Peter Welch

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire how much time is remaining?

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I want to thank Congresswoman Gabbard. She has a practical battle-tested basis of experience to propose this amendment. She served a tour in Iraq, and she served in Kuwait. This is not a question about whether the proponents of this amendment reserve any desire to go after ISIS in any way that we can, nor does it mean that we want to restrict our help to responsible partners, like the Kurdish Peshmerga. What this is about is identifying a program that was designed for failure. It was predicted by Congresswoman Gabbard that this train and assist program for unidentified Syrian allies, so- called, would fail. It would fail because we didn't have a nation-state that we were dealing with. Train and equip is a good program when it is with a responsible government, or one trying to be a responsible government--maybe in Afghanistan, maybe in Iraq. What we have here is a civil war. We have al Qaeda, we have al- Nusrah, we have people fighting Assad, we have people fighting each other. The CIA identified 1,500 different groups. And we are asking our military, our CIA, who don't really speak the language--some do--to identify who will be ``the good rebels'' in what is a caldron of conflict. The problem here is that we spent $500 million and basically ended up training 100 people. They drifted off into the battlefield and were quickly killed or captured or defected. So what we have is not something where we are predicting failure, we are having something that did fail. And now we are doubling down on it, taking $250 million, and adding to a program that doesn't work. Why don't we spend that money doing something that can work?

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, I was unable to vote on Roll Call 283. I would like to indicate that I would have voted ``Nay'' on Roll Call 283 had I been there.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), the ranking member of the committee.

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be here presenting this amendment. My cosponsor of this amendment, Jaime Herrera Beutler, is unable to be here, but it is relevant. She had a baby 2 weeks ago--this is not her first child--and she is a breastfeeding mother. This amendment is about creating the potential for the House Office Buildings and this Capitol to come into compliance with the General Services Administration guidelines for having breastfeeding stations available for women who need them. There are 7,000 women who work here. There are thousands of women who visit on a regular basis, and we don't have the stations that the women who visit the Capitol, work in the Capitol, work in the House Office Buildings, or visit need to be here in order to take care of their infant children. It is just amazing to me. Jaime Herrera Beutler is someone we all admire. She can't be here--she wishes she was--but she is a big advocate of this. What this amendment would do is not cost new money, but it would allow a shift in money, $500,000, from the capital construction and operations account to the Capitol Building and House Office Building accounts, appropriating $250,000 each. The fact is, why wouldn't we want to be in compliance with the GSA requirements as to the access to the breastfeeding stations for mothers who work and visit here? Mr. Chair, my hope is that there will be broad bipartisan support to do something that I think all of us know needs to be done.

Mr. WELCH. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Chairman Graves. I appreciate his support of this amendment. I also want to thank the ranking member for her support. I also thank my cosponsors, Congresswoman Matsui and Congresswoman Frankel, but I especially want to thank and congratulate Congresswoman Herrera Beutler. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, I would like to indicate that I inadvertently voted ``No'' on Roll Call 237. I intended to vote ``Yes''.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk, and I ask unanimous consent to offer it at this point in the reading.

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman, the northern border region, from Maine, to New Hampshire, to Vermont, to New York, is a particularly hard hit economic area. The Northern Border Regional Commission has been a tremendous asset to help folks across that region--by the way, inhabited by Republicans and Democrats--to start reviving their economy. The Commission is modeled, by the way, after the Appalachian Regional Commission and provides Federal funds for critical economic and community development projects throughout the Northeast. These lead to new jobs and stronger communities. Importantly, the Northern Border Regional Commission helps orient Federal appropriations toward State-prioritized projects. The State is very much a player in allocating where this money goes. Through the collective vote of the Governors of these States, they coordinate with the Federal co-chair to rank the funding applications. This ensures accountability and effectiveness. It has worked. In Vermont, for instance, the Commission has helped fund a number of projects: $226,000 for Lyndon State College to establish a new 4-year degree in hospitality and tourism management, one of the big drivers of our economy in the Northern Border Region; $250,000 to the Northern Community Investment Corporation for telecommunications infrastructure that rural areas have to have; and $250,000 to the Vermont Agency of Transportation to connect with the Washington Railroad network in Barton, Vermont. The Commission is having a similarly positive effect across the Northeast: New York, New Hampshire, Maine, as well as Vermont. Our amendment recognizes the effective work the Commission is doing and the large need that remains unmet by restoring funding for the program to last year's level of $7.5 million. We are trying to avoid a cut, and we are trying to maintain level funding. The increase in funding will go a long way in the communities across the northern border to help them revitalize their economy. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. We have a lot of merchant nuclear plants that are now starting to get decommissioned. The first one that got decommissioned was in Vernon, Vermont. We have now got Pilgrim. The communities there face enormous challenges. One, we lose a lot of good jobs. Number two, there is the question: How do you get that asset back in production? That is where the local community, like select boards, citizen groups, are enormously concerned, and rightly so. It is their community, and they want to get it back operational. The purpose of this amendment is to try to get the NRC the resources it needs and, also, the process it needs for citizen community involvement to be accepted. They are in a new era. Generally, the NRC has been about regulating the safety of the plant. Now we are moving into the era where they have to deal with the decommissioning of the plant. Safety issues continue to be of paramount concern, but economic vitality in the future is an urgent concern. Our goal here is to make certain that those folks who are in the community and their elected representatives have the capacity for significant input. We are very pleased that the NRC is starting a rulemaking process to try to open it up a bit. We want to encourage them to do so. This legislation is a big step towards that.

