mr. costello, for five minutes. mr. costello: thank you, mr. speaker. last week my fellow chester county congressman patrick meehan, introduced the service member for lawful understanding treatment and education act, otherwise known as the salute act. i want to praise congressman meehan for his leadership on this issue and speak a little bit about it in support of the salute act. it's going to help veterans overcome addiction and ptsd by providing yearly funding for veterans' treatment courts. this is an opportunity for all of us to help troubled veterans break free of the cycle and get the help that they need. it is estimated that one in five veterans returning from afghanistan and iraq will experience a stress-related mental illness. veterans' treatment courts assist soldiers who are charged with nonviolent crimes, who are struggling with certain addictions or mental illnesses. veterans' treatment courts provide an opportunity for them to get their lives back on the right track and not spiral down a track of addiction. . pennsylvania as you may know i

mr. costello's dedication to public education is commendable and i look forward to continuing to work with him. the bonamici-costello amendment is finding common grounden to a way to support teaching and learning in our nation's classrooms. we have all heard about the overuse and misuse of standardized tests. too much time is lost to preparing for and administering assessments and too few of these assessments provide timely information that meaningfully supports the learning that is taking place in our schools. but the purposeful use of high-quality assessments can support teaching and learning. good assessments used appropriately can serve as one tool for monitoring students' progress and helping parents, teachers and school leaders see how students are performing across the state. this amendment will help to reduce the testing burden and build high-quality aelse isment systems that support teachers and students. importantly the amendment recognizes that a one-size-fits-all policy to address excessive testing won't work. there is evidence that time spent testing fluctuates significantly a

mr. costello. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. stello: one think that is pride for in organizations and individuals in southeastern pennsylvania is the success of the chester county food bank and many other food banks. . fighting food insecurity is something you wouldn't think is a problem in the wealthier enclaves of this country and yet there are those who wake up every morning not knowing where their meal's going to come from. food banks provide a very valuable service. the fighting hunger incentive act aims to assist our food banks and assist organizations and individuals to help fight hunger. that's what this bill is about. we should pass it, and we should move on in bipartisan fashion. thank you and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from pennsylvania yields. the gentleman from wisconsin reserves. the chair recognizes the gentleman from michigan. mr. levin: can i ask the chairman, any more speakers? so, we're ready to close? mr. ryan: yeah. mr. levin: good. we've heard a lot of discussion about many of these

mr. general manager. casanda costello with the department in the property management division. i'm here today to present an item on a coit tower refreshment kiosk looking for an endorsement to proceed forward with approvals on an eastside location or a west side location at coit tower. before we go into the nitty gritty details i wanted to give you a little bit of background. in october of 2011 we asked a request for proposals and in that request for proposals interest is an opportunity for special event, fad and beverage service, et cetera. jr. of 2014 this commission recommended approval of the lease agreement with coit tower, llc. to the board of supervisors and just this last may, after the incredible renovation and installation. murals coit tower re-open to the public. coit tower has historically offered food and beverage through the previous vendor. many monuments around the globe offer tasteful food and beverage service and the department sees tastefully and professionally offered food and beverage as a desired amenity to the hundreds of thousands of visitors to coit tow

mr. costello: as a result seniors and those without access to the internet are scrambling to find 1040 instruction booklets and tax schedules they need to timely and accurately file their taxes. my office distributed 40 instruction books during a recent community office event and lebanon. the i.r.s. claimed they can no longer afford to send tax forms to local libraries due to budget cuts is disingenuous and while needing 40 pages of instructions to complete the least complicated tax return is proof enough for sifrlfying the tax code. it's no excuse for the i.r.s. to make paying your federal taxes an even bigger headache by making it more difficult for my constituents to get the documents they need. let's get our tax forms where they're needed. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. hastings: thank you. mr. speaker, you know, one of the privileges we have here in the

mr. costello: it's the conservation easement legislation that will make the incentive permanent. it was sponsored in pass sessions by over 300 members of this house and many members in the senate. the conservation easement incentive has enabled property owners across the country to voluntary -- voluntarily he preserve their land. in some case the availability of the tax credit means the difference between keeping a family farm or selling it. in my time as township supervisor in chester county, one of my top priorities was preserving farmland and natural resources. it requires the collaboration and financial wherewithal of the landowner. the conservation easement legislation that we seek to make permanent will enable more of that to happen. organizations in my district like the burks county conservancy, the brandywine conservancy and others have been very helpful in making montgomery county a great place to live. families cannot make long-term decisions about what is probably their most important valuable asset with short-term extensions. so let's fin you shall our job, mr. speake

mrs. brody and the engineer. that's standard part of any investigation. they want to make sure distraction didn't play any role. brian? >> tom costello still on the story, thanks. >>> as we all saw on video this week it took just seconds after takeoff for that transasia flight to run into trouble in taiwan. less than three minutes for it to end in disaster careening out of the sky. tonight, we have a better idea of what happened when control was lost and never regained. along with the remarkable story of a family that made it out of there alive while so many others did not. our report again tonight from nbc's ian williams. >> reporter: dazed but alive just moments after the crash. lin ming-wei clings to his 2-year-old son, lin, his wife and son had changed seats to be together at the back of the plane. it probably saved their lives. today, lin described how the plane shook violently as it plunged to the river. all the seats fell off, he said. the passengers were trapped underneath. retrieved from the plane's black box cockpit data showing how quickly things went wrong. 37 seconds into the flight an alarm, trouble with the right engin

costello going. the funny thing is the finger pointing is not at democrats they're pointing at each other as to who is to blame. mr. president, the american people are getting whiplash from helping to the republican leadership on this issue. the republicans need to sort out the divisions within their own caucus before they deflect any blame on democrats. while democrats remain united in both houses in support of a clean bill, the republican majority is busy playing a game of hot potato with national security funding. the disunity and delay has led a few republicans to talk about a short-term continuing resolution that would guarantee another cliff and more brinksmanship and underfund d.h.s. in the meantime. delaying this same stand-off by a few weeks or months sanity very good plan b it's hardly a plan at all. secretary jeh johnson has described a c.r. for d.h.s. this way, it's like going on a 300-mile trip with a five gal -- five-gallon tank of gas. let me give you a couple of reasons --. a senator: mr. president would my friend from new york yield for a question? mr. schumer: i will yield for a question when i f