[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 21 (Tuesday, February 7, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H1059-H1064]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1730
                    WHAT HAS WASHINGTON DONE TO YOU?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, well, let's see, I got a phone call from 
my district--one of several dozen today--and they all are kind of about 
the same thing: What is going on in Washington? What are they doing in 
Washington? What is happening? What is happening with ObamaCare, the 
Affordable Care Act? What are they going to do about this wall? People 
are concerned. People want to know what is happening in Washington.
  I suspect a good many of us are trying to figure out what the next 
steps are. It seems like every other moment something new is erupting 
from the White House, another tweet or another executive order, and we 
have had a lot of them. And so what I want to do today is to kind of go 
back and take a look at what has transpired over these last 2\1/2\ 
weeks. What has happened in Washington these last 2\1/2\ weeks?
  Besides a lot of confusion, angst, and concern, some very, very 
important things are happening, and here is my take on it. I am going 
to kind of put a title on today, and I am going to say: What has 
Washington done to you, not for you. What has Washington done to you?
  Let's start with the very first day that President Trump was 
inaugurated. Well, it was all about the Affordable Care Act, otherwise 
known as ObamaCare. So he set out to begin the repeal of ObamaCare, or 
the Affordable Care Act.
  Oh, by the way, they are one and the same. It depends which way you 
are looking at this thing, but the repeal of the Affordable Care Act 
has dire consequences on Americans.
  Some 30 million Americans could be affected, according to the 
Congressional Budget Office, or in my State, we are looking at maybe 5 
million people could lose their health coverage, their insurance, as a 
result of that. There is $16 billion that immediately flows to the 
State of California for the expansion of the Medicaid, Medi-Cal program 
in California. That would be gone. And those people that are on that 
program would simply not be able to get care.
  It goes beyond just those who are in the exchanges. The exchange in 
California is working quite well. Maybe a 1\1/2\ million people in 
California are covered through the exchange, and they have options in 
most every part of the State.

  In my part of the State, there are some shortcomings because services 
are not readily available, but there are 34 clinics managed by nine 
organizations that provide medical services in my district. Every one 
of those clinics rely upon ObamaCare, or the Affordable Care Act, for 
the services that they render. If the Affordable Care Act disappears, 
we repeal ObamaCare, those clinics are out of business.
  And what does that mean? It means that thousands, literally hundreds 
of thousands of people in my district would no longer be receiving 
medical

[[Page H1060]]

