Louise Slaughter

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close. Madam Speaker, this bill spends $1.1 trillion to fund the Federal Government. While we may yet avert another government shutdown, a lot of our trust in the legislative process has been destroyed. If a provision to allow the United States to be mined for uranium by a company with ties to Iran can be inserted into and passed with the National Defense Authorization Act, taking away land sacred to an Indian tribe, what other deplorable and risk-ladened bills are in this House majority bill? Heaven only knows what other egregious actions we will find. The House majority continues to govern via manufactured crises. Regular appropriations bills have been replaced with temporary stopgap measures. Cliffs and brinks and fits and starts continue. The majority has another opportunity in the new Congress to do the good work of government and to provide stability to the American people with the American people put ahead of banking interests and political party interests--and I pray they do. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule and the bill underlying it. And to end the 113th Congress, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), a member of the Appropriations Committee.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I want to take just a moment to say I know this will be the last time you will be presiding over the House, and I want to thank you for your friendship over all these years. Working together with you has been a pleasure. I want to thank my friend from Oklahoma for yielding me the customary time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me say about him, he is someone I admire very greatly. But I don't admire this bill. I have to rise to debate the rule for the final bill of the 113th Congress, which is the most closed Congress in history. The House majority has, over and over again, stifled debate, limited the ability of Members of this body to participate in the legislative process, and undermined the institution. We have had 83 closed rules this term, the most in history, and this bill follows suit and has been, again, brought to us under a closed rule, which means that no Member will be able to offer an amendment; and the $1.1 trillion spending bill to keep the Federal Government funded will be rushed through the legislative process because the deadline to keep the government open is 11:59 this evening. By the same circumstance, I was doing a rule the night of the last time the government shut down, still on the floor at midnight and made the announcement that the great Government of the United States of America was closed. We don't, obviously, none of us, want to see that again, but we do see dysfunction mirrored in the Rules Committee, because all of our meetings are now only declared emergency. That means it has not gone to any committee, has no public input, no hearing, no markups, and no time to fully consider the legislation. The bill has been brought to us under an onerous, blatantly political process, and its contents are troubling as well. It seems to me that with every passing hour, a new alarming provision comes to light. Perhaps if the House majority had spent less time voting to undermine the health care law, taking health care away from people, or investigating a nonexistent scandal in Benghazi, we might have been able to do a budget. While this may have averted another dangerous government shutdown, what we are doing now, this bill, is another example of the preferred method of governance--manufactured crises. We are pushed and pulled from the brink for their political games, and America suffers. At 1,603 pages, this spending bill is a behemoth. It was submitted in the dark of night at the last minute in hopes that we wouldn't find out what is in it and serves as further proof that the majority has reneged on their pledge of transparency. Speaker Boehner, himself, said in December of 2010, as reported by the New York Times: I do not believe that having 2,000-page bills on the House floor serves anyone's best interest--not the House, not the Members, and certainly not the American people. He was referring, of course, to the fact that we would have 72 hours to examine such legislation. Madam Speaker, I submit for the Record the New York Times' article from December 17, 2010, entitled: ``Republicans Prepare for Looming Budget Battle''--even then. [From the New York Times, Dec. 17, 2010] Republicans Prepare for Looming Budget Battle (By Carl Hulse) Washington.--The collapse of a government-wide spending package in the final days of this Congressional session sets up a politically charged fiscal showdown early next year, testing the determination of Republicans about to take over the House with promises to slash an array of domestic programs. As Congress struggled to assemble a stopgap measure to finance the government at least into the first months of 2011, House and Senate Republicans on Friday hailed their ability to derail a $1.2 trillion spending measure put forward by Senate Democrats, and promised to use their new Congressional muscle to respond to public demands to shrink government. ``Beginning in January, the House is going to become the outpost in Washington for the American people and their desire for a smaller, less costly and more accountable government,'' said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the incoming House speaker. ``I will tell you,'' he added, ``we are going to cut spending.'' With the lame-duck session entering its final days, there was an air of partisan chaos on Capitol Hill as both parties scored important legislative victories and events changed on an almost hour-to-hour basis as the end of Democratic control of the House approached. Both President Obama and Congressional Republicans claimed credit for the package of tax cuts and unemployment pay the president signed into law