[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 195 (Tuesday, December 11, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H10098-H10101]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          FAREWELL TO CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Barton) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. BARTON. Mr. Speaker, before Congressman Hensarling leaves, I just 
want to commend him for his service and tell him what a privilege it 
has been for me to serve with him and to know him as a friend. We are 
both retiring, and we are both, so far as I know, going to move home to 
Texas. And if we don't see each other anyplace else, we will see each 
other at some Texas A&M football games. So I thank my good friend.
  Mr. Speaker, in January of 1985, at the ripe old age of 34, I stood 
right here in the well of the House with my 2-year-old daughter, 
Kristin, in my left arm, held up my right hand, and took the oath to 
defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all 
enemies, foreign and domestic, to the best of my ability. I was one of 
43, I believe, of that year's freshmen. I think we had a little over 30 
Republicans and a dozen or more Democrats.
  As soon as I took the oath, I walked over to the hopper--and, yes, 
there really is a little wooden hopper here in the well of the House, 
as I look out, on the right-hand side, as the audience looks in, on the 
left-hand side--and I dropped the Barton Tax Limitation/Balanced Budget 
Amendment into the hopper.
  That constitutional amendment in 1995 was the number one item in the 
Contract with America, which, when the Republicans took over the House 
majority for the first time since 1954, we voted on this same floor the 
first day that we were in session in January of 1995 on my amendment. 
It failed. It didn't get the two-thirds vote necessary.
  We stripped out the tax limitation requirement and brought it back up 
for a vote, and it did pass by a two-thirds margin. That amendment went 
to the Senate, and it failed by one vote in the Senate.
  Since that day in January, Mr. Speaker, in 1985, as I stand here on 
the

[[Page H10099]]

House floor tonight, I have voted over 19,700 times on behalf of the 
people of the Sixth District of Texas. I have an attendance record of 
94 percent. I have had a large number of bills that I sponsored become 
law. I will talk about some of those in a minute.
  In this current House, in the 115th Congress, I am number eight in 
seniority. There are four Republicans ahead of me and, I guess, three 
Democrats. In the all-time history of the House of Representatives, the 
House historian is not sure where I stand seniority-wise, but I am in 
the top 100.
  In the Texas delegation, we have had about 250 Congressmen represent 
the great State of Texas, and I am tied for eighth place in seniority 
in Texas. The folks ahead of me are an all-star list of former 
Congressmen: Sam Rayburn, who was Speaker of the House; Wright Patman, 
who was chairman of the Ways and Means Committee; George Mahon, who was 
chairman of the Appropriations Committee; Bob Poage, who was chairman 
of the Agriculture Committee; Jack Brooks, who chaired the Judiciary 
Committee; Henry Gonzalez, who chaired the Banking Committee; and Jim 
Wright, who was majority leader and Speaker of the House. That is not 
bad company, Mr. Speaker, for service from Texas.
  Some of the bills that I am proud of that have become law that I was 
the leader on or the chief sponsor of, we started with the Tax 
Limitation/Balanced Budget Amendment. That did not become law, but it 
did pass the House. It did go to the Senate, and it did fail in the 
Senate by one vote.
  I sponsored a bill that reformed the National Institutes of Health. 
That was the last bill that passed the House and Senate in December of 
2006. In January of 2007, the Democrats took the House back, and 
Congresswoman Pelosi of California became Speaker. Then-Speaker Denny 
Hastert kept the House floor open until, I believe, 3 o'clock in the 
morning so that my NIH bill could clear the Senate and come back.

