[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 62 (Friday, April 27, 2012)]
[House]
[Page H2215]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         WORKERS' MEMORIAL DAY

  (Mr. HIMES asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on Workers' Memorial Day because 
25 years ago in Bridgeport, Connecticut at L'Ambience Plaza, 28 
construction workers lost their lives building a building using the 
controversial lift-slab construction technique, which even at the time 
was subject to controversy and is now subject to very significant 
regulation. This sad accident could easily have been avoided, but 
because the proper safety regulations were not in place, 28 men did not 
go home that day. When I attended a ceremony earlier this week to 
commemorate L'Ambience, I met with some of the families. The men were 
husbands, fathers, brothers, and neighbors.
  Day in and day in out in this Chamber we hear about job-killing 
regulations from the other side. And yes, we must make sure that our 
regulations are finally balanced, but it has become religious in this 
Chamber that all regulations, whether they are there to preserve the 
lives of construction workers or to keep children from dying of asthma, 
are ``job-killing regulations.'' If this stays this ideological and 
this religious, we will see more killing of the real kind.

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