services through the clinics, through the Affordable Care Act's 
expansion, or through the Medi-Cal program. This is serious business.
  There is another piece to this, and I would like to put up some 
charts on that, but let's just go back and quickly review the benefits. 
The benefits are:
  5.1 million seniors receive savings on prescription drugs. You know 
that famous drug doughnut hole; it has almost disappeared as the result 
of the ObamaCare Affordable Care Act.
  32.5 million seniors receive free annual preventions, health 
checkups, every year. What does that mean? It means their blood 
pressure is checked out, their potential for diabetes, for other 
chronic illnesses, and they get the medicine for diabetes. They get 
better health care, and the cost of Medicare is reduced.
  Also, it strengthens consumer protections for seniors in Medicare 
part D, and at least 85 percent of Medicare Advantage Plans' revenues 
go back towards providing senior services. That is just for seniors.
  So there are many, many benefits in the Affordable Care Act beyond 
just those that are getting new insurance policies. It is a big deal 
for seniors. They are able to get an annual checkup. They are able to 
get their drugs much cheaper, able to provide them with the necessary 
pieces of it.
  One of the very first acts that has been taken up here by Congress is 
the budget resolution passed by both Houses. It is now in effect, the 
first budget resolution, and that budget resolution tells the Budget 
Committee and the Ways and Means Committee: Repeal the taxes that are 
associated with the Affordable Care Act. It is a lot of money, 
somewhere between $700 million and $1 trillion of tax cuts directly 
associated with the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare.
  Who gets the benefit of those tax reductions? Well, the top 1 percent 
would receive some 70 percent of the benefit.
  What does that amount to? Well, it amounts to--did I say 1 percent? 
The top one-tenth of 1 percent would receive the great majority of the 
benefit, or $200,000 tax reduction for the super-superwealthy. The rest 
of them, the top 1 percent, get 57 percent of that $700 billion, and 
that is over a 10-year period. And everyone else, that would be the 
other 99 percent, will share in a much smaller portion, the remaining 
43 percent.
  For an average family, it probably amounts to maybe a tax reduction 
of $160. However, those are the people that are able to get their 
insurance through the exchanges, and so they are getting a really bad 
deal because the average exchange, for example, in California, is 
somewhere over $2,500.
  So this is the tax repeal. It is a massive tax cut for the super-
superwealthy.
  It turns out that to pay for the Affordable Care Act, a very 
progressive tax was put in place, and it does provide benefits for 
those who are uninsured, the Medicaid population across the Nation, as 
well as providing the buy-down of the insurance policies that are 
available through the various exchanges.
  Keep in mind, when people talk about repealing the Affordable Care 
Act taxes, what they are talking about is a massive redistribution of 
wealth in this Nation and a furtherance of this income inequality that 
has been such a problem in our society and in our economy.
  So the repeal of the Affordable Care Act does many, many things, most 
of which would be quite a problem for working men and women, for the 
seniors, for the elderly.
  I didn't mention here that a good portion of that Medicaid population 
goes to provide long-term care in nursing homes for seniors who are not 
wealthy. I don't have the exact percentage, but some people say it is 
50, 60 percent of Medicaid benefits across the Nation wind up providing 
services in the long-term care facilities.
  Is that important to seniors? Oh, yeah.
  Is it important for children of seniors, you know, those people that 
are in their forties and fifties whose parents are in their seventies 
and eighties? They are deeply concerned about this particular issue of 
the Medicaid expansion being eliminated by a repeal of the Affordable 
Care Act, and then they wind up in a situation of having to take care 
of Mom and Dad, trying to figure out how to do it on their insufficient 
income.
  So we need to understand that the very first act undertaken by the 
President was to set in motion a very serious rejiggering, a 
reoperation of the entire healthcare system in this Nation, so much so 
that the standard insurance companies that provide policies to the 
great majority of Americans are going: Whoa, wait a minute. You 
eliminate the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, and we don't know how to 
price in the marketplace for the coming year.
  Right now, those insurance companies are in the process of figuring 
out what their policies are going to be, how they would price them.
  One of the things the Affordable Care Act does is to provide an 
opportunity for those that have preexisting conditions, serious 
healthcare problems, for those people to be able to get insurance; 
therefore, the risk is spread. Now, if the Affordable Care Act 
disappears, would this be part of the replacement? We don't know.
  Our colleagues on the Republican side keep talking about repeal and 
replace. We don't have a replacement plan yet, but what we do have is a 
probability of a massive tax cut for the very wealthy. We are also 
looking at chaos in the insurance system.
  So let's be aware of what is going on in Washington when we talk 
about repeal and replace and when you talk about ObamaCare--which, by 
the way, is also known as the Affordable Care Act.
  I have, today, some of my colleagues joining us. I notice that two of 
them are here. We could go alphabetically, in which case--well, let me 
see, P-Q-R. That means Panetta comes first.
  My new colleague from the Monterey Bay area of California will join 
us here. He wants to talk about some of these issues that confront 
Americans and explain to all of us what this Congress and what the 
President is doing to Americans.
  I welcome Mr. Panetta to his very first Special Order hour that I 
have been able to work with him. I know you have spoken on the floor 
before, and we look forward to your comments tonight. I thank the 
gentleman very much for joining us.
  I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Panetta).
  Mr. PANETTA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California, and 
I rise today to oppose President Trump's anti-immigrant executive 
orders and to share with you why I feel these orders harm the people 
across my district and, ultimately, across our Nation.
  I am here because my grandfather came here as an Italian immigrant 
back in 1921. He told us that the reason he came here was to give his 
children a better life, and he wanted a chance to achieve what I think 
we all know to be the American Dream.
  I am here in front of you living the reality of that dream. And that 
is why I strive every day as best as I can to give back to my country 
and community here in Washington, D.C., and especially on the central 
coast of California.
  I do that not only because of my grandfather, but because it was our 
forefathers that made it clear that this is a nation, this is a country 
based on ``We the People.'' And so to me, being in this country, being 
American, means that all of us bear the burden to serve one another and 
to welcome those--especially those--who are willing to come here and 
share in that responsibility. I believe that we should embrace them. I 
believe that we should embolden them with the opportunities to share in 
that American Dream.
  We know that the world looks to the United States for enlightened 
leadership, but these ill-advised actions send a wrong message about 
our values as a nation. We are a nation of immigrants. We are stronger 
because of our diversity and because of the people who have taken the 
risks to come here just as my grandfather did, to live here and to 
contribute to our country and our communities.
  On the central coast of California, that is the heart and soul of 
that area. I see hardworking men and women who have come to this 
country to live in it and contribute to it. The two main industries 
there on the central coast are agriculture and tourism--big industries.