Friday. Democrats also appeared poised to repeal the ban on gay and lesbian troops serving openly in the military, a long-sought goal of the party and its progressive constituency. The House advanced a major Pentagon policy measure that had previously been tied up in the fight over the military's ``don't ask, don't tell'' policy. At the same time, a major immigration measure championed by Democrats and the White House seemed headed toward defeat as early as Saturday. Republicans celebrated their blockade of the spending package, which Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, had to abandon after Republicans denied him the handful of votes from their side of the aisle that he was counting on to break a filibuster. Republicans said their determination to kill the omnibus spending package even when top party lawmakers had inserted pet spending projects demonstrated that they were heeding the fervor of voters who were fed up with giant spending measures slipping through Congress in the final hours. ``The defeat of the omnibus should reassure every American that their voice is making a difference in Washington,'' said Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican and an outspoken foe of increased federal spending. But the collapse of the Senate measure, which like its House counterpart would have financed government agencies through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, means Republicans could begin the new Congress with an immediate need to resolve the spending stalemate. With the Senate making slow progress toward a stopgap measure, the House on Friday approved a plan to keep the government open through Tuesday and the Senate later followed suit to prevent a government shutdown after Saturday. Aides said that behind closed doors, White House officials and some Democratic lawmakers were still trying to strike a deal to finance the government through September. But the officials said it was much more likely that government financing would be extended only into February or March. Republicans say that timeline will allow them to quickly put their stamp on the budget for the current fiscal year, and Mr. Boehner and his leadership team have vowed to eliminate about $100 billion in spending out of about $400 billion in domestic programs. Both sides say reaching that goal will mean very difficult choices and Democrats, promising to resist Republican efforts, say Republicans may find it easier to talk about cutting than actually doing it. ``They have been really good about talking about the need to cut this and cut that, but they are never specific,'' said Representative James P. McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts. ``I think it is going to be tough.'' The 2011 spending fight could be complicated by the need to raise the federal debt limit to avoid a federal default--a vote that many new Republican lawmakers have indicated they would not make. Republicans say the debt limit vote could also present an opportunity, allowing them to tie a package of spending reductions to the debt increase to make it more palatable. Another complicating factor is that since Democrats retain control of the Senate, House Republicans must reconcile their spending proposals with those crafted by the Senate Appropriations Committee under the leadership of Senator Daniel K. Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii. Senator Inouye is unlikely to agree easily to Republican spending cuts, creating a climate for gridlock as the two parties face off. On Friday, Mr. Inouye chastised Congress for jettisoning the spending package crafted by his committee, saying that simply extending current funding levels left the government on autopilot and could lead to disruptions. He said it also left too much discretion for determining spending priorities to the executive branch. ``And in two months we will find ourselves having to pass another 2,000-page bill that will cost more than $1 trillion or once again abdicate our authority to the Obama administration to determine how our taxpayer funds should be spent,'' he said. Mr. Boehner has made changing the culture of the Appropriations Committee a top interest of the new Republican majority, pressing new leaders of the panel to turn it into a center for budget cutting and stocking it with a few anti- spending advocates. On Friday, he indicated that he would prefer that Republicans next year break up the enormous spending package that died in the Senate and pass a dozen spending bills individually to allow for better scrutiny--a process that could consume considerable time and subject the measures to multiple attacks on the floor. ``I do not believe that having 2,000-page bills on the House floor serves anyone's best interests, not the House, not for the members and certainly not for the American people,'' Mr. Boehner said. Aides to Mr. Boehner later said the speaker-designate was referring to his desire to have an orderly appropriations process later in 2011 and was not referring to the spending package Republicans would have to quickly assemble in the opening weeks of the new Congress. Lawmakers on both sides were running out of energy and patience as the session dragged on with no certain conclusion in sight. Even House Democrats who would be turning over control to Republicans seemed ready to call it quits. ``A lot of us just want to go home,'' said Representative John B. Larson of Connecticut, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, this bill can cause grievous harm to the Department of Homeland Security by funding it until only February of next year, and it really does endanger the Nation's safety and security because they are the people who provide border security and the TSA. I have said this in the past--but it bears repeating--that funding the government in tranches weakens, destabilizes, and undermines our Nation. The majority's insistence on punishing the President