[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 36 (Tuesday, March 3, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H1562-H1564]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REPORT ON RESOLUTION PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 1029, EPA
SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD REFORM ACT OF 2015, AND PROVIDING FOR
CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 1030, SECRET SCIENCE REFORM ACT OF 2015
Mr. BURGESS, from the Committee on Rules, submitted a privileged
report (Rept. No. 114-37) on the resolution (H. Res. 138) providing for
consideration of the bill (H.R. 1029) to amend the Environmental
Research, Development, and Demonstration Authorization Act of 1978 to
provide for Scientific Advisory Board member qualifications, public
participation, and for other purposes, and providing for consideration
of the bill (H.R. 1030) to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency
from proposing, finalizing, or disseminating regulations or assessments
based upon science that is not transparent or reproducible, which was
referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed.
Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, the next Blue Dog Coalition member who will
speak is one of our newest members. He hails from the great State of
Nebraska, and we are honored to have him as one of our newest members
of the Blue Dog Coalition. He is Brad Ashford from Nebraska's Second
District. A lot of agriculture and a lot of good people Congressman
Brad Ashford has the opportunity to represent, and we appreciate the
fact that he is here.
Mr. ASHFORD. Thank you, Mr. Costa. I am privileged to have the
opportunity to speak today.
Mr. Speaker, you mentioned, just briefly, the concept of ``Profiles
of Courage.'' John Kennedy, in writing that book, wrote about a great
Nebraskan, George Norris. George Norris was a Senator from Nebraska,
and prior to that time, he served in this House. In 1908, he led a
bipartisan effort in the House to change the rules of the House in
order to make the House more transparent and more accountable to the
American people.
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In that regard, in John Kennedy's book he wrote about Congressman
Norris, and then, subsequently, Senator Norris. In the 1930s, Senator
Norris, who had worked to create the Tennessee Valley Authority, worked
across the aisle with FDR--he was a Republican--to pass the Rural
Electrification Act that electrified the country. He did so working
across the aisle.
And in the 1930s--and 1934, specifically--he reached out to the
people of Nebraska and said to them: We can do better. We can have a
more transparent government. We can have a bipartisan, nonpartisan
government that will address the tough issues of Nebraska in the
Depression of the 1930s. And he recommended to the voters: Look, let's
do this. Let's have a unicameral, nonpartisan legislature.
And the lobbyists and the special interests said: George, you should
go back to Washington. This isn't going to work in Nebraska.
Well, the voters of Nebraska, in 1934, voted for a unicameral,
nonpartisan legislature, and I am proud to say that we have such a
legislature today.
I am so proud and honored to be here. There was a discussion earlier
by prior speakers about relationships. And what is so interesting to me
and amazing to me--not amazing, really, but gratifying--are those
relationships, are the relationships that I have been able to achieve
through my association with the Blue Dogs and relationships with
Republicans and Democrats alike. It is very, very gratifying that that
exists. That is what I am used to in Nebraska.
When I first arrived here, I went to a Democratic Caucus. I served in
the Nebraska unicameral legislature for 16 years. I never went to a
caucus in my life. I didn't really know exactly what a Democrat or
Republican really was. I suppose I would have to look, but of the 49
members of the Nebraska Legislature, I would have to think long and
hard about what party they belonged to.
And in the 16 years that I served there, we had many tough issues. In
fact, one of the toughest issues we had in the State was the pipeline
issue, and that was referenced earlier--the TransCanada pipeline. Well,
it goes through Nebraska. As originally routed, it would have gone
through some of the most sensitive areas of our State, the Sandhills
area and the Ogallala Aquifer.
We spent a year together, the 49 of us. Not every day. We would kill
each other if we spent every day together, but we spent a lot of time.
At the end of the day, we came up with a process to reroute the
TransCanada pipeline to move it away from the most sensitive parties of
the Ogallala Aquifer. We did it with a vote of 49-0, environmentalists
and those on the other side of the issue coming together to pass a
routing bill.
So the idea that George Norris had was, number one, be transparent.
Let the people of Nebraska know exactly what you are doing.