[[Page H1061]]

  There are people, workers, owners who contribute greatly not only to 
those industries, but to our communities, and they are our neighbors, 
our friends, our families, our children. They sit next to my two 
daughters and play with them at school. Clearly, without them, my 
community would be a shell of its former self.
  I hear the pain in their voices because they feel that this 
administration's executive order targets them and makes them feel 
unwelcome. I see that these types of executive orders drive a wedge in 
our country, and it drives them further away from participating in our 
community.
  Before I was sworn in on January 3 of this year, I was a prosecutor; 
and for the 5\1/2\ years that I was there at the Monterey County 
District Attorney's Office, I prosecuted gang crimes. That kind of 
prosecution, as you can imagine, as you know well, it can be very 
difficult to have witnesses come forward and participate in one of the 
cornerstones of our country: our criminal justice system. They are 
intimidated. They are worried about retribution and retaliation.
  Yet now, from what I have heard, they are worried not just about 
criminals; they are worried about the government, the government 
cracking down on them if they came forward, cracking down on them and 
sending them back to where they came from. These executive orders 
discourage participation in our community. Instead, as a nation, we 
should encourage people to step up, to step forward, and to be a part 
of our criminal justice system.
  Last weekend, I met with community members and I heard directly from 
them about their concerns, and this weekend, I am doing it again. I am 
holding a townhall to continue this conversation.