  That NIH bill created a common fund that has been utilized to form 
some of the cutting-edge research that is now bearing fruit. The immune 
cell therapy that is helping in some cases cure cancer is one result of 
that. Some of the stem cell research that is going on is another. I am 
very proud of that NIH bill.
  We passed an FDA reform bill that, again, has helped reduce time to 
bring new drugs to market. It has cut some of the red tape in getting 
new drugs and medical devices approved by the FDA.
  In the energy sector, as a young Congressman, I sponsored a bill to 
decontrol wellhead prices of natural gas. That bill was signed into law 
as a part of a larger bill signed into law by President George H.W. 
Bush, who just passed away.
  In 2005, I was chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and I 
led the effort to pass what was called the Energy Policy Act of 2005. 
That bill included a reform in the review of import-export facilities, 
which we are now using to permit LNG facilities to export our natural 
gas overseas.
  That bill also had a number of authorizations for renewable fuels and 
alternatives that have led to wind energy becoming a significant factor 
in this country and solar power becoming a significant factor in this 
country.
  It authorized some subsidies and protections for corn-grown ethanol, 
and that has led to the ethanol industry becoming a significant factor 
in some parts of the country.
  It also protected hydraulic fracturing from Federal EPA jurisdiction 
except in a few limited circumstances. That one thing, if we hadn't 
done anything else, has led to the boon in oil and natural gas 
production in this country that is the envy of the world.
  Three years ago, with Congressman Henry Cuellar, my good Democratic 
friend from Laredo, we sponsored and passed the bill that led to the 
repeal of the ban on crude oil exports, Mr. Speaker.
  At the time, people kind of pooh-poohed that bill, but as I stand 
here on the House floor this evening in this month of December 2018, 
there are going to be days this month that we export more crude oil 
than we import, and that is a huge, huge accomplishment, and we are 
doing it based on market principles.
  The U.S. is now the number one producer of crude oil in the world, 
surpassing Saudi Arabia and Russia. We are producing in the 
neighborhood of 12 million barrels of oil per day, and that number is 
going to go up. Literally, the sky is the limit.
  The Lord has blessed the United States of America with great natural 
resources, and with the energy legislation that I have helped to lead 
the fight on and helped to get passed, we have the human resources and 
the capital resources and the natural resources so that the United 
States is going to be the leader in energy production and energy 
innovation for the foreseeable future, for the next 40, 50, 60 years, 
and I am very proud of that, Mr. Speaker.
  So I could talk for quite some time, Mr. Speaker, about my 
legislative accomplishments, but you really don't run for Congress just 
to legislate. This is the people's House. You are expected to be an 
ombudsman for the people you represent, in my case, the Sixth District 
of Texas, which has changed because of redistricting three times since 
I have been elected, but the core is kind of south central Texas: Ellis 
County, Navarro County, Tarrant County, and at various times we have 
gone as far south as Montgomery County. I have gone up into Tarrant and 
Parker County to the west, and Hood County and Hill County. As it is 
currently configured, there are a little over 600,000 people.
  When you run for Congress, Mr. Speaker, you really run because you 
want to help people. You want to be their spokesperson on the House 
floor, but also with the bureaucracy, with the executive branch, and in 
some cases with the private sector to make sure that they get a fair 
shake.
  In any given year, we have over 1,000 pending cases in the district 
and a success rate of around 80 percent, but some of these cases stand 
out more than others, and I want to give you a few.
  As a young Congressman back in the late 1980s, we still got a lot of 
what I call real-mail letters, handwritten letters from people. One 
night I was in my office in Longworth going through the mail and 
jotting down responses or looking at draft responses that my staff had 
prepared, I came across a letter from an 11-year-old boy, Mr. Speaker, 
in Burleson, Texas. His name was Garrett Roper--Garrett Roper, 11 years 
old.

                              {time}  1930

  I am going to paraphrase his letter, but it was:
  Dear Congressman Barton: My name is Garrett Roper. I am 11 years old. 
I live in Burleson, Texas. I had a good friend, Adam Settle, who was 
also 11. He was riding a three-wheel ATV on his grandparents' farm, and 
it flipped over, crushed his chest, and killed him. What are you going 
to do about that, Congressman? What can you do?
  I thought about it and I thought, I don't know that I can do anything 
about it. But he had a phone number in his letter. Every Congressman 
has a phone on his desk, and I picked up the phone on my desk and 
dialed the number in Burleson, Texas. It was probably about 9 o'clock 
at night.
  In any event, the little boy's mother answered the phone. I said: I 
am Congressman Joe Barton. I am calling from Washington, D.C. Could I 
talk to Garrett Roper?
  And she said: You are who?
  And I said: I am Congressman Joe Barton.
  And she said: Are you sure?
  And I said: Yes, ma'am. This isn't a joke.
  She said: Well, he is in the bathtub.
  I said: Well, I hate to bother him, but could you ask him to come out 
of the tub and talk to me?
  And she did. He came on the phone. I identified myself and I said: 
Did you write me a letter?
  And he said: Oh, yes, I did.
  And I said: Well, I am here to tell you that I have read it. I am not 
sure what I am going to do, but I am going to try. What do you want me 
to do?
  He said: Those three-wheelers are unsafe. It killed my friend. And, 
if you can, I want you to prevent them from being used, so that other 
little boys and adults don't get hurt or killed.
  And I said: Well, that is a pretty big order, but let me see.
  To make a long story short, Mr. Speaker, I started the work. That 
issue was in the jurisdiction of the Energy

