[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 132 (Tuesday, September 28, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H7027-H7029]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1400
                         ALL-AMERICAN FLAG ACT

  Mr. DRIEHAUS. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (H.R. 2853) to require the purchase of domestically made flags of 
the United States of America for use by the Federal Government, as 
amended.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 2853

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``All-American Flag Act''.

     SEC. 2. REQUIREMENT FOR PURCHASE OF DOMESTICALLY MADE UNITED 
                   STATES FLAGS FOR USE BY FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

       Only such flags of the United States of America, regardless 
     of size, that are 100 percent manufactured in the United 
     States, from articles, materials, or supplies 100 percent of 
     which are grown, produced, or manufactured in the United 
     States, may be acquired for use by the Federal Government.

     SEC. 3. REQUIREMENT TO USE WORKERS AUTHORIZED TO WORK IN THE 
                   UNITED STATES.

       In carrying out section 2, the Federal Government may 
     purchase flags only from a manufacturer that certifies that--
       (1) the manufacturer does not employ aliens who are not 
     authorized to be employed in the United States; and
       (2) the manufacturer participates in the E-Verify Program 
     under section 401 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and 
     Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (8 U.S.C. 1324a note).

     SEC. 4. EFFECTIVE DATE.

       Section 2 shall apply to purchases of flags made on or 
     after 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Driehaus) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Bilbray) 
each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio.


                             General Leave

  Mr. DRIEHAUS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their 
remarks.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Ohio?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. DRIEHAUS. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2853, the All-American Flag Act, ensures that the 
flags purchased by the Federal Government will be made right here in 
the United States, ensuring that tax dollars used for these purchases 
will stay here in our economy.
  H.R. 2853 was introduced by our colleague, the gentleman from Iowa, 
Representative Bruce Braley, on June 12, 2009. It was referred to the 
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which ordered the 
measure reported by unanimous consent on July 28, 2010.
  This bill requires that all flags of the United States of America, of 
any size, purchased by the Federal Government be 100 percent 
manufactured here in the United States. This also includes any 
articles, materials, or supplies used to manufacture or produce those 
flags. Those materials must all be produced here. This represents a 
vast improvement over existing law, which only requires 50 percent of 
these materials to be American made.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2853 ensures that the flag of this country, flown 
by this country, will be made in this country.
  I would like to thank my colleagues for their hard work on this bill, 
and I encourage them to join me in supporting this commonsense 
legislation.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I would like to thank the author of the bill and the committee 
working on this. I think that we have been able to not only address the 
issue of where flags are made and what material goes into those flags 
but, because of the overwhelming bipartisan support for my amendment, 
we are also going to make sure that those flags are made by legal 
Americans. I think that is something that was overlooked. In fact, if I 
remember right, the vote in committee was unanimous except for one 
vote; let's say that. I think that bipartisan support for the fact that 
we want flags flying over our Capitol that are made in America, with 
American material and by Americans who are legally here, was a great 
message to send. I think that is the kind of bipartisan support and 
consensus that the American people have been asking about for a long 
time.
  I think that one of the things that we clarify here is that, with the 
amendment that the majority accepted from me, we were able to point out 
that there may be a lot of disagreements about the immigration issue, a 
lot of differences about where jobs go, but if there is one place that 
we can kind of meet together, the one thing that seems to be working, a 
very moderate consensus builder, was the success of E-Verify. One place 
the Bush administration and the Obama administration agrees on: The 
expansion of E-Verify as being the minimum standard that we make sure 
employers take, including those who are making the flags for our 
country that are going to fly over this Capitol.
  I think the only place that I can actually think about when it comes 
to immigration that Arizona and Massachusetts agree on is that 
employers should E-Verify, not just to make sure that those who are 
here legally are working, but also to make sure that we do not prejudge 
employees before. One of the great things is that E-Verify doesn't ask 
the employer to make a determination based on just sheer observation is 
somebody a U.S. citizen or a foreign national; it treats everybody 
equally. I think that is one of the big successes here.
  So I would just like to say, again, I think one of the big successes 
of this bill is not just that the American people will know that the 
flags that fly over our Capitol are made in America, with American 
material and with legal Americans, but the fact is symbolic of the 
success of the majority supporting my amendment, and that this bill 
will actually show, too, that: America, we can agree on one thing on 
immigration, and that is that E-Verify seems to be a success that all 
of us can get around.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from North 
Carolina (Ms. Foxx).
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from California's 
yielding the time.
  We are requiring flags to be made in the United States because our 
colleagues say they are concerned about jobs. Well, House Republicans 
are also very much concerned about jobs in this country, and we have 
been listening to the American people.
  Unemployment near 10 percent is one of the chief concerns of the 
people in this country, so they want to know why Democrats are allowing 
both chambers to adjourn this week without stopping this massive $3.9 
trillion tax increase that will hurt small businesses and kill more 
jobs.
  Our friends across the aisle can adjourn the House this week and walk 
away from their responsibility to govern, or Speaker Pelosi could allow 
full and open debate on tax increases before this House is adjourned. 
We want an up-or-down vote now. We can't allow the American people and 
small businesses to face this uncertainty.
  We were elected to serve the people in our districts, not to put our 
personal political gain ahead of our constituents' welfare. Certainly, 
we want to make efforts to keep jobs in America, such as through bills 
like this one, but especially by giving certainty to businesses.
  Let's vote before we adjourn to extend tax cuts for all Americans. No 
family and no job-creating small business owner should face a tax 
increase on January 1.
  Mr. DRIEHAUS. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, again, this bill is about creating American flags in the 
United States of America purchased by the Federal Government.
  I very much appreciate the gentlelady's concern over small businesses 
and business creation. That is why this House and the Senate came 
together

