[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 200 (Wednesday, November 17, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H6356-H6360]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2021, the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.


                             General Leave

  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and 
include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from New Mexico?
  There was no objection.
  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Madam Speaker, Monday was such an exciting day 
for our country. President Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment 
and Jobs Act into law, and we came one step closer toward making the 
necessary investments to help our communities thrive; to help them 
thrive, not just survive.
  And I want to point out that, although it is called the bipartisan 
infrastructure act, we had very few Republicans in this House vote for 
that bill. In my State, the Republican Congresswoman did not vote for 
the infrastructure act; so she voted against the clean water. She voted 
against the broadband. She voted against the infrastructure that we 
need to keep our roads safe and our bridges strong enough so that kids 
can cross them in their school buses to get to school.
  But the Democrats delivered that bill, and the Democrats are going to 
deliver the Build Back Better agenda.

[[Page H6357]]

And the reason why we need to pass the Build Back Better Act, it is 
para la gente. It is for the people. It is for our communities.
  Just a few weeks ago, my Progressive Caucus colleagues and I held a 
Special Order hour dedicated to the many great things in the Build Back 
Better Act. But, there is so much in there that is good that we are 
back here tonight to continue to highlight the benefits for our 
communities.
  Madam Speaker, throughout the pandemic, New Mexicans lost their 
livelihoods. They put savings toward just surviving. If it wouldn't 
have been for the American Rescue Plan, they would have lost their 
homes. The eviction moratorium helped them.
  Housing--I want to talk a little bit about housing because that is 
something I have worked on for many, many years in my district. We know 
that housing instability and the shortage of affordable housing hurts 
our working families.
  Many saw their dreams of home ownership vanish with the pandemic and 
the recession. But, with Build Back Better, we have an opportunity to 
change that. We know that the biggest barrier to purchasing a home is 
the lack of savings needed for a downpayment. People just don't have 
$10,000 or $20,000 to put down on a downpayment.
  And current benefits like mortgage deductions don't help low-income 
families looking to buy a home. They don't help middle-class families, 
because you need the money at the time you are buying the house, at 
closing.
  So, to successfully address the affordable housing shortage and the 
growing racial gap that comes along with it, we need to make sure there 
is access to home ownership, especially for communities like in New 
Mexico, or Native American, Latino, African American, Black, Indigenous 
communities, we need to make sure that we provide them with the 
homeownership assistance when it is needed, which is at closing.
  And you know what? Build Back Better does just that. It makes one of 
the largest investments in housing downpayment assistance in history.
  I am proud to have been one of those many in our caucus who advocated 
for the $10 billion that is in Build Back Better to help first-
generation homeowners purchase their home.
  In my beautiful New Mexico, we are lucky to have an organization that 
I have worked with for 20 years. It is called Homewise, an organization 
that helps create successful homeowners so that families can improve 
their long-term financial wealth. We have financial fitness classes. We 
also help people with downpayment assistance. But we could use more of 
that. We never have enough downpayment assistance.
  But one of the people that we helped was Maria Luisa. Maria Luisa 
first came to the United States from Mexico. She had a dream to own a 
home of her own and to create that better life for herself. She found 
that dream hard. She found herself living on the streets of Santa Fe, 
but she turned her life around. She got her GED. She got her residency, 
her green card. She took classes at the Santa Fe Community College in 
community health, and she found Homewise, and she found her first home 
with our help.
  She says that being a homeowner lifts her spirits and gives her 
confidence in her own future. She knows that she will be able to pass 
along the savings that are incorporated into that home of her own to 
her children.
  Spirit and confidence in the future, that is what Democrats are 
about. We are about opportunity. We are about creating that belief in 
the future and making it possible for working families.
  I am glad to be on the floor with my progressive colleagues to talk 
about the many opportunities that Build Back Better has.
  But I want to take a little moment right now and have us walk back a 
year. Thanksgiving. Do we remember what Thanksgiving was like a year 
ago?
  In my household, we always have a sit-down dinner for about 24 
people. You know, we believe in those extended tables. And everybody 
comes. Somebody will make the turkey, somebody else will make the green 
chili and the red chili, because you can't do without red chili and 
green chili if you are from New Mexico. And everybody brings what they 
made with such love to the table, and we sit around together and share 
stories and share good food and laugh and tease.
  Last year, did we do that? No. Last year, we had a Zoom Thanksgiving. 
Last year, we were living in despair. We were living with our former 
President, who made fun of COVID. We were living with politicians from 
the other side of the aisle who called it a hoax. And we could not 
gather. We could not celebrate.
  What a difference a year makes. What a difference leadership makes. 
Under President Biden and the American Rescue Plan, we have made it 
possible for our families to gather together once again because we made 
sure that they didn't get kicked out of their homes; that they had a 
place to invite their family too with the money that we put into rental 
assistance.
  We made sure that they could get that vaccination; that they could 
have those shots. And anybody who wants it in the United States can get 
a shot, can be vaccinated, can get their booster, so that they protect 
everybody in their community. And that is what we need to celebrate, 
and that is what we need to respect because a year later, the American 
Rescue Plan has done so much for our communities.