                              {time}  1745

  I believe it is our responsibility to listen to all of our community 
members and consider the implications of these types of executive 
orders and the implications that they have on all of our constituents.
  When the President of the United States was sworn in, he took an oath 
to protect all members of our Nation by supporting and defending our 
Constitution. As a Member of Congress, I took an oath to support and 
defend that very same Constitution. Rest assured, I will honor that 
oath, and I will honor the oath to my grandfather and to this country 
by fighting and resisting unconstitutional orders from this or any 
other President.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Panetta, thank you so very much for joining us 
this evening. Thank you for your statement of your life and your 
family's work. We know your father. Leon has been a dear friend of mine 
and most of us here in the House. You're going to really be a 
tremendous addition to this House. Your experience as a prosecutor and 
in local government and county government positions you very well to 
bring the message.
  Certainly, the Salinas Valley is one in which immigrants are the 
history, and they are the reality of today. Thank you so very much for 
watching out for them, for your passion, and for your extraordinary 
background in making all of us aware of what happens when sanctuary 
cities, immigration laws, and others are just tossed around without 
much thought about what the impact is in the community and to families, 
as well as to the economy of the community. I appreciate that and hope 
you will come back and join us on another Special Order.
  From the other side of the country, we have Mr. Raskin, another new 
Member of the House of Representatives. Welcome. You have a fascinating 
background, and I look forward to your comments today.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin).
  Mr. RASKIN. Thank you so much, Mr. Garamendi. Thank you for convening 
us to talk about the first month of the Trump administration. The 
attacks on our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and the rule of law 
are coming fast and furious, so it is hard to collect all of them, and 
I appreciate the effort to try to inventory them today.
  I represent the wonderful people of Montgomery County, Frederick 
County, and Carroll County, Maryland, the Eighth Congressional 
District, and I am, by training, a professor of constitutional law 
which I have done for the last quarter century at American University.
  So in reviewing the highlights--or the low lights--of the last 
several weeks, Mr. Garamendi, I thought I would start, actually, with 
my very first day on the job. I went to sign up for health insurance in 
the basement of the Longworth House Office Building, which I was 
delighted to do because my job entitles me to sign up for health 
insurance, and I recognized how fortunate I was. As I was down there, a 
number of other new Members began to form, and I looked at them.
  Then, as I was going through, at the same time, some memoranda that 
my office had received, I noticed that some of the first bills we were 
going to be looking at were to set the stage for dismantling the 
Affordable Care Act, for voucherizing Medicare, for pulverizing 
Medicaid and downsizing it, for demonizing Planned Parenthood, and for 
making it impossible for hundreds of thousands of citizens across the 
country to get basic health care.
  I said to myself: Tell me that it is not the case that I am entering 
Congress with other Members who are going to be signing up for health 
insurance that they get as part of their job, and then they are going 
to go upstairs to the floor of the House and vote to strip 22 million 
Americans of their health care in the Affordable Care Act.
  But, believe it or not, this is precisely what has transpired, and 
there is a very clear move on to try to dismantle the Affordable Care 
Act. The majority has voted more than 60 times to repeal the Affordable 
Care Act, but America has woken up to the fact that it is for real this 
time, and we have hundreds of thousands--millions--of citizens 
mobilizing across the country to defend the Affordable Care Act and to 
demand accountability from their Member of Congress. I am thrilled to 
see that.
  Also, during the last few weeks, we all read a report from 16 
intelligence agencies of the United States, including the FBI, the CIA, 
the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and a 
dozen more, all of them expressing their confidence and their very 
strong belief that Vladimir Putin, the KGB, and the Russian Government 
worked a campaign to undermine and sabotage American democracy in the 
2016 Presidential election. It included acts of cyber sabotage, 
espionage, fake news, and propaganda that all entered into American 
political discourse and our institutions in order to change the outcome 
of the 2016 Presidential election.
  What we have gotten from the President of the United States is a 
series of blithe dismissals of the whole thing saying repeatedly: Other 
people do the same.
  I think it was yesterday that commentator Bill O'Reilly said that he 
needed to criticize Vladimir Putin, who was a killer, to which the 
President responded: Lots of people are killers. And, essentially: Have 
you looked at what America has done recently?
  That kind of talk is absolutely outrageous and scandalous that the 
President would say that.
  The point is not to join the killers of the world. The point is not 
to participate in the league of bandits, bullies, dictators, despots, 
and rightwing movements that are forming all over the world. The point 
is to take them on and to stand up for democracy, human rights, and the 
real ideals of the country.
  So back in the home office, in Moscow, they must be chortling that 
the President of the United States would establish a moral equivalency 
between the first democracy--the first constitutional democracy ever 
created on Earth--and a thug who is presiding over essentially a 
kleptocratic, authoritarian regime in Russia, a man who has said that 
the collapse of the Soviet Union was the single greatest catastrophe of 
the 20th century.
  So we have that to deal with.
  Meantime, instead of taking on the real authoritarians on Earth, the 
President summons up all of his courage with Steve Bannon, and they 
impose a ban on people coming to America from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, 
Somalia, Syria, and Yemen; and they invoke 9/11 several times in the 
course of establishing this unprecedented refugee ban. The only problem 
is that the terrorist hijackers who came to attack

[[Page H1062]]

