[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 13406-13424]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            21ST CENTURY ENDANGERED SPECIES TRANSPARENCY ACT


                             General Leave

  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. 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 the bill, H.R. 4315.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Washington?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 693 and rule 
XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House 
on the state of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 4315.
  The Chair appoints the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis) to 
preside over the Committee of the Whole.

                              {time}  1457


                     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 consideration of the bill 
(H.R. 4315) to amend the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to require 
publication on the Internet of the basis for determinations that 
species are endangered species or threatened species, and for other 
purposes, with Mr. Rodney Davis of Illinois in the chair.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The CHAIR. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered read the 
first time.
  The gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings) and the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Washington.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as 
I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to bring before the House legislation that 
would help update and improve the Endangered Species Act, a law that 
was passed initially 40 years ago, but has not been reauthorized since 
1988.
  H.R. 4315 melds together four commonsense and focused bills 
introduced earlier this year by myself and my colleagues, Mrs. Lummis 
of Wyoming, Mr. Neugebauer of Texas, and Mr. Huizenga of Michigan. 
While respecting the original intent of the ESA to conserve species, 
this bill would help make the law more effective for both species and 
people.

                              {time}  1500

  Because of the more than 500 ESA-related lawsuits that have been 
filed against the government during this administration alone, it has 
become clear that costly litigation is not only driving ESA priorities 
but that litigation has become an impediment to species recovery.
  I should also note that, regardless of what some groups are saying, 
this is not a comprehensive bill. It is four sections that aim to 
increase transparency; to enlist greater consultation by States, 
localities, and tribes; and to reduce taxpayer-financed attorneys' fees 
to help invest more funding in actual species recovery.
  For example, section 2 of the bill requires data used by Federal 
agencies that decide which species should be added to the threatened or 
endangered list to be publicly available and accessible through the 
Internet. What a remarkable idea--transparency. The last significant 
update to the ESA was when the Internet was in its infancy stages. 
Posting data supporting key ESA decisions online will greatly enhance 
transparency and data quality. The American people should be able to 
access such data before Federal listing or delisting decisions are 
final.
  It is troubling that hundreds of sweeping listing decisions by the 
Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service 
cite unpublished studies, professional opinions, and other sources that 
are inaccessible to the public, yet this data would be used to regulate 
the very people who don't have access to this information. This secrecy 
goes against the grain of good science and transparency. Data 
transparency is not only good for the American public, in that it makes 
our government more accountable, but it is also good for species 
because it allows for an open conversation about improving species 
science.
  As biologist Rob Roy Ramey testified at a Natural Resources Committee 
hearing:

       When the data are not publicly accessible, legitimate 
     scientific inquiry and debate is effectively eliminated, and 
     no independent third party can produce the results. This 
     action puts the basis of some ESA decisions outside the realm 
     of science, and species recovery is no better off. 
     Withholding data does not further the goal of species 
     recovery.

  I couldn't agree more with that statement, especially when over 700 
species could potentially be listed over the next few years throughout 
the country. These potential listings are due to this administration's 
megalawsuit settlement with the Center for Biological Diversity and 
WildEarth Guardians, groups, I might add, Mr. Chairman, that have filed 
hundreds of lawsuits against the government at taxpayer expense.
  One of these species could include the northern long-eared bat, and I 
have a map here to show. This listing could impact 39 States. As you 
can see, Mr. Chairman, it is nearly all of the Eastern States. 
Information on data when it comes to this species listing can only help 
and not hurt. The bill before us

[[Page 13407]]

today fosters the release of this information.
  Section 3 of the bill would enhance State, local, and tribal 
involvement in ESA decisions by requiring that, before any listing 
decision is made, the Federal Government must disclose its data to 
States affected by such actions. In addition, section 3 ensures that 
data from local, State, and tribal entities--those are the entities 
that are closest to the ground, Mr. Chairman--be factored into ESA 
listing decisions.
  Section 4 would require the administration to track and make 
available online the costs, in time and in resources, to the taxpayers 
as a result of ESA-related litigation.
  Finally, section 5 would seek to reduce taxpayer-financed attorneys' 
fees to help ensure Federal resources are focused more on species 
protection and recovery than on lucrative legal fees for serial 
litigants. Such fees now, Mr. Chairman, are awarded as high as $600 an 
hour. This provision in section 5 puts in place the same reasonable 
hourly caps on attorneys' fees used in another Federal law--the Equal 
Access to Justice Act--which deals with veterans, Social Security 
disability, and other such claims.
  Mr. Chairman, H.R. 4315 starts with modest, sensible updates to the 
ESA by promoting transparency, greater State, local, and tribal 
involvement, and by bringing ESA litigation fees in line with another 
Federal law.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I rise today just before Congress goes on a 5-week recess for the 
entire month of August and the first week of September. During that 
time, we will celebrate Labor Day. There are a lot of reasons to 
celebrate Labor Day, but it has particular context to this debate 
today.
  One hundred years ago this Labor Day, Martha died.
  Now, perhaps not everybody here knows about or has heard about 
Martha. Martha was the last passenger pigeon. She died in the 
Cincinnati Zoo. None of us remember passenger pigeons, but they were in 
numbers so great--billions--that they would darken the sky for hours or 
days as they passed. Yet, within a very short period of time, they 
became extinct. I believe she is stuffed and on display at the 
Smithsonian. I think they have a special exhibit on this that I would 
recommend to people to remember the way things used to be.
  We did then, 50 years later, pass the Endangered Species Act. So this 
is kind of symmetrical in that, 100 years ago, there was the last 
passenger pigeon, and 50 years later, we adopted a law to try and 
preserve species. I think the most eloquent words I have ever heard on 
endangered species were from Justice Douglas on the Mineral King 
decision. This doesn't do all of his decision justice, but here is just 
one sentence:

       When a species is gone, it is gone forever. Nature's 
     genetic chain--billions of years in the making--is broken for 
     all time. Conserve water. Conserve land. Conserve life.