for his executive order on immigration by toying with the funding for the Department of Homeland Security, of all things, is troubling. This maneuver will hinder how we train new officers, how we guard the border, and it will endanger the Nation's airports; but the most egregious provisions of this bill strike at the very soul of our democracy. A last-minute, nongermane addition would fundamentally change our Republic. It gives away almost all power of the people to choose their leaders and to participate in their government by cementing the status of power donors. This provision changes campaign finance law to allow megadonors to give 10 times the amount currently allowed to political parties for housekeeping, and those of us in the political field know what it means to have the housekeeping accounts: that means it can go for absolutely anything. This change flies in the face of McCain- Feingold, and it completes the mission of the Supreme Court with their decision on Citizens United. This tenet has been central to our democracy in that each person has equal power to influence their government by their voice and their vote. Not only has this Congress refused to reenact the Voting Rights Act, but this added provision will hasten the toxic influence of money and will further corrupt and unbalance our democracy. Furthermore, the underlying bill includes a provision added only 2 days ago that would put our economy in danger and would roll back the gains made since the Great Recession. This most egregious provision would change the Dodd-Frank bill to give undue power back to the banks. The provision puts the taxpayers on the hook for risky behaviors by Wall Street banks, meaning, once again, that taxpayers will have to bail out the banks if they fail. It was a basic tenet of Dodd-Frank's that we would never do that again, and that will now be undone. It has been only 5 years since the start of the Great Recession, and the economy has made great strides in adding 10.9 million private sector jobs in the last 57 months, but passing this bill would risk erasing those strides by steering us on a dangerous path toward another recession. The former chair of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank, released a statement this week, calling this inserted provision: ``a substantive mistake, a terrible violation of the procedure that should be followed on this complex and important subject, and a frightening precedent that provides a roadmap for further attacks on our protection against financial instability.'' He continues: ``Ironically, it was a similar unrelated rider put without debate into a larger bill that played a major role in allowing irresponsible, unregulated derivative transactions to contribute to the crisis.'' He is referring to the crisis of 2008. He is warning us. He is imploring us: Don't make the same mistake twice. Our national economy cannot take this risk. Madam Speaker, I would like to insert this article from The Wall Street Journal from December 10, 2014, entitled: ``Barney Frank Criticizes Planned Rollback of Namesake Financial Law,'' into the Record. [From the Wall Street Journal, Dec. 10, 2014] Barney Frank Criticizes Planned Roll-Back of Namesake Financial Law (By Andrew Ackerman) Washington.--Retired House Democrat Barney Frank urged his former colleagues to vote against a nearly $1.1 trillion spending plan, saying it constitutes an attack on a Wall Street regulatory overhaul he co-authored in response to the financial crisis. At issue is a provision included in the plan that would rollback a controversial part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law requiring banks to ``push out'' some of their riskiest derivatives-trading activities into affiliates that aren't eligible for federal backstop programs. Mr. Frank is one of two namesakes of the law along with former Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), who is also retired from Congress. ``The provision inserted into the appropriations bill is a substantive mistake, a terrible violation of the procedure that should be followed on this complex and important subject, and a frightening precedent that provides a road map for further attacks on our protection against financial instability,'' the Massachusetts Democrat said in a statement Wednesday. The comments came hours after House and Senate lawmakers unveiled the plan, which would keep the federal government funded through September. The roll-back of the Dodd-Frank provision was included as part of an agreement to provide modest funding increases to the two agencies primarily responsible for implementing and policing Dodd-Frank--the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) and other congressional Democrats also warned against the move, saying it would ``open the door to future bailouts funded by American taxpayers.'' ``This provision, originally written by lobbyists, has no place in a must-pass spending bill,'' he said in a statement. Critics of the ``push out'' provision, including Federal Reserve officials as well as some Democrat and Republican lawmakers, say it doesn't strengthen the financial system and only moves potentially destabilizing activities to a different bank subsidiary. The provision could also increase costs for bank customers that use the derivatives. Derivatives, which played a central role in the crisis, are used by firms to hedge or speculate on everything from moves in interest rates to the cost of fuel. Mr. Frank said reasonable people can disagree on how to regulate derivatives. But he criticized the plan to change regulations through ``a non-germane amendment inserted with no hearings, no chance for further modification and no chance for debate into a mammoth bill in the last days of a lame- duck Congress.'' ``Ironically it was a similar unrelated rider put without debate into a larger bill that played a major role in allowing irresponsible, unregulated derivative transactions to contribute to the crisis,'' Mr. Frank said, referring to 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act that essentially barred the regulation of derivatives and was signed into law as part of a larger appropriations bill.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, for these reasons and several others, Democrats should not support this bill, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' against the rule. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I yield 20 seconds to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Ms. Edwards).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the Democrat whip.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutch).

