Mark Takano

Mr. TAKANO

Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment to the fiscal year 2014 Energy and Water appropriations bill to increase funding for the Department of Energy's Weatherization Assistance Program. My amendment increases funding for the Renewable Energy, Energy Reliability and Efficiency account by $40 million to ensure we provide adequate weatherization assistance. The Weatherization Assistance Program provides much-needed funding that enables low-income families, homeowners with disabilities, and seniors to permanently reduce their energy bills, making their homes more energy efficient. For 36 years, the Weatherization Assistance Program has provided weatherization services to more than 7.3 million low-income households. The energy conservation efforts promoted through this program have helped our country reduce our dependence on foreign oil, while lowering the cost of energy for families in need. This program benefits households across the Nation, from my district in Riverside, California, where temperatures can rise to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer, to the Northeast, where it is below freezing in the winter. The Weatherization Assistance Program has helped reduce the energy bills for America's neediest families by hundreds of dollars, which can be used to purchase more groceries, daily necessities, and child care. The reduction in funding for nuclear weapons means that a larger investment can be made in our Weatherization Assistance Program to help American families reduce their energy costs. The underlying bill provides more than $11 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration. I believe the modest reduction of $40 million to the nuclear weapons account is money that is better spent on programs like the Weatherization Assistance Program. It supports jobs, businesses, homeowners, and reduces our energy dependence. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. TAKANO. Madam Chair, I rise today to offer an amendment to the fiscal year 2014 Energy and Water appropriations bill to increase funding for the Vehicles Technologies Program. My amendment increases funding for the Renewable Energy, Energy Reliability, and Efficiency account by $20 million to fully fund the Zero Emission Cargo Transport grant program. The Vehicle Technologies Program is an important asset in the effort to decrease the impact of high gas prices on American drivers by investing in technologies that make vehicles more fuel efficient and less harmful to air quality. One critical piece of this program is the Zero Emission Cargo Transport grant program that helps to incentivize zero emission goods movement, especially in areas with high air pollution and traffic congestion, such as my district in Riverside, California, which is a logistics hub for southern California. I believe these funds are better spent reducing our emissions, improving air quality, and investing in energy-efficient technologies. The bill does take from the National Nuclear Security Administration's account, which is funded at $11 billion. The modest reduction we're asking in that account to fully fund this program is an investment we believe is wise. More efficient freight will save money, create jobs, and make products cheaper. Cleaner air improves quality of life and lowers the cost of health care. If we pay for this today by decreasing spending on our bloated nuclear weapons programs, we will see major savings down the road. This is a smart investment, and I urge my colleagues to support my amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TAKANO. Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. TAKANO

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

Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment to the fiscal year 2014 Energy and Water appropriations bill to increase funding for the Department of Energy's advanced manufacturing program. My amendment increases funding for the renewable energy, energy reliability, and efficiency account by $245 million to meet the President's budget request for advanced manufacturing. If we are to remain competitive in the global marketplace, we must fully invest in, develop, and commercialize the emerging technologies that will create high-quality manufacturing jobs in the United States. These investments are crucial to accelerate the advancement of ideas and allow American manufacturers to continue to innovate and compete. By matching the President's request, the Department of Energy will be able to move forward with plans to develop interagency manufacturing innovation institutes that will develop best practices and help manufacturers meet common challenges. These institutes will enable innovation, create a dependable talent pipeline, and improve the overall business climate. It requires a diverse array of partners if advanced manufacturing is to accelerate and thrive in the United States. A Federal commitment to these emerging and efficient technologies is the catalyst that will help bring educators, workers, and businesses, as well as local and State partners, to the table. Federal investments in advanced manufacturing will help create more jobs, increase our competitiveness, and allow the United States to continue to be a leader in advancing energy-efficient technologies. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. TAKANO

Mr. TAKANO. Most of us come from immigrant stock. I think you're Basque Italian. My forebears came from Japan. We, ourselves, are examples of the striving of generations. I'm pretty sure your parents, as well as mine, instilled the importance of education. It's the story of America repeated over and over again--of people coming here because they hear about the freedom, the way of life that we have and the opportunity that our country represents. Much of it is embodied in our belief in education being the platform, the launching pad, for entering the middle class. Certainly, this dream will be cut short if we don't watch out for things like the doubling of the interest rates or allowing interest rates to be tied to variable rates. As Mr. Holt pointed out, he asserts that, really, it's a very sly way to try to raise revenue without actually being straightforward about it. It's a way to raise revenue on the backs of our children. I say let's do sensible things--pass comprehensive immigration reform. It, by itself, by the numbers I just showed, provides a tremendous amount of revenue to our government simply by the fact that we harness the energy of so many aspirational people.

