[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 209 (Thursday, December 10, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H7118-H7119]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    ROBERT E. LEE STATUE REMOVAL ACT

  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (H.R. 970) to direct the Secretary of the Interior to develop a 
plan for the removal of the monument to Robert E. Lee at the Antietam 
National Battlefield, and for other purposes, as amended.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                                H.R. 970

       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 ``Robert E. Lee Statue Removal 
     Act''.

     SEC. 2. REMOVAL AND DISPOSAL OF MONUMENT.

       Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of 
     this Act, the Secretary of the Interior, acting through the 
     Director of the National Park Service, shall remove and 
     appropriately dispose of the Monument to General Robert E. 
     Lee at the Antietam National Battlefield.

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


                             General Leave

  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and 
include extraneous material in the matter under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 970 introduced by my 
friend, Representative Brown of Maryland, a member of the Committee on 
Natural Resources and vice chair of the House Committee on Armed 
Services.
  Mr. Brown's bill directs the National Park Service to remove a statue 
of Robert E. Lee from the Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland. 
This 24-foot statue of General Lee was dedicated in 2003, 138 years 
after the end of the Civil War. It was commissioned and placed by a 
private citizen on private land that the National Park Service later 
acquired in 2005.
  As our Nation continues to wrestle and reckon with racial inequality 
and injustice, it is past time that we take stock of these symbols that 
we display and the stories that we tell about our past, present, and 
future.
  For example, the statue at issue here is not historically accurate 
and it simply serves to glorify the ``Lost Cause'' narrative. It does 
not belong on a national battlefield.
  I thank Representative Brown for his hard work in bringing attention 
to this issue, and I urge swift passage of this bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to fill in for the ranking 
member of the full committee, Representative Bishop. He was here 
briefly earlier, but he is definitely under the weather.
  Mr. Speaker, on this bill, I simply yield back the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to 
the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Brown).
  Mr. BROWN of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
California, my good friend, Mr. Huffman, for yielding time. I also 
thank Chairman Grijalva and the staff on the Committee on Natural 
Resources for their work and partnership on H.R. 970, the Robert E. Lee 
Statue Removal Act.
  Mr. Speaker, my bill, which I first introduced last Congress, would 
remove the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from Antietam 
National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Maryland. Antietam was the site of 
immense bloodshed during the Civil War.
  After 12 hours of combat, 23,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were 
killed, wounded, or missing. It remains the bloodiest day in American 
history, and thousands come every year to learn about the war over 
slavery that almost divided our Union.
  On this Federal land stands a 24-foot statue of General Lee. It was 
commissioned with the explicit intent of honoring the Confederacy and 
glorifies the Confederacy, its leaders, the cause of slavery, and open 
rebellion against the United States of America.
  The Lee statue was built by a private citizen in 2003--as you heard, 
138 years after the end of the Civil War--and later acquired by the 
National Park Service. It is also historically inaccurate.
  The monument depicts General Lee riding to the battlefield on 
horseback, but the evidence shows the General actually traveled to a 
different part of a battlefield in an ambulance due to a broken wrist.
  The monument claims that Lee was ``personally against secession and 
slavery.'' Yet Lee was a brutal slave owner. He fought for the 
Confederacy and defended the savage institution of slavery, and he led 
an army that kidnapped free African Americans and massacred 
surrendering Black Union soldiers.
  Instead of teaching us the dark lessons of our history, this statue 
sanitizes the actions of men who fought a war to keep Black Americans 
in chains. This is just one monument, among many.
  Throughout our history, monuments to the Confederacy have been used 
to

[[Page H7119]]