the country on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab 
Emirates. The vast majority of them came from Saudi Arabia, which is 
the stronghold and the organizing center of Wahhabism, fundamentalism, 
radical Islamic terrorism on Earth which has been promoting and 
disseminating militant Islamist ideology all over the world. Yet, the 
Trump administration did nothing about that, either because they were 
too powerful for them to take on or because Mr. Trump has had extensive 
business dealings with Saudi Arabia, as well as in other countries that 
were passed over in this ban.
  Now, of course, because this is a religiously oriented Muslim ban 
that is meant to whip up propaganda, hysteria, and chaos in the country 
and has nothing to do with national security, it has been struck down 
in different parts or in whole by five or six Federal district courts, 
most recently by the United States District Court in Seattle. The case 
is now in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
  There are so many problems with the executive order in terms of due 
process, equal protection, free exercise of religion, and so on, that 
there are multiple judicial decisions that are striking down different 
aspects of the executive order.
  Well, what else do we have going on? Today, in one of the committees 
that I serve on, the House Administration Committee, there was a 6-3 
vote to dismantle the only Federal election entity, the EAC, which is 
charged with trying to promote the cybersecurity of our elections. That 
vote was along party lines--6-3--to dismantle the Election Assistance 
Commission which had been created and established on a bipartisan vote 
many years ago. That was just taken down.
  So I would say that there appears to be an effort to plunge America 
into a certain kind of chaos at this point. That, of course, has been 
the explicit wish of Steve Bannon, who has described himself as a 
Leninist who wants to tear down our system of government and demolish 
the politics of the country to replace with something else which has 
gone un-named.
  So, my fellow Americans, Mr. Garamendi, these are very serious times. 
I am thrilled that the people of America are organizing in every State 
of the Union and in every community to build up the capacity to resist 
these attacks on our Constitution, on our Bill of Rights, and on the 
rule of law. The majority of the people who did not vote for this 
President are mobilized, they are galvanized, and they understand that 
eternal vigilance is, indeed, the price of liberty, and people are 
going to remain eternally vigilant--and passionately so--during the 
course of this administration when the attacks continue to come fast 
and furious on our Constitution and our Bill of Rights.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Raskin, thank you so very much.
  Indeed, your experience as a professor teaching constitutional law 
will be a very valuable asset to this House, and particularly in the 
context of what is transpiring on the floor with the repeal of so many 
of the regulations that are protecting Americans in so many different 
ways, and certainly with the incredible array of outlandish executive 
orders emanating from the White House, not the least of which is the 
immigration issue.
  So as we journey through this period of disruption and chaos, I am 
certain that we will count upon you to provide us with insight into the 
way in which all of this fits into the very clear framework of the 
Constitution.
  Mr. RASKIN. I thank the gentleman from California for his leadership.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, there are so many other things to talk 
about here, and I probably have another 20 minutes to do it. I doubt 
that I will take all that time, unless my colleague from Iowa wants to 
engage in a colloquy about some issues of the day which we might find a 
very exciting and interesting thing to do, Mr. King. I see you await 
your turn here.
  Over the last week, Congress--the last 2 weeks now, 3 almost--has 
enacted a series of repeals of regulations that had been passed in the 
Obama administration. On the floor today, not more than an hour and a 
half ago, three additional repeals of regulations took place. These 
were under the Congressional Review Act, a law that is some 25 years 
old now that allows the Congress to literally repeal regulations that 
are out there.
  I will give you a couple of examples. Today, one of them dealt with 
the planning process for the Bureau of Land Management. About a quarter 
of a million acres of land are under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of 
Land Management. This is public land. It belongs to all of us. This 
land is your land. Well, this is the land that belongs to the American 
people. The repeal today of a new public review process on land 
planning is--I don't understand it. I was once deputy secretary at the 
Department of the Interior, and I oversaw the Bureau of Land 
Management. I was operating under the law that was old in the 1990s.
  But here we are with this repeal of a new process, a process that 
actually invited into the land planning for the Bureau of Land 
Management where are the roads going to go, how are they going to 
manage the various uses of the land, whether it is agriculture, for 
cattle, or for recreation, or hunting, whatever, that they invite into 
that process all of the local agencies. The county, the State, 
environmental groups, hunting, fishing, cattlemen, agricultural groups, 
whoever would have a stake in that, they were invited into the process. 
It shortened the process from 8 years down to something probably in the 
2-or 3-year range to go through this entire thing, and, for reasons 
that I will never understand, the repeal eliminated the use of good 
science and economics.
  So I don't understand what is going on here. This is a good process 
so that the public would be invited. Yet, the Congressional Review 
Act--should the Senate agree and the President sign this particular 
review--the Bureau of Land Management will never be able to go back and 
enter this process of land planning again.

                              {time}  1800

  They cannot issue a new regulation. What is happening here is 
nonsense. There is mountaintop removal in coal country, where mountains 
are simply wiped off the face of the Earth and all of that dirt is 
piled into the nearby streams. We have that regulation.
  Providing clean water for the communities and the rivers for 
recreation or fishing or any other thing is gone and no longer 
available to protect the communities. It goes on and on.
  I know one thing that the President did the very first day was an 
executive order to eliminate the reduction in the mortgage guarantee 
fee. This is a fee paid by homeowners--usually low-income homeowners--
who, because of their income, because of their financial status, cannot 
get a regular mortgage unless there is a guarantee. He said this was 
for the benefit of the homeowner. Baloney. This was for the benefit of 
the bankers.
  We already know that he has appointed three people to his cabinet 
that are from Wall Street, particularly from Goldman Sachs, and another 
one from another agency on Wall Street. He was going to do away with 
Wall Street. No, he brought Wall Street into the cabinet. We are going 
backwards on this.
  I am going to take a deep breath--I need it after all of that--and I 
am just beginning to get wound up and haven't gone through the other 20 
things that are on my list.
  I did notice that this is my day to welcome to the floor of the House 
of Representatives new Democratic members. Mr. Raskin is from the 
marvelous State of Maryland. I have two Californians here. Ro Khanna is 
from the Silicon Valley.
  I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Khanna) to share with 
us his take on his first 33 days in Congress.
  Mr. KHANNA. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Garamendi for his 
leadership in the State of California and the country.
  I rise today to voice my strong objection and disapproval for FCC 
Chairman Ajit Pai's decision to roll back a program that would provide 
internet access to low-income Americans.
  I was shocked that this was one of the first decisions that the FCC 
Chairman made. What he has done is provide few subsidies for low-income 
Americans who need internet access.
  Now, we know that 45 percent of Americans under 30,000 currently 
don't have internet access. Providing these

