Billy's Law

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. First of all, let me extend my sincerest thanks to the chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Scott, for bringing this bill to the floor with such speed, and then let me extend additional thanks to the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Conyers, and Ranking Members Gohmert and Smith for their assistance in bringing this bill to the floor today.

Madam Speaker, when I was home over the break, I told a lot of people that I saw that for all of the attention on the news about the things that Republicans and Democrats disagree with, this legislation, Billy's Law, is an example of the vast legislative underbrush that happens here that changes lives but don't necessarily get the big headlines, places where both parties work together to make this government work better and to make it more compassionate.

I'd like to thank Representative Poe for sponsoring this bill with me. This House has no stronger advocate for the rights of victims and their families, and it has been my pleasure to work with him to move this legislation forward.

But above all, I'd like to extend my personal thanks to Jan Smolinski and her husband Bill, the parents of Billy Smolinski, for whom this legislation is named. Their story is tragic, but Jan's pursuit of justice, her desire to do something with her situation, to change it for all of the other families who have gone through the same thing, that is nothing less than heroic.

Madam Speaker, Billy Smolinski of Waterbury, Connecticut, went missing on August 24, 2004, at the age of 31. In their search for their son, Jan and her husband Bill encountered a national missing persons system that is simply broken. They were met with law enforcement that didn't understand how to handle an adult missing persons case, and then they ran into a national system of disconnected and inaccessible databases that didn't allow them to be true partners in the search for justice. To this day, they haven't found Billy.

Sadly, their story is not a unique one. Every year, thousands of Americans go missing, often never to be seen by their loved ones again. In fact, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there are over 100,000 missing persons cases open at any time and approximately 4,400 unidentified human remains are found every single year. Now, those numbers are too high, but just as intolerable are the roadblocks that family members face when they're trying to help law enforcement find a missing loved one.

That is why I am here to urge my friends to join us in supporting Billy's Law, legislation that will begin correcting these problems that plague our Nation's missing persons system.

My colleagues have really gone over the basics of the law so I won't belabor the point. But this legislation for the first time provides statutory authorization for NamUs, which is the Web-based database created in 2007 by the Department of Justice. It's the only federally funded database of missing persons and unidentified remains information that is open and accessible to the public. But currently it's not a congressionally authorized program.

Second, the bill connects NamUs with the other major Federal database housed at the FBI, which is now only accessible to law enforcement. We protect information that needs to stay private, but this new connected database, which will also work with protocols that build in other information from State and local nonprofit databases, creates a complete and powerful national powerful database that families can use along with law enforcement.

And third, as has been stated, it sets up a competitive grants program to make sure that all the information that a coroner may have in California is posted onto a national database so a family searching for their missing loved one in Connecticut has that information in real time.

On January 21, Madam Speaker, Jan Smolinski testified at a hearing on the bill that Subcommittee Chairman Scott so graciously held. During her testimony, she poignantly remarked, ``Uncertainty is a cancer that crushes the spirit of loved ones left behind, destroys marriages, and tears at the tissue of family bonds.''

By creating a robust, user-friendly national missing persons and unidentified remains database, Billy's law will help heal these wounds by finally giving parents and family members like the Smolinskis the ability to be true partners with law enforcement in the search for their loved ones.

I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan bill. We owe it to the Smolinskis and to thousands of families like them across the country to make sure their personal nightmares are not repeated.

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