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FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION AND SERVICES IMPROVEMENT ACT
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez) for 5 minutes.
Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Madam Speaker, I rise today to stand in support of the Family Violence Prevention and Services Improvement Act. I want to start by, of course, thanking Congresswoman McBath for her work to reauthorize this bill and wisely using this moment to strengthen protections for our communities with bipartisan support.
Domestic violence, unfortunately, impacts every community in the United States. It impacts every community in New Mexico. In fact, over 540,000 New Mexicans experience intimate partner violence in their lifetimes. It is so sad that children witness this violence in too many cases and are, themselves, victims.
Our Native American and Latino communities are the most impacted. While Native people, especially Native women, have the highest need for medical and legal services, the current law does not provide them with equitable funding or resources.
This bill takes the steps to fix these inequities. It authorizes a Tribal domestic violence hotline, discretionary resource centers on Alaska Native populations, and direct funding for Tribal coalitions.
These changes will provide much-needed help to our communities so that we may properly respond to their needs.
Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
Build Back Better Agenda
Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the Build Back Better agenda. I would note that it is a women's agenda, Build Back Better. It is because we will be investing in those things that all women need to succeed in life because we began with our children.
The Build Back Better bill would expand and continue the child tax credit, which began under the American Rescue Plan. We cannot tell those families who finally received the child tax credit that the clock has struck midnight and they can no longer receive it. We must continue this tax credit so that all children in all families receive that benefit.
The Build Back Better agenda also makes sure that we provide pre-K so that there is universal pre-K. We know the biggest benefit we can provide our children is ensuring that everybody has quality pre-K education. When doing so, we must ensure that we pay the teachers of our children what they deserve and give them the respect they need.
In that sense, we will also be investing in our workforce development so that we can have the qualified workers who will be able to care for our children, who will be able to teach our children. The workforce development and workforce innovation investments in this bill are very needed.
I come from a State where we will need to transition away from oil and gas. In order to ensure a just transition for energy communities, we must ensure that there are new jobs for those workers.
Build Back Better will allow the creation of new jobs, both for plugging abandoned wells and for addressing the legacy pollution that we have seen that needs to be cleaned up.
Madam Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to support the Build Back Better agenda. It is good for our families. It is good for our women. It is good for our planet.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 188
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