[[Page H1063]]

folks with internet access is giving their kids a basic shot at digital 
proficiency and having a job in technology or a chance at the American 
Dream.
  Chairman Ajit Pai has become a poster child with this decision for 
everything that is wrong with Washington. It is what people complain 
about. He is writing the rules of modern-day capitalism in a way that 
privileges these elite telecom companies with concentrated economic 
power at the expense of low-income Americans.
  This Congress must stand united to make sure that an unelected 
bureaucrat doesn't get to write the rules of our economy in favor of 
wealthy interests at the expense of ordinary Americans.
  Mr. Speaker, I will be circulating a letter to our colleagues that I 
hope we can send to Chairman Pai, and, hopefully, he will reconsider 
this decision that is really not in the interest of ordinary Americans.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. If I might ask a question of the gentlemen. He 
represents the Silicon Valley--at least a large portion of the Silicon 
Valley--and the issue of net neutrality has been bouncing around here 
for some time.
  Basically, the FCC, as I understand it, has decided that there would 
be net neutrality, which, as I understand it--and perhaps the gentleman 
can explain it better than I, so I will let him do so--may be the next 
thing that this new chairman intends to do away with.
  Has the gentleman followed that?
  Mr. KHANNA. I have. I appreciate the Congressman's leadership on 
this.
  Net neutrality, as the gentleman knows, is a very simple idea. That 
means that everyone should have equal access to the internet; that you 
shouldn't get to pay for faster service or you shouldn't get to pay to 
have more of your message out.
  You would think that if anyone would appreciate the importance of it, 
it is the President, who uses the tool of the internet with Twitter and 
Facebook.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Oh, the tweets.
  Mr. KHANNA. You would think we would want a democracy where every 
citizen has equal access to these tools.
  Well, who doesn't want that?
  Some of these big companies that have concentrated economic power and 
have an interest in making money and not for speech.
  This Chairman has shown a consistent pattern already, in a few weeks, 
of basically siding with these large telecommunication companies at the 
expense of ordinary citizens.
  It may sound like a technical issue. Some folks glaze over when you 
say net neutrality or you talk about the technical issues of the 
lifeline program, but I think what they have got to know is you have an 
FCC Chairman who is siding with wealth interests in telecom companies 
over what would benefit ordinary people.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank the gentleman for the explanation and the 
purpose of net neutrality. In a way, it is one of the things that, in a 
very real way, protects the individual--by having access.
  What is happening with these regulations and many of these executive 
orders that the President puts out is to remove from the individual 
protections that they have. I mentioned mountaintop removal in coal 
country and the protections that the indigent farmer down the stream 
has for clean water. That protection is gone.
  You look at the mortgage guarantee. It is a small amount, but it is 
an additional $500 a year that an individual would have to pay, 
assuming they had to have a mortgage guarantee. Most low-income people 
have to have that mortgage guarantee in order to buy a home. It is $500 
out of their pockets.

