[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 65 (Wednesday, May 9, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H2493-H2515]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
COMMERCE, JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT,
2013
General Leave
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and
include extraneous material on H.R. 5326, and that I may include
tabular material on the same.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Virginia?
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 643 and rule
XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House
on the state of the Union for the further consideration of the bill,
H.R. 5326.
Will the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Miller) kindly resume the
chair.
{time} 1442
In the Committee of the Whole
Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the
Whole House on the state of the Union for the further consideration of
the bill (H.R. 5326) making appropriations for the Departments of
Commerce and Justice, Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year
ending September 30, 2013, and for other purposes, with Mrs. Miller of
Michigan (Acting Chair) in the chair.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The Acting CHAIR. When the Committee of the Whole rose earlier today,
the amendment offered by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Southerland)
had been disposed of, and the bill had been read through page 101, line
10.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Chaffetz
Mr. CHAFFETZ. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used in contravention of paragraph (1), (2), or (3) of
section 1001(a) of title 18, United States Code.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Utah is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. CHAFFETZ. Madam Chair, one of the deep concerns that we have is
the investigation of Fast and Furious. We have to remember that
unfortunately we lost one of our Border Patrol agents who was out on
patrol serving this Nation. He was killed with weapons that were
distributed under a program called Fast and Furious.
This is a sad case of government gone amok, making terrible, awful,
deadly decisions; the administration knowingly and willingly allowing
guns to walk from gun shops--contrary to what U.S. law is--allowing
nearly 2,000 weapons to be released out, knowing that these weapons
would be given to the drug cartels, knowing that giving these guns to
these very nefarious characters with the hope that maybe they would pop
up and we would find out who's using these guns. Well, there are
tragic, desperate consequences to what happened.
What should be totally unacceptable on both sides of the aisle is the
idea and the notion that the Department of Justice would knowingly and
willfully lie to Congress. Senator Grassley had presented the
Department of Justice a letter directly to Attorney General Holder.
Senator Grassley directly gave to Attorney General Holder a concern
expressed in a letter that there were guns walking. It's a term, it's
an expression that says we allow people to come in under straw
purchasing--which is illegal--to buy guns and weapons for somebody
else, and that despite what the ATF and the Department of Justice were
doing, they weren't tracking these. They allowed these gun purchases to
happen in these gun shops, and then they were let out in the greater
Arizona area and allowed these guns to walk.
The consequences have been absolutely tragic. We have a dead Border
Patrol agent, and the Mexican Government estimates nearly 300 people
have died within Mexico. Very few of these weapons have been recovered.
In fact, the Attorney General has testified that there will be crimes
committed with these weapons in all likelihood for years to come.
What is totally and wholly unacceptable, I think, to this body and
the integrity, despite Republicans and Democrats, is that the
Department of Justice would knowingly and willfully present a letter
back to Congress on February 4 that was so inaccurate, it was so wrong,
and essentially they lied to Congress. It took months and months and
months and months to get to the point where they finally had to rescind
that letter, where they had to admit that this was a fundamentally
flawed program at its very core.
Now, we've been seeking documents. We've been seeking information. We
have issued subpoenas. We've been patient beyond belief, but we've
mostly been stonewalled. That information has not been forthcoming.
What this amendment simply says is that they will not be allowed to be
able to use Federal funds--taxpayer dollars--to knowingly, willfully
skirt the law and lie to Congress.
Now, on February 4, 2011, I want to remind Members, the Department of
Justice lied to Congress about the taxes used in Fast and Furious by
claiming Federal authorities make ``every effort to interdict weapons
that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation to
Mexico.'' They denied the allegations that the Department facilitated
in the illegal sale of guns to Mexican drug cartels. But on December 2,
2011, the Department of Justice formally withdrew the February letter
because it was filled with misleading, fictitious, and false
statements. The December letter later went on to admit that Fast and
Furious was ``a fundamentally flawed operation.''
What we're saying is you should not be able to use taxpayer funds to
knowingly and willfully subvert Congress. You can't lie to Congress and
use taxpayer dollars to do it. Surely that can be bipartisan in its
approach.
All we ask is for the truth. In fact, there were more than a dozen--
in fact,
[[Page H2494]]
more than two dozen Members of the Democratic Party serving in Congress
who sent a letter to the White House expressing the idea and the notion
that the administration should be open and forthright in providing this
information to Congress, but it has not been forthcoming. It has not
been accurate. In fact, it was a lie.
As we look to Brian Terry, who served this country, we owe it to him
and to his family to get to the truth of what happened in Fast and
Furious. And no taxpayer dollars should ever be used to knowingly and
willfully lie to Congress.
We as a body, as an institution, deserve to get to the bottom of
this. We have not had all these answers. On March 25, 2011, President
Obama stood in an interview and told the world that they would hold
somebody responsible, that Eric Holder wasn't responsible for this and
that they would hold somebody responsible and make sure that it doesn't
happen again. To date, Madam Chair, that has not happened. In fact, the
senior management there at the Department of Justice got promotions;
some of them got bonuses. Nobody's been fired at the senior levels over
there. We're not just looking for somebody to get fired; we've got to
make sure that it never, ever happens again.
So I would encourage Members to support this amendment. We should do
so in a bipartisan way.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FATTAH. There is nothing in the gentleman's amendment that I
think anyone could disagree with. The amendment doesn't speak about
Attorney General Holder. It doesn't speak about any particular matter
that's been referenced in the comments on the floor.
{time} 1450
It just says that you can't use dollars provided under this act to
give misinformation to the Congress. I think every Member should
support this.
I think, however, I want to, and I think many Members would separate
themselves from these accusations that are baseless. In fact, they've
been investigated, and there's no evidence that the Attorney General
provided any misinformation to the Congress. In fact, he's testified
seven times. He's provided thousands of documents.
And what we do know is that this Congress, under Republican control
and a Republican administration, started endeavors to track illegal
guns that were very similar to the operation that's been referred to,
and some of those guns fell into the wrong hands.
But to attack Federal law enforcement that's trying to catch bad
guys, who are operating sting operations, even when they go poorly, I
think, is just the wrong place for Federal lawmakers to be. I'm in
support of Federal law enforcement. And even if their policies in this
particular way were wrong, and they've been corrected, that is, in
fact, once the Attorney General knew about it, he stopped it. Everyone
in the line of responsibility here, those have been removed. So when
the gentleman suggests on the floor of the House that no one's lost
their job, no one's been changed, that's entirely inaccurate.
But I do want to make this point. We should be in support of Federal
law enforcement. We should support them. And to attack career ATF
agents who are risking their lives trying to catch bad guys along the
border, I think it's the wrong way for us to proceed just because we
want to go at this administration.
Now, if there's an election in which there's a change in Presidency,
the other side will get a chance to name an Attorney General. Under our
Constitution, the Attorney General serves at the pleasure of the
President. And the President has made it clear that Attorney General
Holder, and I think in many people's minds, is one of the best that's
ever served in this position.
Regardless of what you think about the political appointees in the
Department, to attack career ATF agents for doing their job, while they
risk their lives on behalf of the American citizens, I think, is the
wrong thing to do.
But I support the amendment. There's nothing in this amendment at all
connected to these baseless allegations, none of which have been
proved. And I think it's wrong to come to the House, defame public
servants, say that they've lied to the Congress, when, in fact, there's
nothing in the record that suggests that whatsoever.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. WOLF. I move to strike the requisite number of words.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Virginia is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. WOLF. I rise in support of the amendment.
I think truthfulness and accuracy are essential components of any
oversight process. And the amendment simply requires the Justice
Department and all Federal agencies funded by this bill provide only
forthright and truthful statements or representations.
With that, I ask for a ``yea'' vote, and yield back the balance of my
time.
Mr. GOWDY. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from South Carolina is recognized for
5 minutes.
Mr. GOWDY. Madam Chair, I was not going to talk because I talked
yesterday on Fast and Furious, and Representative Chaffetz did a
wonderful job. But, Madam Chair, I cannot stand here while demonstrably
false insinuations are leveled.
I worked for the Department of Justice for 6 years. I worked with ATF
for 16 years. I'll put the respect that I have for Federal law
enforcement and Federal prosecutor up against anybody in this body.
It may well be that the documents we haven't gotten clear all the
senior DOJ officials. How will we possibly know that if he continues to
withhold documents?
So, Madam Chair, let me just ask this. To the average citizen who
gets a grand jury subpoena or a subpoena for documents or to compel
their presence, what would happen if they ignored it? Madam Chair, what
would happen if you got a jury summons and you just decided you weren't
going to show up? What would happen to the average citizen if they got
a subpoena from a congressional committee and they just decided to
ignore it, and their defense was, We gave you some documents?
There are 70,000-something documents that the Inspector General has.
We have \1/12\ of that. There are entire categories of documents that
we do not have.
We do not have a single email from the Attorney General of the United
States after February 4, 2011. I want you to ask yourself how many
emails you have sent and received today. And the number is zero from
February 4, 2011, until present?
And Congressman Chaffetz is exactly right. There was a demonstrably
false letter sent to a Member of Congress. And then the Department of
Justice, that I actually value its reputation--we have to have a
Department of Justice that people respect. But the Department of
Justice took the unprecedented step of having to withdraw a letter sent
to a Member of Congress because it was demonstrably false.
On February 4, 2011, the Department of Justice, on Department of
Justice letterhead, mails a demonstrably false letter denying a tactic
called ``gunwalking.'' On the very same day, the criminal chief of the
Department of Justice of the United States of America is in Mexico
advocating for the tactic of gunwalking. And somehow, we can't ask the
Department of Justice to tell us who knew what when?
And the gentleman on the other side of the aisle, Madam Chair, said
everyone has been punished. Madam Chair, no one has been punished.
There hasn't been a demotion. There hasn't been a firing. There hasn't
been a sanction. There hasn't been a frowny face on a performance
evaluation. There's been nothing.
So I'm going to say what I said yesterday, Madam Chair. This is not
just another Department in someone's Cabinet. This isn't just some
other political appointee. This is the Attorney General for the United
States of America. It is the Department of Justice. If they cannot
comply with a lawfully-executed subpoena, then there should be
sanctions, just like there would be for me or you.
So I urge support for Representative Chaffetz's amendment.
[[Page H2495]]
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FARENTHOLD. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FARENTHOLD. Madam Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment
because I'm seeing what I consider to be an alarming trend in
government right now. We have Eric Holder in Fast and Furious, the
Justice Department failing to cooperate with multiple committees of
this Congress.
Right now, as we speak, there's a hearing going on in the Oversight
and Government Reform Committee with the Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee, with the TSA potentially having misled
Congress over the waste and abuse of dollars warehousing security
equipment in Dallas, Texas.
We're standing here today while whistleblowers who are trying to do
what's right for this government are being retaliated against. We're
standing here today while families like those of Agent Brian Terry, who
was a victim of the Fast and Furious scandal, Agent Jaime Zapata, a
constituent of mine who was killed in the line of duty in Mexico, and
the families of many Mexican citizens who were killed as a result of
these gun-running operations with these weapons.
This is an alarming trend in government that we have got to put a
stop to. We do not need to be financing government agencies. Our
employees, the people's employees, we do not need to be paying them to
stall, to lie, to mislead. It is absolutely unacceptable.
In the private sector, when an employee acts this way, we have a real
quick solution. We quit paying them and we fire them. Unfortunately,
it's a little more complicated here in the government, especially when
you get to a Cabinet-level official.
Yes, we have our remedies. We have contempt of Congress. We have
criminal prosecution. And in the case of a Cabinet-level official like
Mr. Holder, it could eventually get to impeachment, depending what we
find out. The Constitution provides the ultimate remedy there.
But the lifeblood of the Federal bureaucracy is money. We have got to
cut off the money to the employees, like Eric Holder, who stonewall, at
best, and lie, more likely. We need government officials who own up to
their mistakes.
My colleague here, Mr. Gowdy, was talking about the fact there's not
a single email after a certain date for Mr. Holder. I'd like to remind
the Chair and the American people that what gets you in this country, 9
times out of 10, is the coverup. The American people are willing to
live with a mistake, but they are not willing to live with a liar, and
this amendment cuts off funding to the liars in our Federal Government.
So I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
I yield back the balance of my time.
{time} 1500
Mr. GOSAR. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR (Mrs. Capito). The gentleman from Arizona is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. GOSAR. I am from Arizona, and I am proud to rise in support of
this amendment because no other State has suffered the consequences
like we have in Arizona and will continue to.
Let's think of the ramifications of what transpired here. We did not
follow proper protocol in allowing guns to walk. We didn't even know
where they were--and we still don't know where they are--and yet
Arizona will suffer the consequences of those guns on our side of the
border. Let's take a look at the other aspect. What about the Mexican
people? Where is the outcry? Where is the justice? Here we've had the
Hispanic people who have lost over 300 people to this impropriety--and
it was overseen by the Federal Government and the Department of
Justice? This is outrageous.
I am glad that what we're doing is defunding this aspect in order to
make sure that we know what's right and what's wrong and in order to
hold people accountable for the cover-up that has occurred. But think
about it. Have we ever seen something of this atrocity? We've actually
overstepped the oversight and sovereignty of the Mexican Government.
What we need are answers. The American people need the answers, and
the folks from Arizona need the answers. We want to make sure that
those who are accountable are held perfectly to that standard like
everybody else. Yes, we have not seen the documentation. The other side
says that we have seen the documentation and that everybody has been
held accountable. That's wrong. That's absolutely wrong. Take it from
somebody from Arizona who has had to live under this Department of
Justice. We want to make sure that we have accountability.
Last but not least, what about the Brian Terry family? When we look
at the whole oversight of this egregious operation, did it have to take
the life of a brave soldier, Brian Terry? That's what it took to even
come to this situation. It cannot be repeated. Absolutely, it cannot be
repeated.
I am glad that my colleague has offered this amendment to make sure
that we do not give funding for those who are in the Department of
Justice and, if they do, that they are held to the letter of the law.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina. I yield to the gentleman from Utah (Mr.
Chaffetz).
Mr. CHAFFETZ. Madam Chair, I want to quote President Obama in his
first remarks as President of the United States:
Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of
this Presidency . . . I will also hold myself as President to
a new standard of openness . . . But the mere fact that you
have the legal power to keep something secret does not mean
you should always use it. The Freedom of Information Act is
perhaps the most powerful instrument we have for making our
government honest and transparent and of holding it
accountable; and I expect members of my administration not
simply to live up to the letter but also the spirit of this
law . . . The government should not keep information
confidential merely because public officials might be
embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might
be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.
This country should be embarrassed by what is happening in Fast and
Furious. My challenge to Members on both sides of the aisle is to stand
up and have the integrity to say that we have a dead U.S. agent and
that we have a Department of Justice that lied to Congress. Where are
the guts in this body to stand up and say we're not going to put up
with that, that we're going to demand that these documents be provided
to Congress? We know, because the inspector general within the
Department of Justice has said, they have 80,000 documents. They've
given Congress about 7,000 of those documents. This is the test of
principle. This is the test of integrity. When you can't stand up and
take on your own party, that's a lack of guts. This Congress has got to
stand up for itself and demand that these documents be released.
I would encourage Members on both sides of the aisle, at the very
least, to vote for this amendment. I can't imagine any reason why
anybody would deny the passage of this amendment. We're not going to
allow taxpayer dollars to be used to lie to Congress. Unfortunately, we
have been lied to. That is the reason we have to offer this amendment.
It's embarrassing that we have to even get to this point.
Madam Chair, Brian Terry's family expects it, and the integrity of
this body demands it. Regardless of whether it's Republican or
Democrat, we cannot rest until we get to the bottom of that.
You can make the case that part of this started with President Bush.
We don't know what's in these documents; but with the separation of
powers, it's imperative that we get to the bottom of this and that we
hold people accountable--and not just the lowest level of people down
at the ATF. They've been dismissed. They've been harassed. Thank
goodness for those whistleblowers who stood up and did the right thing.
But at the senior level, the senior people at the Department of
Justice, they have not been held accountable. President Obama said in
these remarks that he would. On March 25, he went on Univision and
promised that they would. It has not happened.