[[Page H7028]]

and passed the Small Business bill last week, which the President 
signed yesterday, creating more jobs and small businesses, allowing 
capital to flow into small businesses through our community banks. It 
is a step in the right direction to create businesses here in the 
United States. I am pleased that we passed it. I am sorry that the 
Republicans didn't join us in that vote and support for small 
businesses.
  Again, I will remind the gentlelady that small businesses benefit 
from the health care bill as well, getting a tax credit for providing 
health insurance for their employees for the first time. The small 
business community had been shut out of the process of receiving tax 
credits for providing health insurance. I am proud of what we have done 
for small businesses here in this Congress and will continue to work on 
behalf of small businesses.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from 
North Carolina (Ms. Foxx).
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, our colleagues across the aisle 
are stuck on failure, the bailouts, one after the other. Last week, the 
bill that was passed here, the $30 billion, is another bailout of 
banks. It is a failure. Everything that our friends across the aisle--
mostly recommended by the President, have failed. Our unemployment 
rate, which was never supposed to go above 8 percent, based on the 
stimulus, is at almost 10 percent.
  Your ways of doing this are to keep the American people under the 
control of the government. Tax credits make them beholden. That is not 
the way to do it. No tax increases is the way to do it.
  Mr. DRIEHAUS. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Again, I would like to comment on the lady's comments regarding the 
supposed failure of the Recovery Act.
  I would invite her to come to Cincinnati, Ohio, where the Banks 
Project, the largest project in Cincinnati, is moving forward because 
of the Recovery Act. She can meet the hundreds of workers that she 
calls a failure. Or she can go to the bridge that is being painted by 
90 employees, also funded by the Recovery Act, that crosses the Ohio 
River. It is the Roebling Suspension Bridge that connects Kentucky and 
Cincinnati. Again, I don't consider that to be a failure. Nor do I 
consider to be a failure the hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs in the 
State of Ohio that police and firefighters now have, the thousands of 
jobs that teachers now have because the Recovery Act.
  As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, I think it was crystal clear in the 
CBO report that came out just a few weeks ago that the Recovery Act in 
fact saved or created 3.5 million jobs here in the United States.
  I will remind the lady of the failures of the Bush economic policies 
that led us into the worst recession in our lifetime. A failure was the 
last 6 months of 2008, when we saw the loss of 3 million jobs in this 
economy.
  I don't call saving and creating 3.5 million jobs a failure, and I 
would challenge her to come to Cincinnati and look those workers in the 
face that are working on I-75, that are working on the Banks Project, 
and suggest to them that their paychecks are a failure of the Federal 
Government.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BILBRAY. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, we can talk about successes and failures. Some people 
think that the stimulus package costing $200,000 per job, on average, 
is not something that is sustainable. But let's talk about something we 
can agree is a success, and that is we were able to meet on this bill. 
Sadly, it is one of those few things we have been able to reach across 
the aisle and work on--that the flags not only that are flown over this 
Capitol and around the country, but as somebody who had the privilege 
and the honor of having the flag that was on my father's casket fly and 
be hung in my office, this will mean that the men and women who served 
for the military and fought for the freedoms and for the free 
enterprise system that makes our freedoms possible will be able to be 
sure that they will not be covered with a flag made in China.