  So it is the protections that have been in place. There may be 
others. I am sure that in the gentleman's area he may know of others, 
if he would like to share with us, but I really thank him for bringing 
to us his expertise in the area of communications. I know that he has 
worked in this area before. He represents a part of America and 
California where this is a very big issue.
  Mr. KHANNA. I thank Congressman Garamendi for his leadership and 
showing what is really happening with the scale-back of all these 
regulations.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I will use another analogy of flying below the radar.
  A lot of this is flying below the radar because we are looking at all 
of the tweets that come out in the morning, the various news programs 
focusing on the President, and missing some really important things 
that protect Americans.
  Mr. KHANNA. If I can make one more comment. Everyone says they are 
not for regulation. That is easy. Every time I get on an airplane, I am 
very thankful that we have some regulations. Regulations can't just be 
eliminated with a hatchet, like this administration is doing.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. That is so very true.
  Let me just go through some of the regulations that are being 
repealed here in the House over the last couple of weeks.
  First of all, let's remember that the Congressional Review Act being 
used to repeal these regulations has two parts to it. One, it has the 
ability of Congress to repeal regulations, which I think is a good 
idea. The second part of it, I think, has some real shortcomings. And 
that is, once that regulation has been repealed, both Houses vote 
before the President signs it, then the issue cannot be revisited by 
that administrative agency.
  I gave the example of the BLM, but it applies across the board. 
Regulations that deal with smoking on airplanes is a regulation. If we 
repeal that regulation, suddenly there is smoking on airplanes. You can 
never go back and do a regulation again in that area.
  I thank Mr. Khanna for joining us and for bringing his expertise to 
us.
  I am going to run down a quick list here. Oil and gas companies 
operate around the world. Our new Secretary of State was the CEO of 
ExxonMobil, the world's biggest oil company.
  Did ExxonMobil pay a fee or a gratuity or corruption to a foreign 
country?
  We will never know now because the Congress has passed a regulation 
that required oil and gas companies to disclose any fees, any money 
that they have paid to a foreign government for the opportunity to 
extract oil or gas from their country.
  We happen to know that many of the countries in which these American 
oil and gas companies operate are rife with corruption. So this is a 
way for us to do an anticorruption program around the world that 
involves our national oil companies. That is on the way to being 
repealed.
  How about mentally ill people being able to get a firearm?
  I suspect 80 percent of Americans--maybe 100 percent--think that 
somebody who is seriously mentally ill ought not to be able to get a 
firearm.
  Well, there is a mechanism. It is a national database. We call it the 
NICS database. It is a database that gun shops have to inquire if an 
individual is on that database for domestic violence, criminal 
activity, or for mental illness.
  We have had a problem with the mental illness part of this because 
many mentally ill people do not get on the database for a variety of 
reasons. The counties, cities, States don't provide that information. 
In some cases, it is deemed to be proprietary or confidential.
  But there is a way. It exists in the regulations today that would 
require the Social Security Administration--when it makes a payment for 
disability for severe mental illness to an individual, that 
individual's name goes on this database. When that individual may want 
to go down to the gun shop and buy a weapon, the gun shop would query 
the database and, lo and behold, the individual comes up and he won't 
able to get a gun.
  It makes sense. It enhances the database. It adds to the database 
individuals that are so severely mentally ill that they are able to get 
Social Security disability payments.
  Who is to object to that?
  Well, apparently a majority of the House of Representatives and the 
Senate does object to that. Probably the National Rifle Association 
also. So now we have a situation in which we have a protection for 
Americans being protected from the mentally ill individual that could 
not buy a gun now suddenly being able to not be on the national 
database for those people that are mentally ill. One more protection is 
gone.
  There are others, and I am going to run through them as quickly as I 
can here.
  I don't know whether you believe in climate change, global warming. I 
certainly do. I have worked on this for

[[Page H1064]]

more than 30 years now, and it is a real issue. We know--there is no 
debate about this--that methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas. In 
fact, it is far more powerful than carbon dioxide.
  So the emissions of methane are one of the things that we would want 
to reduce going into the atmosphere to add to those elements in the 
atmosphere that creates global warming, climate change.
  Well, the House of Representatives has passed a resolution through 
the law that allows it to do so--to roll back a requirement that the 
Bureau of Land Management put in place that requires oil and gas 
companies that are drilling for oil, drilling for natural gas, to 
control the leakage of methane from the gas well.
  Wow, that is a terrible thing to do. Really? To require that an oil 
company, a drilling company that is going after natural gas on 
government--excuse me, your land, the American public's land--that 
they, in the process of drilling for that natural gas or oil, control, 
capture the methane that would otherwise leak from that well?
  Well, that regulation is gone. The protections of Americans are gone. 
Greenhouse gas emissions are emitted without regulatory control. Many 
of these gas wells are in communities and in neighborhoods that will 
also enjoy more methane emissions.