  Then he went on to speculate about what might be lost with any 
individual species, what potential it might have had. Could it cure 
cancer? If we lose these species, who knows?
  So Congress 50 years ago--in a very different time and in a very 
bipartisan way--passed the Endangered Species Act.
  Today, we have before us yet another missed opportunity. I am not 
going to look at the Endangered Species Act and say it is perfect. It 
isn't. I believe a 50-year-old law could use some revision. A lot has 
been learned. A lot of real science has changed in the interim, in 
particular, the individual listing of species, and particularly when 
they occupy the same space. It becomes very problematic, as opposed to 
taking more of an ecosystem-based approach. There are some who are 
modifying the whole idea of how we deal with critical habitat, but that 
is not before us today. It wasn't considered by the so-called ``working 
group'' of the committee or ``special group'' or whatever it was.
  They concluded that the Endangered Species Act is a failure because 
it hasn't recovered enough species. They did leave out a little fact 
that 90 percent of the species that are listed are recovering at the 
rate specified in their Federal recovery plans. This doesn't happen 
instantaneously. There are years of degradation of environment, years 
of overharvesting or of overhunting. Those things don't get changed in 
a short period of time, but 90 percent are on target. They left that 
out probably because it didn't support their conclusion that the act 
just isn't working at all.
  We have an estimate, actually, that without the Endangered Species 
Act passed by a more enlightened Congress--bipartisan--50 years ago, 
there would be 227 species that would have gone extinct since the law's 
passage. They include gray wolves--although, there are some trying to 
turn around that recovery effort, including some in this 
administration--green sea turtles, humpback whales, and, of course, the 
iconic bald eagle. Without the Endangered Species Act, they, in all 
probability, would all be extinct, a memory for our generation--gone.
  As I said, it is not perfect, and I think there are changes we could 
make. It is truly a deliberative process in the committee, but that 
wouldn't be just a small group from one side of the aisle going around 
the country, holding so-called ``hearings'' or ``listening sessions.'' 
We could assure greater transparency in ways that weren't considered 
and won't be proposed here today. We could promote better the use of 
best science. We could improve cooperation and coordination with the 
States that are committed to species protection and recovery.
  However, none of the legislation before us will do that. It will do 
nothing to improve species recovery. It will do nothing to improve the 
science underlying listing decisions. Instead, actually, contravening 
what the Republicans espouse to wish, these bills will, instead, 
increase the amount of red tape that is involved, create more reporting 
requirements, divert agency resources from recovery efforts, and most 
oddly--and, I think, perhaps, it is the oddest and most objectionable 
and nonsensical part of this legislation--it will deem that any data 
submitted by any Native American tribe, any city, county, or State, 
will be deemed to be the best available science.
  Now, there are 16,000 counties in America. Let's say a couple of them 
come to a different conclusion. Suddenly, the agency is confronted 
with: we have the best available science from this county, and we have 
the best available science from this county, and we have the best 
available science from this county. Hmm. Wow. Haven't we created an 
unbelievable potential for litigation over any decisions that are made 
given that mandate? I think we have. Of course, that may be why they go 
on later in the bill to limit attorneys' fees--because they are 
anticipating that there will be a huge proliferation of litigation, and 
they want to mitigate the costs of the problem that they are going to 
create with this nonsensical ``this is the best available science.'' I 
think it is going to create a lot of tension, potentially, between 
States and counties--rural counties and urban counties--because they 
are all vying to submit the best available science.
  Here we are, yet again, taking up time on the floor, and I guess we 
need to do that before we get to real things, like the suing of the 
President of the United States despite the fact that courts have 
definitively decided we can't do that. We have political tools, and it 
is a controversy, but that is not before us today--that is tomorrow--so 
we are trying to kill time to build up to that end just before we go 
off on recess. But I am going to raise another topic, and it is a bit 
sensitive.
  About 12 years ago, I had massive fires burning in my district--the 
Biscuit Fire--and the committee just happened to be holding a hearing 
on wildfires. It devolved into the usual partisan ``you go to your 
corner, and I will go to mine. We need to do a forest supplemental. We 
need to do this.'' As sometimes I do, I expostulated a bit in the 
committee, and I went and used my entire 5 minutes to say how wrong I

[[Page 13408]]

thought this was and that I thought fires were very bipartisan in their 
destruction and that we should cut it out.
  A few Members--oddly enough, from very different perspectives--came 
to me afterwards. That would have been George Miller. It is predictable 
that George would side with me, but also we had Scott McInnis, we had 
John Shadegg, and, ultimately, we had Greg Walden involved. We sat 
down, and we hammered out something that, ultimately, didn't pass 
through the House, but our framework was adopted by the Senate--HFRA. 
Then it came back to the House and was adopted. It was an attempt to 
expedite fuel reduction and prevent the intensity of future fires.
  I look at that as a model of how we should deal with fires. We do 
need to do more fuel reduction work, and we do need to do more 
preparation and pre-positioning, but we also have to fight the fires 
that are burning today.