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

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Number one, the starting point for analysis of this law is the current law. The current law is a mess. It is the Wild West out there when it comes to regulating chemicals. There are 85,000 chemicals that are on the market that have never been tested, and bad things are going to happen. This law changes that. The EPA is now going to have authority to regulate and review these substances as to their health and safety. Number two, it requires a safety finding before a new product goes on the market. Number three, it replaces the cost-benefit analysis for a health-only analysis. When it comes to health and safety, that is absolutely essential. It is not about the cost. The cost in human terms and to communities when you have let something go by for accounting reasons, as opposed to looking vigilantly at health and safety, is not the way to go. It is a very good change. Next, it protects vulnerable populations: children, pregnant women, and especially workers who are in plants where these products are used. Finally, it makes the companies come clean with what information they have that allows regulators to come to a conclusion. That is very important. The preemption issue is a concern. In Vermont, we have had a very active Republican and Democratic Governor, a very active Agency of Natural Resources secretary, and very, very active and aggressive attorneys general. They are concerned about this. But there is, in this legislation, flexibility so that Vermont is going to continue to have the ability to act to protect its citizens, and I am confident they will. If the EPA is going to put a product on a list that they are going to start reviewing, we are going to get a heads-up in Vermont, as every State is, of about 9 months. I have confidence in the Vermont General Assembly, in the Vermont Governor, in the Vermont attorney general, and in the Vermont secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources to do what is required to protect the public health and the public safety. So no law is perfect, but in this institution, we have had a hard time passing laws that we all know need to get done. I thank all the people who have been involved.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. The real fundamental question for us is whether or not in this defense budget we are going to ask what are the fundamental strategic necessities of the United States to be in a strong posture to defend itself. The approach of just throwing more money and maintaining weapons systems that our military is not even asking for, of blinking on the question of personnel review--all of these things are just postponed for another day. They need to be faced today. So, Mr. Speaker, I thank the committee for its work, but I will not be supporting this bill.