                              {time}  1815

  One more--or maybe more. Oh, yes, labor violations. Labor laws have 
been on the books for well over 80 years. The labor laws are health and 
safety, worker safety, requirements on hours, working conditions, 
hazardous circumstances. There are many different regulations that 
affect employers. They have to provide a safe working environment for 
their workers. Some do. Well, I would say most work at making sure that 
their workplace is safe. Some do not. Some of those who do not provide 
a safe workplace have been fined by the Federal Government for those 
labor violations. It is a good thing. It causes those companies to 
provide a safe working environment for their employees.
  A regulation was put forward by the Obama administration that said 
that if a company wants to contract with the Federal Government, they 
must disclose their labor violations, where they have violated the 
various labor laws. It may be hours of work, overtime pay, working 
conditions, hazardous circumstances, safety. They would have to 
disclose it. It didn't say they couldn't get a contract, but it did say 
that they would have to disclose to the public that they have not 
provided sufficient awareness of the various labor safety and workplace 
laws. That is on the way to being repealed.
  What I want to do tonight is to simply say to the American public: 
Pay attention. There are many things going on here in Congress and in 
the administration that are harmful to you, the American public. The 
kind of protections that you have counted on--worker safety, 
environmental protections if you live downstream from a coal mining 
operation, any of those things--are in the process of being repealed, 
and your protections along with them. So be aware of what the new 
administration and the Congress is doing to you, not for you.
  I could talk about the wall and about the $15 billion to $30 billion 
that is going to be spent if Mr. Trump gets his way here and builds a 
1,400-mile wall. I want to just end with this, and that is choices. 
Your representatives, myself, 434 of my colleagues here and 100 
Senators and a President, we make choices about how your tax money is 
going to be spent.
  Should it be spent on a wall?
  Well, let's consider for a moment spending it on a wall. This is $15 
billion, the minimum amount of money, and it is not going to build much 
of the wall. But for $15 billion, what could you do for it?
  I am from California. I was once a regent of the University of 
California and on the board for the California State University, so I 
am familiar with this system. $15 billion could fund the entire 
California State University system for 3 years, and that is nearly a 
half a million students. You could replace all of the water pipes in 
Flint, Michigan, 270 times over for $15 billion.
  Choices. Do you want safe drinking water in Flint and other 
communities around the United States or do you want a wall? Are you 
concerned about the American military, the Navy, five Virginia-class 
submarines, or one Ford-class aircraft carrier plus a submarine? Or how 
about scholarships for undergraduate programs at the University of 
California, which I had the privilege of graduating from a few years 
ago?
  27,777 4-year, full-time scholarships. That is the undergraduate 
population at the University of California Davis, which I have the 
privilege of representing.
  There is one more place you could spend $15 billion or even one part 
of $15 billion, and it is on this. These are the deadly diseases in 
America. Let's see. Breast cancer, over the last decade we have seen 
breast cancer actually decline. Prostate cancer has declined by 11 
percent, heart disease by 14 percent, stroke by 23 percent, HIV/AIDS by 
52 percent. Alzheimer's has not declined. It has increased by 471 
percent, and it is going to go even more.
  What could we do with $15 billion of research on a disease that 
affects every American family?
  We could almost assuredly find a cure for Alzheimer's. I thank my 
colleagues here in the House of Representatives for increasing the 
budget for Alzheimer's research from around $500 million to just under 
$1 billion. That was done last year. If we can increase that funding 
another $1 billion a year, the researchers indicate to us that we have 
a high probability of delaying the onset of Alzheimer's by 5 years. 
With another $1 billion after that, we probably could find a cure for 
this disease that is going to bust the American bank. Medicare and 
Medicaid, that is where the big money is going to be spent.
  So my plea to our President and those who want to build a wall is: We 
have choices. You want to do something for the American public? Let's 
spend that $15 billion to $30 billion on education. You want to do 
something for every American family? Spend some portion of that $15 
billion to $30 billion by doubling the amount of money that we are 
spending annually on Alzheimer's research. You want to do something for 
the security of our Nation? Meet those critical needs that our military 
has. Whether it is a new submarine or an aircraft carrier we can 
debate, but we do know that we have expenditures that are necessary in 
that area.
  So, Mr. President, don't waste our money. Don't waste our tax money 
on a wall. By the way, we know Mexico is not going to pay for it. Don't 
get in a fight with our trading partner and our neighbors to the south 
and Australia.
  Be aware, Americans. Watch closely to what is happening here in 
Washington. If you are concerned, so am I concerned about where we are 
headed and about what this government is doing to you, not for you, but 
rather to you.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to address their 
remarks to the Chair and not to a perceived viewing audience.

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