment market, the ratio of executive compensation to that of the worker was 25 to 1. I just read recently today that the ratio is 273 to 1. To my point, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. We've just seen some numbers on the percentage of income that's earned by the upper 1 percent and by the upper 10 percent, and they're earning all the revenue. I would like to suggest that everybody, if they haven't done it yet, take a look at the Bill Moyers' film that was done in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, following the lives of two families. It was quite remarkable. Hats off to Bill Moyers for his vision in understanding how valuable a film like this could be because he followed two good, hardworking families playing by all of the rules, doing everything right, going to church on Sunday, not living extravagantly, no speedboats in their driveway, living in modest housing in wonderful modest communities. He followed them as they were entering into the employment market 22 years ago. They had good-paying manufacturing jobs in the $25 to $30 range. They had benefits and retirement. Both families, all the mothers and fathers, ended up losing their jobs, not through the failure to show up to work, but because tax and trade policies had shifted those manufacturing jobs overseas to another country. Through no fault of their own, they found themselves unemployed. Well, they struggled, and over a period of months they managed to find other jobs. Now they were back down in the $12 to $16 range, and in many cases they had lost benefits, but they were content. They just took an extra job here and there and wherever they could. Wouldn't you know, those jobs ended up being moved overseas because of our tax and our trade policies, and this time they had an even harder time finding employment. You could see all the stresses that--because Moyers was going back and visiting these people every year or two and recording what was happening in their lives, you could see the stress that was being created. In one of the families--oh, gosh, to see these two young kids in love in their youth and to see the young man go into a tailspin of depression at not being able to provide for his family and the conflict that ended up in divorce. He was hanging out with buddies at the end trying to pick up odd jobs here and there, and his wife is living in a spare bedroom in an apartment with a friend. The other couple, the guy is out picking up garbage. Then he showed what happened. They all lost their homes. It also showed what happened to the entire community. All the homes were boarded up. The neighborhood was in shambles because they had all been foreclosed. It was just a classic example of how we have failed these people. In my judgment, here's what we did: In our parents' time, at least my age group and maybe your grandparents, the average life expectancy in this country was 47; today, it's pushing 80. That is remarkable progress, especially for the two oldest guys here in the freshman class. Then we did a whole bunch of things. We looked, and the rivers and lakes were catching on fire; acid rain was destroying the forest and the lakes. I had people in my district whose lives were over. When they were 25 and 30 working in boat factories and for want of ventilation, their lungs were full of fiberglass, and so they couldn't breathe. Anyway, we did all these things. We set up some good rules for environmental protection. We set up some good rules for health and safety. We insisted on Medicare for our elderly and workers' comp and unemployment comp and Social Security. We put a tremendous amount of burden for all of that on our business community, our manufacturing sector. I know about that. I spent the last 32 years of my life in business, manufacturing. Then we said to all the manufacturers, Oh, by the way, now you're going to have to go compete with people in countries where they don't have to do any of that. It wasn't fair. It couldn't work. I'm not necessarily faulting corporations for moving overseas, but I am faulting the people responsible for the public policies that allowed that to happen. The first thing that we have to do here, in my judgment, is to raise the minimum wage. It's not a cure-all, but it's a good beginning to put some money back in the hands of low-income and middle America. There are also so many other things that we need to do. I just learned in one of our committees they were going to spend $89 billion in Afghanistan this year on infrastructure projects. I read in the Times one project was $299 million. Fifty brave young American men and women lost their lives securing the area for this hydroelectric project. And for every one that is killed, there is another six or seven that are maimed and harmed for life. Well, this project has now been abandoned because the locals kept blowing it up as fast as we could secure the area and build it. We need to start reinvesting in our own infrastructure, our bridges, our roads, our communities, our educational system, investing in our people. We're going bankrupt here on these wars of choice, in this nation-building abroad. We're destroying what made America a great country, a middle class, a place where there was opportunity for everybody. If you showed up and you wanted to work hard, there was a job for you. I submit, in my generation, if you wanted to be a failure, hell, you had to have a plan. There were just so many jobs and so many good-paying jobs and so many opportunities. And that's what we're losing, and that's what we have to get back to in this country. I think we can start by raising the minimum wage. I am so thrilled to be able to join you and my colleagues in urging the leadership here to bring this measure before the Congress. Let us have the debate. Let us have a vote on it. Let us see if we can't move this country forward. Let us see if we can't do something for the middle class here, and then let's follow that up with a good, healthy debate on what kind of a trade policy we are going to have. Is it going to be totally free, or is it going to be fair trade that recognizes the accomplishments that we've made here with a determination to keep moving that progress forward? Also, let's have a good look at the tax policies, too. The fact is anyone who has examined it knows that clearly the richest and most powerful people in this country pay a much lower percentage of their income in taxes than the average person. They just did an analysis in Minnesota here a while back. The average person making between $30,000 and $50,000 pays 31 percent of their income in a variety of taxes-- Social Security, income, real estate, gas taxes, the whole works. The average millionaire is only paying 13 percent. Well, that's not fair. Nobody's suggesting here that we should penalize the rich for their success. On the contrary, we want everybody to be successful in this country, but we also want everybody to pay their fair share. So there's no one easy, simple solution to what we're looking at here, but we can start with raising the minimum wage, and then let's go after the tax policy and let's go after the trade policy. Let's institute some fairness in this country. Let's rebuild the middle class, let's restore the American Dream where there's opportunity for everyone--everyone who's willing to go to work, play by the rules, work hard, and go to work every day. That's the America we grew up with. That's the America that we want to leave behind when we pass on to the big country. Thank you.