                              {time}  1515

  Now there is the rarest of rare things in Washington, D.C., even 
rarer than the rarest endangered species, which would be a bill which 
is bipartisan. I guess a lot of people don't know what that means 
anymore.
  It means it is supported by both Democrats and Republicans, 
bicameral, by both Democrats and Republicans in the House and in the 
Senate in substantial numbers, and is supported by the President of the 
United States.
  Now, that is a pretty endangered thing. It has been around for quite 
a number of months. We have yet in the House. And it is a bill that is 
designed both to mitigate for future fires and to more efficiently 
fight fires.
  The agencies that are tasked with fighting fires are about to run out 
of money. It happens every year. Who cares if they run out of money? 
Well, they have got to keep fighting the fires.
  All right. Well, what do they do? They gut all their other programs--
including the fuel reduction program, the forest health program, the 
timber program, the recreation program--things that are going to bring 
about more intense and more fires in the future and impact anybody who 
has a national forest or interior lands in their State or their area.
  Now, this bill has yet to have a single hearing or any consideration, 
except for a mention in the Ryan budget which said he didn't support 
it. That is it. That is the total action by the House of 
Representatives on this issue. That is very sad. That is what we should 
be here on the floor today considering.
  There are, as of this moment--I just checked it out because it is 
worse every day. We have, currently, nationally, 25 major fires: seven 
in Oregon--these are all uncontained or partially uncontained--six in 
California; four in Washington, including the largest in the State's 
history; three in Utah; two in Idaho; one in Colorado; and phenomenal 
lightning storms are predicted over the next 2 days, which means many, 
many, many more fires. Yet Congress is going to pass, I expect the 
House will pass, this ESA, so-called ESA bill today and leave town 
without dealing with the firefighting issue. I think it is very sad.
  Now, some say, well, we have already done our job. We passed a bill, 
a couple of bills, a number of bills that could deal with forest 
health, future mitigation, fuel reduction. That is true. But even if 
they became law today, they wouldn't deal with today's problem that the 
agencies are going to run out of fire. And even if they became law 
today, it would take many years to get there.
  I have got some pretty good estimates. We have somewhere around 75 
million acres of land at high risk of wildfire in the West. And if we 
use the most conservative possible estimate, one that estimates there 
is a lot of commercial value there that reduces thinning cost, one that 
assumes that there is a lot of biomass available that is economic, you 
could get it down to, say, $300, $500 an acre. Well, that would be $20 
billion to go out and do that work. We are about to spend the paltry 
budget for this year, $300 million for fuel reduction on fighting 
current fires. So we aren't exactly getting there.
  It is a real issue, and that is what we should be dealing with here 
today.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 
3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer), who is the 
author of one of the provisions within this bill.
  Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 
4315, the 21st Century Endangered Species Transparency Act.
  I also want to thank Chairman Hastings for all of the work that he 
has done on this issue, and I also want to thank him for inviting me to 
be a part of the ESA Working Group and for including my bill, H.R. 
4317, the State, Tribal, and Local Species Transparency and Recovery 
Act, in the final version of this bill.
  In the 19th District, we have been facing a lot of these issues with 
the Endangered Species Act. We had the lesser prairie chicken. We had 
the Dunes Sage Lizard and some of the areas dealing with minnows. But 
one of the things that this bill does in the part of the bill that I 
introduced is something that is very simple and straightforward and 
very commonsense, and that is to say we need to make sure, before we 
make some of these decisions, that we have the facts.
  Now, that is kind of a novel idea. When we have a lawsuit, everybody 
gets to present the facts. And so what we are saying, and when we begin 
to go down the road of listing, causing millions of dollars' worth of 
expense and, in some cases, encumbering millions of acres of private 
property, we need to deal with the facts.
  Now, why are we bringing this bill up? Well, it has been pointed out 
that this bill is like over 40 years old and over 1,500 species have 
been listed, and only 2 percent of those have been recovered.
  Now, imagine going to a doctor and you say: Doctor, what is your 
outcome ratio? He says: 2 percent of the time I have good outcomes. Or 
imagine buying a product where you say this product works 2 percent of 
the time. So, basically, the ESA, Endangered Species Act, does need 
reform, and my bill, this bill, begins to do that.
  What does it do? It just says that when the Federal Government has 
collected data and they are making the decision, they have to make all 
of the findings, all of the data that they used to reach that decision 
available to the States and local governments and to the stakeholders.
  That seems fair to me.
  The other thing it says is that the local stakeholders and the local 
State governments and the local county governments have the right to 
present their facts.
  Now, one of the things that is important about that is that, I know a 
lot more about Lubbock, Texas, than maybe somebody that lives in the 
State of Oregon or the State of New Jersey. So that local knowledge of 
the habitat, the conditions is an important part of the data.
  So when you are dealing with the facts, then I think we are going to 
have better outcomes. And if that is the goal of the Endangered Species 
Act, then why are we trying to suppress the facts? I don't get it. So 
that is the reason that this is an important part of that.
  I notice that the gentleman mentioned that he thinks that this bill 
somehow dictates what is the best science. Not true. What it says, 
though, is that all of the data that they collect they have to present 
to the other stakeholders. What it also says is that the data that the 
stakeholders and the county and local and State governments present, 
they have to consider that data.
  The CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I yield the gentleman an additional 15 
seconds.
  Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Now, if somebody has got a study about what they 
think the conditions in Lubbock, Texas, are, we think the people on the 
ground in Lubbock, Texas, or in west Texas probably have better 
information and ought to be a part of that consideration.