If we get stonewalling on the other side of the aisle--without your
support--we will do a disservice to this country; we will do a
disservice to this body, and we will not get to the truth. I promise
you, when there is a Republican President, I will stand with you
[[Page H2496]]
and will demand the openness and transparency that this body deserves.
I've done it. I've challenged my own party. Have the guts, have the
fortitude, to do the right thing.
I appreciate Chairman Issa, Representative Gowdy, Mr. Gosar, Mr.
Farenthold--there are so many people in this body--and I appreciate my
colleague from South Carolina, who are passionate about this issue. I
urge all Members to vote in favor of this amendment.
Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina. Madam Chairman, I yield back the
balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Utah (Mr. Chaffetz).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the ayes
appeared to have it.
Mr. CHAFFETZ. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Utah will be
postponed.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Tierney
Mr. TIERNEY. Madam Chairwoman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following new section:
Sec. ___. For ``Department of Justice, State and Local Law
Enforcement Assistance'' for the John R. Justice Prosecutors
and Defenders program, as authorized by the first section
3001 of title I of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets
Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 3797cc 21) (relating to loan repayment
for prosecutors and public defenders), there is hereby
appropriated, and the amount otherwise provided by this Act
for ``National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
Science'' for Mars Next Decade is hereby reduced by,
$10,000,000.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Massachusetts is recognized for
5 minutes.
Mr. TIERNEY. Madam Chairwoman, this bipartisan amendment is offered
with Mr. Gowdy of South Carolina. It provides very clearly $10 million
for the John R. Justice Student Loan Repayment Program.
It is unfortunate that we know many law school student graduates
accept jobs as prosecutors and as public defenders, but they don't stay
on the jobs very long because the compensation is at such a low level,
and their debt burdens from college and from law school are so high
that they end up leaving and going on to more lucrative pastures
because the private firms, obviously, have more resources with which to
recruit and retain than do public defenders and district attorneys'
offices around the country.
Oftentimes, the students tell me they would like to stay in these
offices. Obviously, the district attorneys tell us on a regular basis
that they have such a difficult time training people and getting them
to stay so that they can do a good job. Both public defenders and
district attorneys, people on both sides of any particular case,
understand the importance of that judicial system work in that it's
fair and in that everybody has the level of representation that makes
our system work and be respected around the world on that.
This would allow the tool of loan forgiveness for those district
attorneys on that and those public defenders so that they can get
people to stay at least 3 years so that the training doesn't just get
turned around and go to waste. It allows people to stay on and use
their experience and make the system work better.
I believe that it's a good idea. It has worked in the past for the
Federal agencies, for the executive branch attorneys. It has
demonstrated great success in their recruitment and retention. When
this aspect was funded just a couple of years ago, 1,647 prosecutors
and 1,226 public defenders across the country received assistance under
the program's 2010 allocation. That, in turn, is a claim by all of the
people involved as having made a tremendous difference in their
abilities to have their offices function at the high level that is
necessary.
Now, it's a difficult time. If we're going to take this money and
appropriate it in this fashion, we, unfortunately, have to find those
resources somewhere else. We have recommended an offset with a modest
reduction to the Mars Next Decade program. That Mars Next Decade
program will still get over $100 million more in the bill than it
otherwise would have gotten. The House report notes a concern that
there is a question about whether or not the Mars Next Decade program
has actually accomplished one of the requirements of getting a sample
and reporting. There is even language in the bill that puts off any
expenditure of these moneys until such a report is made to the National
Research Council and they're allowed to move forward.
{time} 1510
The $150 million that is in the Mars Next Decade budget is still
sizeable and on board with what was in the President's request, and
still allows the program to move forward. I think it is a tradeoff
that's fair. And I think Mr. Gowdy agrees with me, that as painful as
it may be to take from one area, that programs will still march on,
we'll still have $78 million more than the President requested. But if
we don't do anything, the John R. Justice program will have nothing.
District attorneys and public defenders, our court systems across the
Nation won't have the ability to have well-trained people being
recruited and retained and making our system work. So that's the
premise here.
Madam Chairwoman, we ask that our colleagues support this amendment.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. GOWDY. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from South Carolina is recognized for
5 minutes.
Mr. GOWDY. Madam Chairwoman, my mother was a victims advocate in a
prosecutor's office when I was growing up. She would come home and
lament the fact that defendants could pick any lawyer they wanted to
defend them, but the victims of crime were stuck with the district
attorney. Her message to me, the lesson she was trying to impress on
me, is that crime victims have a right to have a good attorney, too.
If you fast forward a couple of years, I went to law school, and I
became a district attorney. I tried to hire people to come help me do a
good job for crime victims. Madam Chairwoman, I was hiring primarily at
that time young female prosecutors--Cindy Crick, Kim Leskanic, Jenny
Wells, Susan Porter--many of whom had up to $70,000 in student loan
debt, could have and should have gone into private practice and paid
their loans back and made a lot of money. But something within them
wanted to stand up for rape victims and criminal domestic violence
victims and child sex assault victims. So they sacrificed the lure of
private practice to come to public service.
Madam Chairwoman, it is not without irony that the program that my
friend from Massachusetts speaks of is named after a man named John R.
Justice, who was a solicitor district attorney in South Carolina. He
represented the poorest solicitors judicial circuit in the State. They
were understaffed and overworked. He used to tell me, Madam Chairwoman,
that he was just sticking his fingers in the hole of the dam to try to
keep the water from coming through. But the solicitor justice--God rest
his soul--had a vision of trying to encourage people to want to do
something as noble as be a prosecutor in South Carolina.
So whereas I usually stand off and I talk about cutting this and
cutting that, law and order, prosecution, respect for the rule of law
are core functions of government. And as much money as we spend on
other programs, surely to goodness we can find a little bit of money to
help relieve the student loan obligations of women and men who are
prosecuting while they're sitting across the table from criminal
offense attorneys who make 5 to 7 to 10 times their salary. Surely we
can do that, and surely we can give the victims of crime as good a
lawyer as the defendants of crime get.
I would urge my colleagues to give very serious consideration to the
John R. Justice Scholarship program for public defenders and
prosecutors.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. WOLF. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Virginia is recognized for 5
minutes.
[[Page H2497]]
Mr. WOLF. Maybe when we go to conference--last year this said $4
million. So in a tight budget year when the Ryan budget comes and the
other budget comes, we're actually increasing this from $4 million to
$10 million, which I think every other program would just say, I don't
quite understand. Secondly, the Senate put in $4 million. Maybe we can
talk as we move on.
I was looking to see if Mr. Schiff was here or Mr. Culberson was
here. This was part of a delicate compromise with regard to the Mars
program and the Europa program. The committee took great pains to
ensure that NASA science funding reflected the planetary science
priorities and goals of the National Academy of Science and included
the development of sample return missions to Mars. It's the Decadal
Survey. To take this out of that, when it was so difficult, I think
would be a mistake.
Such a mission would represent an unprecedented scientific
undertaking and enable the next fundamental advance of Mars science and
ensure that America's undisputed leadership in Mars exploration remains
unchanged. This is the imaginative part of the space program.
Two weeks ago, when the shuttle flew over Washington and this
building, literally everyone went outside to look at it. This was one
of the most imaginative and creative things for America to continue to
be number one in space. I would tell the gentleman I would hope we
would vote it down, particularly with $4 million last year and when the
Senate is at $4 million. The Senate has $781 million more money in
allocation than we had. And for us to jump this up when other programs
have been severely hit--I don't know how Mr. Fattah would feel. We
could try to work as we go to conference and all, but I would hope that
we could vote this down, particularly since it takes it from Mars. And
I will give the gentleman my assurance to move ahead and see what we
can do to it, but not take it from Mars.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FATTAH. I join my colleague, the chairman.
I appreciate the offering of the amendment; however, I'm opposed to
the offset. We have a need to have loan forgiveness for public
servants, both in terms of law enforcement and prosecutors, but
teachers, police officers--you can go through a whole range. In fact,
embodied in the reconciliation act that carried the Affordable Health
Care Act, we created a loan-forgiveness program for public service that
will start to take effect in 2014.
This is needed, but we can't use this offset. And I would hope that
we'll have an opportunity to work together on this because I do think
if we had $4 million last year, we can continue to find additional
resources as we go to conference. We are hamstrung by a lower
allocation, which means some of the things that Members may be
interested in are going to have a lower funding level as this bill
leaves the House but a higher funding level when it leaves conference.
So it's part of the process, and I appreciate the amendment. I hope
that the gentleman would consider working with me and the chairman as
we go forward, if your desire is to actually find resources for this
important endeavor.
Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Chair, I rise in strong opposition to the amendment
and urge my colleague to withdraw the amendment and work with us on
this issue.
As a former U.S. attorney, I have the greatest respect and support
for loan-forgiveness programs of this nature. It is absolutely a
worthwhile cause. But the Mars program was devastated by the
administration's budget.
This is one of the crown jewels of planetary science. In fact, the
whole planetary science budget was decimated by the administration in
its proposal. Thankfully, through the work of the chairman and the
ranking member, the planetary science budget has been restored, and
part of what has been taken out of the Mars program has been restored.
Nevertheless, the Mars program was cut by hundreds of millions, and we
have a long way to go to have a healthy Mars program.
As we speak, one of the most difficult missions ever undertaken, the
Mars Science Laboratory, is on its way to the Martian surface. This
will be path-breaking in terms of its scientific return. This is an
area where we are second to none in the world. No one else has the
skills to enter the Martian atmosphere, descend, and land on Mars. That
is an incredible talent pool that can make that possible. At a time
when we have to go hat in hand to the Russians to get a ride to the
space station, but we are still the unquestioned leader in planetary
science, with the Mars program leading the way, we do not need to
decimate the Mars program further.
Thanks to the work of Chairman Wolf and Ranking Member Fattah, we are
on the path to restoring this great program so that we can continue on
the road that we're on where we are tantalizingly close now to finding
the building blocks of life on another planet, and this is what is at
stake.
{time} 1520
So while I sympathize with the desire of the gentleman from
Massachusetts to plus-up the program that he supports--and I support
it, too--the offset would be devastating, devastating to the brilliant
people that work in this area, devastating to all those around the
country that love planetary science and that are going to be watching
breathlessly on August 5 as Curiosity lands on the Martian surface and
sends back new information about one of our neighbors in the solar
system.
I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment. I urge us to continue to push
the envelope of our understanding of the universe. And we just simply
cannot choose this as an offset, such a valuable national treasure as
the Mars program.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. HOLT. I move to strike the requisite number of words.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from New Jersey is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. HOLT. I yield to my friend from Massachusetts.
Mr. TIERNEY. I thank the gentleman.
I think it is reprehensible, actually, that the majority has chosen
to go with the Ryan budget numbers over the agreement that was reached
last August. I think it has put the chairman and ranking member and the
members of that committee in a terrible position. We can see it just by
the juxtaposition of two programs here that obviously people think have
merit on this aspect.
As much as taking $10 million from the amount of money that otherwise
would have gone to the Mars program would leave them $10 million less
than they would have had, but $78 million more than otherwise was in
there. Doing nothing with respect to this motion would lead to our
Justice program with zero dollars in the House budget.
So I am thinking that we'll take a vote here; and if we pass, I hope
that the committee is able to work with the Senate to bring the Mars
program back to where people want it to be. I am hoping from what I
have heard here that people think there is merit to our district
attorneys and our public defenders as having some money in their
accounts so that they can have good qualified people moving our justice
system forward, and they will take care of that in conference.
But one way or the other, we need to know that taking a program and
putting it down to zero at a time when our justice system is crying out
for fairness and crying out for the tools to operate appropriately for
our district attorneys throughout the country as well as public
defenders who are saying that this is essential, that maybe at least
having a debate on this issue and talking about it will make sure that
we can get all the programs that we need funded to the level that we're
able to do so that we can move both of those things.
So either way this motion goes, I hope that if we win on this case,
that we argue strongly to hold that number in the conference and then
work to do something with the Mars program.
[[Page H2498]]
People feel strongly about that. Should this motion not prevail, then I
hope that our chairman and our ranking member and others will work hard
in conference to make sure that the John R. Justice Program is not
reduced to zero because I have heard everybody here talk now about how
they think it is a good program and that we move forward and we fund it
so that the system can work the way it was intended to work.
Mr. HOLT. I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.
Mr. GOWDY. Madam Chairwoman, I would just say, again, that really in
times of prosperity, we should be having conversations about the size
and the scope of government. And of course you have to have it in times
of austerity.
I just view the criminal justice system, law enforcement, prosecutors
as a core function of government, whether it's State government or
Federal Government. And we want to incentivize and encourage good
people who are not hamstrung by debilitating student loans to go pursue
that, as opposed to just going into private practice where they can
make money.
I have lived it. I have seen what it can do for our office, and I
would hope that my colleagues would give favorable consideration to it.
And if not, I take the chairman and the ranking member at their word
that they'll give it a look at the appropriate time.
Mr. HOLT. I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the noes
appeared to have it.
Mr. TIERNEY. Madam Chairwoman, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from
Massachusetts will be postponed.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Chairman, I rise today to engage in a colloquy
on NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The chairman has shown great
leadership on space and science issues. He and I have often worked
together on issues of shared interest, and he is a great friend.
The report of this bill contains some very strong language about
NASA's Commercial Crew Program; and I, admittedly, have some concerns
about that language. I believe it makes a flawed comparison between
Commercial Crew Program partners and the energy firm Solyndra. In
addition, it requires an immediate down-select to a single-program
partner, which I do not believe is the best path to move forward.
That being said, I do understand and agree with many of the
chairman's concerns that I know were underlying this language. For
example, NASA has not shared a clear, comprehensive management plan for
the program despite repeated requests. Instead, they have made
inconsistent and confusing statements about the program's purpose,
timeline, design, costs, and procurement benefits.
Although the committee has defined one possible management approach
in response to these concerns, I hope that we will be able to discuss
some alternative approaches that both address the management problems
within NASA and allow the achievement of the agreed-upon goals of the
program. With that in mind, I am willing to work with NASA to help come
up with a new plan that will do just that. And I would be pleased to
work with the chairman on these issues in order to go forward.
At this time, I yield to my good friend, the gentleman from Virginia,
the chairman of the CJS Subcommittee.
Mr. WOLF. I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) for
yielding and for outlining the concerns that a number of people have
about this program.
I believe that, despite our differences--and it may not really be
that much of a difference--we share a common goal of providing reliable
domestic access to the space station in the fastest and most cost-
effective manner. We are paying the Russians $60 million a seat to get
there. So we want to get there as fast as we can for the lowest cost
that we can so we can utilize that space station, which cost us $100
billion.
I know the gentleman is a staunch supporter of commercial
spaceflight. And if the gentleman believes that he can get NASA to come
up with a clearer and more reasonable plan, we want to work with him.
We look forward to discussing results as we move forward with the
process. And I will tell him that we will work together.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And let me just note that both of us are committed to making sure
this country is never dependent on a Chinese rocket system to launch
either commercial or government satellites or to reach the space
station.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Amendment Offered by Mrs. Blackburn
Mrs. BLACKBURN. I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used to defend against any action challenging--
(1) any provision of Public Law 111 148 or any provision of
title I or subtitle B of title II of Public Law 111 152; or
(2) any amendment to a provision of law made by any
provision described in paragraph (1).
The Acting CHAIR. The gentlewoman from Tennessee is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam Chairman, this is a very straightforward
amendment. What it says is that you cannot use taxpayer funds to defend
ObamaCare, PPACA, the Affordable Care Act. And there is a reason for
doing this, for bringing this amendment forward.
If you will look at today's Gallup Poll, the May 9, 2012, Gallup
Poll, this is what you would find in that poll: 72 percent of all
Americans believe this law is unconstitutional. They want to see this
law off the books. And that includes 56 percent of Democrats and 94
percent of Republicans that were polled.
So, Madam Chairwoman, what we find is individuals saying, We don't
like this. We don't want it on the books. We hope the Supreme Court
finds it unconstitutional.
{time} 1530
Indeed, many of us feel it will be found to be unconstitutional. And
what we're doing is saying to the Department of Justice, You cannot use
taxpayer funds to defend this law. We know that that is the right step
to take because it is important that we defend and prevent DOJ
activism. Certainly, you have heard Members stand on this floor today
and talk about the activism that exists in that Department. So taxpayer
funds should not be used to defend this law.