                              {time}  1800

  But, yes, it is true. As those on the other side of the aisle state, 
we are seeing inflation. But gas prices, who controls gas prices? Oil 
and gas companies do. Who protects oil and gas companies? Republicans 
protect oil and gas companies.
  They protect those corporations. They do not let us attack their 
corporations or tax those corporations. So Democrats have to do it 
themselves.
  We need to remember that it is greedy corporations that are raising 
the prices and profiting off of working families.
  We need to remember that it is Grubhub that is increasing the price 
of deliveries by 30 percent, and none of that is going back to the mom-
and-pop restaurants. It is going to those corporations that don't want 
to pay taxes.
  But in the Build Back Better Act, we are going to make sure that 
corporations pay their fair share so they can stop fueling the 
inflation that the Republicans protect. They are fueling the inflation, 
and Republicans are protecting those corporations. Let's call it like 
it is.
  But right now, I want to go back to all the amazing things that are 
in the Build Back Better Act. I am going to call on our wonderful 
Representative Watson Coleman, my colleague, who always stands ready to 
tell the stories of what it means on the ground in our community, for 
our people, from visions like Build Back Better.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. 
Watson Coleman).
  Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Madam Speaker, first of all, I thank 
Representative Leger Fernandez for managing this very important Special 
Order hour. I want to tell her and you, Madam Speaker, that I have been 
totally inspired by my colleague's comments thus far on the benefits of 
the Build Back Better Act, on helping us to remember and to reimagine.
  I remember Thanksgiving as well. I come from a big family, and there 
are about 30 of us that get together. It didn't happen last year. But 
because of this leadership out of this administration, the Democratic 
Caucus in this House and in the Senate, we were able to deliver 
resources so that people could get the things that they need to stay in 
their homes and get vaccinated.
  I, for one, am happy to say that my whole family is vaccinated, and 
we also have the booster, so we are going to get together for this 
Thanksgiving dinner. I am grateful to the visionary President, Joe 
Biden, for this.
  I am here tonight to speak about something that I am passionate 
about. I want you to know, Madam Speaker, that I am rising today 
because I feel that the way our country has treated working people has 
just been unacceptable.
  Billionaires pay a smaller share of their wealth in Federal taxes 
than the middle-class and the working-class people who built this 
country.
  Our system is antithetical to our country's founding principles, and, 
yes, it is broken. Our country has failed its

[[Page H6358]]

