E PL UR UM IB N U U S Congressional Record th of America PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 113 CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION

Vol. 159 , THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2013 No. 124 House of Representatives The House met at 10 a.m. and was mate change and the future of the ance, which totaled almost $2 billion called to order by the Speaker pro tem- planet, but Americans don’t have that last year. pore (Mr. SMITH of Missouri). luxury. Farmers in Iowa and elsewhere are f Between this summer’s wildfires in working to be part of the solution, but the West, last year’s drought, what they can’t afford is for Congress DESIGNATION OF SPEAKER PRO Superstorm Sandy, and the recent hor- to continue wasting time with debate, TEMPORE rific flooding in Colorado, Americans ignoring science, and spending billions The SPEAKER pro tempore laid be- are seeing the impact of climate of dollars on disaster relief. They want fore the House the following commu- change. Tuesday, Matt Russell, a fifth- us to spend money upfront, not just to nication from the Speaker: generation Iowa farmer, gave a quick save money in the long run, but the WASHINGTON, DC, history of what climate change looks lives and, indeed, the environment for September 19, 2013. like in Iowa. all of our families to enjoy. I hereby appoint the Honorable JASON T. In 2008, they suffered a 500-year flood. Listening to America’s farmers or SMITH to act as Speaker pro tempore on this In 2010, there was another series of 100- just looking out of the window and day. year floods. The next year, the Mis- paying close attention to the news tells JOHN A. BOEHNER, souri River wiped out thousands of Americans all they need to know. The Speaker of the House of Representatives. acres of farm land, some of which will science is real, and the time for action f never be farmed again. In 2012 was the is now. Farmers, small business, utili- MORNING-HOUR DEBATE catastrophic drought. In half a decade, ties, insurance companies, universities, Iowa saw the worst flooding and the colleges, we all should insist that Con- The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursu- worst drought in over a century of gress stop playing games with the ant to the order of the House of Janu- record-keeping. budget, threatening the global econ- ary 3, 2013, the Chair will now recog- This is what climate change will look omy with debt ceiling blackmail and nize Members from lists submitted by like, and it will get worse and more ex- the future of the planet. the majority and minority leaders for treme, which is exactly what’s hap- f morning-hour debate. pening this year. On May 4, there was The Chair will alternate recognition a foot of heavy wet snow, the most DEALING WITH MENTAL HEALTH between the parties, with each party snow ever recorded in Iowa in May. ISSUES limited to 1 hour and each Member Then it began raining, the most rain The SPEAKER pro tempore. The other than the majority and minority ever recorded in the month of May in Chair recognizes the gentleman from leaders and the minority whip limited Iowa. Then it was drought. Last month Pennsylvania (Mr. MURPHY) for 5 min- to 5 minutes each, but in no event shall was the driest August on record, even utes. debate continue beyond 11:50 a.m. drier than last year’s epic drought. And Mr. MURPHY of Pennsylvania. Mr. f in between, July was one of the cold- Speaker, this week America was once est, on record with temperatures in the again shocked by the tragic shootings CLIMATE CHANGE thirties. Now they’re experiencing one at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., The SPEAKER pro tempore. The of the hottest Septembers on record. and once again, it raised the issue of Chair recognizes the gentleman from The hottest days in 2013 came after how we’re handling mental health to Oregon (Mr. BLUMENAUER) for 5 min- Labor Day, multiple days of over 100- stop this terrible violence. utes. degree temperatures. This is what cli- When you look at the background Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, as mate change means: the wrong weather that was reported in the general media the House Republicans prepare to shut at the wrong time. about Aaron Alexis, who is responsible down the government and threaten the Their joke is that February came in for the shooting at the Navy Yard, we global economy with debt ceiling May, along with all the rain for the see a record of being arrested multiple blackmail, it’s ironic that they refuse summer; and September came in July times; receiving treatment at a vet- to allow their Members to vote on their and July came in September, and now erans hospital; law enforcement offi- own spending bills. They even refused they wonder what month is going to cials in Rhode Island were called upon to allow a conference committee with show up in October. But it’s not a joke because he had been hearing voices in the Senate to resolve the budget im- for the people who are trying to farm. his head; he was worried and ‘‘had sent passe. I suppose it should be no sur- It’s not a joke for the taxpayers who three people to follow him to keep him prise that their denial extends to cli- are picking up the cost of crop insur- awake by talking to him and sending

b This symbol represents the time of day during the House proceedings, e.g., b 1407 is 2:07 p.m. Matter set in this typeface indicates words inserted or appended, rather than spoken, by a Member of the House on the floor.