[[Page 13409]]

  I encourage my colleagues to support H.R. 4315.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.
  The gentleman made a point with which I would agree, which is they 
should consider and give due weight to local submissions and people in 
the area. But unfortunately, and perhaps the gentleman is unaware, this 
bill elevates that, and it does say all science submitted by States, 
tribes, and local governments is, by definition, the best scientific 
and commercial data. Then, if you refer back to the law, under basis 
for determinations on endangered species and a number of other things, 
the Secretary shall rely on the best scientific and commercial data.
  Well, now, suddenly everybody who is submitting something has the 
best commercial and scientific data, and the Secretary is somehow 
supposed to sort out between 10 different counties, five States, 14 
cities, and 18 Indian tribes who all have different disagreeing best 
available commercial data and science. You are creating a standard 
which, given the existing law which you didn't change, is going to be 
impossible to meet.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. 
Moran).
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I want to associate myself 
with my good friend from Oregon. I agree completely with everything he 
said, and I am going to agree with our subsequent speaker, Mr. Miller, 
who played an essential role in getting the original Endangered Species 
Act passed. It has been wildly successful, Mr. Chairman, preventing 
species extinction.
  More than 99 percent of listed species still exist today. Species 
recovered under the Endangered Species Act are also off the charts. The 
latest analysis found that 90 percent of listed species are recovering 
at the rate specified by their Federal recovery plan.
  Successful species delistings are also increasing--delistings. Five 
years ago this month, the Fish and Wildlife Service finalized its rule 
to remove the bald eagle from the endangered species list. What a 
success story.
  But for those who want to open up even more of our public lands to 
resource extraction, the law is a major inconvenience. So a working 
group, comprised entirely of Republican Members of the House of 
Representatives, was established by the House leadership to come up 
with legislative proposals to weaken the act. Today's bill is drawn 
directly from those recommendations.
  It would deem whatever data that States, local governments, and 
Indian tribes submit to the Federal Government as the best available 
science.
  It would undermine the ability of public citizens to contribute to 
the efficacy of the act, and it would compel the Fish and Wildlife 
Service to put online all data, regardless of merit, regardless of 
whether it contains proprietary or private information, and 
notwithstanding the fact that to do so will provide poachers and 
criminals with a road map to further endanger endangered species.
  Mr. Chairman, the net effect of this bill before us today would be to 
force the Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, to squander its 
limited conservation resources on meritless requirements to become tied 
up in legal challenges and to diminish its ability to protect 
endangered species.
  I guess if this body can outlaw Federal agencies from using 
scientific findings related to climate change in their decisionmaking 
process, then it is no stretch of the imagination for this body to 
define what constitutes best available scientific and commercial data.
  This bill states that data submitted by a State, tribal, or county 
government is automatically deemed as the best available scientific and 
commercial data. The quality of the data is immaterial. What matters is 
who is sending it.
  Let me say that again a different way. The quality of the information 
that State, tribal, and local governments submit is irrelevant under 
this bill. The bill says it shall be deemed the best available 
scientific and commercial data. The Fish and Wildlife Service would be 
required to include this data, even if it is not the best, even if it 
were not developed by scientists, even if it were developed for purely 
commercial purposes, and even if it is contrary to fact. The Service 
would be forced to include it and it will, thus, alter its decisions on 
listings, recovery plans, and other policies related to the 
conservation of endangered species.
  It is also unclear how the Service would resolve a situation where 
States, tribal, or county governments submit conflicting data.
  This is no hypothetical situation. During hearings on the Endangered 
Species Act, one of the witnesses, a Mr. Tom Jankovsky, Commissioner of 
Garfield County, Colorado, was very critical of State officials for the 
information they were providing the Bureau of Land Management on sage 
grouse habitat.
  The CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. I yield the gentleman an additional minute.
  Mr. MORAN. Commissioner Jankovsky found the State maps inaccurate, 
overstating the area of sage grouse habitat. The map he commissioned 
for Garfield County showed 70 percent less habitat for sage grouse.
  Whose map should the Federal Government accept as the best available 
science, the Colorado State map or Garfield County's? This bill gives 
equal weight to both.
  Mr. Chairman, this is a bad bill, and no amendment can make it a good 
bill. It should be rejected.
  Rather than addressing some of the compelling challenges that this 
Nation is confronting, we are wasting time on a bill that may pass the 
House but will go nowhere in the Senate and certainly will not become 
law. I urge its defeat.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 
2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Huizenga), an author of 
another provision of this bill.
  Mr. HUIZENGA of Michigan. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 
4315, and I appreciate my colleague from urban northern Virginia for 
his insight on the Endangered Species Act. But those of us from more 
rural areas actually understand that the challenges that are presented 
in this law as it currently stands beg for reform.
  This bill contains important reforms to the act, and it has been 
authored by Chairman Hastings, Congresswoman Lummis, Congressman 
Neugebauer, and myself. Within that is a provision that I had authored, 
which is commonsense legislation that makes the Endangered Species Act 
consistent with current law.

                              {time}  1545

  It reforms the ESA litigation process while enhancing wildlife 
preservation, improving government efficiency, and protecting taxpayer 
dollars. And I know that is something that my colleagues on the other 
side have expressed, they are concerned with wasting precious dollars 
that have been appropriated to the EPA.
  Well, for too long, litigating attorneys have taken advantage of the 
Endangered Species Act, raking in millions of taxpayer-funded money. In 
many ESA cases, lawyers' fees climb as high as $300, $400, or even $500 
an hour, with hardworking American taxpayers left to foot the bill.
  In fact, I have a 2013 quote here from David Hayes, the Deputy 
Secretary of the Interior, who was so concerned about this waste of 
resources, that he said this: ``My major concern is timing, resources 
needs, the fact this has been fish-in-the-barrel litigation for folks 
who, because there is a deadline and we miss these deadlines and so, 
we've been spending a huge amount of, in my mind, relatively 
unproductive time fending off lawsuits in this arena.''
  And I couldn't have said it better.
  But even worse, these rates can be awarded in cases where the Federal 
Government has settled with these groups that may not have even 
prevailed in the court system. This does absolutely nothing to benefit 
the species or the people and is not productive. My section of the bill 
seeks to remedy this unconscionable problem.