Now, some of you may feel like you've heard this before, and, indeed,
you have. The Republican Study Committee has brought this idea
previously as we have had continuing resolutions.
We feel that it is appropriate. This is not a bill the American
people have wanted. It is a law that is too expensive to afford.
Indeed, we have seen that as we've reviewed appropriations, as we're
looking at Health and Human Services, as we're looking at CMS. What
we're staying to DOJ is, You cannot use taxpayer money to defend this
law. We do not want our taxpayer funds to become a legal defense fund
for ObamaCare.
So it is a very simple amendment. It is a total of eight lines long.
I urge individuals to support the Blackburn amendment and to prohibit
DOJ from using taxpayer funds.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment and
move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Chair, I'm not sure that I understand the basis of
the amendment that we should defund the Justice Department from any
effort to defend a law if the polling indicates
[[Page H2499]]
that it is unpopular at the moment. The polling on the health care
reform law has varied since its enactment. At times it has enjoyed
majority support; at times it has enjoyed minority support. Almost
entirely throughout the period since its passage, if you ask people
whether they support the components of the health care reform law,
Americans overwhelmingly say that they do.
But, nonetheless, is this really the basis that we want to make
whether we can defend the constitutionality of a law, and that is: What
do the polls say? If so, then perhaps we ought to broaden the
gentlewoman's amendment to say that, whenever a law is unpopular in the
country, we should refuse to allow the Justice Department to support
its constitutionality. In fact, many of the laws that we pass here are
not always popular. Sometimes they're the right thing to do, and
sometimes they're the hard thing to do. I would imagine that some of
the decisions that we make on the debt ceiling and other things, if we
put them to a poll, would be very unpopular but, nonetheless,
necessary. Are we going to say that because they're unpopular at the
moment that they're, therefore, for no other reason, unconstitutional?
I don't think so.
We have a Justice Department that studies the constitutionality of
laws to determine, in their best judgment, whether something is
consistent with the Constitution, and I don't think we want to be in
the business of telling the Justice Department not to defend a law
because of what a particular poll might say.
With that, I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment and yield back the
balance of my time.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Thank you, Madam Chair.
In listening to the presentation by the gentlelady from Tennessee and
the rebuttal by the gentleman from California, I'd make the point that
it isn't only the Supreme Court that makes a decision on
constitutionality. We all take an oath to uphold the Constitution here
in this Congress, in the executive branch, and also in the Federal
court system. And when you go through the process of a constitutional
determination, we do allow the Supreme Court, as a public and a people,
to make that decision. We do so under Marbury, which is something over
a couple of centuries old.
But in the final analysis of the balance of powers, in the end, it's
the people that decide what's constitutional, not the Supreme Court.
And I say that because we have the authority here in this Congress to
control funding, as the gentlelady from Tennessee has in her amendment
that comes out. And there's a reason for that.
We have many debates on constitutionality here in this Congress on
this floor. It's our obligation to do that. It's our constitutional
obligation to do so. And this discussion about ObamaCare and its
unconstitutionality has gone well beyond the Chambers here. Many of us
raised these issues 2 years and a month or so ago about the
unconstitutionality of ObamaCare. We now see that at least 26 States
have brought suit. It is before the Supreme Court to be decided. Tens
of billions of dollars of good money has already been thrown after a
bad policy and an unconstitutional policy, and now we're on the cusp of
getting word from the Supreme Court.
But whether or not the Supreme Court finds the ObamaCare
unconstitutional--I believe they will, at least under the individual
mandate. I do not think they will sever it. I think they will throw it
all out. But in either case, this Congress will continue to weigh in on
constitutionality, on viability, on affordability, and on the policy
itself. And the things that we do as a majority of this House of
Representatives are entirely within the province of the Constitution to
cut off all funding, if we choose to do that.
This Congress could cut off all funding to implement or enforce
ObamaCare. This amendment just cuts off the funding to enforce
ObamaCare. There's much of that unfolding today. This is a strong
message to send. And I'm not suggesting we send it to the Court. I want
the Court to have an independent decision on the language in ObamaCare
itself. But this is a message to the American people that this Congress
also has a voice. We have a voice on constitutionality. We have a voice
on policy. We have a voice on affordability. And it's unaffordable;
it's unconstitutional, and it's bad policy. It's an unconstitutional
taking of American liberty. And this amendment at least suspends good
money going after bad policy.
I strongly endorse the gentlelady from Tennessee's amendment, and I
yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FARR. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FARR. I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff).
Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I'll be very
brief.
I just want to say that I concur with my colleague's points, to a
point. As my colleague acknowledges, we take an oath to defend the
Constitution. The administration, the executive branch, also takes an
oath to defend the Constitution.
Effectively, what this amendment would do is say we are going to
defund the Justice Department's ability to undertake and fulfill its
oath to defend the Constitution. If the Justice Department disagrees
with some Members of Congress about what their oath to the Constitution
requires, we are going to defund their ability to follow through.
I don't think that's really where we want to be because, plainly, the
Justice Department feels the law is constitutional. They believe it's
their obligation to uphold the Constitution. And to say that we're
going to defund their ability to follow through on that, I don't think
that is good policy.
On that basis as well, I would urge a ``no'' vote
Mr. KING of Iowa. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. FARR. I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
I just make a brief point that the executive branch has made a
decision not to defend DOMA, which is the law of the land. So that's a
discretion that apparently we would concede to the executive branch of
government not to defend DOMA, but not accepting the antithesis of it,
which I believe is the Blackburn amendment.
Mr. SCHIFF. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. FARR. I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. SCHIFF. I appreciate that.
And that's absolutely correct. If the Justice Department determines
in its view, just as you and I must, that something is constitutional
and must be defended or something is unconstitutional and cannot be
defended, then we have to follow through with those obligations. But I
don't think it's our position to defund the Justice Department when, in
the good faith execution of its oath to uphold the Constitution, it is
defending a law that this Congress has passed.
Mr. FARR. The worst form of democracy is to take away the ability for
it to work. This is a bad amendment, and I hope we oppose it.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. NADLER. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from New York is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. NADLER. Madam Chair, I just walked in in the middle of this
amendment, but it's very similar to an amendment we took up last night,
and it's equally wrongheaded.
Aside from the fact that it's almost irrelevant, this amendment, as I
read it, says that none of the funds may be used to defend challenges
to the Affordable Care Act by the Justice Department. Aside from the
fact that none of the funds are going to be used because the argument
has already been heard by the Supreme Court--it's past tense; the Court
is going to decide one way or another--this seems to me a little late.
All the arguments in Court have already been heard, and therefore,
they're not going to spend anymore money doing that. The Court will
decide it's constitutional or it's not constitutional. The argument
already occurred. The money has already been spent. So I don't see the
point of this.
{time} 1540
But putting that aside, what this says in effect is Congress passed a
law.
[[Page H2500]]
Any law that Congress passes has a presumption of constitutionality.
And this says that the Justice Department shall not defend the
Constitution or a law duly passed by Congress because a subsequent
Congress doesn't agree. Well, if a subsequent Congress doesn't agree
with what the previous Congress does, we should repeal the law, and
then there would be nothing to defend. But if you don't have the votes
to repeal the laws, and on the merits I would oppose repealing the law,
obviously, but if you don't have the votes to repeal the law, don't say
that the Justice Department shouldn't defend the constitutionality of a
law passed by Congress if that law is challenged in court.
Now, in Marbury v. Madison, the Court said it is distinctly the job
of the judiciary to decide what the law is. It's our job in Congress to
decide to pass the law. It's the executive's duty to faithfully execute
the law. And it's the judiciary's duty to say what the law is and
whether it's constitutional because they have to defend the
Constitution, and if we pass a law, they have to decide whether it
meets the Constitution or not.
It's the executive's duty to execute the law, and part of executing
the law is defending the Constitution as the executive sees it. So it
is up to the Justice Department to argue in court to defend the
constitutionality of a law if it thinks it is constitutional, and to
oppose the constitutionality of a law if it thinks it's
unconstitutional.
Now here you're saying that the Justice Department shouldn't argue
and we shouldn't give it funds to argue to defend the constitutionality
of the law. We are going to have another amendment in a little while by
Mr. Huelskamp that says the Justice Department may not use any funds to
oppose the constitutionality of a different law, the Defense of
Marriage Act passed, what, 15 years ago.
It is up to the Justice Department and the executive to decide in
their opinion what is their duty in terms of their duty to faithfully
execute the law. That's their constitutional mandate. And if it's their
duty to argue for the constitutionality of a law, they must. To argue
against it, they must do that, too.
We can, and in fact the House has in the DOMA case--I didn't support
this, I don't agree with it, but we were within our rights to hire
outside counsel to argue against the Justice Department on the
constitutionality of that law, and we have the right to do that.
But to attempt to use the power of the purse to deny the executive
branch its ability to do its job, which is to defend the Constitution
as it sees it by arguing for or against the constitutionality of a bill
in court, is simply wrong. It's a violation of the separation of
powers, and it's an abrogation of their responsibility.
It also hurts the function of the court to decide unconstitutionality
because the court is owed and needs the opinion of the executive, and
for that matter the opinion of Congress, if it differs.
So this amendment, regardless of the merits of the bill, which I
supported and voted for, which I think is a good bill, regardless of
the merits of DOMA, which I opposed and which I think is
unconstitutional, the argument in both cases is the same. We shouldn't
be telling and certainly not using the power of the purse to say that
the Justice Department may not argue for this position because we don't
agree with it or for that position because we don't agree with it. If
we don't agree with it, change the law. That's our job. And the Justice
Department should argue its opinion of constitutionality, and the court
must decide in the end. In the end, that's our system, and we shouldn't
tamper with it.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FATTAH. I just wanted to enlighten the House on one small matter.
We've had a number of votes on repealing the Affordable Care Act and
the like. There's no possibility that the President is going to sign
this bill if this amendment was in there. So, you know, we're spending
a lot of time, but the election will come in November. There will be an
opportunity for the country to sort some of these issues out.
But as for this appropriations bill, what we're trying to do is fund
needed law enforcement activities in relationship to the Justice
Department, whose principal duty is to protect our country since post-
9/11 in terms of terrorism. I was out at the Terrorist Screening
Center. I met with the FBI director and other officials from the
Department. It's important that we pass this appropriations bill on
time, and I thank the House leadership for scheduling it. This
amendment is not going to be a part of this law no matter the result of
the vote here today.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the ayes
appeared to have it.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Tennessee
will be postponed.
Amendment Offered by Ms. Lee of California
Ms. LEE of California. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. ___. The amount made available by this Act for
``Department of Justice--Community Oriented Policing Services
Programs'' (and the amount specified under such heading for
grants under section 1701 of title I of the Omnibus Crime
Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 3796dd) for
the hiring and rehiring of additional career law enforcement
officers under part Q of such title) is hereby increased by,
and the aggregate total of other amounts made available by
this Act that are not required to be made available by a
provision of law are hereby reduced by, $177,087,000.
Mr. WOLF. Madam Chair, I reserve a point of order on the gentlelady's
amendment.
The Acting CHAIR. A point of order is reserved.
The gentlewoman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. LEE of California. Madam Chair, I intend to withdraw this
amendment at the end of my presentation and the discussion.
I want to first thank Ranking Member Fattah for his tremendous
leadership on the subcommittee and talk about what this amendment would
have done, which of course would have increased funding for the
Community Oriented Policing Services program, better known as COPS, to
the funding level in the President's fiscal year 2013 budget, which is
$257 million. But I want to thank Congressman Fattah for his leadership
because we have talked, and hopefully as this bill moves forward, we
can look at what we can do in conference to get closer to this level.
Unfortunately, the COPS hiring program was funded at only $40 million
in the fiscal year 2013 bill, which is $217 million--76 percent
actually--below the President's request. So while we were able to
restore some of that critically needed funding with the amendment that
was passed last night, it is totally insufficient. It is insufficient
because of the fact that the highly successful COPS hiring program is
vital to increasing the numbers of community police officers on our
streets.
Not only will we have fewer officers protecting our citizens now, but
these cuts will result in officers with less training who are less
prepared to address the violent crimes threatening our community. We
simply can't afford to let that happen.
Oakland, my hometown, and so many communities across this country are
already struggling to contain violent crime. COPS has been a lifeline
for public safety. It has worked.
As a member of the Appropriations Committee, I know that we are
facing a challenging fiscal situation with the current allocations
under the Republican budget. But slashing the COPS hiring program, even
as State and local budgets struggle to make ends meet, is a perfect
example of being penny-wise and pound-foolish.
We must support the safety of our communities. The COPS program is
active in every one of our districts--Democratic and Republican
districts.
[[Page H2501]]
So let me end by saying that supporting our law enforcement should not
be a partisan issue. Our COPS deserve better. I look forward once again
to working with Ranking Member Fattah and others to increase funding to
the COPS program as this bill moves to conference. We need to increase
it at least to $257 million, which is what my amendment would have
done. So thank you again to our ranking member and the members of the
Appropriations Committee and the staff for their hard work in bringing
this bill to the floor.
I yield back the balance of my time.
{time} 1550
Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FATTAH. Since President Clinton initiated the COPS program, there
has been a tendency for there to be partisan fights around it. The
truth of the matter is there is nothing partisan about cops in your
community. Every community throughout our country, no matter the voting
patterns or predictions of voting patterns, rely on police officers for
public safety.
The Congress--this Congress, under a Republican President and
Republicans in the House and Senate, has spent billions on policing in
Iraq. We have just seen President Obama make commitments in Afghanistan
for security services and resources well into the next decade. Here in
America, we should be at least as willing to support police on our
streets.
I want to assure the gentlelady from Oakland--her city I visited. I
know many of the challenges in cities similarly situated, including my
own. I know that the chairman of the subcommittee wants to see more
cops on the beat, but we have a difficult allocation. We are hopeful,
and I think with some degree of certainty that we will be able to
increase the resources put into this area.
This is not partisan. This is a program that works. Ever since the
COPS program was implemented, every single year the crime rate has gone
down; violent crime has gone down in cities where this has been
implemented. So I thank the gentlelady for her offering of the
amendment and for her willingness to withdraw it. And I thank the
chairman for reserving rather than acting on his point of order.
Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. Does the gentlewoman from California seek to
withdraw her amendment?
Ms. LEE of California. Yes.
The Acting CHAIR. Without objection, the amendment is withdrawn.
There was no objection.
Ms. BORDALLO. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentlewoman from Guam is recognized for 5
minutes.
Ms. BORDALLO. Madam Chairman, coral reefs are some of the most
important ecosystems in the United States, providing environmental and
economic benefits to our communities.
Coral reefs provide almost $2 billion in local income and over 70,000
jobs for neighboring communities. Coral reefs provide ecosystem
services valued at over $8 billion. These vital natural resources,
however, are facing a multitude of threats, the impacts of which are
little understood.
NOAA works in partnership with external partners across the United
States to provide the opportunity for scientists from academic
institutions to work in collaboration with NOAA and other partners to
address a wide variety of threats. Now, these partnerships allow for
better understanding of local impacts, leading to local management
decisions that account for unique socioeconomic and cultural
priorities.
I do appreciate the committee's support for $24 million in funding
for coral reef programs in NOAA, and I ask that you work with the
Senate to maintain funding for NOAA's important coral reef programs,
including coral research.
I yield to the gentleman from Virginia for the purpose of continuing
this colloquy.
Mr. WOLF. I thank the gentlelady from Guam for raising this important
matter. We will work with the Senate to ensure that funding for these
important programs, including coral research activities, is
sufficiently maintained.
Ms. BORDALLO. I thank the gentleman.
Reclaiming my time, again, I thank the gentleman for deciding that he
will work with the Senate to ensure that funding for these important
programs will be sufficiently maintained.
Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
Amendment No. 38 Offered by Mr. Duncan of South Carolina
Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the
desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
At the end of the bill (and before the short title) insert
the following:
Sec. 542. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used to litigate against any of the several States on
behalf of the National Labor Relations Board pertaining to
secret ballot union elections.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina. Madam Chairman, the right to a secret
ballot should be sacred in America, and I stand in unison with my
colleagues from South Dakota, Utah, and Arizona in defunding the NLRB's
ability to sue States over the right to a secret ballot.