[[Page H10100]]

and Commerce Committee. I was the junior member of the minority party. 
The chairman was the great John Dingell of Michigan, one of my very 
best friends to this day. But, at that time, he was the powerful 
chairman, and I was the junior member of the minority.
  The ranking Republican on the committee then, I think, was Norm Lent 
of New York. So I went to Mr. Lent, and I went to Mr. Dingell. They 
decided that it needed to be investigated.
  We did an investigation. We had a number of hearings that the Justice 
Department came to, and the ATV industry and the Consumer Product 
Safety Commission. The little boy who had been killed, his mother, Anne 
Settle, who today is one of my best friends and still lives in Burleson 
in the same house, she came and testified.
  Over a 3-year period--I believe it was 3 years--a consent agreement 
was formed among the Justice Department, the Consumer Product Safety 
Commission, the ATV industry, and the Congress. That consent agreement 
was signed and ratified, and three-wheeler ATVs, Mr. Speaker, were 
taken off the U.S. market.
  It was a 10-year agreement. When it expired, I don't know if the 
agreement was renegotiated. But, in any event, the three-wheelers did 
not come back, and the industry really moved to four-wheelers, which 
are much safer and not nearly as dangerous.
  Mr. Speaker, that one letter from that one little boy, who was 11 
years old, to his Congressman made a huge difference. It saved hundreds 
of lives per year, thousands of injuries, hundreds of millions, if not 
billions, of dollars, and it made the country safer. It took that 
little boy writing that letter to his Congressman, and then that 
Congressman, who in this case was me, doing something about it, picking 
up the phone, calling the little boy, then calling a Congressman. And 
people in the executive branch and people in the industry made a 
difference.
  I will give you another case of a young woman, I believe she lived in 
Waxahachie, Texas, named Robin Benton. She was a nurse. Her mother 
became ill. She quit her job and moved, I think down to Houston, to 
take care of her. She took out insurance on an individual basis instead 
of a group basis where she had worked. She moved back after her mother 
improved, and Robin developed breast cancer--double. She had cancer in 
both breasts.
  The insurance company that she had been covered by dropped her 
coverage, returned her premiums, and told her that they wouldn't cover 
her. Her doctor said she needed a double mastectomy, and she needed it 
immediately.
  She didn't write a letter. She called my congressional office in 
Arlington and asked for help. My staff looked into it, touched base 
with the insurance company, and got the answer that the insurance 
company had checked their files and they didn't believe that they had 
made a mistake, that they had the right to cancel her coverage.
  My staff brought the file to me. This was a desperate situation, Mr. 
Speaker, so I checked with the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation 
in Dallas and got their take on it.
  Then I picked up the phone, and I called the president of that 
insurance company. I explained the situation to him. I said: It is my 
opinion that your internal review has made a mistake. I think this 
woman should be insured by your company, and I think her surgery should 
be covered. I would sure like for you to take a look at it. If I am not 
factually correct, then I won't pursue it. But if I am, if what I say 
is factually correct, I would ask that you reinstitute her coverage.
  To his credit, the president of that insurance company checked his 
facts and checked the case file. He called me back and said: You are 
right, Congressman. We should cover her.
  They did. She had the surgery. And to my knowledge, Mr. Speaker, she 
is alive today.
  That is the power of the Congress, the power of the people, the power 
of an individual asking their Congressman for help, and the Congressman 
trying to help, and, in this case, the private sector checking the 
facts out and agreeing that the facts dictate that the woma should have 
been insured.