[[Page 13410]]

  Currently, the Equal Access to Justice Act limits the hourly rate for 
prevailing attorney fees to $125 per hour for veterans, small 
businesses, and the Federal benefit recipients. So it is time that we 
apply the same cap to the ESA citizen suits as well.
  So in times of tight fiscal budgets and escalating national debt, 
taxpayer dollars should be prioritized for the protection and recovery 
of species, not lining the pockets of highly priced lawyers.
  With that, Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of H.R. 
4315 and for the commonsense updates that are so desperately needed.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chair, I yield myself 1 minute.
  Well, tomorrow I fully expect the Republicans to prevail on the floor 
of the House to authorize litigation against the President of the 
United States for nonjusticiable controversy, all per all the previous 
precedents of the court.
  I would note they spent $525 an hour on attorneys to defend the 
indefensible Defense of Marriage Act, which was ultimately found 
unconstitutional. And I expect they will spend well over $500 an hour 
for a nonjusticiable political stunt suing the President.
  But beyond that, during this Congress, the requests, subpoenas, et 
cetera, by the committee to the Department of the Interior for 
purported conspiracies, which have yielded nothing, cost $2.5 million. 
The total award to attorneys was $1.7 million. So if we reined in the 
subpoenas a little bit, you could save more money than by limiting the 
attorneys and people's access to justice.
  With that, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Miller).
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding the time, and I thank him for his defense of the Endangered 
Species Act. And I thank him for how he administers his position as the 
ranking member of the Resources Committee.
  This is an old argument. We have been around here time and again. 
Time and again, people who don't like the Endangered Species Act have 
tried to put their thumb on one side of the scale of justice whenever 
these arguments come forward. They have tried to empower junk science 
and give it the status of thoughtful, proven science to get in.
  But now they are suggesting that the science would be based upon the 
party that submits it. If the right parties--if a local entity submits 
it, then it will be judged as the best science. Whether or not it is 
science at all won't matter. It will simply be deemed that by the 
Congress of the United States, and the Department will have to follow 
that.
  That just, obviously, takes you right back to the courtroom, where 
they now inspire litigation. When the citizens want to sue, then the 
citizens will have to go back to the courtroom because they have deemed 
junk science as real science. And then they will try to limit the 
amount that the citizens can be compensated in terms of their lawyers.
  And yet, as the gentleman from Oregon just pointed out, they are 
going to spend millions of dollars suing the President of the United 
States, and they are not going to pay for any of it. They are going to 
charge it to the deficit. They will charge it to the deficit. So how is 
this justice coming out of the House of Representatives?
  The fact of the matter is, the Endangered Species Act has been 
effective. It has worked. It saves species. It has returned species off 
of the list. And the American people truly support it in great numbers. 
They truly support it in great numbers because they recognize that this 
is about one generation taking care of what we inherited and passing it 
on to another generation. People are most often pleased with the public 
spaces that have been preserved to protect it, to protect the various 
species.
  Has every decision been exactly right? Of course not. And that is why 
people go to court on both sides of the law.
  Nobody is suggesting that you limit it equally. This is a question of 
the science being used and who gets a leg up in that argument in the 
courts, which leads to more litigation. So the idea is that you are 
trying to get away from litigation.
  But the fact of the matter is, the fact of the matter is that this is 
an act that has caused us to pause and wait and think about what we are 
doing, and what the impact of that is, whether that is development, 
whether that is forced practices, whether that is public 
infrastructure. Whatever it is, what is the impact beyond that project? 
And is that adverse and is it detrimental to these species? Is it 
detrimental to the health of the neighborhoods, to the health of the 
communities? And very often, the Endangered Species Act has resulted in 
better projects being designed, very often better projects being 
designed because of those considerations, more sustainable projects 
being designed because of those considerations.
  But the fact of the matter is, many people just hate the Endangered 
Species Act. So we come here Congress after Congress with these meat-ax 
approaches.
  I spent one of the longest negotiations on a bipartisan basis trying 
to arrive at a conclusion on a section of the Endangered Species Act. 
In the eleventh hour, my Republican partner, the chairman of the 
committee, walked out the door. I don't know why that happened. It 
wasn't communicated, but that was that. That morning, we were supposed 
to have a press conference to announce the agreement, but it never 
happened. With the hours and hours that were spent, I thought we had 
reached a good agreement between those areas.
  But the idea of frustration builds up, and you can just swing away at 
the Endangered Species Act. Yes, it is very popular, and it can be very 
controversial.
  I am more concerned about what local agencies do in the name of 
endangered species sometimes when they ask for mitigation that I find 
is very unfair, that I have complained about, that I have written the 
agencies about.
  I think very often, it is not so much the Federal protection of 
endangered species. Very often, it is people who then want to use it at 
another level of government to extract from developers, from land use, 
for the purposes of mitigation that I think is hard to justify.
  And I would just hope that, once again, this Congress would use its 
good judgment, it would support the American people, it would support 
the Endangered Species Act, and it would, in fact, reject this 
legislation.
  This is really bad legislation, and you can't pretend that you care 
about science and at the same time say you get to deem the best science 
based upon the party of submission.
  I have fought with agencies to get the science that people have 
worked on, that universities have worked on, introduced into the 
discussion. I have never suggested that they would have to accept it as 
the best science. I thought it would broaden the discussion. I thought 
it would bring another consideration to those debates.
  So this is a bill that should be rejected, and the gentleman from 
Oregon is quite right. I would have been so much happier spending our 
time here on the floor today dealing with the issue of wildfires, and 
not just those wildfires that are burning in California today, but by 
all projections, we are already ahead of the worst wildfire seasons 
this year already, and we expect it to get much worse with the 
persistence of this drought. And as the chairman and ranking member 
know, in those three States, we are way out ahead here on wildfires, 
and I wish at some point, we would make a decision that we could deal 
with these in an institutional fashion so that the firefighting assets 
would know what is available to them. We wouldn't scramble around. We 
wouldn't put other agencies in jeopardy by stealing money from their 
accounts. But we would deal with this in an adult fashion. We would set 
aside money for the purposes and replenishment of that money to fight 
wildfires because the alternative cannot be not to try to control this 
wildfire and stop the damage that they do both to the natural 
environment and to the private environment and the local economies