people, and we must do better. We can't do better, though, without 
building back better.
  Although the current bill does not include all that we had hoped it 
would, it is still going to transform the lives of those who need it 
most.
  For example, it will give working parents the freedom to raise their 
newborn children and make a living. That is why Build Back Better 
extends the already extremely successful child tax credit expansion 
Democrats first passed in the American Rescue Plan earlier this year.
  It also incorporates my Healthy MOM Act to ensure new mothers have 12 
months of postpartum healthcare coverage so they are supported when 
they need it most.
  It will also make an unprecedented investment in putting floors 
beneath our feet and roofs above our heads. The Build Back Better Act 
includes $65 billion for safer, more accessible public housing. It also 
invests an additional $25 billion to construct and rehabilitate low-
income family housing and another $9 billion for lead remediation to 
safeguard our children's health.
  This bill also puts us back on the right path to prepare against the 
threat of climate change. It makes a historic $29 billion investment in 
greenhouse gas reduction and $3 billion for climate justice block 
grants. It will also ban new offshore oil and gas leasing along our 
coasts to create a cleaner, brighter future where all of our children 
can thrive.
  Right now, the American Dream is just that, a dream, for far too many 
people. Building back better is a crucial step toward making that dream 
a reality.
  Since our Nation's founding, working Americans have paid more than 
their fair share. It is time we finally reward them.
  Today's Build Back Better Act is not the bill we had in mind when the 
President first announced his agenda, but we are still on the verge of 
making the biggest investment in working American families in more than 
half a century.
  I am very proud of that. We all ought to be very proud of that. We 
ought to be proud that we can work hard. We stood together; we fought 
together; and together, we can make it happen.
  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Madam Speaker, New Jersey is so lucky to have 
Representative Watson Coleman because she knows what is needed on the 
ground.
  Yes, indeed, it is together, and that is what I like about our Caucus 
and what we are doing. We are doing it together. We are not about 
division. We are about unity.
  That is what we represent, right? Because we know that community 
working together, living together, and growing together is how we 
succeed in life.
  I want to raise another part of where Build Back Better is very 
important. I am chair of the Indigenous Peoples Subcommittee. I am so 
lucky to have the Jicarilla Apache Nation, the Navajo Nation, and 16 
different Puebloan Tribes in my district. They tell me about their 
needs. I have walked in their villages. I have sat at their feast days.
  I know the pandemic hit them hardest of all. We saw the death and 
despair in our Tribal communities. So what we did in Congress, what we 
did in the Natural Resources Committee, was to make sure that their 
voices were heard. We provided $14 billion in the American Rescue Plan 
and another $12 billion for their communities.
  We have been hearing lately about the incredible, sad stories that 
come from the fact that there was a time in America's history when we 
took children away from their Tribes, away from their culture, and we 
put them in boarding schools, and many died. We were trying to erase 
the savage Indian, and those were the words that were used. It didn't 
work. The Tribes are alive and with us. We must respect that history.
  I am proud that both the American Rescue Plan and the Build Back 
Better Act have $200 million for Native American languages because it 
is through language that you preserve a culture and that you preserve 
an identity.
  Add that together with the fact that we are going to have $470 
million for Tribal climate resilience because we have moved Tribes from 
their homelands and put them in places where they are at the greatest 
risk from the climate crisis. We include money for drought relief 
because they are at the greatest risk of thirst because of the droughts 
that will be caused.
  We have $2.3 billion for the Indian Health Service. This will help us 
address the backlog. 1993 is when we started setting out the list of 
Indian Health Service buildings that needed repair, and we still have a 
1993 list that we have not met.
  I am very proud of what we have done in Build Back Better to address 
the needs of our Native Americans and our urban Native Americans in our 
Tribes.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. 
Pressley), my colleague in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a 
gentlewoman but fierce and proud.
  Ms. PRESSLEY. Madam Speaker, I thank my dear and fierce colleague 
from New Mexico for convening us this evening.
  Madam Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the communities in my 
district and across our Nation who for too long have been asked to 
wait, for those who have had their justice delayed, time and again, by 
inaction, obstruction, or the status quo.
  I rise today because I support the worker and their family, 
caregivers and childcare workers, parents and essential frontline 
workers, our disabled siblings, our environmental justice communities, 
and our immigrant neighbors.
  For months, we held the line to ensure that we leave no family, no 
worker, and no community behind. I rise so that we can secure the 
strongest policies and investments for our most marginalized 
communities, to deliver meaningful, tangible change to improve their 
conditions and to impact their daily lives.
  This week, the House has the opportunity and the obligation to 
legislate justice and begin rebuilding as a stronger, more just Nation 
that takes care of its people, not because it is good politics--I will 
let the pundits speak to that--but because as lawmakers we have a 
decisive mandate from the people to deliver policies and budgets that 
value the lives and livelihoods of everyone in our communities. That 
means passing the President's full agenda, which is the people's 
agenda.
  I represent Massachusetts' Seventh District, one of the most unequal 
districts in the country and in the Commonwealth, where in a 3-mile 
radius, life expectancy drops from 92 years in Back Bay to 59 years in 
Roxbury, and the median household income drops by $50,000; where 
childcare costs remain some of the highest in the entire Nation, 
$21,000 a child for center-based care; where the rising rates of 
asthma, extreme heat, and sea level rise disproportionately impact 
frontline environmental justice communities like Chinatown, East 
Boston, and Chelsea.
  The hurt and harm in my community run deep, and I see it every day. 
These inequities and disparities are not naturally occurring. They are 
the direct result of decades of precise and intentional policy violence 
and underinvestment that has been codified into our laws and our 
budgets for generations.
  In this moment, as we do the work to build back better and do so 
equitably, we must be just as precise and just as intentional in 
legislating and investing in justice, equity, and healing. That is why 
we can't afford to leave any worker, any family, or any community 
behind.
  Madam Speaker, the Build Back Better Act is our chance to chart a new 
path forward and reverse the generations of policy violence inflicted 
on our most vulnerable, to finally make universal paid leave a reality 
for the millions of workers, disproportionately Black and Brown women, 
who have been pushed out of the workforce, left to make the impossible 
choice between keeping food on the table or caring for themselves or a 
sick loved one; for the childcare worker taking care of our babies but 
can't make enough to take care of their own; to finally invest in home- 
and community-based services for the elderly and disabled as the 
critical infrastructure that it is; to finally make affordable 
childcare and universal pre-K a reality; to combat climate change; to 
close the homeownership gap; to rebuild our crumbling housing stock; 
and finally to honor our promises to our immigrant neighbors.
  These investments are possible; they are popular; and they are 
necessary.