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VerDate Mar 15 2010 02:54 Nov 11, 2014 Jkt 079060 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 7634 Sfmt 0634 E:\RECORD13\RECFILES\SEP2013\H19SE3.REC H19SE3 bjneal on DSK2TWX8P1PROD with CONG-REC-ONLINE H5658 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE September 19, 2013 vibrations to his body’’; he checked son may wait an average of 110 weeks just manage a business for a few into multiple hotels to avoid the before they get into treatment. months at a time, but you plan for the voices; he also had episodes of shooting In addition, we need more research long term. firearms. on medications. There are 11.4 million Businesses and families deserve a Recently, there was also a case in American adults that suffer from seri- long-term budget that provides them Georgia where Michael Brandon Hill ous mental illness, including schizo- with the visibility needed to plan for clutched a butcher knife over his par- phrenia, bipolar disorder, and major de- the future. Every day we fail to do this, ents’ bed; attempted to set the home pression, but 2 million are not being Congress is harming the economy. on fire; made deadly threats through treated. We need more effective re- We must take a balanced, long-term social media; was bipolar, had atten- search. approach to the budget and end the ir- tion disorder, was schizophrenic; told Three, Federal laws, which are meant responsible across-the-board cuts that police he was off medication; had sto- to protect confidentiality, such as were triggered by sequestration. len a firearm; had 498 rounds of ammu- HIPAA and FERPA, otherwise known We must act now to prevent a gov- nition when he entered a school. Luck- as the Family Educational Rights and ernment shutdown. ily, no one was harmed. Privacy Act, have frustrated the ef- I remain committed to working with What America has done in dealing forts of physicians and family to share my colleagues on both sides of the aisle with people with mental illness is so information. Many times doctors and to pass a budget that reduces the def- far short of what we should be doing, other officials cannot get to the very icit and creates jobs. We must come to- it’s not surprising we are still failing people who can prevent problems and gether now to get this job done. the system. America has replaced its get the person in treatment. Colleges f psychiatric hospitals with prisons and and high schools do not share informa- SECRETARY LEW bridges for homelessness. Pennsylvania tion with parents because they’re afraid of getting sued. Mental health The SPEAKER pro tempore. The some years ago had 20 psychiatric hos- Chair recognizes the gentleman from pitals and 8 jails. Now we have 20 jails professionals hold on to information, and they wish they could talk more New Jersey (Mr. GARRETT) for 5 min- and 8 psychiatric hospitals. One out of utes. five men has mental illness, and one with parents. We need to clarify these boundaries. Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, promi- out of every two women in those jails nently featured on the White House has a mental illness. Four, law enforcement officials need more training. Police officers are on Web site, President Obama issued the Why don’t we use such things as con- following memorandum to all heads of sidered background checks for those to the frontline of dealing with the vio- lent mentally ill. They need to under- executive departments and agencies: obtain guns? In 2010, when 14 million My administration is committed to cre- attempts were made to purchase weap- stand how to identify and handle men- tal health emergencies. In addition, the ating an unprecedented level of openness in ons, there were 72,000 denials because government. We will work together to ensure those folks had pinged positive because primary responders to these ought to the public trust and establish a system of they had an arrest record or had an in- be paramedics, those who are trained transparency, public participation, and col- patient obligatory stay. Of those, 34,000 to deal with health issues. We need to laboration. Openness will strengthen our de- had felony conviction indictments and remove the stigma. From the very be- mocracy and promote efficiency and effec- tiveness in government. 