Louise Slaughter

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question, and vote ``no'' on the underlying bill. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, how quickly we forget what got us into the economic mess in the first place. I was here 6 short years ago when the recklessness on Wall Street triggered the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and cost millions of hardworking Americans their jobs and their homes. Since then, Democratic majorities in the House and Senate have enacted reforms, known commonly as Dodd-Frank, to stop the worst of these abuses with the aim of preventing another economic meltdown. Obviously, since that time, copious American dollars have been spent, and legions of lobbyists have come in, to try to undo Dodd-Frank. This is the first of other bills that we will get that will do away with regulation. Unfortunately, the authorization passed out of the Rules Committee last night is a backdoor attempt to undo some of the crucial reforms and is a precursor to another financial crisis. Why wouldn't the Rules Committee give equal debate time to the Financial Services Committee, which has real jurisdiction over what we are doing here today? Why would they disallow that? It is because they didn't want anybody to hear it. If the Agriculture Committee were unanimous, I don't know what its reason was, but many Democrats and, certainly, those of us on the Rules Committee and others who are going to be here today want to be solidly in the ``no'' column because, if what we fear will happen happens, we want the country to know that somebody tried to stop it as there are crucial reforms that we talk about in this bill which are going to handcuff and obstruct the law enforcement officials who are charged with overseeing the markets and enforcing the regulations on Wall Street. When we found out 6 years ago, I was a member of the leadership then and was chair of the Rules Committee. We got a message on Saturday afternoon. It was three paragraphs, which Mr. Hastings did a wonderful job of explaining, from Secretary Paulson and the head of the Fed, Mr. Bernanke. It was very short and quite succinct. Basically, if we did not provide them--the Treasury and the Fed--with $800 billion by Tuesday--and this was Saturday--the financial services in the United States would be defunct. We would be finished. This was pretty frightening because all we knew is that fancy things were going on on Wall Street and that mortgages were being chopped up and sold in pieces. I think they unloaded a lot of it onto Germany's Deutsche Bank. We not only affected our economy, but we affected other parts of the world. It was a disaster--people lost houses that they had spent their lives trying to get; children were displaced from their homes and from their schools; people were without their jobs--simply because they were playing tricks, passing paper back and forth to each other, and there was not strong enough regulation in this country for the people who did the oversight to even know what was going on.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. This was one of the most awful things that we had ever gone through. We watched what happened to our neighbors and to those in other parts of this country where people were literally forced out onto the streets because of what Wall Street had done, not because of anything they had done. People who had paid their mortgages faithfully every single month suddenly found out that those mortgages were worthless, that their mortgages were more expensive to them at that time than their houses were worth on the market. Why in the world would we have any attempt here to undo any of that? Those lobbyists and all of that money made their statements pretty clear. On our side, we are trying to hold up the other side. We want to speak for those people who lost their jobs. We want to speak for those people who lost their homes. We want to say to the small businesses that had no access to capital and went under that we are trying to protect your interests here. Whatever happens, we know we don't have the votes--you have got them. We do know that this is a majority that hates regulation whether it is clean air or clean water. Whatever it is, get rid of it. Then you come back down here to Wall Street and know the effect that it has had. We haven't completely recovered from that recession. God knows we have not passed any legislation in the House of Representatives to create jobs or to make it any better. We do everything that we can just to benefit those people who have the money. We all know how this movie ends. If it moves forward as written, we are sowing the seeds for future disaster in this country. Last night, at the Rules Committee, we called for a ``no'' vote, and we said specifically what we were doing. We wanted to be on record on our side as trying to protect the American public and their futures so that they have some confidence again in what they are doing. We would love it if banks would again stop passing paper back and forth to each other and would make loans and get people back to work. We, of course, were not able to do that as 2-9, I believe, was the vote. We will see what happens when this comes to the floor, as it certainly will. We just simply, as I said, want to make sure because, the last time this came up, we didn't have the opportunity to speak. We are a solid ``no.''