For decades, we have seen a sharp decline in private sector labor
unions, while government employee labor unions have used the political
process to expand. In an effort to curb the recent labor trends in the
private sector, the administration's taxpayer-funded voice for labor--
the National Labor Relations Board--has filed numerous suits against
right-to-work States and enacted over-the-top, union-friendly policies
simply because right-to-work States like South Carolina allow employees
to decide for themselves whether or not they wish to join labor unions.
The NLRB's latest attempt to boost labor unions involves suing two
States, Arizona and South Dakota, and intimidating several other States
because of State laws protecting the secret-ballot process in labor
union elections.
Just recently, 80 percent of South Carolinians voted overwhelmingly--
80 percent--to enact secret-ballot protections in union certification
elections. These are exactly the protections that NLRB bureaucrats are
attacking today.
This is not only an attack on our states' rights, but also on the
secret-ballot election process that allows workers to vote their
conscience without fear of union retaliation.
My amendment does not eliminate the NLRB or strip away all of their
funding--even though they probably deserve exactly that after 2 years
of abusing businesses, including Boeing in my home State. Rather, my
amendment simply protects the States whose citizens have spoken on this
issue by stopping the NLRB lawsuits against those States.
I urge my colleagues to stand up for workers' rights, stand up for
the rights of voters in our States who have spoken, and stand up for
the rights of our States themselves and support this amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FATTAH. I'm opposed to the idea that in a country of laws we want
to deny the opportunity for our issues to be raised in a court of law.
That's how we settle matters in our Nation, and I think it sets the
example for the rest of the world.
So this consistent attempt that we see here now, whether on the
Affordable Care Act or on other issues, to deny funds for the
Department of Justice on behalf of the executive branch to bring issues
before a court of law, I think, flies in the face of the American
ideal.
I oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Duncan).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the ayes
appeared to have it.
Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by
[[Page H2502]]
the gentleman from South Carolina will be postponed.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Quayle
Mr. QUAYLE. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title) insert the
following:
Sec. 542. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used to implement, administer, or enforce the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Enforcement Guidance
Number 915.002 concerning ``Consideration of arrest and
conviction records in employment decisions''.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Arizona is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. QUAYLE. Madam Chair, I'm offering this amendment with my good
friends and colleagues, Mr. Scalise, Mr. Stearns, and Mr. Woodall. It
would block the new EEOC enforcement guidance that limits employers'
ability to look at criminal records in their hiring decisions by
prohibiting the use of funds for the implementation of this guidance.
Now, Madam Chair, it seems like every day, whether it be an Agency or
a Commission, they come out with some new rule or guidance that really
puts burdens on our small businesses and companies that are actually
trying to expand and hire new workers.
{time} 1600
Now, this guidance is particularly troubling because it sets up a
lose-lose situation for our small businesses in my home State of
Arizona and across the country. You see, these businesses are going to
have two choices.
One, they can either not actually go through with a criminal
background check, which would open them up for a claim of negligent
hiring if a worker actually goes and commits a crime on the premises;
or they're going to open themselves up to litigation from the Federal
Government, from the EEOC or the DOJ because they believe that their
objective use of actual criminal background check is going to actually
have a disparate impact.
Now, I don't think that that's the choice that our businesses should
be given. They have to have a different choice, a choice that allows
them to expand, allows them to hire more workers, and allows them to
put forth the proper procedures so they know they're hiring people that
are not going to have criminal activity.
The reason this one thing came to my attention was I spoke to a
constituent of mine who owns a hotel in my district, and he says, Look,
I have to have criminal background checks for my employees because some
of them are going into rooms of the guests to clean, to check on
things, and they have valuables there. Now, if I don't do a criminal
background check and they actually go in and steal something and they
did have a burglary rap against them or a robbery rap, these are the
things that they would actually get sued for for negligent hiring.
So this amendment makes sure that no funds will be used to implement
this new guidance. And it is especially important to do because the
EEOC has recently been very, very litigious, and there have been two
recent Federal court cases that actually smack down some of the EEOC's
claims for a frivolous lawsuit and gave back millions of dollars to
these companies who were charged by the EEOC. So this is why this
amendment is important.
This is actually going to get rid of some of the burdens and some of
the uncertainties that are placed upon our businesses, and I think this
is the time to do it. We don't need to put any more burdens on
companies that want to expand and hire because, if you're going to put
this into place and enforce it, you're actually going to just lead to
people not hiring because you're going to set them up for failure.
So I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield back
the balance of my time.
Mr. FATTAH. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FATTAH. As best as I'm able to determine, this is a bipartisan
vote of the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, just saying that
there should be reasonableness in the process of looking at this
question.
We have a lot of young people who get themselves involved in
circumstances young, at early points in their lives, but we do want
them to be gainfully employed and productive citizens in our various
States. But, nonetheless, this is a matter that has been litigated in
various courts and, to some degree, I think it's helped to bring a more
commonsense approach to this process.
But here again, to deny funds for the lawyers of the Federal
Government to be able to handle these matters in a court of law I don't
believe is the appropriate way to go. So I stand in opposition to this
amendment.
I stand for the notion that we should be trying to reengage people in
productive lives, in employment, reunite them with their families and
build stronger communities, and I think that's the purpose of much of
the work that we're doing related to reentry.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. GARDNER. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Colorado is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. GARDNER. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.
Mr. QUAYLE. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
I do agree with the gentleman from Pennsylvania that we need to make
sure that we are allowing people to get good jobs. And that's the
biggest problem that I have with this guidance is that, when you're
setting up other companies where they have a lose-lose proposition of
whether they're going to either have the possibility of litigation from
the Federal Government or the possibility of litigation because they
have a negligent hiring, you're actually setting up a situation where
they just won't hire. They won't hire anybody because they're not going
to want to put themselves in that situation.
And the other thing that we've been seeing is that this got a lot of
concern from the Appropriations Committee in the Senate as well, saying
that we have to look and make sure that there are not these unintended
consequences where we're going to be putting up businesses to fail, and
that we're actually putting on these burdens that are not going to let
companies expand, that are not going to let companies hire. And these
are the sorts of things that continue to put this uncertainty in the
private sector.
It seems day in and day out that the Federal Government does this,
whether it's an Agency or Commission, and that's why I think this is a
very important amendment.
Mr. GARDNER. I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Quayle).
The amendment was agreed to.
Mr. OLSON. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. OLSON. Madam Chair, I rise today to engage in a colloquy with the
chairman of the Commerce, Justice, Science Committee regarding NASA's
plans to consolidate its thermal protection systems and atmospheric
reentry materials testing facilities, known as arcjet facilities.
In 2011, NASA made the decision to close the arcjet facility at the
Johnson Space Center in order to consolidate testing in a single NASA
location. However, serious concerns were raised at high levels within
NASA and industry about the detrimental effects this consolidation will
have on NASA's testing capabilities, its ability to maintain unique
institutional assets, and its ability to successfully develop NASA's
human and robotic space systems, including the Orion, commercial, and
other important space vehicles, which all require arcjet certification
of their thermal protection systems.
Madam Chair, NASA claims that the proposed consolidation will reduce
costs while maintaining safety and mission assurance. However, I
believe that NASA has unduly fast-tracked this decision and overlooked
safety and mission concerns, cost issues, and program testing needs.
I've asked NASA to suspend its work on closing the arcjet, pending a
thorough and independent review of those concerns, such as
investigations by the NASA inspector general and the Aerospace Safety
Advisory Panel. I hope
[[Page H2503]]
that such review will ensure that NASA does not make a shortsighted and
regretful decision.
I thank Chairman Wolf for the opportunity to raise these concerns
today and yield to my colleague from Texas (Mr. Green).
Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Madam Chair, I want to thank my colleague
for yielding me time, and I want to thank Chairman Wolf for his
tireless dedication to maintaining our Nation's manned space flight
capabilities. For many years, we worked together.
I represent part of Houston and Pasadena, Texas, and we're proud of
the Johnson Space Center. The work that is accomplished there advances
our Nation in space through mission control, training, and testing. One
such testing facility is arcjet. This facility ensures that the
material on the outside of the vehicles reentering our atmosphere can
withstand the heat that is created. It's a critical capability if we
ever want to send humans in space again.
The Johnson Space Center arcjet facility is being closed by NASA. I
believe the decision is premature. We've received documentation
indicating the experts within NASA, from their own Office of Safety and
Mission Assurance, believe that the closure would negatively impact the
safety and diminish NASA's in-house protection capabilities.
Confronted with tough questions on this, NASA has decided to move
ahead with their plans. They're unwilling to delay it, and they are
even unwilling to further study it.
Chairman Wolf, I'm asking for your help as we're confronted with a
NASA that is pushing ahead despite our inquiries and despite their own
internal disagreements. This is not just a local issue, and I'm afraid
that the closure of arcjet at Johnson Space Center would forever
undermine our Nation's space program, and I appreciate any assistance
you could provide us.
{time} 1610
Mr. OLSON. In reclaiming my time, I yield to Mr. Wolf.
Mr. WOLF. I want to thank both of you for your commitment to safety
and mission success at NASA. This is an issue that they have been
active on for a while now, and they have raised a number of significant
questions. We will be happy to work with both of your offices to ensure
that those questions are answered and that the decision-making on
NASA's facility promotes safe and effective management. So we'll work
with both of you to do that.
Mr. OLSON. I yield back the balance of my time.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Garrett
Mr. GARRETT. I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used by the Department of Justice to be a party to a
single or multi-state court settlement where funds are
removed from any residential mortgage-backed securitization
trust.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from New Jersey is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. GARRETT. Earlier this year, the Obama administration and the
State attorneys general across the country entered into a so-called
multi-State mortgage settlement process, in a final settlement, with
some of the Nation's largest servicers. What the administration stated
at this time is that the settlement would require the servicers to
use--this is important--their own money to help people, to help pay out
overextended home buyers, basically. Unfortunately, this settlement
went a lot further than that.
In that settlement, people who were purely investors in mortgage-
backed securities were also negatively affected by it as well--you
might say literally taking money from them, or stealing money from
them, through this process. You see, these private investors, they did
absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever, but now they also are on the hook
for having to pay in upwards of billions of dollars to, again, bail out
some people who made some bad decisions and wrong investments.
Now, I do very much sympathize with people, individuals--home
buyers--who were hard-hit by the recession, and I understand what the
intention of this settlement process was. But there is no reason
whatsoever as to why private investors who fund our mortgage market in
this country should have their private contracts broken and their money
basically taken from them. See, they in this process were deliberately
left out entirely of the administration's negotiations on the mortgage
settlement. They did not have a proverbial seat at the table when the
decision was made as to who would foot the bill. Basically, private
contracts in the process were broken. People, investors, didn't have a
chance to stop it. They didn't have a say.
Who are these investors I'm talking about here? They're State
retirement systems. They're 401(k) plans. They're public pension plans.
They're private pension plans. They're insurance company annuities.
They're mutual funds. Basically, what I'm talking about is just
regular, everyday people who comprise the majority of American retirees
across this country. So, in addition to the DOJ's taking this action in
this past settlement practice without the investors being present at
the table, this is really, if you think about it, another example of
private contract rights having been broken and about Fifth Amendment
due process rights having been broken as well.
Now, this is all in the past--and what we're doing here in this
legislation is going forward--but the past action, if it is able to be
continued, would put in a hesitancy, if you will. It would encourage
investors to step back from the mortgage market and say, you know,
there is really a new political risk here if I'm going to invest in
mortgages anymore, if I'm going to buy a mortgage, a bond, or what have
you. And they will step back from doing so, and that will hurt
everyone. That will hurt you, and that will hurt your neighbors who
want to get a mortgage in the future because there will not be
investors who will want to lend them money. Then what that will do, of
course, is drive up the cost of borrowing, and that will drive up the
cost of buying a new home. That, of course, is something that we do not
want to do here.
So having the government basically taking money out of pension funds,
taking money from retirees, is not something that we should allow to
occur going forward, and that basically is what our amendment tries to
do: prohibit the DOJ from keeping these people from being at the table
in any further settlement negotiations like this.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FATTAH. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FATTAH. I think it would be useful for the House to understand
that dozens and dozens--in fact, the majority of bipartisan attorneys
general across the country--filed litigation against mortgage investors
who had, in their view, improperly led to millions of foreclosures
throughout the country, which is what we saw with the housing market
collapse. This was joined in by the Obama administration. A settlement
emerged. That settlement this week led, for instance, to 200,000
homeowners having their principals reduced, but this is action that is
taking place all across the country, over multiple steps, and millions
of families will benefit.
The gentleman's amendment says that the people who invested in the
mortgage-backed securities are the entities that then hire the
servicers, the servicers who were found to have violated the law by
improperly conducting their affairs. So they settled with Democrat and
Republican attorneys general across the country in a $25 billion-plus
settlement that is trying to right a wrong. This amendment says, well,
somehow you can't hold the people who are the investors liable for
their agent, the servicers, the agents who artificially signed people's
names to documents, and on and on and on.
I won't recount the activities because I think they're known well.
But more importantly, they've really harmed the entire housing market
in our Nation. I think the attempt here to separate out those who are
seeking a fortune off of the misfortune of others from those
[[Page H2504]]
who acted on their behalf is wrongheaded, and I think that the
amendment should be voted down.
This, unlike many others, is not a partisan matter. This is something
that was brought by Republican attorneys general across our States and
by Democrat attorneys general, and the joining in of it by the
Department of Justice and the administration was just icing on the
cake. Yet I think that the point here is that this is an activity of
our State governments and that there is no reason we should be using
the process here on an appropriations bill to interfere with it.
I am not at all certain that this would not have an impact, because
there are still other issues that are being proceeded on in terms of
banks in this regard. This was just with the largest banks in the
country. So I think this amendment could have an impact and could harm
the efforts of homeowners in our States to seek redress.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR (Mrs. Myrick). The gentleman from Arizona is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. SCHWEIKERT. I yield to the chairman, the gentleman from New
Jersey (Mr. Garrett).
Mr. GARRETT. I appreciate the gentleman for yielding. I will be very
brief on this.
I very much appreciate the fact that the settlement was done in a
bipartisan manner. I very much appreciate the fact as to what the
overall intent of the settlement efforts were by the administration and
the State attorneys general. We're not questioning that at all.
It's a very interesting analogy that you make as far as the servicers
being the agent of the investors, but remember who you're talking about
as to who those investors are. They are the pension funds in your
districts; they are the unions in your districts who have their pension
funds invested in mortgage-backed securities; they are the retirees in
your districts who went and, through a mutual fund or some other sort
of fund, bought an investment--a bond or what have you--that was in
mortgage-backed securities.
Now, yes, a third party, if you will, another party--the servicers--
made some bad decisions in this. But the way this works is that the
State attorneys general and the DOJ went after--who? Basically the four
or five largest banks, which is about 20 percent of the industry,
figuring that they would be the best targets to go after. Fine. That
narrows it down who you're going to go after. Now you give them the
discretion as to which mortgages they're going to write down--I'm going
to write down this one; I'm going to write down this one. Which ones am
I going to basically help out through bailing out the home buyers? Yes,
a large percentage of those are on their own books, but some of them
are not on their own books. Some of them are the servicers for other
investors that are out there.
So which ones do you think the banks are going to look at first as
far as taking a haircut from something that's in their own portfolio?
From something that is going to be a negative to them, or from
something that is out there extraneous--out to maybe one of your own
pension funds out there? I would gather that, most likely, they will go
outside of their own business financial decisions and say, let's look
at some of these other investors instead. So that's who we're trying to
protect.
{time} 1620
At the end of the day, it is a very simple thing. If this were to go
forward, really all you want to make sure is that those people,
innocent and otherwise, have a seat at the table and can make sure that
their rights and interests are protected as well.
Mr. SCHWEIKERT. With that, Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance
of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the ayes
appeared to have it.
Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from New Jersey
will be postponed.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Schweikert
Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available in this Act may
be used by the Department of Justice to bring any action
against any State for implemention of a State law requiring
voter identification.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Arizona is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Chairman, I think you, and probably all of us
in the body are noticing a theme here on many of these limitation
amendments. Being someone that comes from Arizona, there's a reason
we've been actually applauding many of these amendments.