13,000 were fugitives. But there were ginning, we need to be dealing with only 44 prosecutions, and only a few of this as a health issue. Unfortunately, despite once serving One thousand homicides a year are those were found guilty. Background as the White House Chief of Staff, Sec- committed by those with serious men- checks don’t even begin to deal with retary of Treasury Jack Lew appar- tal illness. It’s only 5 percent to 10 per- the millions of people who have a psy- ently never got that memo. cent of homicides, but we need to make On June 7, shortly after the news chiatric illness and go untreated. There sure we have that help. We also need to broke that the Internal Revenue Serv- is a lack of inpatient and outpatient make sure we have integrated care at ice engaged in the reprehensible prac- treatment options, and we need to fi- community mental health centers. Un- tice of targeting conservative-leaning nally begin dealing with these prob- fortunately, there are barriers to bill- political groups, I sent a letter to Sec- lems. ing with Medicare. We need incentives retary Lew with a handful of questions What we need are several aspects, for pediatricians to get additional relating to his time served as White and in the next couple of weeks I’ll be training. We need to review what House chief of staff. Specifically I offering a package of legislation that SAMHSA does with its spending, and asked: finally works towards dealing with VA hospitals need to have more help. First, when was the first time Sec- these so we do not continue to say our Overall, there are many areas that retary Lew, as chief of staff, became primary methods of treatment for we can engage in, and we will continue aware of the IRS’s targeting of tax-ex- Americans with mental illness are jails to do this to make sure we effectively empt groups, including rumors or and homelessness. treat mental illness. media reports of targeting, inde- First, we need to recognize that we f pendent of his knowledge of the IG’s in- have a lack of inpatient treatment op- vestigation? tions. There were 500,000 psychiatric ACT NOW TO SUPPORT THE Second, given that IRS Commis- beds in 1955; now there are less than ECONOMY sioner Douglas Shulman made numer- 40,000. What we need to do is increase The SPEAKER pro tempore. The ous trips to the White House between the options that are available for peo- Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from October 2009 and December 2012, I ple with inpatient and outpatient Washington (Ms. DELBENE) for 5 min- asked Secretary Lew, again as chief of treatment. utes. staff, if he attended any meetings with Two, we need to get serious on re- Ms. DELBENE. Mr. Speaker, I rise Shulman. search for those with mental illness. today to speak about the critical need Next I asked if anything was dis- NIMH has a paltry little over $1 billion for Congress to act now and support cussed relating to the IRS investiga- in money it can spend on research, and our struggling economy. tion concerning conservative-leaning very little of that is spent on those Like many families and businesses organizations and their tax-exempt with serious mental illness. Indeed, across my district, I’ve been dis- status. most with mental illness are not vio- appointed by Congress’ inability to ad- Finally, I asked if Secretary Lew, as lent, but when you see someone with a dress our Nation’s fiscal challenges. We chief of staff, was involved in any or selective set of symptoms with serious need to stop lurching from one manu- had any knowledge of rumors of con- mental illness, we know that they may factured crisis to the next, budgeting servative groups that were being tar- be at a more increased risk, particu- 90 days at a time, because it’s actually geted or of media reports highlighting larly those who have a history of delu- the most expensive and inefficient way the IG investigation relating to the sion, paranoia, and interest in violence. to budget. targeting or any IRS personnel in- What happens in general, from the As a businesswoman and entre- volved in potentially inappropriate tar- time of onset of first symptoms, a per- preneur, I understand that you don’t geting of conservative groups.

VerDate Mar 15 2010 02:54 Nov 11, 2014 Jkt 079060 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 7634 Sfmt 0634 E:\RECORD13\RECFILES\SEP2013\H19SE3.REC H19SE3 bjneal on DSK2TWX8P1PROD with CONG-REC-ONLINE September 19, 2013 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE H5659 b 1015 and extreme cuts to nutrition pro- NAVY YARD SHOOTING Well, my letters went unanswered grams that, once again, are being The SPEAKER pro tempore. The week after week after week. So I sent brought to the floor by the Republican Chair recognizes the gentleman from numerous emails and made phone calls majority. H.R. 3102, what we call the Maryland (Mr. HOYER) for 5 minutes. to the Treasury Department, request- ‘‘More Hunger, Less Opportunity Act,’’ Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, it is with ing a reply to my letter. Finally, fi- takes a bad idea and makes it worse, great sadness that I rise to remember nally a letter came. Unfortunately, cutting billions—literally billions—of three of my constituents who trag- rather than simply answering my ques- dollars in aid for the working poor, ically lost their lives in Monday’s tions and putting to bed any appear- people who struggle every single day, shooting along with nine other inno- ance of impropriety, Lew chose to not literally, to put food on the table. cent victims at the Washington Navy answer any of my direct questions. This bill is heartless. It has gone Yard. The entire