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, as a co-Chair of the House Great Lakes Task Force, I rise in strong support of H.R. 5764, The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative Act. This bipartisan legislation authorizes the popular Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. This program is critical to restoring and protecting the Great Lakes, which hold over 20 percent of the world's surface freshwater and are the source of drinking water, jobs, and recreation for millions of Americans. I have represented districts that span the southern coast of Lake Ontario all the way to the City of Buffalo on Lake Erie and I know first hand the special bond the people of the Great Lakes basin share with these lakes. These magnificent bodies of water are truly unique and we must do all that we can to protect these national treasures for future generations. I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Today, we have two bills before us: one extending tax relief measures and another for helping our brothers and sisters and family members with disabilities. These bills, considered under two more closed rules, which I feel I must point out, adds to the tally of the most closed Congress in American history. First, H.R. 5771, the Tax Increase Prevention Act of 2014. This 1- year extension will cover approximately 60 temporary Tax Code provisions that expired at the end of 2013 or during 2014. Many of the provisions have been previously extended with broad bipartisan support. This bill is far from perfect, but it provides us a sorely-needed stopgap measure. Our economy has finally emerged from the shadow of the Great Recession, but playing games like this, lurching from one short- term measure to another, will certainly harm that recovery. This bill will ensure some consistency in the Tax Code that will help the American people avail themselves of the tax credits that they depend on, just in time for the tax filing season. However, of particular note, left out of this package is the health coverage tax credit, which is made available to workers who have lost their jobs as a result of unfair trade deals and retirees who are at risk of losing their pensions. In my district, in Rochester, the retirees of Delphi and other local companies depend on the health coverage tax credit to cover their health care bills, and they have been fighting mightily for some relief from the fact that they have lost their pensions and their health care. This is all that they have, the government program. Denying a critical tax credit to families who have been hit hardest by unfair foreign competition and a tough economy here at home is a mistake, and one I will fight hard to correct. The second bill we have before us today is H.R. 647, the ABLE Act. This bill will right an injustice that has been impacting millions of Americans with disabilities, their families, and their caregivers. Under current law, the individuals with disabilities can qualify to receive Social Security Disability Insurance, but there is an asset limit of $2,000, meaning that if you have more cash than that on hand, your SSDI benefits will be reduced. This disincentivizes work and saving, creates an unnecessary economic uncertainty, and it does nothing to better the circumstances of our Nation's most vulnerable. The ABLE Act will change that by creating a tax-free savings account, with an annual cap on contributions of $14,000, ensuring that people with disabilities have a better sense of security and ways that friends and family can contribute to their education, transportation, medical expenses, employment support, housing, and more without risking their eligibility for the badly-needed disability insurance. I am pleased to see this come to the floor with such strong support because my district in Rochester has a vibrant and involved community of people with disabilities. I commend my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, my friend, the chairman of the Rules Committee, in particular, for the diligent, passionate, and careful work on this important issue. Mr. Speaker, I have some reservations about these bills, the first bill anyway, but stabilizing the Tax Code and ensuring financial independence for our brothers and sisters does provide much-needed support. So I urge my colleagues to do the best they can on the rule and the bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, in closing, the Democrats have reservations on these bills, but extending tax credits to ensure continuity in the Tax Code is very important to us, even though we know that large pieces of America have been left out of this bill. It causes us great sadness, but nonetheless, we recognize the need to get this done. All of us appreciate the opportunity for the brothers and sisters with disabilities to have the stability that they need, and we are certainly in concert with that. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I have one request for time, and so I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch), within the parameters of the debate time, and provided that no one else shows up who requests time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time.