[[Page H6359]]

  We can wait no more. There is no deficit of resources in this 
country, only a deficit of empathy and political courage.
  We must pass the Build Back Better Act this week and make the long-
overdue investments that our workers, families, and communities have 
been denied for too long.
  Our Nation is in crisis. The urgency could not be more clear. How we 
meet this moment will have lasting impacts, and history will remember 
us for it.
  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Madam Speaker, I think this reference to how 
history will judge us is important because we are facing a historical 
moment right now. The decisions we make on the floor of this House this 
week will determine whether our future is one that is inclusive and 
that includes every single family and community in this great Union of 
the United States or whether it continues to leave people behind.
  Right now, those who are being left behind include the vast majority 
of Americans. What we are doing with this legislation is creating the 
kind of opportunity, creating the kind of jobs so that everybody can 
come forward and thrive.

                              {time}  1815

  We are focusing on women. This is a women's agenda. The Build Back 
Better Act is a women's agenda because it is the women who had to drop 
out of the workforce to care for their children because there wasn't 
enough childcare available or it was too expensive.
  In New Mexico, we just learned that almost 21 percent of the women in 
New Mexico dropped out of the workforce because they could not afford 
childcare.
  Build Back Better addresses that. It is going to make sure that no 
family pays more than 7 percent of their income on childcare. That is 
the kind of agenda that every family wants, because they want to make 
sure that their children are cared for and are either in a great 
childcare center or are in that pre-K that is so essential so that they 
can succeed later in life.
  We know that the science has shown us that if you have quality pre-K 
for your 3-year-olds, for your 4-year-olds, you are going to have a 
successful life, you are going to earn more in income, you are going to 
graduate from high school, you are going to earn additional degrees. It 
is going to be better.
  So we are taking the investments today and we will recoup the 
benefits 12 years from now, 18 years from now. And that is believing in 
our future. We are investing in what we believe in.
  I also want to take a moment to address the fact that this bill is 
fully paid for, so when anybody ever says that it is going to increase 
our deficit, know ye that it is not true what they say because this 
bill is fully paid for.
  It is paid for by making sure that tax cheats don't get to cheat 
anymore. We are going to invest in the IRS so that they can audit and 
go after tax cheats. Who wants to defend tax cheats? Do you really want 
to be defending tax cheats? I hope not because everybody should pay 
their fair share.
  We are going to make sure that nobody earning less than $400,000 a 
year pays any more in taxes. Indeed, this is one of the biggest tax 
cuts that we are doing for regular people. Not like the tax cut they 
passed in 2017 which benefited only the wealthy and the corporations. 
This tax cut is a benefit to our working families, to our middle-class 
families.
  The child tax credit is available to all now. Everybody who is 
receiving that $300-per-child payment every month, that is going to 
continue because of the American Rescue Plan and because of Build Back 
Better. If anybody says it is going to add to the debt, know that they 
are not speaking the truth.
  The other thing that Build Back Better does is it has the biggest 
impact on addressing and combating climate change in American history. 
Anybody who has lived through this summer, through last winter, the 
storms, the climate disasters knows that it is not a hoax, as some have 
argued.
  Climate deniers have been proven wrong because we all witness what is 
happening with our climate. We all know that it will cost us billions 
and trillions of dollars if we do not act.
  In my beautiful New Mexico, if we do not act to combat the climate 
crisis, we will become an extension of the Sonoran Desert. I love my 
mountain streams. I love the snowfall that falls on our ski resorts and 
in our mountains and trickles down to our rivers and provides us with 
the water we need for our farms and our fields and to quench our 
thirst.
  I love that snow. If we do not address the climate crisis, we will 
not see that snow in winters to come. We might not see it this winter. 
So I am very pleased at the investments that we are making to combat 
the climate crisis in the Build Back Better Act.
  The infrastructure bill also included some key provisions. It 
included provisions for my Orphaned Well Cleanup and Jobs Act to plug 
orphaned wells and protect our communities from the dangerous methane 
they spew into the air. We know that methane is many times, 35 times 
more dangerous to our climate than carbon, and so it is important to 
plug up those orphaned wells that oil and gas companies have abandoned. 
Not all of them, but there are too many that have abandoned those 
wells, and they are called orphaned. They are spewing methane into the 
air right now.
  I visited one with our Labor Secretary. It was right next door to a 
school. The methane that leaks from that abandoned and dirty well is 
breathed into the lungs of our students. The infrastructure bill will 
help clean it up, but the Build Back Better bill will say we don't want 
this to happen over and over again.
  Build Back Better says: You can't walk away, oil and gas companies, 
you can't walk away from those wells and leave the mess for the 
taxpayers to clean up.
  We asked the Interior Department to strengthen the bonding 
requirements so that the bonds cover the cost of cleaning them up. We 
also establish an idled-well fee so that oil and gas companies don't 
have and don't let these wells just sit unattended. If you are not 
going to be pumping from the well, close it down. Don't just let it 
spew methane into the air.
  I also helped secure $240 million for a Just Transition investment 
fund to create new economic opportunities in our energy communities. 
New Mexico relies on oil and gas for jobs and tax revenues. I am 
acutely aware of the benefits that this industry has brought to our 
State, but I am also acutely aware of the need to transition in a way 
that honors our communities and our workers who have worked in this 
industry, who have fueled our economy.
  We now need a transition to renewable energy and to a clean energy 
economy, but in that transition we cannot leave any worker behind. And 
so Build Back Better includes money to invest in those communities so 
we can see new businesses arise. It also includes money to invest in 
the workers so that if they need to gain new skills that we are there 
for them, that our community colleges are there for them, that our 
apprenticeships are there for them.
  But many of the skills that we need, like cleaning up the orphaned 
wells, are the same skills that you would use in the industry itself. 
So we are going to be creating good-paying jobs, and we are making sure 
in the Build Back Better plan that those jobs are union, if they want 
to be. We are making sure that we prioritize the jobs that pay well and 
that treat their workers well.