                              {time}  1410

  They will not have slave labor making the Stars and Stripes that are 
laid over their casket; that the sacred oath we make to them in so many 
different ways will include that the honor of a military funeral and 
having the Nation's colors draped over your casket, you will be assured 
that it will be said to be made in America.
  So with that, I think we need to look at where is the success we can 
work on. This is one of those places we have been able to meet. And as 
we have been able to meet, talking about how the flags are made, and 
especially, finally, some agreement on who should be working in this 
country, I think it is one of those things that I hope that we can 
build on.
  Mr. Speaker, if I can suggest that maybe Republicans and Democrats, 
rather than talking about an amnesty here or this proposal, we join on 
a bill that is so commonsensical that we don't even talk about it.
  H.R. 3580 by Steve King, all that bill says is let's build on the 
success of E-Verify and tell employers that we as a government will no 
longer allow you to have a tax deduction for employing somebody unless 
you take the time to check that that person is legally in the country. 
There is a place that Democrats and Republicans can agree on. There is 
a place that we can reach a common ground and find answers, rather than 
pointing out each other's shortcomings.
  Again, I would ask my colleagues on both side of the aisle, look at 
Steve King's New IDEA bill, H.R. 3580. It is the most moderate, it is 
the most commonsense proposal you can put forward. All it says is 
before an employer can deduct the expense of hiring somebody, they darn 
well ought to take the time to check that they are legally in the 
country. That, I think, is something that we can agree on.
  I would love to see that before we adjourn, and maybe when we come 
back, that we meet at that middle ground and show the American people 
that we not only can stand up and make sure that flags are made legally 
in this country, but we can take this step to make sure that employers 
who are breaking the law by hiring people illegally are not given a tax 
deduction for it. I think that is one place that Republican and 
Democrats can join together and be Americans when it comes to these 
issues.
  Mr. Speaker, we have no other speakers at this time; so I will just 
close by saying I think we have had a good discussion here. There are 
agreements and disagreements, but I think we found an agreement here. 
After all, if Americans cannot get together and agree that American 
flags should be made with American material in the United States by 
legal Americans, my God, what can we agree on?
  I think this is one thing that may be small, most people won't think 
it is a big deal, but hopefully this is a prototype and a blueprint for 
Democrats and Republicans getting together and agreeing to be Americans 
first and voting together and passing the kind of laws the American 
people have been waiting for for a long time.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. DRIEHAUS. Mr. Speaker, I very much respect the gentleman's 
remarks, and I too have the flag of my father's coffin in my office. We 
buried him two years ago last week. So it means something very special 
to me that we have come together today to support this legislation, 
because when it comes to our Federal tax dollars being spent on 
American flags, those jobs should be in the United States, those flags 
should be made in the United States, the parts of those flags should be 
made in the United States.
  I appreciate the support of all the Members of the committee, and I 
applaud Representative Braley for bringing the bill forward.
  Mr. Speaker, I again urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this 
measure.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Driehaus) that the House suspend the rules and 
pass the bill, H.R. 2853, as amended.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds 
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
  Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a

[[Page H7029]]

quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be 
postponed.
  The point of no quorum is considered withdrawn.

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