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

Mr. NOLAN. I am opposed.

Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, my final amendment would protect important tax credits and tax breaks for middle-income families and for small businesses. It will not kill or send this bill back to committee. It will allow us to proceed with final passage, should it pass. Now, to the heart of what this is really all about, I thought our colleague from California (Mr. Thompson) here a few minutes ago characterized it quite well when he said this should be called the ``40th Waste of Taxpayers Time and Money Act,'' not an alternative to the Affordable Care Act. The fact is that the Republican opposition here is engaged in their 40th political attempt to undo the Affordable Care Act and offering us no alternatives to the time when 46 million Americans have no insurance, when health care and insurance rates were rising at a rate of 20 percent per year. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, ``no'' is not a plan; ``no'' is not an answer. President Harry Truman was fond of saying--and forgive me for quoting him directly, but he used to like to say, ``Any jackass can tear down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one.'' I'm challenging my colleagues: Are you here to tear down the barn or are you here to build one? Mr. Speaker, I feel compelled to ask, are you really serious when you come before us here and you say you really, truly want to increase taxes on families and small businesses, as this bill would do? Are you really serious when you say you want to take away from students the right to stay on their parents' insurance policy while they're struggling with the difficulties of the increased cost of education? The American people don't want that. What is your plan? Mr. Speaker, are you really serious when you say you want to deny people with preexisting conditions the right to have health insurance? The American public doesn't want that. What is your plan? Are you really serious when you want to continue this de facto notion that women somehow, by definition, are living with preexisting conditions and are charged more for the exact same policies as men would pay for? The American people are not. What is your plan? Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues, are you really serious when you want to vote to eliminate free prevention care, which saves lives, which helps save costs in our medical system? The American people are not. What is your plan? Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues, are you really serious when you say you want to remove the cap on insurance companies' liabilities, the very cap that forces people with serious accidents and illnesses into bankruptcy? The American people don't want that. What is your plan? Last but not least, Mr. Speaker, are you prepared to vote to deny senior citizens the relief from the increased costs in pharmaceuticals as a result of that doughnut hole? The seniors in this country are not. Again I ask you, what is your plan? Mr. Speaker, that's what's at heart here. We have had 40 attempts to repeal this bill, and we haven't seen one single plan offered forward here. This is a waste of time. Let us get serious. Let us start to show some bipartisanship. And let's start with it here today by passing my amendment. Mr. Speaker, it's no secret; the public has weighed in on this. This Congress is acknowledged by all parties and all spectrums as the most unproductive Congress in the history of this country. That's shameful. Polls show us 25 points behind cockroaches in popularity, 23 percentage points behind--what was the last one?--oh, root canals. We're just slightly ahead of Genghis Khan and the Communist Party in popularity. It's time that we put an end to this nonsense, put this Congress to work, postpone/cancel this recess. Let's put an end to this nonsense, get America working again, and get this country working again.

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, there were 87 new Members elected in the last session of the Congress--about half of them Republicans, about half of them Democrats. I'll tell you what, we all got the same message in the last election, and that was that the people in this country had had it with gridlock and partisanship, and they wanted to see some more collaboration, some cooperation, some problem-solving, fixing things, getting things done. There is so much that we agree on. I mean, our roads are in need of repair; our bridges are literally falling down; the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer; the middle class is getting crushed, and we all want to rebuild this middle class; there are millions of people who are unemployed every day, and there are millions more who are underemployed. Mr. Speaker, I'm a businessman. I've been a business owner, responsible for the bottom line and for getting things done in my business. I've got to tell you, if we weren't getting the job done, we wouldn't be going on a 5-week recess, vacation--or whatever it is you want to call it. There are so many pressing needs, and we are scheduled to be in session for 9 days in September, and we know what those Mondays and Tuesdays are like. We know what happens here. So we're looking at about 3 or 4 days, and what have we got to deal with? We have to deal with appropriations, the budget, the farm bill, the jobs bill, immigration, transportation, the debt ceiling--and there are Members of this Congress who are calling for a shutdown of the Federal Government. So I wanted to address just two things today. One is to postpone, or delay, this recess; and let's take up a couple of things. Like I said, our bridges are falling down. Let's take up the SAFE Bridges Act that Congressman Rahall has offered. Let's take up the American Jobs Act that the President has offered. Let's put people to work in this country. Let's support Congresswoman Slaughter's motion to defeat the previous question, and let's amend it to allow for the consideration of the SAFE Bridges Act.

