[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.
____________________