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Thank you so much for putting this together. It is so important. I hope that people listening to us will understand that some of us here have been trying for years to try to save American jobs from bad trade policy. Every time the Congress debates a trade agreement, they make these grand promises. I remember NAFTA. They said 250,000 brand-new jobs were going to be coming to Rochester, New York. None of it ever happened. We were promised this great, bright future that didn't show up. Frankly, over my career here, which has been nice and prosperous and creative, I have never yet seen a trade policy that came out of this Congress of the United States that benefited in any way the American manufacturer or the American worker. I come from a district that was devastated by NAFTA, and I want to tell you a story about Eastman Kodak. Kodak, one of the great commercial institutions and innovators of the 20th century, once had over 60,000 jobs in the Rochester area. Now, there are only a few thousand left, and this is the trend all across the country. Eastman Kodak is a name that everybody knows, with Kodachrome and everything that they have done for motion pictures. A study was done once that showed that the word ``Kodak,'' stated to people that heard it, that it was solid, it was good and dependable--Eastman Kodak, the backbone, basically, of Rochester, New York. They were great patrons of the art, education, everything that they did. Actually, George Eastman made sure that every soldier that went away to the first World War got a camera. It was in a day that you had to send the camera back to the factory to be opened and developed. All these soldiers sent them back and forth while they were overseas fighting--or even in the country. They had this Eastman Kodak camera going back and forth every month. It would take me all night here to talk about how this is the company that built the Norden bombsight that won the Second World War and engineers that have come from this company, which is now devastated. Now, they have started up some smaller companies, for which we have great hope. In fact, the laser beam that took down the three Somali pilots that were holding Captain Phillips--if you remember, they shot simultaneously off a major rocking boat, a big one. Captain Phillips and the pirates were in a smaller one. They shot simultaneously and killed the three pirates with a laser beam from Rochester. The night vision goggles that everybody is so concerned about and the Navy SEALs used to take down Obama bin Laden are component parts from Rochester. We have all that ability there, but we took the jobs right out from under them. This debate comes down to a thing called Fast Track, which isn't going to mean much to anybody, but in the seventies, we were the largest manufacturers in the world, and we were pretty darn sure we would be forever. We saw no end to that great prosperity because people were innovators, and we saw the wonderful things we were able to do. Generations of families would work at these major companies in all of our districts, and it was solid as a rock, and you knew it was always going to be there, until it wasn't. Fast Track came up in the seventies when we were the largest manufacturer, and the idea was that since we were so good and we wanted to help rebuild the economies of other countries and that we would allow the President and whoever negotiated the trade to simply bring the agreement, once they were finished with it, to the Congress of the United States, with no committee action whatever. We are not even told what is in those trade agreements. I personally have tried, on behalf of Hickey Freeman, to find that out about textiles and could not. The idea was we would simply vote up or down, no amendment, no nothing--just a quick vote and go--taking away the whole reason for our existence here to represent the people who sent us here and to do what we could to keep the United States prosperous and forward looking. When I was chair of the Rules Committee briefly--because it came under the purview of the Rules Committee--we were able to get rid of it. Unfortunately, the Korea Free Trade Agreement was filed before we were able to get rid of it, so Korea was done under Fast Track, and I appreciate so much what you have shown us with that. It was very troubling to me about Korea. South Korea, as we pointed out, shows 7,450 cars. There are 26 dealers in South Korea that will sell American cars, but during the same period that we sold 78,000, they sold 561,626 here. We obviously wanted South Korea to prosper. We lost so many lives there. We fought very hard for their freedom. But we also signed a treaty that if anybody attacks South Korea, the United States is obligated to go and fight. Would you think that maybe with all of that--we