Providing for Consideration of the Senate Amendment to H.R. 2146, Defending Public Safety Employees' Retirement Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, I oppose this rule. It is such a danger, Mr. Speaker, that the majority is trying to move through the back door what it could not get through the front door on the floor of this House last week. And they are doing it in the most shameful way, Mr. Speaker: hiding behind our first responders. That is right; hiding behind firefighters and emergency personnel.

The International Association of Firefighters, representing more than 300,000 firefighters and emergency room personnel, oppose what is being done here today on this floor, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

There is one thing that I agree with the gentleman from Texas about. This is a donkey that died last week when we stood up for American workers, small businesses, and American jobs. And right now that donkey is like roadkill, and we are going to kill it right here on the floor of this House of Representatives.

We know that this body can pass legislation that in fact is not just about free trade, but is about free trade--and they are not doing it today--protecting our workers, protecting our climate, protecting our Buy America provisions for our procurement.

And so, Mr. Speaker, even as we are just getting word of the Pope's encyclical on climate change and overwhelmingly recognizing the human cost to us all, we have a letter from our U.S. Trade Representative, Michael Froman, saying that this deal doesn't do anything to deal with the authority of the administration to negotiate climate change. That, in fact, is shameful. And what we are doing here today is against American workers, against American businesses, and against American jobs.

It is time to kill this donkey once and for all by putting it to rest and coming back to the table to reset for the American workers.

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