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I thank the Committee on Armed Services for the hard work they did to produce this bill. I am not going to support it. The most important function that we have is to make certain that America is secure. Our defense authorization bill is a major component of that, but I believe this bill fails in some fundamental respects. Number one, the budget is very large. We are approaching $700 billion. But throwing money at a problem does not solve a problem. What we are doing as we throw more money at a problem without making hard decisions is we generate and accept as inevitable an immense amount of inefficiency. Number two, there is an overreliance on the OCO funding. First of all, OCO, off budget, should be debated, and it should be appropriated. It should be subject to all budget caps. But to then begin using it not just for overseas contingency operations but to actually invest in major weapons systems is a gross mistake that is just going to lead to a weaker budgeting system that is essential, in my view, to our national security. Of that OCO funding, money would be used for weapon systems like the F/A-18E Super Hornet and the F-35. The $35 billion in the OCO authorization is for war requirements, including dollar amounts in the millions. Now, the other issue with respect to OCO--and another failure in this bill--is we are once again continuing to have military operations--this country is at war--without having any debate on an Authorization for Use of Military Force. That should be part of it. Third, we have significant issues in NATO. As the Speaker and my colleague, the chairman, know, NATO is absolutely essential to our defense. But the time for the United States to be bearing as big a burden for that defense has come to a conclusion. We will bear the majority of the expense, but the commitment on our NATO allies is to reach 2 percent of their gross domestic product in defense spending. If our NATO allies are not doing that, we are asking the American taxpayer to do it. These are mature democracies. They have stable economies. It is about time that we asked for this to absolutely happen.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chair, on January 8, 2014, an extraordinary thing happened in Vermont. Our Governor, Peter Shumlin, giving a State of the State Address, devoted its entirety to the opioid epidemic in Vermont. I remember how stunned people were that a Governor would take such a difficult topic and spend his entire address on it. I remember the reaction of many of my colleagues here, who said: Peter, isn't that dangerous? You are talking about something that is not great for the reputation of the State. What, in fact, was great for the reputation of the State was that our Governor and our leaders acknowledged the existence of a problem that was creating heartbreak and heartache in all of our communities; and a problem acknowledged is the first step in dealing with a problem to be solved. Since then, Vermont has been extraordinary in its efforts to attack this problem. Communities like Rutland, St. Albans, Barre, and Burlington have coordinated with the police force, with our medical providers and our hospitals to provide a treatment-based approach to helping folks who have an addiction to opioids--many of them coming by it as a result of prescriptions for legitimate medical needs. We had, in Rutland, a community coming together to create Project VISION, which has faith-based groups, the police, and the medical community doing everything they can to basically give individual attention to folks who are trying to help themselves get off of opiates. The problem continues to be severe, but what we have is a community that is fully engaged in it, including our State legislature, which provided funds for treatment--a treatment-based approach--to helping people with a hub-and-spoke system that is really working well. Folks who are getting prescriptions, folks who have a problem, an addiction, are getting access to methadone or other prescribed products, take that in a hub so it is supervised, and they are able then to go to work. So this has been a situation in Vermont where, as a result of the Governor's focus on the problem, we have had community engagement to stem the tide of this issue. It has been working, but challenges remain because we don't have enough treatment funds. This legislation is an important acknowledgment on the part of Congress that we are getting it, that across this country we are all being affected by the challenges that our communities face. I thank the sponsors of this legislation, Mr. Pallone, and Mr. Upton, too, for their leadership. My hope, by the way, is that we get the message, too, in Congress that we have got to send some funds back to our communities that are struggling with these programs. We can't micromanage the treatment here. It is up to the courageous people in our communities to do it, and some of the tax dollars that they send to us we have got to send back to them. That is why I, among others, am supporting an emergency appropriation of $600 million. That would help quite a bit. The amendment that I have on this bill, which establishes an interagency task force to review, modify, and update the best practices for pain management, would ask that we also review developing nonopioid forms of pain relief. If opioids diminish pain but they create misery, let's find another way to do it and help our folks who need pain relief to get it. The second thing, it would examine existing nonopioid alternatives that could be better utilized. So this is tremendous that there has been such a bipartisan coming together to sponsor practical steps that we can take. I see us in Congress as essentially acknowledging what Governor Shumlin identified as a real problem for us and we are hearing about in our communities. But I hope we are ready to take some next steps and actually focus on getting resources back to our communities that are doing the very, very challenging work at the local level where it needs to be done to help folks relieve themselves from the addiction of opioids. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman, I thank my ranking member on the Communications and Technology Subcommittee and the chair of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee. There are two questions here. First is net neutrality. One of the biggest decisions that the FCC made was to protect net neutrality. Before they issued their order, they had literally millions of comments from people all across this country, in your district and in mine, urging that net neutrality be maintained and preserved. The chairman and the FCC did that with their order. Now, that has raised some questions as to whether the assertion of FCC authority is going to result in micromanaging through regulation, and that would be a legitimate concern if it were a concern. But the chairman has made it extremely clear that he has no intention whatsoever of doing any kind of rate regulation under title II. He is not going to do it. It hasn't been done. So this bill, which is going to ``prohibit rate regulation'' has some significant and potentially very dangerous consequences for two things, net neutrality and protection of consumers. We need an FCC that is going to be there to protect consumers against some potentially bad practices, like cramming or overbilling, things that traditionally the FCC has done as the agency that is protecting consumers against bad practices. The reason why many experts believe that this bill would result in that happening is because there is no definition of rate regulation. There is none. The burden on legislators, when we propose something, is to be clear and specific as to what it is that is being proposed. There is no definition whatsoever in this bill about rate regulation. This bill is founded on an apprehension that something bad will happen, but it gives an undefined answer to prevent an undefined event from happening. So the effect here is that you have a bill that is playing on the fear of the unknown. My preference would be for us to not pass this bill, not endanger the authority of the FCC to take steps that help consumers in your district and in my district, and to focus where we should be focusing, in my view, on steps that we can take to improve broadband access in speeds, particularly for rural areas, rural Vermonters. There is a common goal that we have in our committee to try to get the broadband out and deployed at higher speeds in all of our areas, particularly the rural areas that are in jeopardy. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, the Justice Department reached a settlement with Goldman Sachs, where Goldman Sachs is paying $5 billion as a result of selling bad mortgages to good people. I want to ask the question a Vermont banker asked me: Why isn't anybody going to jail? What they did is put together mortgages that were designed to fail, and then they sold them to police officers, to teachers, to folks who have pension funds, with trust that Goldman Sachs was working for them. So the banker's question from Vermont--why didn't anyone go to jail?--that is the question. There is a second question: Why are the taxpayers paying over half of this settlement? It is tax deductible. The $5 billion settlement, $2.4 billion civil penalty Goldman pays, but the rest of it, about $2.6 billion, is deductible. And why should the taxpayers be on the hook for the misconduct, intentional misconduct, cruel misconduct, unnecessary misconduct? Taxpayers should not be paying a cent, and the people accountable should be going to jail.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, due to my participation in the Presidential Delegation to Cuba from March 20 through March 22, I was unable to vote on Roll Call 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, and 135. I would have voted on each had I been present. Roll Call 130: ``Aye'' Roll Call 131: ``No'' Roll Call 132: ``No'' Roll Call 133: ``Aye'' Roll Call 134: ``Aye'' Roll Call 135: ``Aye''