rally white supremacists and intimidate Black Americans. The majority 
of these monuments were built post-Reconstruction by Confederate 
apologists, segregationists, and opponents of civil rights.
  We next saw a resurgence of statues honoring the Confederacy during 
the 1960s and 1970s, when white supremacists attempted to roll back the 
progress being made during the civil rights movement. As monuments went 
up, Black men, women, and children were being lynched.
  Confederate monuments served as a reminder of the power that white 
supremacists attempted to yield and assert over Black Americans. 
Earlier this week, the House voted to remove the names from military 
bases and property that honor the Confederacy. We should take the same 
steps for statues honoring the Confederacy in our national public 
spaces.
  Reckoning with our shared history and this country's past injustices 
doesn't dishonor the Nation; it makes it stronger. There are 
appropriate settings--museums, libraries, and classrooms--to teach 
future generations of the insidious effort to defend the violent 
institution of slavery. But there is no reason why any of our Nation's 
public spaces should have monuments that celebrate those who betrayed 
their country.
  There is only one side in the Civil War we should be honoring, and 
that is of the United States. And we should celebrate figures who 
fought to preserve our Union and those who helped rebuild our Nation 
after the Civil War--the men and women who marched and protested and 
died for this country to live up to our founding ideals.
  Removing the monument at Antietam and those across our country is not 
an insult to any State or region. It would simply be acknowledgment 
that the cause the Confederacy fought for--the cause of slavery--was 
wrong, that Jim Crow and violent resistance of civil rights for all 
people is wrong.
  It is long past time for the Robert E. Lee statue on Antietam 
Battlefield to come down, and I urge my colleagues to support this 
bill.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, before I reserve after those beautiful 
remarks, I include in the Record an email from the CBO.
     From: David Hughes
     Sent: Tuesday, December 1, 2020 2:51 PM
     To: Lim, Sarah
     Subject: Re: Suspension planning.

       Hi Sarah: Good to hear from you. On a preliminary basis:
       H.R. 970, Robert E. Lee Removal, Brown, D-MD; no direct 
     spending or revenue effects.
       H.R. 5458, Rocky Mountain 1, Neguse, D-CO; no direct 
     spending or revenue effects.
       H.R. 5459, Rocky Mountain 2, Neguse, D-CO; no direct 
     spending or revenue effects.
       H.R. 7098, Saguaro Expansion, Grijalva, D-AZ; no direct 
     spending or revenue effects.
       H.R. 7489, Long Bridge Act of 2020, Wittman, R-VA; no 
     revenue effects. Enacting H.R. 7489 would result in an 
     insignificant net decrease in direct spending over the 2021-
     2030 period.
           Best,
                                                     David Hughes,
                             Analyst, Congressional Budget Office.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, we were unable to get an official score, 
but this email confirms on a preliminary basis that all of the 
remaining bills have no spending effect. They also have no revenue 
effect, with the exception of H.R. 7489, which has a net revenue 
decrease.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. 
Raskin).
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Huffman) for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in favor of H.R. 970, and I salute my colleague, 
Congressman Brown, for his exemplary leadership on this issue.
  Mr. Speaker, I cannot find a single case of any other country on 
Earth where monuments and memorials are put up to honor the generals of 
enemy forces in a civil war or any other war. Maybe another such case 
exists, but I can't find it. And there is no denying that there is 
something freakishly unusual about this practice, but you cannot blame 
Americans from the 19th century. In this case, you can't even blame 
Americans from the 20th century.
  This statue of Robert E. Lee went up in 2003, not even 2 decades ago. 
The bizarre and stubborn impulse to honor Confederate military traitors 
to the Union on the very battlefield where they fought to destroy our 
Union and to kill our soldiers waving the Union flag reflects the hold 
of the so-called ``Lost Cause'' ideology, the myth which returns in 
times of resurgent racism, that the Confederate cause was heroic and 
noble, that slavery was a benevolent institution, and that treason was 
somehow justified.
  This kind of derangement from reality and from American 
constitutionalism has set the pattern for a paranoid style in American 
politics, which continues to this very day.
  Mr. Speaker, in 2020, we have a President of the United States who 
refuses to accept his defeat in the election by more than 7 million 
votes and by a margin of 306-232 in the Electoral College--a margin he 
declared ``a landslide'' when he won by that very same amount.
  A big defender of the Confederate statues, the President from New 
York is busily constructing a new romantic ``Lost Cause'' mythology 
about his loss, despite the fact that more than 40 courts have rejected 
all of his claims about the election.
  Mr. Speaker, let us put an end to this strange practice of honoring 
the military enemies of the United States. Let us put an end to the 
``Lost Cause'' mythology, which has been such an abscess and such a 
danger to the Republic.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I simply thank my colleagues from Maryland 
for the eloquence and moral clarity they have brought to this issue.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this long 
overdue and much-needed legislation, and I yield back the balance of my 
time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Huffman) that the House suspend the 
rules and pass the bill, H.R. 970, as amended.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the 
rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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