rebuilt their economy, we saved their country-- that they might sell American cars? What we have seen and what we tried to say on this floor, the three of us all talking about it, is you are buying a pig in a poke here. This is not going to work because the simple reason is we never had enforcement on a single one of our trade bills. We simply reduce our tariff. Everything comes flooding in here. It is not tariffs that keeps our goods from selling in other countries. It is the unseen trade barriers. They don't like the bumper. The steering wheel is wrong. The window doesn't fit. Or they simply let it sit at ports, on docks, rotting and rusting and whatever, but they don't sell, and we have not a single thing to do about it. I have a bill that I am going to reintroduce in January--I am hoping we can get a lot more attention on it--which is a bipartisan bill with a lot of outside support that simply says that trade agreements being negotiated by the United States of America would also be accompanied by an enforcement part, which would be a person in the Labor Department who would do it, not the people who wrote those bills. The people who write those bills have such pride of authorship. I don't know of a single time--maybe once or twice with the WTO--where we have tried to do something about unfair labor practices, but we don't really worry about that. We just take it--or our people take it--those who have lost all the jobs. The bill we have says we can also do what we call ``snap back,'' that Congress can stop that until they do away with the unfair barriers that prevent our goods from being sold in their countries, as the agreement stated they would be. We are about to do another one, if you can believe it. This one is a humdinger. This one goes over 11 countries. Again, we have no idea what is in it, as I told you. They are trying to get it through Fast Track. We have a good start, I think, on stopping that. I am trying to get the number here. We have, I think, 30 Republicans that have signed on not to do Fast Track. We have about a total of 150 Members of the House who will not and, certainly, the Senate. We have let the President of the United States as well as the trade negotiator know that Fast Track won't work here. Food safety is a real crucial issue. One of my colleagues, Rosa DeLauro, said that when you read about delta shrimp, you are probably reading about the Mekong Delta shrimp. The food safety issue is so bad, as we understand it in this trade bill, that if we cause them to lose any money when they bring in bad fish--which, in the first place, frankly, is not tested nearly enough when it comes in--or anything else that causes them to have any economic cost, they can sue us. Think about this for a minute. They can sue us because we enforced our own clean air standards and our clean water standards and our food safety standards. I will tell you it boggles the mind just simply to think about it. What we are asking--and we have let the President know and the whole world that we are trying to get to understand--is that this Congress of the United States will not stand by for Fast Track, and to have a bill come up here that will decimate, again, parts of this country in the United States, threaten our food safety laws, and not have the ability to read the thing, have committee action on it, and to amend it, all that would be gone under Fast Track, and we would only be able to vote up or down. I will tell you we have had such devastating losses from playing the game that way that it would boggle the mind that we would stand by and watch that happen yet again in cases where it would be even worse. I am so pleased to be here tonight and join with my friends who try to fight the good fight. This is a magnificent country, and all of us certainly have benefitted from it. Just to be able to be a Representative in the Congress of the United States is remarkable, but with that goes a heck of a responsibility. That responsibility is to leave this place better than we found it. We can't do that with this trade bill, so I urge all my colleagues, everybody listening, to pay attention to what is going on here and help us to get people that represent you to join us in the fight to stop this trade agreement in its tracks. As everybody else has said--and I think it goes without saying--I have no problems with free trade--well, free trade I have got a lot of troubles with. Let me back that up. I have no trouble with international trade. It is the wave of the future. We are doing it. Free trade has always meant that people come in here free and eat our lunch. Fair trade is a whole other issue. Let's have a little fair trade for a change. It would do us a world of good. Thank you very much, Marcy, for letting me be here.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. It is a pleasure.