Mr. TAKANO. I want to take a little different slant on this, if I might, John and Rush. I actually want to turn to a topic, and the reason why I want to turn to this topic is because of what the Senate is doing, what it was doing yesterday and today. They're considering the comprehensive immigration bill. Of course, in that comprehensive immigration bill is a provision on the DREAMers. The point you're making about the Republican attempt to raise revenue without straightforwardly asking for it and put on the burden of our students, our young people, we wouldn't have to do this if this House would follow suit and pass a comprehensive immigration bill. I'm going to tell you why. I'm going to make an economic argument for why comprehensive immigration is good for our country and our economy. As the debate continues on immigration reform, the effect that fixing the immigration system would have on our economy is becoming quite clear. Opponents of immigration reform don't seem to understand the benefits of our broken system. Many of the undocumented immigrants in this Nation are already working, yet because of their legal status they are forced to pay into the underground economy with no labor protections and no way to pay into the system. We should allow these individuals to come out of the shadows and put them on the pathway to citizenship. As an example, say there's an undocumented worker in my district. Because he or she is undocumented, that worker may only be making $4 or $5 an hour instead of the California minimum wage of $8 an hour. If comprehensive immigration reform is passed, it will mandate that all workers be paid minimum wage, which will in turn increase their buying power, raise revenues for businesses, and drive up wages for everyone else, thus increasing our GDP growth rate, not needing to have to resort to these tricks of variable interest rates on our students to raise revenue for our government. Recent analysis by the Social Security Administration showed that, without comprehensive immigration reform, our annual growth rate would only be 4.5 percent, but with comprehensive immigration reform, our annual growth rate shoots up to 6.1 percent. This increase in GDP is going to have a tremendous effect on our job market. Earlier this year, Republican Senator Marco Rubio sent a letter to the Social Security chief actuary asking for an analysis of the legislation. In his response, Chief Actuary Goss said that the Senate immigration reform proposal would create 3.2 million jobs by 2024--new jobs. In his reply, Chief Actuary Goss also said: We estimate a significant increase in both the population and the number of workers paying taxes in the United States as a result of these changes on legal immigration limits. 3.2 million new jobs by 2024 is a serious jobs plan for America. A report by the Cato Institute analyzed the data and estimates that there will be a $1.5 trillion increase in 10 years to household income. The middle class has been struggling for some time as their wages have remained stagnant for 30 years. The squeeze on the middle class has forced average American families to go heavily into debt just to get by. Mortgage payments, college loans, and the cost of health insurance have all skyrocketed, but wages have barely increased. Passing comprehensive immigration reform will help close this gap. The more people we have working and the more they consume means that our Federal deficit will come down at an estimated--get this--$875 billion over 20 years. But it doesn't stop there. Social Security, itself, is going to benefit greatly as well. As some 75 million baby boomers prepare to retire, the immigrant community, which is generally younger than the overall population, will help the balance sheet by bringing in more revenue to offset retirees taking out benefits. It's been estimated that comprehensive immigration reform will add $4.6 trillion, net, to Social Security over the next 75 years. The problem we face with Social Security is the ratio of workers to retirees. Sixty years ago, there were 16 workers for every retiree. Twenty years from now, when the last of the baby boomers retire, that ratio will be down to 2\1/2\ to 1 unless we pass comprehensive immigration reform. Comprehensive immigration reform is going to help Social Security in several ways: First, most immigrants who come to the United States are between the ages of 18 and 35. For decades, these working immigrants will be contributing to Social Security; Second, few come to the United States with their parents, and the seniors that do come aren't eligible for Social Security; and Finally, immigrants tend to have more children than native-born Americans, and their offspring will also pay into the system for decades to come. The numbers don't lie. Comprehensive immigration reform will improve our Nation in many different ways, but especially economically. The time is now. Thank you.

Mr. TAKANO. It's my pleasure. You have seven points to our economic agenda. Really, comprehensive immigration reform should be the eighth one. The wealth of our country really is in the skills and knowledge of our people. We need to find the pathway for 11 million people--have them come out of the shadows, have a pathway to citizenship. That, tied together with investments and their skills and knowledge, really raises up the true wealth of our country, which is in her people.

Mr. TAKANO. So much of the focus, as you say, does go back to education, the need to find effective ways to educate all the immigrant children. If you could leave that poster up just a little longer, there are investments we need to make in our basic scientific research and to make sure we have the scientists. The scientists are so important. It takes years and years of developing people to become these highly skilled, highly knowledgeable scientists who will create, in turn, the inventions and the technology that will transfer into our preeminence in trade. We are a great country because we are so great at patents, because we are so great at creating new medications. This all comes from a highly educated workforce. By the way, comprehensive immigration reform means we can draw in some of the best talent into Silicon Valley, the best talent into our pharmaceutical research labs.