We feel, as a State--and now I'm realizing many other States have the
same issue--we're at battle with our own Justice Department. How many
times has Arizona now been sued by this Justice Department? This became
one of those occasions where we understand Texas and other States are
now being sued by the Justice Department because of voter ID laws.
I'm tired of this, and I think the American people are tired of there
being this battle between the Federal Government suing our States and
costing the residents, the citizens of these States, these litigation
costs.
How do you stand up and create limitation? This became our
opportunity to tell the Justice Department, No, go after bad guys and
stop suing our State. If there is a bad act requiring an ID to vote in
a State, fine. You still have private rights of action.
I had a staffer in the back telling me this story. I hope I don't
screw this up too much. But apparently a couple of weeks ago, there was
a young man who walked into a polling place and was able to get General
Holder's--our Attorney General's--ballot by just saying, Hi, I'm Eric
Holder. I'm here to vote.
Does anyone understand how absurdly ironic this is, when considering
you can't go in and visit the Attorney General in his office without a
photo ID? I can't go visit him in his office, but I can walk in and get
his ballot?
If you believe in the sanctity of the voting box, if you want the
American people to believe in your election and be willing to accept
when there are changes of power, which happens all the time, you've got
to also have that faith, the faith that those elections were clean and
proper, but also that those who were supposed to vote were the ones who
were allowed to vote. Madam Chairman, that's why I stand here and offer
this amendment.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Chair, I rise in support of the Schweikert
amendment.
As I listened to his presentation, it rolls me back to the year 2000
when I watched the fiasco take place in Florida and the recount that
took place there. At the time, I was the chairman of the Iowa Senate
State Government Committee. It was my job to see to it that we made
sure that Iowa wasn't a Florida in a recount like that. In that
process, I went through 37 days where almost every waking minute I was
looking into voter election fraud. It really brought my attention to
it, to the point where every day I carried an acorn around in my pocket
just to remind me that free and fair and legitimate elections are what
we need to have. It's the very bedrock for this constitutional
Republic. The Constitution is the foundation, but legitimate elections
and the perception of legitimate elections are the very bedrock upon
which the foundation of our country sits upon.
So through that period of time, we've watched since that there has
been more and more election fraud, promoted by ACORN, that brought this
to the public sight, but something that I've been on
[[Page H2505]]
now in my 12th year. As I brought legislation in the State forward to
legitimatize the elections that were in question, I asked that we made
sure that our voter registration lists are free of duplicates,
deceased, and felons, and that we require a picture ID.
The gentleman from Arizona has put together a list of the things that
you need a picture ID for, and it's rather astonishing when you look
through that list. Since he yielded back the balance of his time, I'm
going to just pick some things off of this sheet, Madam Chair. That is
this:
You can't get a package from a post office, a post office general
delivery box, without showing a picture ID in cities. I can in my
hometown.
You can't purchase a handgun without a picture ID.
You can't purchase tobacco or liquor without a picture ID. I can't
get a beer in Chicago without a picture ID, or open a bank account or
get on a passenger plane or get a ticket to Amtrak or rent a car or
return merchandise or a refund or sell scrap metal in a junk yard or
purchase police uniforms in California. I've never tried that one.
You can't be treated in any doctors' offices or admitted to a
hospital without being in an emergency without a picture ID, or rent an
apartment or get a bank loan or a cell phone or a teaching license or
enter a major university, enroll as a student or get a library card at
any libraries or enter military ports, check into a major hotel chain,
rent a truck from a U-Haul or, as the gentleman from Arizona said, you
can't visit Eric Holder without a picture ID. It's pretty astonishing.
This morning, in a hearing before the Judiciary Committee, the
Director of the FBI, Director Mueller, I asked him if he had heard of
the incident of the early twenties young Caucasian male that walked
into the polling place in Virginia and asked for Attorney General Eric
Holder's ballot. He just gave the name and identified the address, and
they tried to hand him the ballot. He said, I need to go get my ID.
They said, You don't need an ID; here is the ballot. It didn't occur to
the poll worker that this early twenties Caucasian male was not a 61-
year-old black man whom everybody ought to know his face by now, the
Attorney General of the United States.
The Attorney General of the United States apparently wasn't alarmed
that he easily could have been disenfranchised of his vote if that
individual had just gone and picked up the ballot and gone and voted.
He was not alarmed. And the Director of the FBI said under oath, this
morning, he hadn't heard of this case, this incident that, by the way,
twice was brought before the Judiciary Committee and the video was run.
It's a matter of record with the Judiciary Committee within the last
month, Madam Chair.
There are things that you can't do. As I said, you can't get a beer
in Chicago without a picture ID and you can't vote in Hugo Chavez's
Venezuela without a picture ID. It's about time, in the United States
of America, we allow the States to clean up our election laws and kept
the Department of Justice out of the business of interfering with the
justice that is delivered by the States in the United States of
America.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FATTAH. Let me say a couple of things.
One is that our country has managed to limp along for a few hundred
years. We are the leading Nation in the world. We are the wealthiest
Nation in the world. We are the number one superpower. I don't know how
we got here with all of these imperfections in our voting system, but
we'll try to go forward.
This notion that voter IDs--for instance, in the State of Texas, if
you have a concealed-weapons permit issued by the State, that's good;
you can go vote with it. If you have a State ID from the State
university, that's not good.
In our State of Pennsylvania, we've got 30 types of different IDs
that you can and you can't use. The Republican Governors and
legislatures throughout our country this year have all come to the same
conclusion. It's like a consensus that all of a sudden what America
really needs is picture IDs for people to go vote.
I would suspect that when this is over with, after people go to the
polls in November, there is going to be some regret. I think that in
many areas of our country where there are people who may even cast
votes on behalf of the GOP, that there are going to be senior citizens
like--for instance, let me give you an example of my own mother. She is
80 years old. She has never driven a car. She's not traveled outside
the country. She has no active passport or anything. She doesn't have a
picture ID. She doesn't need one. We'll make sure she has one.
{time} 1630
I believe that when we get to the final analysis here that there will
be more interference in voting in places that don't have the same level
of access to what the States have now required you to do, and I think
that will be unfortunate. It's not the way for the leading democracy in
the world to operate. Those who have promoted these laws and stand in
support of them, I believe this will be a point in their careers that
they'll look back on and wonder how it is that they got on such the
wrong side of history.
I'm opposed to this amendment, which is another limiting amendment,
limiting access to the courts for lawyers on behalf of our government,
trying to protect citizens' right to vote in States where Governors
have decided now you need a picture to go present yourself and cast a
ballot.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. GOSAR. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Arizona is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. GOSAR. I am proud of my colleague from Arizona for bringing up
this amendment, and I am tired of the Department of Justice dictating
to the States. It's about time that we embellished and supported States
to actually help us with this. And I want to remind our colleagues, if
it's good enough for us--here's my card in order to vote--it should be
good enough for the rest of the United States. What we do in Congress
we should do for the rest of the country, and this is where it starts.
There are so many things that we can talk about, but it's about time
that we stopped suing States. And I think this is a great amendment--
rewarding good behavior instead of rewarding bad behavior--and giving
our Department of Justice an outline of what good behavior is, because
I think they've lost their way.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the ayes
appeared to have it.
Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Arizona will
be postponed.
Amendment No. 14 Offered by Mr. Poe of Texas
Mr. POE of Texas. I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available in this Act may
be used to enforce section 221(a) of title 13, United States
Code, with respect to the American Community Survey.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. POE of Texas. Madam Chairman, my colleagues and I--Congressman
Gowdy, Congressman King, Congressman Scalise, and Congressman Landry--
have introduced an amendment to prohibit funds from going to the Census
Bureau to enforce a criminal penalty that is imposed upon people who
choose not to complete the American Community Survey.
The American Community Survey is not the same as the decennial, or
every-10-year, census that is required by the U.S. Constitution. The
census, of course, is conducted every 10 years to account for the
population and includes, basically, 10 questions. The
[[Page H2506]]
American Community Survey is a different survey handled by the Census
Bureau that has 48 questions and is sent to 250,000 people every month,
or 3 million Americans a year. The questions that it asks have nothing
to do with national security, but it asks specific--in my opinion,
intrusive--questions to determine Federal funding for certain areas.
Plus, businesses use these answers to the questions to make business
decisions on locating or not locating in certain parts of the United
States.
I don't argue the benefit of the overall purpose of the American
Community Survey. My concern is that it's intrusive. And does the
Federal Government really have the right to ask certain questions?
There are 48 questions. I'm not going to go through all of them.
However, I would like to put into the Record the American Community
Survey.
There are three questions I would like to mention, however. One of
them is, Does your home have a flush toilet? Or, Do you or any member
of your household have a second mortgage or a home equity loan? The
third question that I wanted to mention is, Because of a physical,
mental, or emotional condition, does this person have serious
difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions?
Now, does the Federal Government really need this information? Should
the Federal Government really obtain this intrusive information from
citizens?
If Americans want to complete the American Community Survey, fill it
out, give it to the Census Bureau, fine, but they shouldn't be required
to do so with the threat of a fine.
I've heard from many people--not only in Texas but all over the
country--that they are concerned when people come from the Census
Bureau, or subcontractors, to have them fill out this questionnaire.
These people from the Census Bureau, or those who are contracted by
them, start with phone calls. First there's one a week, and then many
times there's one every day. In one particular case, I had an
individual who was a single mother with a young child who said the
Census Bureau worker started coming to her house, sitting out in the
front of her house waiting for her to come in. And then when she is in
the residence, the worker is peeking through the window to see if she's
in there, knocking on the door to have her come to the door to answer
the American Community Survey.
Now, does that really need to take place in the United States just to
get a 48-question survey filled out? I don't think so. The means to get
this information does not justify the result. And if people don't want
to complete the survey, they shouldn't be required, under our law, by
the penalty of a fine, to do so.
I hope that we do, in this country, as the Canadians have done. They
have made this type of information voluntary. They still obtain the
information from people who want to voluntarily give the information.
As smart as the Census Bureau is about collecting information, they can
certainly do this without having to go door to door, 250,000 people
every month, to do this. Figure out new innovative ways to obtain this
information voluntarily. Maybe talk to some of the polling agencies
that have specific information about all kinds of polls in the United
States to obtain the information with the result to be for businesses
to use and for Federal funding to be going into those areas.
So this amendment simply says, there will be no penalty for people
who refuse to fill out the survey.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FATTAH. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FATTAH. My colleague, the gentleman from Texas, was here with me
in 2005 when, in fact, we had a President from Texas. This survey was
done then. It was done in the same identical way. In fact, this would
be the first time that we would act in a way contrary to our
constitutional responsibility.
It is important to note that this is an authorized activity of the
Census Bureau, not just directly related to our constitutional
responsibilities but also Title 13 of the U.S. Code, and it has been
judged in numerous courts to be appropriate. It is important for
Congress and for our government to be able to act in ways, in terms of
public policy, in which we have information.
I'm trying to figure out what's different now than in 2005. In fact,
the development of this survey and these questions even happened prior
to this administration. So I'm trying to figure out exactly why we're
here today and what it is that we're trying to accomplish and why we
want to create suspicion about the fact that we need to have
information about the population, like the question about toilets that
flush or things like this.
{time} 1640
We do this with the Millennium Challenge grant, which was set up
under the Bush administration, looking at developing countries and
looking at some of the challenges in terms of population and when we
want to know about the state of our own communities.
So I wonder why we're here. I do know one thing: I'm going to vote
against this. I'm sure the gentleman has some reason why this was okay
before and now it's not okay. The House will work its will on it.
Mr. POE. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. FATTAH. I would be glad to yield to the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. POE of Texas. To answer your question specifically, I am not
arguing the point that this information is not valuable for businesses
and for the Federal Government for funding in certain areas. My issue
and the concern that has arisen since I have been in Congress is that
people feel that they should not be forced to participate in the
American Community Survey.
This is not the census. This is a different complete document. Sure,
it's authorized by Congress. But maybe Congress needs to back up and
say people should be allowed to opt out and not be required to fill out
the survey.
Mr. FATTAH. Reclaiming my time, maybe Congress will, and you've
offered us an opportunity to do so. You pointed out Canada. I guess
you're recommending their system and the way they do things. For our
purposes, the country seems to run pretty well by having the census
data, having a capability of understanding of what the water needs may
be, what the transportation needs may be, understanding what the
conditions are in American families so that we can get appropriate
public policy.
But if you think we can do that better being in the dark in terms of
this data, fine. The Census Bureau says even though they don't really
enforce the fine, they know for a certainty that absent a requirement,
they will get less data back.
I know the gentleman is attempting to help our country. I'm just not
clear exactly how this does it.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I rise in support of the Poe amendment, and I thank the gentleman
from Texas for bringing it.
Just to clarify some of the history, this is the questionnaire that
apparently has replaced the need for what was the census long form. The
census, of course, is directed by the Constitution every 10 years. And
that's why we're going through redistricting now and all the primaries
take place across the country.
But from 1940 until the year 2000, we also had the long form that was
part of the census question. Some people got the long form; some got
the short form. And this questionnaire came along and replaced the long
form. So the perception was that it actually was a census question--the
replacement for the long form--but it really is not. Of course, it's
the American Community Survey.
I agree with the gentleman from Texas. If a government is going to be
so intrusive, they're going to issue a 24-page packet of questions
that's got 48 questions in it, some of them very, very intrusive. Just
names, age, gender, race, income, physical and emotional health--that
must have been the one where you have to answer the question on whether
you're having trouble concentrating or making decisions--
[[Page H2507]]
your family status, details of your residence--that might be the one
about whether you have a flush toilet or not--and intimate personal
habits--whether you actually use it or not. I'm having trouble
concentrating on whether I actually have one.
But I'm thinking that when one gets one of these in the mail and
you're looking at someplace between--I know it's not been enforced, but
they don't know that when they get the questionnaire--so someplace
between a $100 fine and up to a $5,000 fine, by the information I have,
that's pretty draconian just to get information from American people
that volunteer on a basis by the tens of millions and contribute
billions of dollars in charity. We can find enough Americans to fill
out this survey and give the government the information that they need.
Mr. FATTAH. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. KING of Iowa. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
Mr. FATTAH. There's some 309 million Americans, and some 200,000 will
be getting this form, right?
Mr. KING of Iowa. I believe 250,000 is the number I have.
Mr. FATTAH. So 250,000. First and foremost, it's an opportunity for a
sampling. As politicians, we know what sampling is all about. It is to
take from a smaller group of people information that you can then
extrapolate and make broader judgments about. So if you're only asking
less than 1 percent of 1 percent, the notion that this is some
intrusive governmental activity, I think--
Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, Madam Chair, I would make the
point if it's less than 1 percent of the population, it certainly is.
It's far less than 1 percent of the population. We can find that many
volunteers that will fill this out voluntarily. Send it to me. I'll
fill it out voluntarily. But when you tell me you're going to come in
and fine me for it, that's intrusive. And these questions are personal
enough that people should be able to say, I don't want to share that
information with my Federal Government. I don't want that to go into a
database that might possibly get transferred across into other people's
information.
I think it's important to have the information, but it's important
that people have freedom and liberty and we do not have an intrusive
Federal Government that would impose a fine on people if they didn't
let the information come out about whether they had a flush toilet and
whether they can concentrate on whether they had it and whether they
used it. That seems to be part of the center of this. We can at least
reduce some of these questions down there.
Mr. FATTAH. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. KING of Iowa. I yield to the gentlemen from Pennsylvania.
Mr. FATTAH. Obviously, it would be a different population if one were
asked to volunteer versus one selected through a random sample.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, I recognize that. I think we
get better information from volunteers than we do people that are
coerced. They may well not fill out this survey accurately if they
think they're doing so under penalty of law.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. GOWDY. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from South Carolina is recognized for
5 minutes.
Mr. GOWDY. Madam Chairwoman, if the government wants to ask you if
you're having trouble keeping your attention or how many flush toilets
you have, I suppose they can ask that. But should they really be able
to fine you for not answering? And it is of very little comfort to us
that the government has seen fit to not enforce that fine. To threaten
somebody with the administration of a fine and then never to carry
through on it sounds eerily similar, to me, Madam Chairwoman, to
blackmail. What's the purpose of putting it on there if you're never
going to enforce it? And if you can do it to 250,000 this time, what's
to keep you from doing it to 500,000 the next time, and then a million?