  We also are investing in a civilian climate corps. I am very proud to 
have had my first job in the conservation corps, the Youth Conservation 
Corps. It taught me that cleaning and protecting our environment is 
hard work. I went out there with my boots and my shovel and my pickaxe, 
and we helped create trails, and we helped clean up those trails. It 
taught me about work ethic, but it also taught me about the importance 
of caring for the land that we love.
  The civilian climate corps will do the same, but it will grow it. I 
have met with those who are engaged, like the Rocky Mountain Youth 
Corps. I give a shout-out to the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps because 
they are there managing our forests, working to protect our forests, 
and earning their degrees, starting new businesses coming from that 
experience in the climate corps, in the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps.
  We are going to be investing in thousands and thousands of jobs for 
young people who will be able to go on and secure education, if that is 
what they

[[Page H6360]]

want, or start a business, if that is what they want, from the skills 
that they will have learned from the climate corps.
  We also are going to be strengthening domestic manufacturing and the 
supply chains for critical goods because it is only when you address 
the root cause of the problems, which is our supply chains that you 
solve the problem.
  We want to bring back manufacturing to this continent, to this 
country. There are those who talk about it the same way they talked for 
years about infrastructure week, but it doesn't help if all you do is 
talk about it. What you need to do is deliver. In the infrastructure 
plan, we are delivering to bring back the jobs that are needed to build 
those bridges. We are building that infrastructure.
  We are delivering because Democrats deliver. In Build Back Better, we 
are going to be delivering the jobs of the future. We are going to be 
delivering the investments in manufacturing. We are going to be 
delivering the investments so our consumers can realize the benefits so 
that they are paid more and can really have the respect that comes 
along with a job that has the kind of benefits you need.
  We are going to be delivering prescription drug price negotiation. We 
are going to be delivering the lowering of healthcare costs because for 
too long we have had those who would stand for Big Pharma instead of 
for those who need insulin, those who need Humira, those who need the 
kinds of drugs that make their life bearable, those who need the kinds 
of drugs that allow them to survive.
  What we are doing in Build Back Better is making sure that we can 
negotiate to reduce those drug prices. That is something that we know 
Americans want. And so when we do not get a single Republican vote for 
lowering drug prices, remember that, that Republicans were unwilling to 
vote to lower drug prices because that is what this bill does.
  Remember that Republicans were unwilling to vote for infrastructure, 
because that is what the infrastructure plan did.
  I am asking, however, that we receive those votes, that we receive 
bipartisan support for the kinds of investments that we are going to be 
doing for our people.
  I yield now to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline), an 
amazing colleague in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, an amazing 
colleague from the Equality Caucus who has fought for the rights of all 
Americans. He has fought for the Equality Act. He is one of the 
drafters of the Equality Act.
  Mr. CICILLINE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding, 
and I appreciate the opportunity to speak about the President's vision 
for really investing in working families in this country and doing it 
in a way, particularly after COVID, that the economy is rebuilt so that 
everyone has opportunities and that not only people at the top realize 
their full potential and reap all the benefits, but that everyone in 
this country can benefit from the economic recovery that the President 
has articulated in the Build Back Better plan.
  I have been in Congress now 11 years. I don't know that we have ever 
had a better example of what leadership from the President means in 
terms of understanding that the best way to grow the economy is to 
invest in working families, to invest in middle-class families by 
making sure they can access all of the opportunities that exist in this 