Washington metro- Now 31⁄2 months have passed since I from bad to worse. We’ve seen this politan area is still in shock at the hor- asked those very simple and direct movie before. In June, when the Repub- rific news. questions. I still cannot get an answer licans brought $20 billion in cuts to the In Maryland’s Fifth District, home to from him. So I’m here today to encour- floor as a part of the farm bill, it de- many who serve or who have pre- age you to join me in the fight to get railed the farm bill, broke what had viously served in military and civilian answers from Secretary Lew. been a bipartisan effort for as long as roles at the Navy Yard, communities You see, the President’s memo was anybody around here can remember. are grieving the loss of Sylvia Frasier, very clear—his government is to be the And now, $40 billion in cuts. Frank Kohler, and Kenneth Proctor. In most transparent in the history of this Three-quarters of the households re- addition, Michael Arnold, Kathy great Nation. Well, then, we have to ceiving SNAP include a child, a senior, Gaarde, John Roger Johnson, Vishnu bring Secretary Lew up to speed on somebody who is disabled. This legisla- Pandit, Martin Bodrog, Arthur Daniels, that memo. tion literally punishes those folks. Re- Mary Frances Knight, Gerald Reid, and Jack Lew served as chief of staff to publicans desire, for whatever reason— Richard Michael Ridgell also lost their the President while some of the most incomprehensible to many of us—to de- lives in this senseless attack. egregious, reprehensible behavior ever prive even the neediest Americans with I, along with all my colleagues, offer displayed by the IRS took place. The a basic necessity: food. It has, as I said, my condolences on behalf of all who American people have the right to derailed the farm bill process and now live in the Fifth District and in our know what he knows about the IRS has the chance to risk hurting more country. And I wish to take a moment scandal, when he knew it, and what in- Americans. This bill would shamefully to reflect from this floor on their lives volvement he had, as chief of staff, and literally take food out of the of hard work and dedicated service. with personnel at the IRS. mouths of nearly 4 million children, Sylvia Frasier had been an informa- It is essential to the functioning of a seniors, and disabled. tion assurance manager at the Naval Sea Systems Command since 2000. Be- representative government that the I urge my colleagues—Republicans cause she loved interacting with people citizens—the voters who are rep- and Democrats—to join me in opposing so much, Sylvia took a night job at the resented—have confidence in the integ- this legislation. rity of the system. If they don’t, the Walmart in Waldorf, Maryland, where government won’t be trusted. Govern- she was beloved by her coworkers and f ment must earn that trust. That means members of our community. Sylvia is that the men and women who manage survived by her parents, James and the day-to-day affairs, such as him, HEALTH CARE PROMISES HAVE Eloise, and six brothers and sisters. must be trustworthy people. And to BEEN BROKEN Frank Kohler. Frank was a defense maintain that confidence, the public— The SPEAKER pro tempore. The contractor at the Navy Yard. He and the men and the women must avoid Chair recognizes the gentleman from his wife, Michelle, who works at Pax River Naval Air Station, also in my even the appearance of impropriety. It Pennsylvania (Mr. FITZPATRICK) for 5 is that principle that judges adhere to minutes. district, lived in Tall Timbers, Mary- land, and loved to go boating and fish- when they recuse themselves from Mr. FITZPATRICK. Mr. Speaker, I ing on the Chesapeake and in Florida. cases where it may appear that they rise today to relay disturbing, but not He was a past president of the Lex- would have an interest in the outcome. surprising, news about the President’s ington Park Rotary Club and served as The public must be assured that the health care law, news that is coming King Oyster at the St. Mary’s County outcomes generated by the men and back from my district in Pennsylvania. Oyster Festival, welcoming visitors to women in Washington are not influ- Countless neighbors of mine em- enced by the conflicting interests. Oth- the annual celebration. I live in that ployed by Sesame Place—which is a di- county. It’s a wonderful celebration. erwise, the system—whether it’s cor- vision of SeaWorld Entertainment— rupt or not—will have the taint of cor- Frank will be missed. Frank also have been told that their hours will be leaves behind two college-aged daugh- ruption; and that’s just as bad. cut back, presumably to comply with The President was right to emphasize ters, Alex and Meghan. the crushing costs and regulations as- transparency, and it is essential to the Kenneth Proctor worked as a civilian sociated with the so-called Affordable proper functioning of a representative utilities foreman at the Navy Yard and Care Act.