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and missed rollcall vote No. 520. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 520.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), and I really appreciated his statement on this rule today. Mr. Speaker, once again, you would think that we would almost expect that nothing good would happen here, and I am rising with a very heavy heart today because nothing good is happening in my office as well because, today, we are seeing the last rule worked on by my friend Don Sisson, who has been with us here for over 10 years, works extraordinarily well in the Rules Committee, has provided us with outstanding service, and really has an integral part that he is going to be playing over at the White House. This means a significant loss for us. He has accepted a new job as the Special Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs. And while I really want to wish him well, to be perfectly honest with you, it is breaking my heart to see him go. Don is not only an expert on the rules and a computer genius, and when anything electrical goes awry, Don can fix it in a moment, but Don is a caretaker. He not only takes great care about the rules, his work, and everyone on the committee whom he really loved and enjoyed working with, he takes care of people individually, and he has certainly done that for me. I had a pretty bad year this past year losing my husband, and Don was always there. If electricity didn't work or something else didn't happen, Don knew who could fix that for me. So as I speak about it, my personal feelings overwhelm the wonderful opportunity for him as a young man to work in the White House of the United States Government with the President. I would like to go over his credentials here, but I am not going to. I am simply going to tell you that Don is one of the best people that ever worked in the United States House of Representatives and one of the finest persons on the Rules Committee who understands not only rules, but is a friend to every single person who works in this House and beyond. He could always be counted on as a friend, as someone with extraordinarily gifted intelligence, and as being able to work his way through the most dangerous Gordian Knot. Don Sisson is a ``man for all seasons.'' Mr. Speaker, I wish him the very best of everything, but say to you that, without a doubt, the loss for our side, for our office, and for our friends is profound. Nonetheless, he is going to go. I just want the White House to understand what a jewel they are getting. Thank you very much, Mr. McGovern, for yielding me the time. Thank you, Don, for your service, and you will always have a place here in this House. Thank you very much.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the career of a dedicated public servant, Patrice Walker Powell of the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA). Over her 23 years of service at the NEA, Ms. Powell has worked to broaden and deepen the NEA's reach with diverse and underserved communities across the nation. At the outset of Ms. Powell's career at the NEA, she was charged with leading their Education and Access Department at the same time that the institution experienced significant cuts to its operational budget, forcing the agency to run with reduced resources. Ms. Powell successfully engaged the philanthropic community to develop bridge funding and protect multidisciplinary art centers that were cultural anchors in communities across the nation. Ms. Powell developed the Arts REACH program, designed to work with each state arts agency to hold staff-led public seminars on NEA funding opportunities and work with state partners to determine potential applicants for grants. Over a three-year commitment to this program, Ms. Powell's efforts resulted in an overall 350% increase in NEA- supported projects in states that previously received direct NEA grants. During her tenure at the NEA, Ms. Powell has been the point person for the agency's response to natural disasters across the country. Appointed to the National Coalition on Disaster Planning and Preparedness, an association of public and private funders and national cultural services organizations, Ms. Powell led agency efforts to work with state, regional, and local arts agencies decimated by natural disasters--most notably Hurricane Katrina. Ms. Powell worked to get necessary funding to areas stricken by disaster, and to ensure that Federal grant funding was properly utilized to preserve cultural treasures. Ms. Powell's leadership at the NEA demonstrates her commitment to public service and dedication to advancing the arts to people and communities across the country. I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing and thanking Ms. Powell for her service and wishing her a happy, healthy retirement.