[[Page 13411]]

that are so severely impacted by the aftermath of those fires.
  But we are not going to do that. We are just going to stand up here 
and take another meat-ax approach to the Endangered Species Act, which 
is going to be unsuccessful, in the time we could have been talking 
about wildfires, in the time we could have prepared for the remainder 
of this wildfire season, giving notice to State agencies, to local 
agencies, to our Federal agencies on what they can do to prepare and 
the assets that they can have in place for those wildfires. We have 
missed that opportunity today in the name of this continued attack on 
the Endangered Species Act, which the American people have rejected 
over and over. And fortunately, this Congress has rejected over and 
over.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. I would inquire of the time remaining on both sides.
  The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Oregon has 3\1/2\ minutes 
remaining. The gentleman from Washington has 18\3/4\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 
3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Mrs. Lummis), another person 
who is the author of another section of this bill.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman of the House Natural 
Resources Committee for working with us on this working draft.
  I also support the Endangered Species Act, and I rise in enthusiastic 
support of the Endangered Species Act and enthusiastic support of this 
bill because this bill embodies much of the ethos that the American 
people have embodied during the years the Endangered Species Act has 
been in effect.
  This act was passed in 1974 with goals that were admirable and goals 
that the people of this country have embedded in their DNA to achieve. 
To conserve species, to have habitat for species so we can have rich, 
diverse populations of flora and fauna.
  This bill will help those goals because we will know what science is 
being used to base these decisions upon. Right now, science that is 
undisclosed is being used. Right now, we have tribal governments, 
county governments, and State governments, through these incredibly 
impressive wildlife agencies, who have had this ethos embedded in them 
since they were little kids, trying to administer these laws, trying to 
save these species.
  We want their knowledge shared with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service. We want to know what science is being used to make these 
decisions so it can be vetted by third parties, so people who have 
specialized scientific knowledge about a habitat area or a subspecies 
can share that knowledge with agencies so that we are not making 
decisions with litigants behind closed doors with no public input by 
the people whose dream is to have an Endangered Species Act that works, 
that works for the people on the land, the people who love these 
species, who love the habitat, who care for it every day, the people 
who want the Endangered Species Act administered in a way that is 
transparent and fair and will recover species.
  I am of the opinion that an act that has less than a 2 percent 
recovery rate or a delisting rate is not a success. I think we can have 
better models to succeed to delist species or, better yet, not list 
species in the first place.
  These small steps that are embedded in this bill--transparency of 
science, involving tribal, State, and local governments and their base 
of knowledge about what they see on the ground, is critical to having 
an Endangered Species Act that works, that takes advantage of the 
American people who care about conserving habitat and saving species.
  Mr. Chairman, this is a commonsense, rational approach to recovery 
that has the kind of transparency that we were promised by this 
administration. Let's help them achieve it.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 
1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lankford), a member 
of the working group.
  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Chairman, if I were to ask most Americans, why do 
we have the Endangered Species Act?, just about all of them would say, 
so we can protect endangered species and increase those population 
numbers. But then you ask the question of each specific species, what 
is the goal? And very rarely now will you hear the goal being to 
increase population. You will hear things like protection of habitat, 
expansion of the species and such, but you are not going to hear 
population numbers.