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the Water Resources Reform and Development Act. Not only will this bill create badly-needed jobs, as co-chair of the House Great Lakes Task Force, I'm especially pleased that this bill establishes the Great Lakes Navigation System. The Great Lakes comprise nearly 20 percent of the world's fresh water and are a precious resource. They're responsible for nearly 130,000 jobs in the United States, and the economic activity they generate creates over $18 billion in annual revenue; maintaining the Great Lakes truly maintains our Nation. By joining ports and waterways throughout the Great Lakes and establishing the Great Lakes Navigation System, we will ensure that there is adequate funding to keep our infrastructure maintained and strong. In fact, in my own district, we started dredging the Port of Rochester last week, and by establishing the Great Lakes Navigation System, funding to maintain the port and dredge in the future will be consistent and reliable through the Harbor Maintenance Fund. With this bill, we make certain that the 145 million tons of commodities that are carried through the Great Lakes Navigation System every year can be transported efficiently and safely, and I commend everyone who worked on this tremendous achievement.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes and yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the 2012 attack on Benghazi was a tragedy that took the lives of brave American public servants representing and serving our country. And Congress has an obligation here--both to the families of the victims and to the country--to try to prevent this from ever happening again. But that is not at all what we are doing here today. The Senate has produced two bipartisan reports on the issue, and the State Department's Accountability Review Board has produced a constructive, unbiased report. There is a vast body of evidence already collected, and none of it demonstrates any sort of coverup or conspiracy. The majority here has had 13 congressional hearings over four committees, 50 briefings, produced five reports and 25,000 pages of documentation, wasted countless millions of dollars, and has gotten absolutely nowhere. One more committee weighted in favor of the majority is not going to do any better. We have bottomed out on Benghazi. Nonetheless, the majority has repeatedly demonstrated that rather than engaging in a serious, objective examination of the circumstances, they want to use the tragedy as an excuse to generate partisan talking points, and then has descended into the crass and the unbelievable. Several press reports this week, including one from Politico, indicate that the National Republican Congressional Committee sent out a fundraising email entitled ``You Can Become a Benghazi Watchdog Right Now,'' and that leads to a donation page where you have to pay to be a Benghazi watchdog. And even after their fundraising effort was exposed, Republicans are continuing to use this effort to raise money off of this tragedy. This morning's Politico says: ``Republicans stick with Benghazi cash grab.'' Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit into the Record these two articles from Politico, May 8 and May 9. The first one, ``NRCC''--which stands for the National Republican Congressional Committee-- ``fundraising off Benghazi,'' and the second one this morning, ``Republicans stick with Benghazi cash grab.'' [From POLITICO, May 7, 2014] NRCC Fundraising Off of Benghazi (By Jake Sherman) The House Republican campaign arm is rebuffing the chairman of the Benghazi select committee and is raising money off the GOP's investigation into the 2012 attack. A post on the National Republican Congressional Committee website dated May 6 is titled ``You Can Become a Benghazi Watchdog Right Now.'' ``House Republicans will make sure that no one will get away from [Trey] Gowdy and the Select Committee,'' the blog post says. ``This is going to be a national effort for a national investigation.'' Once a visitor to the site enters their name, email and ZIP code, it asks for a donation to ``stop Democrats from controlling all of Washington.'' But Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), whom Speaker John Boehner (R- Ohio) tapped to chair the panel, said Wednesday morning on MSNBC's ``Morning Joe'' he would ask Republicans to forgo fundraising off the attacks. ``Yes, and I will cite myself as an example,'' Gowdy said. ``I have never sought to raise a single penny on the backs of four murdered Americans.'' For right now, the NRCC doesn't appear to be backing down. ``The Obama administration has not been honest with the American people with regards to the security failures in Benghazi, which left four Americans dead,'' said NRCC spokeswoman Andrea Bozek. ``Our goal is to hold Democrats in Congress accountable who vote against creating the select committee on Benghazi and who continue to try to sweep this controversy under the rug.''

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Additionally, reports today from a prominent journalist say that Mr. Boehner himself says that he will not try to stop the fundraising. The majority is demonstrating without a shadow of a doubt that like the many, many votes we have taken trying to kill health care, this is a political move. That is the most crass and awful thing to do to the families of these four people who died. We keep over and over rubbing salt into that awful wound by bringing this up over and over. And how do you think they feel now knowing what this game is about in the House of Representatives? I am appalled the majority would use these deaths for political gain and political money when what the families of the victims and Americans want to do is to ensure it never happens again. But we are doing nothing in the world to ensure that. Not only is the majority disregarding the bipartisan findings, but their own process is so wrought with error, partisanship, and deception that leaders in their own party are calling foul. The Oversight Committee has produced several witnesses of dubious quality, but the most recent one is a brigadier general, to testify about the minority, and the minority was only give his name and had no way--we didn't have any address or anything else--to even verify his credentials. We are indebted to Congressman Buck McKeon, Armed Services Committee chairman, who discredited this witness by calling Brigadier General Robert Lovell an unreliable witness and criticized Lovell's assertion that the State Department was not quick to deploy troops to respond to the 2012 terrorist attack in Libya. Lovell testified Thursday before Issa's oversight panel. Congressman McKeon stated: Brigadier General Lovell did not serve in a capacity that gave him reliable insight into operational options available to commanders during the attack, nor did he offer specific courses of action not taken. McKeon added: The Armed Services Committee has interviewed more than a dozen witnesses in the operational chain of command that night, yielding thousands of pages of transcripts, emails, and other documents. We