We appreciate the continued advocacy of Chairman Thompson and House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey in support of title 5 rights for the TSO workforce.

I ask each Member here today to co-sponsor this important legislation.

For the life of me, I am having difficulty in continuing to listen to the justification of not putting them in the GSA system pay scale where all other Federal employees happen to be.

I want to thank them very much for working under some of the trying conditions, like not getting paid.

Many TSOs live paycheck to paycheck.

I just still struggling with coming up with dual personnel systems for one agency.

As it is National Police Week, I would like to take a moment to thank those law enforcement officers who serve this country and State and local communities and also honor those in law enforcement who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

Contracting is incredibly important to how we as a Nation prepare for and respond to disasters.

FEMA must do its due diligence to ensure that companies selected for advance contracts can meet the contract terms.

FEMA has yet to adequately implement all of the reforms, despite it being well over a decade since the law was passed.

We want to get it right. FEMA is the last line of defense to help the American people.

There is a humanitarian crisis on our Southern Border, and this situation has been unfolding for nearly a year.

The request for $81.7 million for more detention space for migrant families illustrates that the administration refuses to acknowledge or does not care that detention is harmful to children.

In the absence of permanent leadership, FEMA is likely to get even further behind with preparing its disaster contracting initiatives.

Emergency response is improved by having qualified vendors in place to provide goods and services reliably.

FEMA is the last line of defense to help the American people.

The President's fiscal year 2020 budget proposal continues to illustrate that the Trump administration's priorities are skewed, short-sighted, and cruel.

Without these advance contracts, the Government risks taxpayer money by spending more than is necessary for goods and services.

I want to make sure, if there is something we are missing in this process to speed it up, that we fix it.

Since Hurricanes Katrina exposed gaps in FEMA's disaster contracting practices in 2005, the agency still has not managed to make the necessary adjustments.

Disaster contracting is a central component of disaster preparedness and an issue that I have been following for quite some time.

Funding for ICE's Homeland Security Investigations...would be diverted to fund interior immigration enforcement arrests and deportations instead.

Border security is more than building a wall.

The few pieces of Government data that we have seen confirmed that domestic terrorism is an urgent and growing threat to the homeland.

Today is a new day and this committee's silence on domestic terrorism now ends because in recent years we have seen a dramatic and disturbing rise in domestic terrorism.