The purpose of the census, Madam Chairwoman, is to apportion the
several congressional districts. So what do you need to be able to
apportion the several congressional districts? You need to know how
many people of voting age are in a household. You need to know race so
you can comport with constitutional provisions. You may very well need
to know the gender of the people in the home so you can comport with
constitutional provisions. But you don't need to know anything beyond
that.
We had a subcommittee hearing on this, Madam Chairwoman, and what I
find to be ironic--and I never got an answer to it--is this: you don't
have to vote. The government can't do a single, solitary thing to you
if you don't vote. They can't fine you. They can't put you in jail. But
somehow or another they can if you fail to fill out the document that
apportions the congressional districts so you can vote. That is
tortured logic.
And I would say this in conclusion, Madam Chairwoman. If you want to
ask about anything other than how many people live here, race, and sex,
it's none of the government's business.
And that's just the way it is.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe).
The amendment was agreed to.
{time} 1650
Amendment No. 46 Offered by Mr. Webster
Mr. WEBSTER. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available in this Act may
be used to conduct the survey, conducted by the Secretary of
Commerce, commonly referred to as the ``American Community
Survey''.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Florida is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. WEBSTER. Madam Chair, the amendment offered here by myself and
Mr. Langford is simple. It prohibits taxpayer funds from being used to
conduct the intrusive, unconstitutional American Community Survey. In
addition to the constitutionally mandated census, the Department of
Commerce Census Bureau conducts a number of other surveys. One of these
is the American Community Survey which costs $2.4 billion to
administer.
Some of the questions which have already been gone over that the
American Community Survey contains have been routinely criticized as
invasions of privacy. As a citizen who has normal expectations of what
is private and what is not private, I share that criticism. For
example, the survey requires respondents to detail their emotional
condition. The survey wants to know what time respondents left for work
and how long it took them to get home. The survey demands to know if
respondents have difficulty dressing, or they have need to go shopping.
Or have difficulty, as has been said before, concentrating or
remembering or making decisions.
Failure to comply with this survey and turn over this personal
information is punishable by up to a $5,000 fine. Given the intrusive
nature of some of these questions, which are mandatory for Americans to
answer under penalty of law, it would seem that these questions hardly
fit the scope of what was intended or required by the Constitution.
What does the Constitution require? Article 1, section 2 calls for
enumeration every 10 years. The actual enumeration shall be made within
3 years after the first meeting of Congress of the United States and
subsequent terms of 10 years.
As you can see, at no point does the Constitution require me to tell
the Census Bureau whether I have difficulty concentrating or whether or
not I can climb stairs. Given the Nation's current fiscal situation, it
is entirely appropriate to eliminate the survey as a taxpayer-funded
activity of the U.S. Government.
The American taxpayers agree. I sponsored the majority leader's
YouCut program this past week, and eliminating the American Community
Survey was overwhelmingly the winner when the citizens were polled what
Federal spending they would cut.
We need to ask ourselves whether this survey is worth $2.4 billion.
Will continuation of this survey bankrupt the Nation itself? No, not
hardly. But
[[Page H2508]]
as has been said before, the old saying is a billion here and a billion
there, all of a sudden we're talking about a lot of money.
Why would we even pass a cybersecurity bill when we are using 5,779
hired government agents to collect sensitive information from our
citizens at taxpayer expense? This American Community Survey is an
inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars. It is the very picture of what's
wrong in D.C.
I have here the questionnaire. At least it would be the questionnaire
if Daniel Webster and Sandra and David and Brent and Jordan and
Elizabeth and John and Victoria were all questioned. This is the size
of that questionnaire. This is what we would have to fill out. This is
what would be punishable by law if we did not fill it out. What would
you think about some of these others that you read about in the
newspaper, the Duggar family, who have 20 children. What would they do?
It would be three to four times this size, and they would be required
by law to fill it out.
This survey is inappropriate for taxpayer dollars. It is a definition
of a breach of personal privacy. It is a picture of what's wrong in
Washington, D.C. It's unconstitutional.
I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the Webster-Langford
amendment and prohibit funds from being used to conduct this American
Community Survey.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FATTAH. So we first had an amendment that said that we can't
require people with a fine that's never enforced. Now we have an
amendment that says you can't do the survey at all.
We've been doing surveys in the long form since 1790 as a Nation. It
is critically important. Let me give you a for-instance. The gentleman
who just spoke, my good friend from Florida, who served as speaker and
as leader in both the House and Senate there, respectively, we're
spending $200 billion a year on Alzheimer's alone. There are various
forms of dementia as our populations age, Pennsylvania being the second
State in the country in terms of aging population. It's important for
us to know, unlike what was stated, the survey doesn't ask you whether
you are forgetting things; the survey asks whether there are people in
your home who might be suffering. It's important from a health
perspective because it will guide our efforts. I'm leading an effort on
brain research now to try to help us think through how we can develop
more appropriate efforts to head off some of these challenges.
But the idea that we don't want to ask a couple hundred thousand
citizens a question about something so that we can better plan for a
country of 300 million, the idea that filling out a few pieces of paper
is too much to be asked for for your country to help create a better
Union of a citizen, I think citizens would welcome. In fact, the reason
you don't have to fine anyone is because people do fill out the form.
But we know something with certainty. The idea that we are going to
lead the greatest country in the world with less information about the
conditions of communities and of our families, and that we are going to
do that appropriately, defies logic. It is intellectually dishonest.
Now, we have done this survey for a very long time as a country. I
suspect we will continue to do it. But for whatever reason, we are here
today debating this. I welcome the debate. At least for myself and for
my caucus, we stand in opposition.
Mr. DICKS. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. FATTAH. I am glad to yield to the gentleman.
Mr. DICKS. As I understand it, the American Community Survey is
authorized by law and has been upheld by the courts. The ACS is
authorized under Title 13, U.S. Code, the Census Act. On numerous
occasions, the courts have judged that the Constitution gives Congress
the authority to collect data on characteristics of the population in
the census. As early as 1870, the Supreme Court characterized as
unquestionable the power of Congress to require both an enumeration and
the collection of data in the census. Is that your understanding?
Mr. FATTAH. That is my understanding. And reclaiming my time, any of
the Members who are going to run in a competitive race without doing
any polling, I assume they'll be voting for this. For those who want
information in order to make good decisions, the government needs this
information.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. LANKFORD. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Oklahoma is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. LANKFORD. Here's this wonderful thing that would occur: you would
open your mail one day and you would have a packet in there, and you
would begin reading through these questions. And your first thought
would be: Is this real or is this a scam artist trying to steal my
information? Then you would call some office, or it gives you a Web
site to contact just so you can see that this is really true, because
this is not like the long form that just came to your mailbox; this is
the American Community Survey. And what just landed in your mailbox, if
you refuse to answer it, someone will call you. And then they'll call
you, and then they'll call you, and then they'll show up at your door
and check on you and why you haven't done it because this is not like
the long form of the census that's gathering basic information; this is
incredibly personal information.
And if we can ask these questions as a Federal Government, it begs
the issue of what questions can the Federal Government not ask of
someone, because the Federal Government does not have the authority to
walk into every house in America and ask any question they want to ask
about any private activity.
While it has been upheld that we can do the long form, this is
distinctly different from the long form, and this is new. This is
something that just transitioned in the last couple of years. And I get
all kinds of calls in my office saying, what is this, and why are you
asking for this.
Three quick things on it. I think this is incredibly inappropriate
because it asks way too much personal information.
Second of all, I think it is incredibly inefficient. This form costs
the Federal Government $67 per person that fills it out. Now, I can
assure you, I've heard lots of people talking about polling data and
about doing surveys. I don't know of anyone in politics, anyone in
America, that pays $67 per survey that is filled out other than the
Federal Government.
{time} 1700
So this is incredibly inefficient in the way that we're gathering it.
There are cheaper ways to be able to gather. Much of this information
is already publicly available anyway; it just doesn't connect it to an
individual person.
The third thing on this is it's incredibly invasive. Now, let me just
run through some of the questions. We've highlighted a few of them, but
let me just hit a couple of the high points and then I'll get a chance
to talk to you.
It's not just a few things about your age and about your location; it
also asks: Do you have hot and cold running water? Do you have a flush
toilet? Do you have a bathtub or a shower? Do you have a sink with a
faucet? Do you have a stove or a range? Do you have a refrigerator? Do
you have telephone service? How many automobiles, vans, or 1-ton
vehicles do you have in your home?
Let me keep going. About how much do you think the house or apartment
would sell for if you were to sell it right now? What's the annual
payment for your fire hazard and flood insurance on this property? How
much is the regular monthly payment on your second mortgage for this
property, if you have one? Is the person that lives in this home a
United States citizen?
How about this one: How well does the person in this home speak
English? Where did this person live a year ago? And give the address
for that. Because of mental, physical or emotional conditions, does
this person have serious difficulty concentrating, remembering or
making decisions? Does this person have difficulty dressing or bathing?
How many times has this person been married? Does this person have his
or
[[Page H2509]]
her own grandchildren 18 or younger living in the home?
It gets better.
How many people, including this person, rode together to work last
week? How many times did this person actually leave the home, and what
time did they leave the home to go to work last week? Last week, was
this person laid off from their job? When did this person last work
even for a few days? What was your income in the last 12 months?
And not a range, the actual listed income.
Did you have any interest from dividends, rental income, royalties?
Any public assistance or welfare payments did you receive?
It goes on and on and on. This is not just a few simple questions.
This is a form that, if I walked up to anyone in this Chamber and said,
I'm going to ask you a few questions and I'm going to write these down.
Tell me first your income, then let's go to, do you have dividends? Do
you have royalties? Do you have a bathtub or a shower? You would look
at me and say, Go away--which is what thousands of people in America
are saying to this survey.
This exceeds what we should ask as Americans.
Mr. FATTAH. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. LANKFORD. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
Mr. FATTAH. Any one of millions of Americans--and we have an increase
this week of people filing for new mortgages--have answered all of
those questions, plus some. So if you think it's strange that people
have to answer questions, if they can do it for a bank, they can maybe
do it for their country.
But here's my question: You said this was new and it hadn't been done
before. This was fully implemented in 2005 under President Bush. So why
would you stand on the House--I mean, I don't understand. This is not
new.
Mr. LANKFORD. Let me reclaim my time.
Yes, sir, it is. We started it in 2005 and started rolling it out a
few at a time, experimenting with it, and now have increased it. In
fact, the administration has asked for 50,000 more a month and has
actually asked for $52 million more to increase the usage of this.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mrs. MALONEY. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to this negative
amendment that would eliminate funding for the American Community
Survey.
Some have labeled the Majority the do nothing party. This amendment
would make them the ``know nothing party.''
The ACS is the only source of national, annual socioeconomic,
housing, and demographic data. It is used by Congress to help allocate
$450 billion a year in federal grants to state and local governments,
including the distribution of funds for veterans' job training programs
and for improvements to low-income schools. The business community uses
the ACS to help guide investment decisions like location and expansion
plans.
Congress has required, directly or indirectly, all of the data
gathered in the ACS. The ACS passed with bipartisan support under the
previous Administration to ensure greater accuracy and streamline the
decennial census.
Wade Henderson, CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human
Rights, recently wrote about the ACS and asked, ``Why would some
members of Congress want to run the government without the most
accurate information available to guide their decisions?''
I urge a ``no'' vote on the Webster amendment.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Webster).
The amendment was agreed to.
Mr. DICKS. Madam Chair, we have somebody who wanted to speak on this
amendment.
Could we ask unanimous consent that we go back and allow the
gentleman from Missouri to strike the requisite number of words?
The Acting CHAIR. Does the gentleman wish to strike the last word?
Mr. DICKS. This will not be a process that will continue. This is one
time only.
The Acting CHAIR. The amendment has been agreed to.
Mr. CLAY. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Missouri is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. CLAY. Madam Chairman, the American Community Survey is absolutely
vital. That's why I'm kind of stunned at what I'm hearing. It not only
allowed us to replace the long form census, making it easier for
everyone to participate in the decennial census, but it provides all
Americans with important information. But one particular area is of
great concern to me, and that's the use of ACS data in determining the
distribution of a substantial proportion of Federal assistance.
Now, we talk about accountability here. Well, let's start being
accountable. Put your actions to words.
In fiscal year 2008, 184 Federal domestic assistance programs used
ACS-related data to help guide the distribution of $416 billion. That's
not chump change; it's taxpayer dollars. This represents 29 percent of
all Federal assistance.
ACS-guided grants accounted for $389.2 billion, or 69 percent of all
Federal grant funding. Most of ACS-guided Federal assistance goes to
State governments through a handful of large formula grant programs to
aid low-income households and support highway infrastructure.
Medicaid alone accounts for 63 percent of ACS-guided funding.
ACS-guided funding is highly concentrated in a small number of
programs, recipient States, departments, and budget functions. State
per capita ACS-guided funding is positively related to income
inequality--high annual pay, high poverty--Medicaid income limits, and
the percent of the population that is rural. The higher any of these
measures, the higher per capita funding tends to be.
The ACS is absolutely vital. If you want to eliminate that, I'm sure
you have certain reasons to do it, but it will take away an essential
tool for us to be accountable with taxpayer dollars. So sign your name
on the bottom line if you want to, but I suggest you think twice before
you eliminate the ACS.
Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, let me seek unanimous consent that we have a
recorded vote on this amendment.
The Acting CHAIR. For what purpose does the gentleman from Virginia
rise?
Mr. WOLF. I object.
The Acting CHAIR. Objection is heard.
Amendment No. 57 Offered by Mr. Flores
Mr. FLORES. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Page 101, after line 10, insert the following new section:
Sec. 542. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used to enforce section 526 of the Energy Independence and
Security Act of 2007 (Public Law 110 140; 42 U.S.C. 17142).
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FLORES. Madam Chairman, I rise to offer an amendment which would
address another restrictive and misguided Federal regulation.
Section 526 of the Energy Independence and Security Act prohibits
Federal agencies from entering into contracts for the procurement of an
alternative fuel unless its lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions are less
than or equal to emissions from an equivalent conventional fuel
produced from conventional petroleum sources. In summary, my amendment
would stop the government from enforcing this ban on all Federal
agencies funded by the CJS appropriations bill.
The initial purpose of section 526 was to stifle the Defense
Department's plans to buy and develop coal-based or coal-to-liquids jet
fuels. This stifling was based on the opinion of environmentalists that
coal-based jet fuel produces more greenhouse gas emissions than
traditional petroleum.
{time} 1710
I recently offered similar amendments to four appropriations bills
last year and each passed this House by a voice vote. My friend, Mr.
Conaway of Texas, also had language added to the Defense authorization
bill last year to exempt the Defense Department from this burdensome
regulation.
We must ensure that our military has adequate fuel resources and can
efficiently rely on domestic and more stable sources of fuel. But
section 526's ban on fuel choice now affects all Federal Agencies, not
just the Defense Department. This is why I'm offering this
[[Page H2510]]
amendment again today for the CJS appropriations bill.
Federal Agencies should not be burdened with wasting their time
studying fuel emissions when there is a simple fix, and that's not
restricting their fuel choices based on extreme environmental views,
policies and misguided regulations like section 5266.
With increasing competition for energy and fuel resources, and the
continued volatility and instability in the Middle East, it is now more
important than ever for our country to become more energy independent
and to further develop and produce our domestic energy resources.
Placing limits on Federal Agencies' fuel choices is an unacceptable
precedent to set in regard to America's energy policy and independence.
Madam Chair, section 526 makes our Nation more dependent on Middle
East oil. Stopping the impact of section 526 will help us promote
American energy, improve the American economy, and create American
jobs.
Let's remember the following facts about section 526: it increases
our reliance on Middle Eastern oil. It hurts our military readiness,
national and energy security. It prevents the increased use of safe,
clean, and efficient North American oil and gas. It increases the cost
of American food and energy. It hurts American jobs and the American
economy. And last and certainly not least, it costs our taxpayers more
of their hard-earned dollars.