Mr. TAKANO. Well, I thank my colleague, Mr. Garamendi of California. We're both Californians. What this will do is further burden many of my students who are already burdened with a great deal of debt load from the University of California. But there are many students who bear even a greater debt load because they attend some of the private universities in my area. Many of my students leave my district for other schools and are going to out-of-State schools. The student loan debt is, I think, a hugely serious, serious problem. Before I came to the Congress, I was a teacher for 23 years. I taught high school. I always tried to counsel my students to be careful about the debts they took on. I would like to let my colleague know that when I was graduating from high school in the late 1970s and went on to an Ivy League school on the east coast, I had a package that the Ivy League school put together--contribution from my parents and some work study. But my total loan indebtedness from 4 years of Harvard College did not exceed $15,000. That was an amount that I could fairly easily manage. I am just horrified that students are racking up debts for undergraduate study of $80,000 or $100,000 worth of debt, let alone the debt they're going to have to incur when they go on to their master's programs. A doubling of the interest rates would add just a tremendous burden to these students.

Mr. TAKANO. I did actually take on some more debt to get my master's degree before I came here. Two years before I came to Congress I completed my master's degree, and it was a 2-year master's program. Because of my income as a teacher, many years as a teacher in, but I came close to $40,000 worth of debt that I'm paying off to the Federal Treasury. But it's not the Stafford loan that subsidized it. But I have a sense of just--that's part of my horror of the amount of debt load that students are carrying.

Mr. TAKANO. The compounding effects on that amount of debt is going to seriously add to those students who will take, say, public service jobs or jobs in teaching, or jobs in the public sector, nonprofits. It will severely limit the kind of employment that young people might seek out.

Mr. TAKANO. Well, it certainly hurts our economy in that way. They're going to delay buying a car; they're going to delay buying a home; they're going to delay starting a family with this debt overhanging. Beyond the interest rates, I also believe we need to focus on lowering the principal, making sure we support our public institutions of higher ed to make sure that the principal isn't there. But certainly I support our caucus's effort to keep interest rates from doubling. It's a very sad fact to say that doing nothing--if we don't get our way, that doing nothing is actually better than what the Republicans propose.

Mr. TAKANO

Mr. TAKANO. I thank the gentleman from Washington for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to express my strong support for the amendments submitted by the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), known previously as H.R. 1842, the Military Family Home Protection Act. As a member of the Veterans Affairs Committee and the ranking member of the Economic Opportunity Subcommittee, taking care of our servicemembers and their families is one of my top priorities. This legislation does just that: it takes care of our heroes. By staying foreclosures when servicemembers are receiving hostile fire or when they are medically discharged, by doubling the civil penalties for mortgage-related violations, and by prohibiting banks from discriminating against servicemembers, veterans or surviving spouses, the Military Family Home Protection Act no longer allows our heroes and their families to be taken advantage of. Since the economic downturn, more than 700 servicemembers have been wrongfully foreclosed on, and more than 1,500 servicemembers have been subjected to illegal practices by mortgage providers. The men and women who fight bravely for our Nation deserve better.

Mr. TAKANO. We owe it to them not to allow their families to be thrown out of their houses when they are putting their lives on the line in the name of freedom. I urge my colleagues to support our military families.

Mr. TAKANO

Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Patricia Knudson, the first Latina to be promoted to the rank of chief deputy in Riverside County. Instrumental in fostering relationships within our community, Patricia has served at the Riverside County Sheriff's Department for 24 years. Patricia started her law enforcement career at the Robert Presley Detention Center. For the last two decades, she's continued to serve in a variety of roles within the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. She now moves from her current position as the commander of the Robert Presley Detention Center to become the chief deputy of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. Always actively engaged in the community, Chief Deputy Knudson founded ``Life Path Vision,'' a group that works with Riverside Police Foundation to mentor youth. Never ceasing to help those in need, Patricia also volunteers and serves on boards and committees of a number of nonprofit organizations in the community. As a role model and mentor herself, Chief Deputy Knudson firmly believes it's everyone's responsibility to mentor youth to be successful adults. With her unparalleled passion for service, Patricia Knudson is a role model for us all.