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, I am calling on the Speaker to cancel or to postpone the August recess until we get our work done here. As a businessman, the last thing I would ever consider doing is giving my employees a month or 5 weeks off when we're not getting our job done. Mr. Speaker, you're the boss. You set the schedule, and you put together the work agenda. The simple truth is that this Congress is being recognized as the least productive or accomplished in the history of this country. We have an appropriations bill; we have budget bills; we have the farm bill; we have immigration; we have the President's jobs bill; we have the debt ceiling limit; we have Members of Congress threatening to shut down the government--and we're going on a recess? It makes no sense whatsoever. It's time that this Congress goes to work, puts the subcommittees to work, goes to work 5 days a week like everybody else in America, and does its job. Put America back to work. Rebuild the middle class. Get this country moving again. Mr. Speaker, cancel this recess.

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, first I'd like to thank Representative Pompeo for sponsoring this important legislation. And of course, thanks to our Chairman Shuster and Ranking Member Rahall and to both my Democratic and Republican colleagues on the committee for bringing this Small Aircraft Revitalization Act to the floor of the Congress in such an expeditious and bipartisan manner. Mr. Speaker, by streamlining and modernizing the rules and regulations that govern our small aircraft industry, we'll be encouraging the investment necessary to generate thousands of new American jobs. What this legislation does, in effect, is put together a regulatory regime that will be specifically tailored for the small aircraft industry that will allow the industry to develop performance and outcome-based ways of achieving important safety standards. It allows them to put together consensus regulations that are developed by industry, government regulators, and private nonprofit associations, and enables the industry to unleash technologies of the future, creating jobs. I'm so proud of Cirrus Aircraft in my district in Duluth, Minnesota. They've developed a parachute that is attached to the airplane and, like a skydiver, if the airplane stalls in the sky, you can pull a ripcord and parachute the plane down to safety. These are the kinds of technologies that have the potential to be released through this legislation. What it does, in short, is enable the designers, engineers, manufacturers, creators, and skilled workers to release all their brilliance, creating the best, safest airplane technologies going forward into the future. So I applaud the committee and my colleagues in Congress for bringing this forward in such an expeditious manner, and I strongly urge all my colleagues to support this important piece of legislation.

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks in strong opposition to the farm bill rule and the underlying bill because it violates a decade-old principle uniting urban and rural interests together in feeding hungry people.

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the bill because it violates a decades-old principle that has brought rural people and urban people together to help protect them from the vagaries of life and weather and circumstances. It brought farm producers together to help meet the food and nutrition needs of hungry people here in this country and all over the world. It is one of the best things we've ever done. And this bill violates that fundamental, noble principle of bringing people together for a noble cause, feeding hungry people and encouraging the production of food and nutrition. Mr. Speaker and members of the committee, please vote this bill down.

Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, I stand here today with the Ranking Member in opposition to the split farm bill before us. Setting a closed rule on this midnight-hour, backroom deal is not the way the American people elected us to govern. I am privileged to sit on the Agriculture Committee. During the markup of the farm bill earlier this year, my colleagues and I discussed and debated and deliberated for ten hours on every provision of this bill. That bill included critical reform of the dairy program, reauthorization of the Rural Broadband program, as well as important provisions for organic producers, beginning farmers and ranchers, conservationists, and the forestry industry. We reached a bipartisan consensus and 36 of us--myself included--cast a vote in support of the legislation. Then, on the floor, the legislation was systematically dismantled, piece by piece, until it was barely recognizable as the same farm bill that came out of committee. It was no surprise that this bill failed. Rather than going back to committee to work on a better compromise, we are here voting on a more-than-600 page bill that only became available late last night. This bill is even worse than the one that failed, and now the process itself has been poisoned. The American people did not elect us to conduct their business behind closed doors at midnight.

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, it's time that the Congress get to work and stop this doubling of the interest rates on our student loans. I'd like to take this moment to remind my colleagues here in the House that our generation was able to graduate from universities and enjoy great success for the most part debt free because college costs were less and we were able to get a combination of grants and scholarships. What we're doing to today's generation is unforgivable; it's unconscionable. They're expected to graduate with $30,000 in debt, on average. We were able to start building families and homes and businesses and buy cars. Our generation that we're handing over to is expected to pay loans. We just simply cannot allow this to happen. It's not right. We all have an obligation to pay forward. This country has been so good to our generation; it's time for us to pay back. Let's step up, get to work, and stop this increase from taking place. And last, but not least, let's put it in perspective. For what we spent on the war in Iraq, $1 trillion, we could have sent an entire generation of young men and women through college and let them graduate debt free. Let's get our priorities in order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.