I urge my colleagues to support passage of this commonsense
amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FATTAH. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FATTAH. The Congress of the United States, in a bipartisan vote,
passed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. It was signed
into law by President Bush. It just suggests that, in Federal
procurement, when we're seeking energy, that Departments should use
energy-efficient sources so that we don't rely on unnecessary Middle
East supplies for oil.
This removes this requirement, and so I would hope that we would vote
against it.
This has been a part of the law for a number of years now, and it has
helped save taxpayers money. So I would ask for a ``no'' vote on the
amendment.
Mr. DICKS. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. FATTAH. I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. DICKS. I concur with the gentleman. This is an effort to overturn
a law that was passed in 2007 that says we're going to try to do the
most energy-efficient approach to running the government. I mean, I
think it's common sense, and I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment.
Mr. FLORES. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. FATTAH. I will be glad to yield to the gentleman.
Mr. FLORES. Let's walk through this again. For instance, if you can't
use fuel that's refined from Canadian oil sands, which is blended in
with fuels from all sorts of oil sources, then you're stuck to use
conventional sources, which means you're stuck with Middle Eastern oil.
Mr. FATTAH. Reclaiming my time, the section that you attempt to
strike from the Energy Independence and Security Act that was passed in
a bipartisan way, signed by President Bush, does not specify Canadian
sand oil. What it says is that you have to use the most energy-
efficient source that's available. That is what our government's been
doing over a bipartisan administration. It has saved billions of
dollars for the taxpayers.
Your offering today, on an appropriations bill--this effort to
prohibit really should be handled in the Energy Committee.
Mr. FLORES. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. FATTAH. I will be glad to yield to the gentleman.
Mr. FLORES. One of the things the Navy's had to do in order to do
this and to develop other alternative fuel sources because it's not
sure where it's going to get its fuel is to start using biofuels at the
cost of $20-plus a gallon instead of buying it at $5 a gallon for jet
fuel. That is not easier on the taxpayer.
Mr. FATTAH. Reclaiming my time, we're not trying to decide parochial
kinds of decisions about which might be purchased and which not. The
law, as passed by a Congress and signed under President Bush, requires
the Department to act in terms of energy efficiency and to save
taxpayers money. You want to prohibit that on behalf of what you think
is a more appropriate way to go.
We should make an amendment to that law, bring it to the floor, bring
it through the Energy Committee, and not attach it to a rider on this
appropriations bill because we can't have a full debate on the merits
thereof.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Flores).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the noes
appeared to have it.
Mr. FLORES. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas will
be postponed.
Mr. WOLF. Madam Chair, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to
request a recorded vote on the amendment of the gentleman from Florida
(Mr. Webster).
The Acting CHAIR. Is there objection?
Without objection, a recorded vote is requested on the Webster
amendment.
There was no objection.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Florida will
be postponed.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Flores
Mr. FLORES. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used to implement the National Ocean Policy developed
under Executive Order 13547 (75 Fed. Reg. 43023, relating to
the stewardship of oceans, coasts, and the Great Lakes).
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FLORES. Madam Chair, I rise to offer a simple amendment to
address an overreach by the executive branch of the Federal Government.
My amendment bans the use of Federal funds for any implementation of
Executive Order 13547. Executive Order 13547, signed in 2009, requires
that various bureaucracies essentially zone the ocean and the sources
thereof. This could mean that a drop of rain that lands on your roof
could cause the Federal Government to have jurisdiction over your
property since that drop will eventually wind up in the ocean.
Concerns have been raised that the recently created National Ocean
Policy may not only restrict ocean and inland activities, but given
that it has not received any of its own funding, it will take scarce
funds away from Federal Agencies and their currently authorized
activities that are critical to the ocean and coastal economies, as
well as our overall economy.
I look at a chart that I prepared, a look at Chart 1 reveals just how
overreaching, overly burdensome, and ill conceived this plan is. The
Natural Resources Committee continues to ask questions about ocean
zoning, including its scope and its cost. However, we are not getting
answers from the administration.
This chart, which is the watershed for the Mississippi River, our
largest river, shows that 26 States would be affected by ocean zoning.
This executive order would give unprecedented Federal reach by the
Federal regional planning bodies to areas far inland to dictate
activities that may affect the ocean or Great Lakes. And this is just
one example of the incredible reach of this particular law or this
particular executive order.
When you hear the words ``national ocean policy'' it sounds benign.
But that's only a small part of the story. The scope and reach of this
regulation is why we have the Chamber of Commerce, the American Farm
Bureau, the home builders, the timber, mining and fisheries groups
weighing in so heavily against this executive order. It affects our
whole Nation and our whole economy. Again, if you think about it, it
[[Page H2511]]
means a drop of rain that falls on your property could be subject to
this law.
Now, the last thing we need in Washington today is more
bureaucracies. And you can see by this chart this executive order
creates a huge new bureaucracy at a time when we're trying to grow our
economy. This law, this policy, has been debated in the last four
Congresses, and each time Congress elected to do nothing. So Congress
explicitly does not intend for the oceans to be zoned in the manner
that the President proposed to do it. Thus, Executive Order 13547 has
no specific statutory authority, and there have been no congressional
appropriations to pay for the cost of this new bureaucracy.
{time} 1720
There are 63 agencies that are involved with this new policy. The
last thing we need is more Federal bureaucracy trying to say that it's
enacting a policy which doesn't cost anything. The last thing we need
are more regulations from bodies like this in an already uncertain
economic environment.
We also have a list of 83 groups that are in support of our proposed
amendment. These groups include, as I said before, the American Farm
Bureau, the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Home
Builders, the offshore fishing industry, not only recreational but
commercial, and the energy industries, including the renewable energy
industries. We have letters of support for this as well.
There are significant concerns that remain related to the
implementation of this executive order, its impact, the limit of its
authority, and the lack of true stakeholder involvement. I urge Members
to support this amendment in order to stop excessive regulation and to
protect our ocean and affiliated inland economies.
The particular agency that is affected under CJS, more than any of
the others, is the Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning Office, and that
was specifically zeroed out in fiscal 2012. Yet this is the group. That
red chart shows you that it's still actively involved in the process.
Now, where they're getting the money, I don't know, but we have to
assume it's from the taxpayer.
In closing, I am just asking that Congress do what Congress intended,
which is not to have this activity.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FATTAH. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR (Mr. Price of Georgia). The gentleman from
Pennsylvania is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. FATTAH. Rather than attempt to restrict the President's efforts
in this regard, I actually applaud the President's efforts. I was at
the Coastal Zone Conference when the ocean policy, I think, was
applauded by literally thousands of Americans from across the country
when it was held in Chicago last year.
We as a Nation have more responsibility for the world's oceans than
any other nation on the face of the Earth. There are documented
challenges to the oceans' health that have been, I think, well-
documented.
If you have a problem with the executive order, the problem is really
not with the President of the United States; it's with the United
States Congress. We have passed laws giving various responsibilities
and duties to over 63 different agencies having to do with our
stewardship of the oceans, and the only thing that exists in the
executive order is the President's not taking any new action but to
coordinate and supervise the implementation of the existing laws as
passed by this Congress under the past four Presidents of the United
States so that we can try to come to grips with the circumstances that
afford such dire conditions in the oceans of the world.
So I applaud the President. I oppose this amendment that seeks to
prohibit, essentially, the executive branch from the implementation of
congressional laws that have been passed by the Congress. As to this
idea that there is any kind of power grab in the executive order, I
would invite Members to read it. It does not do anything other than
move to more efficiently implement laws passed by our Congress.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I rise to support the amendment offered
by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Flores), a member of the Natural
Resources Committee.
We have had several hearings on this executive order and on the
potential impacts that this executive order would have far, far beyond
ocean policy. The Natural Resources Committee also, obviously, has
concerns about our environment. That's probably one of the reasons the
committee was created many, many Congresses ago. But this step by this
administration with this executive order goes far, far beyond what
anybody would envision, and it is being done without going through the
normal process.
In his remarks, the gentleman from Texas stated several organizations
that are opposed to this executive order, and amongst those is the Farm
Bureau. Now, when one thinks about the Farm Bureau, they are an
organization that represents our diverse agriculture industry across
the country, but you don't associate the Farm Bureau policies with the
oceans or lakes. You associate them with crops that are grown on dry
land or on irrigated land or whatever the case may be. With that being
the case, why should the Farm Bureau be concerned about a policy
dealing with ocean planning?
The reason is, obviously, in the fine print because, in the fine
print of the executive order, it says that this ocean policy should
look at a number of things, including ``by promoting and implementing
sustainable practices on land.'' So, implementing practices on land,
are those positive or negative?
Mr. DICKS. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I will be happy to yield to my friend
from Washington.
Mr. DICKS. Let me just say that one of the problems we have is with
runoff from agricultural lands that goes into the Chesapeake Bay, that
goes into Puget Sound, that goes into the ocean, and that has to be
dealt with in order to protect the oceans.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. In reclaiming my time, I would be more
than happy to respond to my good friend in that regard.
Obviously, this is the concern because of that. They say then--and
rightfully so--in their letter that was sent out to all Members of
Congress:
Thus, instead of being limited to oceans and coasts, the
National Ocean Policy could extend to the regulation of every
farm and ranch in the United States.
Now, I think they're right on that. But we do have statutes, by the
way, that deal precisely with what my good friend from Washington
brought up to me just a moment ago, and that is the Clean Water Act.
That's what part of that is all about, is to deal with that. This is an
executive order that gives potential authority far, far beyond those
acts, and it's done by executive order. Now, there is a process to go
through. Sometimes we can agree with that process or disagree, but at
least let's go through that process with the Congress making the
policy. That's what the issue is here with this executive order.
Finally, since my good friend from Washington brought this up, let me
make this observation. Our State of Washington has an ocean policy. It
was done by statute, and in it, it specifically says in that statute:
The marine management plan, meaning the ocean policy, must
be developed and implemented in a manner that recognizes and
respects existing uses.
I think that's good policy. In fact, that's probably why so many
Northwest fishing organizations are in support of the Flores amendment,
but the policy that is driving this executive order is contrary to
that. Let me take a direct quote--a direct quote--out of this policy
driving this executive order:
The task force is mindful that these recommendations may
create a level of uncertainty and anxiety among those who
rely on these resources.
``Resources'' meaning the land.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I have to ask: Does this not sound suspiciously
like, We have to pass the bill to find out what's in it? Does that
sound somewhat familiar? So I think the gentleman from Texas is exactly
right in that the way that we can exercise our prerogative and our
authority is to deny funding.
[[Page H2512]]
By the way, speaking about funding, we had the Council on Economic
Quality in front of our committee, and we asked particularly, Where is
all this funding coming from? We've asked by letter. They have yet to
respond. So they're taking parts of it here and there, and it's not
showing up on anybody's budget at all.
The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
(By unanimous consent, Mr. Hastings of Washington was allowed to
proceed for 1 additional minute.)
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. So what this attempts to do, by the
gentleman from Texas with his amendment, is simply to say, okay, we're
going to exercise our authority, and our authority is not to give any
agency that contributes to this policy any funds. It's nothing more
than that. So I urge my colleagues to support the amendment offered by
the gentleman from Texas.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FARR. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I can't believe what we're hearing here. How
quickly we forget.
It was your committee, Mr. Chairman, that passed the bill, the
bipartisan bill, that created the Ocean Commission, which was signed
into law by President Clinton, and then the appointees to that
commission that were made by President Bush. Who was on that
commission? The chair of it was Admiral Watkins--the former head of the
Navy, the former Secretary of Energy, a great Republican, a great
admiral who understood ocean policy.
{time} 1730
Who else was on that commission? Oil and gas executives, fish
processors, all kinds of people, because we set up a commission to look
at these conflicts at sea. Why? Because, as was stated, America has
more ocean water than any other country in the world because of the
exclusive economic zone, which also applies to all the atolls and
islands like Guam, Hawaii, and so on.
What was happening then? We were having all kinds of conflicts,
conflicts between seismic boats that were going out to look for oil and
gas, fishermen who had crab pots, stationary pots, buoys, everything
that you could think of. And everybody came and said the only
government that can resolve this is the United States Congress because
these are all Federal agencies. They don't talk to each other and they
don't have any coordination, but we need to resolve this.
So we appointed a commission, and they did their work and had
hearings all over the United States and came back with their policies.
Guess what we did like we do when we have commission work? We
implemented those policies in a bill. I worked very hard on it, but I
wasn't going to be the lead author on the bill because it was a
Republican administration. So your colleague, Jim Saxton, authored that
bill; your colleague, Congressman Gilchrest, authored that bill; your
colleague, Mr. Jim Greenwood, authored that bill; your colleague, Mr.
Curt Weldon, authored that bill.
These were Republican bills before your committee. And guess what?
The chair at that time, Mr. Pombo, would not even hear their bills.
Wouldn't hear them. Admiral Watkins came here and asked for a hearing
on it. That policy has been lingering for over a decade, and all of the
recommendations into that went to the administration. Guess what this
administration did? They assembled every single agency of government,
including DHS, the State Department, the Department of Defense. They
were all in it because they all have issues.
We have an ambassador for fish, for example. It's in the State
Department. All these things need to be discussed and resolved, and
they came up with this ocean policy. This is to avoid conflicts.
Everybody is satisfied by it. The Navy needs it. The military needs it
for security purposes. You're nuts not to have it. To defund this
because you say your committee hasn't heard it--which is just false,
because your committee had that bill for not one session, two sessions,
three sessions, about four sessions and never took it up and never
dealt with the policy. It was all there.
For lack of congressional action, this is now done by executive
order. Thank God it's done by executive order and those--those were all
the people that were opposed because they said these things may happen.
Well, my God, are we worried about maybe because they're in Idaho and
think that potato farmers are going to be affected by ocean policy?
Come on. That's a stretch.
I tell you, this amendment is not only not good, it goes backwards in
being able to deal with the conflicts at sea and being able to do what
the United States Government has to do, which is to lead the world on
ocean policy, not take a second seat to it.
I urge a strong defeat.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. FARR. Certainly I will yield.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Here is the crux of the issue right here.
The gentleman started his remarks by saying that the committee, which I
had the privilege to chair, created the Ocean Commission. I was not on
the committee at the time, but I acknowledge that. We did create that.
And this is the crux of the matter right here. One of the
recommendations that came out of that committee was that the policies--
it said: The Ocean Council should work with Congress and so on to
develop a flexible and voluntary process for the creation of regional
ocean councils. States working with relevant stakeholders should use
this process to establish regional ocean councils. That is exactly the
process we should be going through, but the process of the executive
process is 180 degrees from that. So the legislation the gentleman is
citing is being used is contrary to what he is trying to promote.
That's the whole point of this amendment.
Mr. FARR. You're absolutely wrong.
The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentleman from California has
expired.
(On request of Mr. Hastings of Washington, and by unanimous consent,
Mr. Farr was allowed to proceed for 2 additional minutes.)
Mr. FARR. Thank you very much.
As the President cannot create the councils by executive order, the
councils have to be created by Congress. I would hope that the
leadership of your committee and jurisdiction would create those
councils so that they will have some bottoms-up authorities.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. FARR. I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I just want to make this point. The
gentleman makes the point of how maybe the process should work and the
commission was created.
My objection--and I think the gentleman from Texas' objection--is
this is being done by executive order. The way that the process is laid
out totally ignores the recommendation that came out of that policy.
That is the whole point.
Mr. FARR. Reclaiming my time, the responsible issue here is if you
want to do that, let's have a congressional hearing, an oversight
hearing on this ocean policy. I would be proud to defend it. But to
take a meat-ax approach and whack it and say whatever it is, whatever
it accomplishes, we're not going to allow it to be implemented I think
is reckless and irresponsible.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. If the gentleman will yield, we have had
five hearings on this, just to make a point.
Mr. FARR. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Massachusetts is recognized for
5 minutes.
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, it is time for the Republicans to stop
being afraid of commonsense initiatives like the National Ocean Policy.
Why is that? Well, it's because the National Ocean Policy will reduce
bureaucracy and streamline government operations.
Why would anyone be opposed to that? Could it be because Big Oil
doesn't want anyone other than themselves to have a voice in how we're
using our coastal resources? Is that what this is all about? Is this
really just another drill-baby-drill issue where the oil industry has a
policy, the oil industry has a voice? What we're trying to say here is
that others should have a voice, too. They are America's oceans, not
ExxonMobil's oceans.