What is interesting about the 16 years that I was there--and, quite
frankly, if you do count Republicans and Democrats in the unicameral
legislature, you will find that there are a lot more Republicans,
traditionally, than there are Democrats, at least during the 16 years I
was there, and I don't think that at any time I was there, any year,
any legislative session I was there, that there were not an equal
number of committee chairs that were Republican and Democrat. There was
nothing magic about that. It was just the way we balanced things out in
our State. We did it and do it intuitively. We do it intuitively.
I don't suggest that we are going to decide tomorrow or even next
year or 10 years from now to have a unicameral, bipartisan, nonpartisan
legislature, but the lessons that I learned there are the lessons that
I have brought here. And when I had the opportunity, Mr. Costa, to meet
the Blue Dogs, it reminded me of home. It reminded me of the Nebraska
Legislature and the idea that Republicans and Democrats make that
decision for themselves.
But as my good friend and former Senator from Nebraska Ed Zorinsky
used to say, there are no Republican Senators or Democratic Senators.
There are only American Senators, U.S. Senators. It is in the water in
Nebraska. That is how we think. That is how we are. And what is great
about this place is those same relationships, those same committed
people are there to make those kinds of relationships work in a
bipartisan way. We have heard examples of that today.
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When I ran for this office, I said to the voters of the Second
Congressional District of Nebraska, Sarpy County and Douglas County,
Nebraska, the two most populace counties: I'm going to go to
Washington, and I'm going to make 25 friends. Because in Nebraska, if
you make 25 friends, you get 25 people to vote for a bill, it passes.
You know what? I found more than 25 friends. I found a lot of
friends, a lot of great people who sit in this body, this place, every
single day, Republicans and Democrats.
I just got back--and then I will conclude, Mr. Costa--from a trip to
Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, the Emirates, and Kuwait. I went with three
other Members: Elise Stefanik, who is a freshman Republican from New
York; Joe Wilson, who is a veteran Member from South Carolina; and Seth
Moulton, who is a freshman from Massachusetts. What great people. What
great committed Americans to have gone on that trip.
So, Mr. Speaker, I commend the Blue Dogs to the country, to those
that are watching, in furtherance of the old tradition of transparency
and working together and making things happen.
Mr. COSTA. During your visit, on a bipartisan basis, in Afghanistan,
Iraq, and Jordan, you were visiting some of the most challenging
hotspots in the world today, and I suspect you got an opportunity to
visit and see American men and women serving abroad and the heroic and
difficult jobs that they are doing and the great sacrifices of their
families. I suspect you had an opportunity to tell them that in
Washington we are trying to do all we can to support them.
Mr. ASHFORD. Thank you for the comment. Yes, I was fortunate enough
to visit with Nebraskans who were serving in Iraq and serving in
Afghanistan. I was on a C-130. We were traveling over the Strait of
Hormuz area. The navigator in the C-130 said to me: Sir--because he had
to call me ``sir''; that is the protocol--get behind us. We're doing
the best we can over here, and we need your support.
And they are going to get our support and have our support. Thank you
for the question. I was so deeply appreciative of the opportunity to
meet with my fellow Nebraskans who were there as well.
Mr. COSTA. Well, I have made that trip several times, and we can
never say thank you enough to the American men and women who serve in
our Nation's military.
I would just ask you, every week, I know you go back to your district
and the good people in Nebraska--and that good water you are drinking
there, bring more of it here to Washington because I think, if we can
drink some more of that water, it certainly wouldn't hurt us here in
our Nation's Capital.
I want to thank the gentleman from Nebraska for his good words.
As I prepare to close, I want to thank my fellow Blue Dog colleagues
for coming down to the well of the House of Representatives this
afternoon to talk about the common interests that we as Blue Dog
Coalition members have, the efforts that we are making to reach across
the aisle, the efforts that we are making to work with the No Labels
group, as well as others, on a call to service to repair the engagement
of civic dialogue, understanding that, frankly, if we tone down our
rhetoric and we have a better understanding of how the different
congressional districts that we all represent are, we can find the
common threads, the common bonds to bring together solutions that we
can agree upon for all of America. After all, we all believe that is
what we have been sent here for, I believe, in one way or another.