Mr. TAKANO

Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maine for yielding. I rise today to support the increased job opportunities embodied in H.R. 1412 and the changes it makes to the on-the-job training and apprenticeship programs at the Department of Veterans Affairs. I want to thank the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Coffman) for introducing this bill and the Veterans' Affairs Committee leadership, Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Michaud, and subcommittee Chairman Flores for moving this bill through committee. This legislation will expand access for veterans to on-the-job training and apprenticeships, and assist employers in hiring veterans who have shown time and again that their real-world experience, leadership, and countless other skills are great resources for American companies. By reducing the percentage of salary paid to a veteran participating in one of these programs, this bill would make it more attractive for companies to hire veterans doing on-the-job training and apprenticeships. It is our hope that these opportunities will help bridge the employment gaps veterans are currently experiencing. Unfortunately, it is also clear from our subcommittee work that the Department of Veterans Affairs could be doing a better job advertising this great benefit. The more veterans and employers know about these benefits, the more opportunities veterans can have in the job market. I am proud to support this legislation and urge my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to support it as well. Mr. Speaker, I am very proud of the bipartisan spirit of the Veterans' Affairs Committee.

Mr. TAKANO

Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, I, too, along with my colleague from California, Congresswoman Bass, express my sorrow for the victims of the terrible tragedy in Oklahoma, and I stand ready to work with my friends across the aisle to do all we can to alleviate the tragedy. Mr. Speaker: Somewhere in Des Moines or San Antonio there is a young gay person who all of a sudden realizes that he or she is gay; knows that if their parents find out they will be tossed out of the house, their classmates will taunt the child, and the Anita Bryants and John Briggs are doing their part on TV. And that child has several options: staying in the closet and suicide. And then one day that child might open the paper that says, ``Homosexual elected in San Francisco,'' and there are two new options: the option is to go to California, or stay in San Antonio and fight. Two days after I was elected, I got a phone call and the voice was quite young. It was from Altoona, Pennsylvania. And the person said, ``Thanks.'' And you've got to elect gay people, so that thousands upon thousands like that child know that there is hope for a better world; there is hope for a better tomorrow. Without hope, not only gays, but those who are Blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us's: without hope, the us's give up. I know that you can't live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. And you, and you, and you, and you have got to give them hope. Those words, Mr. Speaker, were spoken by Harvey Milk. It is with tremendous honor and gratitude that I enter them into the Congressional Record on his behalf and all of the ``us's'' in our Nation.

Mr. TAKANO

Mr. TAKANO. Thank you for this time to share our vision for moving forward with the American people. I wake up each day excited to come to work, to work on their behalf. Despite our divisions, despite the rancor we see sometimes on the various cable shows, it's an enormous honor to serve in this institution, and it's a great honor to serve in this institution with the gentleman. I must bid adieu. I have to get going, but thank you so much.

Mr. TAKANO

Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today during Asian Pacific Heritage Month to celebrate the life and achievements of Congressman Dalip Singh Saund. Congressman Saund was the first Asian American Member of Congress, the very first Member of a non-Abrahamic faith, and the first Member born in Asia. He was also our first Sikh American to enter Congress. He also represented my hometown of Riverside, California, a community that I proudly represent today. Having come to California from India to pursue his education, Saund graduated with a master's and Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley. Following his graduation, Saund worked as a farmer but was also a local activist. He spent years pushing to end naturalization restrictions for Indians living in the United States. In 1950, Saund made a bold decision and entered local government. In 1955, Saund decided to run for an open seat in Congress--and won. Representing the Inland Empire from 1956 to 1963, Congressman Saund served on the Foreign Affairs and Interior Committees. Unfortunately, his promising career as a Member of this distinguished body came to an abrupt end when he suffered a severe stroke in May 1962. Congressman Saund truly lived the American Dream: an immigrant who came to America with dreams and aspirations of making a difference for himself and for future generations. As the current Riverside Representative, I honor his impact and legacy on all Americans.

Mr. TAKANO

Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, I rise for a point of order.

Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, I realize that H.R. 45 and its rule have not been brought up for consideration, but I wish to object to the consideration of H.R. 45 as well as consideration of the rule governing debate on the bill because it violates rule XII, clause 7, section (c), which states, ``A bill or joint resolution may not be introduced unless the sponsor submits for printing in the Congressional Record a statement citing as specifically as practicable the power or powers granted to Congress in the Constitution to enact the bill or joint resolution.'' The constitutional authority statement submitted with H.R. 45, argues that Congress is granted the authority to enact this legislation because of the Tenth Amendment. The Tenth Amendment does not grant Congress the authority to act; it limits Congressional power. It states, ``The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.'' Citing the Tenth Amendment does not satisfy the rule. Experts at the Congressional Research Service agree. In a recent report, they stated, ``The Tenth Amendment is not an affirmative grant of authority to Congress; rather, it is a limitation or disability on Congress's authority to legislate. Hence, because the House rule requires a statement citing the power or powers granted to Congress-- not merely a statement of constitutional provisions--citations to the Tenth Amendment do not appear to satisfy the requirement of the House rule.'' Mr. Speaker, the constitutional authority statement for the bill before us today does not comply with the House rules, and I ask that the bill and the rule not be considered until this problem is fixed.