                              {time}  1545

  What effect does that have? Well, come to Oklahoma some time. In 
western Oklahoma, we deal with a beautiful little ground chicken called 
the lesser prairie chicken. The lesser prairie chicken in the past 
month and a half has been listed as a threatened species now.
  So what is the result of that? Well, the first question we ask is: 
What is the number that we need to have to recover? I don't know. We 
are just going to try to recover habitat.
  What that means is they are now trying to block in 8,000 to 9,000 
acres at a time of grassland and say no one can do development on these 
8,000 to 9,000-acre blocks of land--that is no building, that is no 
construction, that is no energy, and that is no wind power, blocking it 
off and leaving it natural, up to 70 percent of that area. Suddenly, 
private lands have suddenly become the ownership of public lands.
  The simple question is: How many lesser prairie chickens do we need 
to have before these restrictions go away? We don't know.
  The latest survey that just came out showed a 20 percent increase 
from last year to this year. Is that enough? No. Fish and Wildlife 
Service is not required to take in that specific study. If it came from 
a State and from the people that lived there and know it best, 
shouldn't we take that advice?
  For some strange reason--I am not opposed to scientists from New 
York--but if scientists from New York can pop in on Oklahoma and can 
say, I am going to give you the best science, and when we ask for the 
data behind it, they can say, no, it is secret and proprietary, and we 
can't do a thing about it, that doesn't make common sense.
  Mr. Chairman, this bill fixes that. I encourage the House to pass it 
and support commonsense legislation.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Costa).
  Mr. COSTA. Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank my colleague for 
giving me time to speak on this important legislation. The Endangered 
Species Act is a fundamental environmental law, one that was enacted 
because we, as a society, decided that we have a responsibility to our 
generation and to future generations to protect species that are 
threatened with extinction, as we did with the American bald eagle, our 
Nation's symbol.
  Unfortunately, its implementation has had a profound impact on many 
human activities in many areas of the country, including my own 
district in the San Joaquin Valley of California. This year, people 
that I represent will be standing in food lines due in part to the way 
the ESA is being implemented in the San Joaquin Valley as it relates to 
water.
  Let me be clear, I support targeted reform of the Endangered Species 
Act and the use of best science. However, the reform must strengthen 
the policy goals of the ESA. We need to be improving its performance, 
not reducing its protections.
  Unfortunately, as I have said too many times on the floor of this 
House, this bill, unfortunately, is going nowhere. It is going nowhere 
because the process to develop it was not transparent and was not 
bipartisan. It is going nowhere because this is another example of a 
single-Chamber bill to score political points that has no Democratic 
support.
  If we are going to create law that benefits the American people, 
bipartisanship is no longer an option. It is a requirement. I will vote 
for this bill in

[[Page 13412]]

spite of the flawed process on how it was developed and my serious 
reservations regarding the definition of best science.
  I will vote for it because it is past time to roll up our sleeves and 
get to work on crafting serious proposals to reform the Endangered 
Species Act that ensures greater transparency, provides for more 
stakeholder input into the process, ensures that best science is used 
regarding species management, and creates a better balance between 
species protection and human impacts.
  Mr. Chairman, I will vote for this bill because, for me, hope springs 
eternal that we can come together and become legislators that work 
together between the House and the Senate in a bipartisan fashion.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 
2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), a member 
of the Natural Resources Committee.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Chairman, the Endangered Species Act serves a great cause, to 
prevent the extinction of any species because of human activity, but as 
Eric Hoffer warned:

       Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, 
     and eventually degenerates into a racket.

  Unfortunately, in the last 4 years, the ESA has become the basis for 
an explosion of lawsuits seeking to force hundreds of new species 
listings. Many of these suits are funded at taxpayers' expense, which 
in turn require Federal, State, and local agencies to spend even more 
taxpayer money to respond.
  In northern California last month, this kind of litigation resulted 
in designating 2 million acres of the Sierra as critical habitat for 
three amphibians, despite overwhelming evidence that human activity is 
not to blame. The cause of the decline is nonnative predators and a 
virus affecting all amphibian species in the region.
  The Natural Resources Committee has heard hours of testimony of how 
these decisions are based on highly questionable data from advocacy 
groups that include major mathematical errors, rank speculation, and 
selective suppression of data in order to arrive at predetermined 
conclusions.
  This measure before us begins to address these abuses. It requires 
that supporting data be readily available to the general public, thus 
assuring greater scrutiny, and it requires that the government use the 
best available science and data from all sources.
  It addresses the litigation crisis by requiring that legal costs be 
tracked and publicly reported, and it conforms those costs to the Equal 
Access to Justice Act that prevents extravagant claims for legal fees.
  Louis Brandeis said that sunlight is the best of disinfectants. This 
bill places the data for implementing the ESA back into the sunlight 
where it can be fully scrutinized, and it places a modicum of restraint 
on the legal fees sought by out-of-control litigants.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 
2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Benishek), another member 
of the Natural Resources Committee.
  Mr. BENISHEK. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 4315, the 
Endangered Species Transparency Act.
  Mr. Chairman, as a doctor and lifelong resident of northern Michigan, 
I have been supportive of conservation my entire life. Like many on the 
floor today, I understand there is more work to be done in the arena of 
conservation and recovery of species. However, the Endangered Species 
Act, as written, isn't working.
  When the Endangered Species Act, or the ESA, was signed into law 40 
years ago, it was meant to save species, not lawyers. Today, more money 
is being spent on frivolous lawsuits than recovering or conserving 
species that actually need saving. These lawsuits result in listings or 
proposed listings for very questionable species. As a result, the 
taxpayers, the environment, and the economy all lose.
  In my district, the northern long-eared bat is currently a candidate 
for listing. As this decision is being considered, local and State 
officials, as well as businesses in northern Michigan, must be able to 
know how the decision will be made and what information is being used 
to make it.
  I believe that local residents and officials know what is better for 
northern Michigan than bureaucrats or high-paid attorneys in 
Washington. That is why I am here today to support commonsense reforms 
to the Endangered Species Act. The bill goes a long way towards 
improving the Endangered Species Act by requiring good government 
through transparency and capping attorneys' fees.
  If you truly support the environment, then you realize funds should 
be spent on conservation and recovery, not $500-an-hour attorneys.
  Mr. Chairman, I believe this legislation is a win-win for the 
taxpayer and for conservation of truly endangered species, and I urge 
my colleagues to support this bill.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I would reserve the balance of my time, 
since I only have 1 minute remaining, until that side has no further 
speakers.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 
1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar), another member of 
the Natural Resources Committee.
  Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to speak in strong support of 
H.R. 4315, a commonsense package comprised of four bills that seek to 
update and improve the Endangered Species Act.
  These bills make commonsense changes that increase transparency, save 
taxpayer money, ensure local involvement in species conservation and 
the designation process, limit the hourly rate attorneys can charge the 
taxpayers for Endangered Species Act lawsuits, and require the Federal 
Government to make available to Congress and the public any data it 
uses to determine which species to list as endangered. All of these are 
common sense.
  Mr. Chairman, for far too long, the Federal Government has been 
making listing decisions based on secret and pseudoscience, including 
studies that do not allow for peer review of the underlying data.
  Even more troubling is the fact that attorneys have been making 
millions of dollars based on frivolous lawsuits associated with the 
Endangered Species Act, and the Federal Government doesn't even know 
how much money has been paid out.
  It is time to update the Endangered Species Act that involves 
America, is accountable to America, and is a win-win for everybody 
concerned.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 
minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa), another member 
of the House Natural Resources Committee.
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Chairman, this bill brings a portion of the 
Endangered Species Act back in to the 21st century and much-needed 
transparency.
  Under this bill, the public will have access to data used to 
determine which species are listed as endangered. Backroom decisions 
made by regulators at the behest of nongovernment organizations with 
secret data is the sort of policymaking you might find in the Soviet 
Union or communist China, not in the United States.
  Astoundingly, you will hear arguments that this data should remain 
secret. This is the data used to decide whether Americans can build a 
home on their own property, farm their own land, or simply going hiking 
in their national forest.
  The bill includes also much county data used in ESA decisions, which 
is key. It is important that all economic information is available so 
locals get a fair shake. Had this bill been in place, my district would 
have had more input in an ESA listing that will hurt the economy across 
the Sierra Nevadas.
  This measure also tracks and caps attorney fees paid in ESA lawsuits. 
Of the 75 Federal agencies surveyed, just 10 even tracked their payouts 
to lawsuit factories like the NRDC and the Center for Biological 
Diversity.
  Mr. Chairman, I happen to think Americans deserve to know how their 
government makes their decisions.