Another effort that the Blue Dog Coalition is engaged in with No
Labels and others is congressional reform. Clearly, many Americans,
when they look at Washington and they see the news of the evening, they
think: Jeez, there must be something broke there. It ain't working
right. It's not working the way we read in our textbooks.
We are trying to restore efforts in congressional form in terms of
regular order, in terms of our budget process and producing all 11
budget bills every year and go to a conference as we are supposed to
do. We haven't done that in 12 years in Congress, whether it is the
Democrats in the majority or the Republicans in the majority, so there
is a lot of fixing. Obviously, finger-pointing doesn't fix the problem.
In addition to that, we have electoral reform. I think we all know
that last year, last November, we had the lowest recorded turnout in
America since 1942. What does that tell you? What does that tell you
when the majority of Americans, regardless of whether they are
registered as Republicans or Democrats, identify themselves as
Independents?
It tells you that America is looking toward people in Washington to
provide the leadership to solve problems. They don't expect us to solve
all of them--they are not unrealistic--but they would like us to
prioritize on getting a budget on time, getting our fiscal house in
order, on trying to fix a broken immigration system, produce a 5-year
transportation bill, improve government accountability, and
transparency. That is what they would like us to work on.
As I said when I began earlier this afternoon, I am Congressman Jim
Costa. I represent the 16th Congressional District in California,
including all of Merced County, half of the flat land of Madera
County--a lot of agriculture in both Merced and Madera Counties--and
Fresno County. Fresno is, of course, my home.
The wonderful people that are part of the San Joaquin Valley that I
have had the honor and privilege to represent over the years are what
all Americans are like. They are some of the best and brightest. They
are tenacious. They are hard working. They represent the story of
America.
What is that story? Immigrants past, immigrants present--people come
in from all over the world, striving to have a better life, a better
opportunity for themselves and for their families.
That is why we are working to solve the water problems in the San
Joaquin Valley--because, if we can solve the water problems in
California and in the West, with the planet clicking 7 billion people
last year and soon to have 9 billion people by the middle of this
century, our solutions to water problems in California can be a
template to solving water problems around the world because where water
flows, food grows.
Clearly, we know that that is a daunting challenge, just like our
energy problems are--but guess what. We are making progress on our
energy problems. When I first came to Congress 10 years ago, we
imported over 60 percent of our energy needs. Today, we import a little
over 40 percent.
If we continue on the current path, in the next 10 years, we will be
importing around 20 percent or less by using all the energy tools in
our energy toolbox, just as we must use all the water tools in our
water toolbox.
There is a lot to do. I would like to thank my colleagues in the Blue
Dog Coalition for their time today, and their continued efforts over
the year. Clearly, we have a lot of work to do together, and we want to
reach out to work with everybody in the House of Representatives, the
people's House.
The Blue Dog Coalition is ready and willing to work with everyone. We
look forward to creating bridges, not cul de sacs, working with our
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to advance commonsense policies
that are physically sound, that benefit our entire Nation.
You could also call the Blue Dog Coalition the commonsense caucus
because we reject the notion of gridlock in Washington. It is
embarrassing; it is inexcusable.
Every day, when we put politics ahead of policy, we put our Nation at
risk, and we stand to lose. Therefore, Congress must come together to
address the critical issues as I said before: tax reform, immigration
reform, and ways to further our Nation's economic recovery.
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There is no problem in America, if we work together, that we cannot
solve. We are here to represent and advocate for our constituents.
Please, for those of you who enjoyed the comments made by my fellow
Blue Dog Coalition members this afternoon, you can go to www.bluedog
.schrader.house.gov for more information.
The Blue Dog Coalition will continue to work to make a difference by
advocating for sound legislation and working together with our
colleagues on a bipartisan basis. That is what I have always done.
[[Page H1564]]
Today, as with my Blue Dog Coalition partners, we have the honor and
the privilege to represent our constituents from throughout the land;
and I would ask that my colleagues continue to make that effort because
I think, at the end of the day, that is what all Americans want us to
do.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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