have no evidence that State Department officials delayed the decision to deploy what few resources DOD had available to respond. How tragic is that? How tacky is that? How beneath the dignity of the House of Representatives is that? I have an amendment to this resolution based on a simple premise that, if this thing is going to be put together and funded, that it really does some kind of work bipartisanly, which would be really strange in this House, but the idea of having another committee to try to get different results from all of other committees and all of the other hearings with the results they have had really is a foolish waste of time. Our amendment makes membership on the committee equally divided between Republicans and Democrats. We know already that is not going to happen. It guarantees the minority signoff on subpoenas and depositions--no such luck. It guarantees equal distribution of money, staffing, and other resources of the committee. It requires the committee to establish written rules--that would be a good one--specifically including rules concerning how documents and other information may be obtained, used, or released. It guarantees equal access to evidence and materials of the committee and perhaps can identify witnesses who are going to be coming before the committee. It provides for transparency of the committee's expenditures and budgeting. It ensures that a quorum for taking testimony or receiving evidence includes at least one minority member. Finally, it ensures that the majority has a say in decisions about extended questioning and staff questioning of witnesses. Mr. Speaker, it is shameful what is happening here today. People, not just persons right now, but I believe that future historians looking at the setup of this committee will be appalled, as all of the rest of us are on our side, that to make use politically and financially of the tragedy of the loss of four brave Americans is beneath contempt. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly), the ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Government Operations.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman. Mr. CONNOLLY. We probably couldn't have done more than we did.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield the gentlewoman another minute.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), a member of the Committee on Rules.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from New York.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, we all agree--I think all Americans agree, and we certainly understand from the Speaker that he agrees that the attack on Benghazi was a tragedy; but here we are, once again, riling up the community and the country and causing, again, grief to the families of the four people who died, in a pursuit of some kind of truth that they were unable to find in 2 years of hearings, over four committees, 13 congressional hearings, 50 briefings, five reports, 25,000 pages of documentation, and wasted millions of dollars, going nowhere, and that is just in the House. The Senate has held hearings. The State Department did a thorough report; and yet, now, after all that, we want the truth. What does it say about the House of Representatives that whatever that was going on over there did not get to the truth? This is so reminiscent of what we have done in the House of Representatives by doing over and over and over again, like trying to repeal the health care, that we are just going to keep doing it until you reach whatever it is you want. Well, we know what it is you want with this special committee. We understand that thoroughly. Earlier today--I want to make a comment, that one of my friends on the other side of the aisle--I deeply regret this--cited a report claiming that the Democrats were fundraising off of the crass Republican fundraising off Benghazi. Certainly, we looked into that because I was very concerned because I was the one making the charge about the fundraising. It is absolutely false that Democrats are doing that. That report was from The Daily Caller, a conservative Web site, and all they found was that the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee posted a statement on his Web site condemning the Republican campaign committee for their attempt to capitalize and fundraise off the tragedy in Benghazi. Let's stick to the facts here. You are going to continue. As I understand it, several reporters have asked the leadership do they intend to stop fundraising off these people's deaths; and the answer is, no, they don't. So what we are doing here, again, is an awful waste of time, is looking for another answer to something that--unless you get some answer that you want, I guess we will go on even yet another year or so. Now, one more committee that will be weighted in favor of the majority, as this one is expected to do, will do absolutely nothing to yield different results. I had an amendment to this bill that was based on a simple premise, that the investigations and reports on the tragic attack in Benghazi produced by the House committees so far have been nothing but partisan and political. My amendment would have made membership on the committee equally divided between the minority and the majority and would have guaranteed minority signoff on subpoenas and depositions and guaranteed equal distribution and money and staffing and other resources of the committee and certainly have ensured that the witnesses who come before that committee, unlike the other witnesses that the Oversight and Government Reform Committee has had, who were totally ineligible to even speak on the subject--one of them, I gather, was giving all the details of what happened that night, but he happened to be in Germany at the time. Had our amendment passed, we could have added some decorum to this process, and we could have worked to ensure the tragedy never happens again, but it is clear that this majority will not allow that. So we have seen all the reports. We know what everybody thinks; and we know that, once again, we will be going into this because you are the majority, and you have the votes to do it. I am appalled by this posturing. To use the tragedy of those four deaths for political and financial gain is shameful and contemptible. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch), a member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, let me yield myself 20 seconds to just respond to that. Mr. Speaker, I would be outraged, too, if anybody did the things that he accused us of doing, and I don't believe a word of it. I am now pleased to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly), the ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on Government Operations.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, for rebuttal, I am going to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire if my colleague has more requests for time?

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I reserve the balance of my time to close.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I reserve the balance of my time as long as my colleague has speakers.