country.
  And what are those struggles? Affordable childcare, universal pre-K, 
job training, lowering prescription drug costs, lowering the cost of 
healthcare.
  When the President made his address to the joint session of Congress, 
what struck me in that speech was that President Biden identified 
virtually every single struggle I hear about from my constituents in 
Rhode Island--the high cost of prescription drugs, the high cost of 
healthcare, the high cost of childcare, the inability to access pre-K, 
difficulty retraining because of the absence of job training programs. 
It is as if the President put together everything I have heard that 
folks struggle with every day in this country, and he drafted and 
included all those in the Build Back Better provisions.
  When you take the bipartisan infrastructure bill along with the Build 
Back Better legislation which we are about to pass, we are going to 
create 1\1/2\ million jobs a year for a decade, and that is 
extraordinary. These are good-paying, union jobs.
  We are going to, for the first time, take on in a serious way the 
climate crisis. We are going to drive down costs of everything from 
prescription drugs to childcare to healthcare, and the best part about 
it is it is paid for by making sure the wealthiest people in this 
country and the most profitable corporations pay their fair share. My 
constituents pay their fair share. They expect everyone to do the same.
  And so we have this extraordinary investment in working families that 
is going to give people an opportunity, move so many of the obstacles 
that allow folks to return to the workforce, particularly women. Women 
were devastated by the pandemic, particularly devastated.

                              {time}  1830

  If we did the bipartisan infrastructure bill alone, a lot of that 
economic recovery would escape women in this country. The Build Back 
Better provisions are going to ensure many of those obstacles that 
prevent women from reentering the workforce are addressed so that our 
economy can realize the full benefit of the extraordinary talent of 
women in the workforce.
  This economic recovery that we are all craving after 2 years of a 
very difficult time with this pandemic, that economic recovery is going 
to reach everyone in this country. It is going to begin with working 
families and middle-class families, who for the first time, I think, 
are going to be the focus of a very comprehensive strategy.
  I am excited. I feel particularly honored to be in Congress at this 
moment, and I thank the President for his leadership in developing a 
plan to rebuild the middle class and address so many of the challenges 
that working families face.
  I thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak during this Special 
Order hour, and I look forward to the passage of Build Back Better and 
all it is going to mean for families in my State and all across this 
country.
  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Madam Speaker, I do love it when this President 
always says we are going to rebuild this economy from the bottom up and 
the middle out because that is exactly who he is focused on. He is 
focused on giving us the opportunities, my constituents as well.
  You know, there could not be two States that are more different than 
Rhode Island and New Mexico, but these are the same things we hear in 
New Mexico. We are addressing those in Build Back Better, and I can't 
be more excited as a freshman to be able to be here on the floor of the 
House and to vote for the American Rescue Plan because that really was 
the first step.
  The American Rescue Plan saved our economy. It saved families from 
homelessness. It lowered hunger. It addressed the pandemic by giving us 
the vaccine.
  The second step was the infrastructure bill. We talked earlier about 
how, last Thanksgiving, we were apart. This Thanksgiving, we are 
together because of the American Rescue Plan.
  But the infrastructure bill, that is about repairing our 
infrastructure, which has been too long ignored.
  Then this last one, Build Back Better, I am just overjoyed that I get 
to serve in Congress in this historic moment to work on these things 
that will be benefiting my grandchildren and their grandchildren. I 
want to leave them with this beautiful place we call home intact.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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