  I will give you one more example. When I was chairman of the Energy 
and Commerce Committee, we got jurisdiction over the internet. We had 
an investigation in the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of 
child pornography in America, Mr. Speaker. We had a number of witnesses 
in and a number of hearings.
  The FBI had set up a special task force on child pornography. We had 
asked if they could send someone, one of their agents who was involved 
with that task force, to testify. The FBI said their policy was that 
their agents didn't testify before Congress.
  We went back and forth, the staff to the FBI staff, without any 
resolution. Then I saw that the particular individual from the FBI who 
we wanted to testify, Mr. Speaker, did an interview on a national news 
show. When I saw that, I said, well, if that agent can appear on 
national TV, that agent ought to be able to appear before Congress and 
testify.
  I picked up the phone on my desk, and I put in a phone call to the 
FBI Director. I was told that the FBI Director was unavailable. So I 
called back and I said: Well, where is the Director?
  ``Well, the Director is on travel, and he is out West.''
  And I said: Well, I need this agent to testify. I checked with the 
ranking member, Mr. Dingell, and if he is not willing to testify 
voluntarily, I am willing to issue a subpoena that the minority will 
support to compel testimony from the FBI.
  I got an agitated phone call that you couldn't do that, that it 
wasn't proper. The President at the time was my good friend President 
George W. Bush. So we said: Well, just check with the President of the 
United States and then let us know whether you are going to send your 
agent or not.
  Well, sure enough, later that afternoon, I got a phone call from the 
FBI Director. He was very cordial, what could he do to help, that there 
would be no problem. I said: Well, I really appreciate that. I am just 
curious why the change of attitude.
  He said: Well, we called over to the White House, and the President 
said that Congressman Barton was a good man, meant business, and, if it 
was not totally impossible, the FBI should cooperate.
  The agent came the next day. We had good testimony, and that hearing 
led to a renewal of purpose in terms of the task force against child 
pornography. The FBI went on and did some really good work, and we 
passed some legislation that has tightened the law and the laws against 
child pornography on the internet.
  Mr. Speaker, what is the point of all that? The point of those 
stories is that any Member of Congress who is given the privilege to 
have the voting card has a great opportunity. There are 435 phones on 
the desks of offices in the Rayburn, the Longworth, and the Cannon 
office buildings, and every Member has the potential to pick up that 
phone and call to help somebody in their district or their country or 
the world: the power of the people in the United States of America 
through the Constitution, delegated to the Congress, delegated to the 
House and Senate, delegated to individual House districts, given to 
Members who win elections.
  And every Member who walks on this floor, Mr. Speaker, comes because 
they have won an election, not because they have been appointed by the 
President or the Speaker or the Governor, but because they have won a 
free and fair election in the congressional district they wish to 
represent, and a majority of those voting have said: You are the 
person. You are the man, you are the woman, to come to Washington.
  So we are allowed to come up here and take the oath, be sworn in. 
Then we represent for a 2-year term, Mr. Speaker, our constituents, and 
we have an opportunity to help people.
  In the 34 years that I have served here, I have done some great 
things legislatively. But the thing, Mr. Speaker, that I will miss the 
most, that I will really miss, is, every now and then, when I see 
something that is injurious to a person in my congressional district 
that I represent, I will not have the ability any longer to pick up 
that phone and call on behalf of that person. I will miss that. It is 
not an entitlement. It is a privilege won by being freely and fairly 
elected.
  I have stood for office 17 times. I have won 17 primaries, one 
primary runoff, 17 general elections. I had the privilege to serve the 
people of the Sixth District for 34 years. As I said, I

[[Page H10101]]

think, earlier, in the history of the House, we are not sure where I 
stand in lifetime seniority, but it is in the top 100. I am tied for 
eighth in terms of senior service from the great State of Texas.
  I have had the privilege to meet great people. John Dingell, the dean 
of the House, who served longer than any other person in the history of 
the House, is a role model for what a Congressman should be. Newt 
Gingrich, who was a backbencher bomb-thrower from the Conservative 
Opportunity Society and rose to be Speaker of the House, is probably 
the most brilliant person I have met who served in the House: 
inspirational, innovative, and a visionary. It has been a real 
privilege to get to know him and call him a friend.

                              {time}  1945

  Phil Gramm, who was the Congressman before me for the Sixth District, 
got elected to the Senate and represented the great State of Texas in 
the Senate until his retirement a number of years ago. He is another 
absolutely brilliant man who really has been a role model and a mentor 
for me.
  In the current House, our current Speaker, Paul Ryan, I think has 
done yeoman's work to move this country in the right direction.
  The incoming probable Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, we have different views 
philosophically, but she and I, when she was a junior Member and I was 
a junior Member, we worked together to pass the Chinese Student Asylum 
Act that let all of the Chinese students who were here in the country 
when Tiananmen Square happened, they were allowed to stay in this 
country legally until it was safe for them to go back to China.
  Most of them did eventually return home, but some of them did choose 
to stay here. That is a bill that I worked on, and I am proud that she 
and I were able to get it passed.
  The current chairman of my committee,  Greg Walden, I think he is 
doing a great job as chairman. I had the privilege to meet wonderful 
people, like the immediate past chairman, Fred Upton; senior Members 
like  John Shimkus of Illinois, who has worked so hard on Yucca 
Mountain.
  On the other side of the aisle,  Bobby Rush from Chicago, a former 
Black Panther, and I have a bill that passed the House and is standing 
in the Senate, to reform the strategic petroleum reserve.
  This afternoon, Mr. Speaker, on this floor, Congresswoman Kathy 
Castor from Florida and I passed a bill called the IMPROVE Act, but 
within it are the ACE Kids Act. That bill passed the House 400-11. And 
if the Senate can pass it this week or next week--and I think they 
will--that bill will transform the way we provide healthcare for the 
poorest of the poor children who are already Medicaid eligible.
  Mr. Speaker, it has been a privilege to serve the House of 
Representatives for the great people of Texas in the Sixth District for 
the last 34 years.
  I consider it the highest honor of my life to have had the title of 
United States Representative, and I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________