[[Page H2513]]
So following a decade of discussion and shareholder engagement,
President Obama established the National Ocean Policy in July of 2010.
Creating such a policy was the cornerstone recommendation of President
Bush's U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy. Now, following even more public
engagement, we await the final National Ocean Policy implementation
plan to come out this summer.
Now, the assertions that the policy will create new regulations,
usurp State authority, restrict land use or zone the oceans, are
patently false and misleading.
The National Ocean Policy will allow Federal agencies to better
coordinate amongst themselves and with other levels of government and
all stakeholders to eliminate red tape while managing effectively for
multiple ocean uses.
Opposing ocean planning is like opposing air traffic control. You can
do it, but it will cause a mess or lead to dire consequences. Our
coastal counties make up only 18 percent of the country's land area,
but are home to 108 million people, or 36 percent of our Nation's
population. These numbers are steadily increasing.
There's a saying in Washington that if you're not at the table,
you're on the menu. When it comes to our Nation's oceans, more and more
guests are coming to dinner. Fishing grounds, shipping lanes, Navy
training ranges, offshore energy production, wildlife habitats, and
other uses are increasingly in competition, and the National Ocean
Policy will help ensure that everyone has a seat at the table.
Instead of supporting a plan for our oceans, the Republican majority
continues to pursue scare tactics, claiming that the policy creates
additional regulation and kills American jobs. Yet, they have no
evidence that that is the case.
Let's go to what this bill proposes to do. It proposes to slash $93
million from the NOAA budget, threatening the health, the safety, and
the prosperity of Americans.
{time} 1740
Specifically, the bill calls for a $5 million reduction to the NOAA
Coastal Services Center, which helps the States, the localities, and
individuals, as well as protects private property and valuable
infrastructure by addressing the challenges associated with flooding,
hurricanes, sea level rise and other coastal hazards.
Number two: this bill, the Republican bill, seeks to cut $32 million
to the National Marine Fisheries Service, which has the difficult
responsibility of managing fisheries to sustain our coastal communities
and ocean ecosystems.
And they also want to cut $30 million, which would be cut from NOAA's
Competitive Climate Research budget at a time when much of our country
has been experiencing severe drought and other extreme weather. We need
to study and understand these extreme weather events in order to
protect lives and livelihoods. By sticking our heads in the sand and
refusing to act, we do a disservice to the people we are elected to
represent.
We know that the oceans are warming, and are warming dramatically
because of climate change. Should we study that? We know that tornadoes
are now ripping through the Midwest in February, not in April or May.
Should we be studying that? We know that people now all across the
country are becoming more fearful of these ever-intensifying climate
conditions that are threatening the lives and the livelihoods of tens
of millions of Americans. Should we be studying this? What do the
Republicans say in their budget? No.
So I understand that some of them do not believe that this should be
studied. I understand that they do not believe that the ordinary
American is becoming increasingly concerned about this change in
climate. But I tell you this, they are.
I urge a ``no'' vote against this Republican proposal.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. DICKS. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Washington is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. DICKS. I rise in strong opposition to the amendment.
The implementation of the National Ocean Policy will help to protect,
maintain, and restore our ocean, coastal, island, and Great Lakes
ecosystems, which provide jobs, food, and recreation, and serves as a
foundation for a substantial part of our Nation's economy. Only
healthy, functioning, and resilient marine and freshwater ecosystems
can support the fisheries which we depend on so heavily.
Across the continental United States, our coastal and ocean
ecosystems are suffering from an outdated issue-by-issue approach to
stewardship and management. We are already seeing the threats posed by
ocean acidification, low dissolved oxygen, harmful algal blooms, and
dead zones in the gulf, the Chesapeake, Puget Sound, and throughout our
Nation's coastal waterways. The National Ocean Policy would help us
better address the cumulative threats to our aquatic ecosystems from
overfishing, coastal development, storm water run-off, carbon
emissions, and other pollutants entering our waterways; and it will
also help us balance the many overlapping ocean uses.
The core approach of the National Ocean Policy is to improve
stewardship of our oceans, coasts, islands, and Great Lakes by
directing government Agencies with differing mandates to coordinate and
work better together. The National Ocean Policy creates no new
authorities. The result of increased coordination will be better
stewardship of our national heritage through improved government
efficiency, better development and use of data and information and a
process of open and transparent stakeholder engagement that informs
decision-making. This increased coordination between Agencies is the
sort of effort that needs to be taking place on a Federal level in
order to reduce inefficiency, waste, and redundancy among Agencies.
The National Ocean Council brings together State, local, and tribal
governments and all of the ocean's users--including recreational and
commercial fishermen, boaters, industry, scientists, and the public--to
better plan for, manage, harmonize, and sustain uses of ocean and
coastal resources.
The virtue of the National Ocean Policy is that it develops and
facilitates the planning process, deals with many overlapping ocean
uses, and expedites the approval process of new uses being introduced.
The National Ocean Policy offers an avenue for thoughtful planning and
is the best choice for those stakeholders looking to be involved in the
process or at least having some voice in the discussion.
While not required to participate, most States and regions see the
benefit of marine planning as a way to leverage their interests and
achieve desirable outcomes.
I would say to my friend from Texas, in the Pacific Ocean, there are
debris fields the size of the State of Texas. Now, if you think we're
taking care of our oceans, if we're taking care of our rivers and
streams and lakes, you are, at best, ill-informed. We need a national
effort, an international effort--to clean up the oceans and protect
them. And what do we get from the Republicans? A non-science,
nonfactual approach to this problem. It's disgusting, to say the least.
Announcement by the Acting Chair
The Acting CHAIR. Members are admonished to direct their remarks to
the Chair.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. DICKS. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I appreciate the gentleman yielding.
The gentleman, when he made his remarks about all of the challenges
that we face, if you heard, nobody is arguing on our side about that.
Nobody is arguing about that. It is the structure of which we are
talking about here. And, unfortunately, we have experienced painfully
in this body and in this country when we have a structure of a top-down
solution, it always seems to come out wrong. And that is what the issue
is all about.
We have had five hearings, like I said, in my committee on this
issue. But the way this is set up, it was designed to be voluntary, and
it was designed to be in corroboration with the States. Our home State
of Washington has responded to that. But the way this is written and
the way it is interpreted, it is a top-down issue; and if we
[[Page H2514]]
let it continue going, we are going to have a problem, and the
gentleman knows it.
Mr. DICKS. Reclaiming my time just to briefly say to the gentleman,
what we have been doing isn't working.
The oceans are in trouble. We have got acidification that affects our
shellfish, and it's because of too much carbon dioxide going into the
oceans. The oceans are warming. The world cannot survive without the
oceans.
The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentleman from Washington has
expired.
(By unanimous consent, Mr. Dicks was allowed to proceed for 1
additional minute.)
Mr. DICKS. I will just say to my friend, there is a problem with
fertilizer runoff from agricultural lands. We've got it in the Puget
Sound. These are serious matters that have to be dealt with, and to
look the other way is not a solution.
I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I am aware of that. Clean water takes
care of that, and that process is going through. Sometimes we agree.
Sometimes we don't.
But just let me make an analogy that I think the gentleman would
agree with. We had a long debate last night on catch shares, something
entirely different. The gentleman was very much so defending--and I
agree with him--the fact that there was regional planning. And catch
shares works in our part of the country. That is all that we are
saying. We think that is probably a better model.
This executive order is contrary to that. So my arguments here over
and over have been the model, and that's why we should defund it and
come back and do it correctly.
I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
Mr. DICKS. No more hearings. Let's have a bill.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. GARDNER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Colorado is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. GARDNER. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. FLORES. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Let's make sure we all understand exactly what my amendment does. My
amendment doesn't roll back any regulation that currently exists. My
amendment doesn't strike any money for any Agency that is currently
looking at how the ocean works. My amendment does nothing like that.
My amendment specifically says that if this process is going to be
done, that it's going to start where the Constitution says it starts.
It starts in the United States Congress.
Now, Mr. Farr talked a few minutes ago about how this was already an
authorized activity. And to that extent, he introduced a bill in the
111th Congress, H.R. 21, on January 26, 2009. That has not become law.
There has never been an appropriation that has been issued to support
that.
On the other hand, here is what the executive order does do: it
creates 10 new national policies, nine new national priority
objectives, nine new strategic action plans, seven new national goals
for coastal marine spatial planning, 12 new guiding principles for
coastal marine spatial planning.
{time} 1750
In addition, the agencies are advised to evaluate necessary and
appropriate legislative solutions or changes to regulations to address
the constraints. That, my friends, did not start in the United States
Congress pursuant to the Constitution.
Now, it's been said this is not going to cause any additional
regulation. It's been said this is not really ocean zoning. Well, let
me give you an example of one of the things that is required to happen.
It requires the Department of Transportation to inventory and
evaluate best management practices to address storm water runoff from
the Federal highway system. In terms of where people say it's not
zoning, it says:
CMSP allows for a comprehensive look at multiple sector demands,
which would provide a more complete evaluation of cumulative effects.
This ultimately is intended to result in protection of areas that are
essential for the resiliency and maintenance of a healthy ecosystem,
services, and biological diversity.
I've got no problems doing that as long as the Congress authorizes it
and the Congress appropriates the money to do so. The Constitution
doesn't say that the President is king and under the executive orders
he can do whatever he wants to.
This action will identify and assess high-quality ocean and coastal
waters and the waters that drain into them and establish or modify
existing water quality monitoring protocols and programs.
That sounds like a regulation to me. That's government-speak for
``regulation.''
This executive order is an overreach. The cost of this executive
order is being hidden. The National Ocean Council specifically asks
agencies to tell us what this is going to cost, and the agencies have
specifically refused to comply. The Natural Resources Committee in
these hearings has specifically asked for the cost of this program, and
we've specifically been ignored.
If these agencies are spending this money to implement this program,
this executive order, where are they taking it from? What legislatively
authorized activities are not being done and what appropriated dollars
are being used from their appropriated function for something else?
What's going on?
There are 83 interest groups in this country that are not the types
that you would not like--it includes folks like the cattlemen and the
farmers--that think this is an overreach and think this could damage
our way of life. All we want is to have a clear and transparent and
constitutional process for this to be carried out.
Mr. GARDNER. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. MORAN. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Virginia is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. MORAN. I rise as well in very strong opposition to this amendment
that prohibits funding for the National Ocean Policy. The purpose of
this policy is to improve our Nation's ocean management effort, protect
and create jobs, and grow our economy by ensuring all the multiple uses
of the ocean are coordinated in a more seamless manner.
Far from a heavy-handed directive, as it's being described, the
National Ocean Policy will actually streamline government programs and
regulations. It will reduce bureaucratic red tape. And perhaps most
importantly, it enlists local stakeholders in the decision-making
process. And it shouldn't be a partisan issue.
The National Ocean Policy was a cornerstone recommendation of both
the independent Pew Oceans Commission, which was chaired by current
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and by the U.S. Commission on Ocean
Policy, appointed by George W. Bush. Both commissions called for
harmonizing the responsibilities of the 27 different Federal agencies
with jurisdiction over some aspect of ocean management.
As my colleagues can imagine, the current arrangement has led to
ineffective management of resources, inefficient use of taxpayer
dollars, and increased conflicts among a growing number of ocean users.
Strategic planning maximizes organizational efficiency and use of
public resources.
The National Ocean Policy will improve opportunities for community
and citizen participation in the planning process and facilitate
sustainable economic growth by providing transparency and
predictability for economic investments. It represents a science-based
strategy to align conservation and restoration goals at the Federal,
State, tribal, local, and regional levels, and it will strengthen the
integration of Federal and non-Federal ocean observing systems and data
management into one national system.
Of particular interest to me, the Chesapeake Bay--I know it is to
Chairman Wolf as well--is poised to benefit from the National Ocean
Policy action plan. It will help advance the bay's health, from
increasing public school education about the Chesapeake Bay region to
creating a mapping tool for the Chesapeake Bay watershed that allows
stakeholders to share information and ideas for land protection and
restoration.
[[Page H2515]]
It calls for the establishment of a National Shellfish Initiative, in
partnership with commercial and restoration aquaculture communities,
which includes pilot projects to explore the ecosystem benefits of
shellfish aquaculture while increasing shellfish production in U.S.
waters. That's so important for our economy. In fact, all oceans,
coasts, and Great Lakes are critical components of our Nation's
economy. U.S. coastal communities are home to more than half of all
Americans. They generate an estimated $8 trillion a year and they
support 69 million jobs.
Declining ocean health and a lack of effective coordination is
putting this great economic engine at risk. Comprehensive planning will
ensure the stability of the Nation's seaports as additional users of
ocean space evolve, including the responsible development of offshore
energy resources.
But we must make no mistake: This attempt to defund and delay the
National Ocean Policy is a dangerous political move that puts the
health of our oceans, coastal communities, jobs, and our fishing
industry at risk. We need to protect, maintain, and to restore the
health of our oceans and coasts. Continuing to develop the National
Ocean Policy offers our Nation the best path forward.
I urge my colleagues to oppose this misguided amendment and to do
something that is very much needed for our economy, for our oceans and
particularly for our coastal communities. Let's do the right thing.
Let's get all these users organized and working together in pursuit of
a streamlined consistent constructive policy. It's the right thing to
do. This amendment is not. Let's defeat this amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. POLIS. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Colorado is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. POLIS. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
Mr. FATTAH. Again, this is a little bit different than the optimism
in Chicago at the Coastal Zone Conference where the Ocean Policy just
had such an enthusiastic response from constituencies all around the
country and in other parts of the world.
The development of this is bipartisan: the Pew Foundation,
headquartered in my home city of Philadelphia; the Lenfest Foundation,
led by Gerry Lenfest, and their investments in studying the oceans.
We've seen the work that has been done that's led to this.
I would hope that we would oppose this amendment and we would work to
build a further consensus and hopefully have legislation come out of
the Natural Resources Committee.
I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, and I hope that we vote
this amendment down.
Mr. POLIS. Reclaiming my time, I would like to yield to the gentleman
from California (Mr. Farr).
Mr. FARR. Thank you very much for yielding.
I think you can note the passion I've had on this issue because we
worked at it a long time. And I want to assure you--I'm ranking member
of the Ag Appropriations Committee. I probably represent more
productive agriculture than anybody in Congress. I have just one county
I represent that has 85 crops in it. We do about $4.2 billion of
agriculture out of that county.
I can assure you that coastal States' agriculture is very much
concerned about all of these issues that are coming up and really
supports the ideas that we can have a coordinated effort. This is a
long effort. We had the military involved in this. We've got FEMA
involved in this. We've got the Department of Agriculture involved in
this. We've got every other agency. And it's how you resolve conflicts
that are there.
Yes, we in Congress have enacted an awful lot of laws. And I want to
say there isn't anything the President has done or any of these
agencies are doing that isn't authorized in law. We gave them those
authorities. We just never required them to all sit down and talk about
those conflicts and how to resolve those conflicts.
We have a huge responsibility here. This is a long effort to create a
National Ocean Policy. It's the smart thing to do. It's got all the
Federal agencies at the table, finally, and it's got all the user
groups, both private and public.
{time} 1800
So I just think that this is kind of a meat-ax approach. If you do
have concerns, let's do it in the regular legislative order, not just
say that we're going to eliminate that whole ability for them to
resolve conflicts. You're going to end up with more lawsuits and a lot
of concerns by people who are going to wonder what the future holds
without a good, comprehensive plan.
So I again compassionately ask my colleagues on both sides of the
aisle to reject this amendment. It would be a very dangerous thing for
this country to do, to adopt this amendment.
Mr. POLIS. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania and the gentleman
from California for their hard work on this issue, and I yield back the
balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Flores).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the noes
appeared to have it.
Mr. FLORES. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas will
be postponed.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.
The motion was agreed to.
Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr.
Hastings of Washington) having assumed the chair, Mr. Price of Georgia,
Acting Chair of the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the
Union, reported that that Committee, having had under consideration the
bill (H.R. 5326) making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce
and Justice, Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending
September 30, 2013, and for other purposes, had come to no resolution
thereon.
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