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, this is pure Vermont maple syrup made at a family farm, Maverick Farm, by friends and neighbors Arthur and Anne Berndt. People love it. Sugar makers from Maine to Michigan, it is a labor of love and real additional income in small farm economies. Big companies have figured that out. They know that consumers love maple syrup. But instead of buying maple syrup from those farmers, they provide fake labels to mislead consumers. These are some of the biggest companies in the world. Take a look at some of these companies and the products that they claim have maple in them. Quaker, Kellogg's, Hood, Bakery on Main. They say they have maple, but there is not a trace of maple in it. The ingredients include rice syrup, artificial flavor, caramel color, gelatin, molasses. That is not maple syrup. We who represent farmers producing maple syrup are writing the FDA telling them to have truth in labeling. Let's have real syrup, not fake labels.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. I thank the gentleman from New York. Mr. Chairman, we are lucky we have Dr. Bucshon, a good Member, a good friend, and a great Energy and Commerce Committee person, who, with his experience as a physician, is able to give us the benefit of this bill. I thank the gentleman from Indiana for that. The Medicaid program is an incredibly important program to get health care to poor Americans who need it. The vast majority of our providers use the Medicaid program to provide those services, but some fraudulent providers use that program to rip off taxpayers. It has got to stop. One of the things that Dr. Bucshon observed and brought to our attention was that when States are aggressively monitoring for fraud and when they identify a fraudulent provider, they write that person off the rolls so that that provider can't keep ripping off the taxpayers. But that information doesn't get disseminated to other States, so that fraudulent provider simply steps across the State line, sets up another operation, and starts ripping off taxpayers all over again. This legislation addresses that rip-off. I am glad it does because we can debate about lots of things, but there is unity here about wanting to make certain that any taxpayer dollar is well spent and that it is not ripped off by a fraudulent provider. This sets up practical mechanisms for States that have identified a fraudulent provider so they may share that information with other States so they don't find themselves digging the same hole. We have bipartisan support for this. It is a money-saving bill. The CBO estimates that it would save approximately $28 million over 10 years. That may sound like small money; but do you want to know something? That is real money. It is about the money, but it is also about constant vigilance so as to make sure that the programs we design for good intentions work.

Mr. WELCH. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Chairman, it is just what we should be doing here so we can look at things that have good intentions, like the Medicaid program, and find where there are holes in it and try to close them so that the program runs better so that taxpayer money is saved and so that the efficiency of government is enhanced. And that is a mutual responsibility that we have so that people can have confidence that the taxpayer dollars that they are spending, whether it is for Medicaid or the Pentagon or any other program, are spent for the intended purposes and are not wasted.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my strong support for access to epinephrine for in-flight emergencies, commonly administered by epinephrine auto-injector (EAI) and want to commend Mr. Costello of Pennsylvania, Mr. Maloney of New York and Mr. Hanna of New York for their amendment and their leadership in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, working to ensure that Emergency Medical Kits (EMKs) are appropriate to meet the emergency needs of both adult and child passengers. Epinephrine Auto-Injectors are the primary method for treatment of anaphylaxis emergencies and the best way to address anaphylactic events. Due to the ease and safety of use of epinephrine auto injectors for many travelers with diagnosed and undiagnosed allergies, air carriers should consider stocking auto-injectable epinephrine for use in adults and children.