[[Page 13413]]

Let's pass H.R. 4315 to bring transparency and fairness back to the ESA 
process.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 
2 minutes to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce), a former 
member of the House Natural Resources Committee.
  Mr. PEARCE. I thank the gentleman for yielding and appreciate his 
leadership on this issue.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 4315. New Mexico used to have 
123 mills that processed timber. Today, that number is zero because of 
an endangered species called the spotted owl.
  Now, 20 years after declaring the spotted owl to be endangered 
because of logging, last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service came 
out and said: oops, we made a mistake, it is not the logging at all.
  We killed 123 mills in New Mexico. Eighty-five percent of the 
Nation's timber industry is gone because of a mistake. That sounds like 
the junk science that our opponents are arguing that we should be 
avoiding.
  Mr. Chairman, last year, a lizard was going to be named as threatened 
or endangered in my district, and an ad hoc committee of scientists 
came together. They looked at the science that the Fish and Wildlife 
Service was going to use to list, they proved all of it to be false, 
and the listing did not occur--but only because of peer review.
  That is what this bill is trying to do, to establish a process where 
others can get to see what is going on inside those hidden dark doors 
of the Fish and Wildlife Service.
  This year in New Mexico, the lesser prairie chicken was listed as 
threatened which, again, put people out of jobs. Ben Tuggle, the Fish 
and Wildlife Service director in New Mexico said they felt pressured by 
the lawsuits--not by the science, but by the lawsuits. This is what it 
looks like dealing with the Endangered Species Act in the West today.
  It kills jobs, takes away the future, and takes away tax base--all 
for junk science that is currently being used by the department. This 
bill simply says let's get some transparency and let's get peer review. 
I urge the Members to vote for this bill.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 
1 minute to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Crawford), in whose 
district we had a field hearing on the impact of the Endangered Species 
Act.
  Mr. CRAWFORD. I thank the chairman. I am glad to be here today in 
support of H.R. 4315 and to emphasize the point that this is not just a 
Western thing. We certainly hear a lot about Oregon's northern spotted 
owl, about California's delta smelt, and we have heard about--the 
lesser prairie chicken has been cited, but I doubt many of you have 
heard about the rabbitsfoot mussel.
  I have a map here that indicates the range of the rabbitsfoot mussel, 
and I can assure you the folks in Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, 
Louisiana, and Missouri have become very well familiar with the 
rabbitsfoot mussel.

                              {time}  1600

  What the critical habitat designation proposal could do, and 
certainly in States like Arkansas where 70 percent of Arkansas' rivers 
and streams would be impacted, it would have a direct and costly impact 
on farmers and ranchers and municipalities who rely on those waterways 
for drinking water, private landowners and local governments who are 
trying to build and improve roads and bridges, and small and large 
businesses across the State of Arkansas that use water in manufacturing 
the products that help keep Americans employed.
  The 21st Century Endangered Species Transparency Act will go a long 
way to bringing some common sense and sanity back to the protection of 
vulnerable species, and that is what we should be about.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 
minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins) who is also 
experiencing the effects of this act.
  Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I do appreciate the chairman of 
the Natural Resources Committee yielding me this time.
  You know, it is amazing when you even mention dealing with reforming 
the Endangered Species Act how people all of a sudden think--and it is 
just a matter of putting some controls or limiting it--that you are 
antispecies, you are terrible on the environment. Really what we are 
talking about here is just basically like all of the things in life 
that are updated from time to time, this is something that needs to be 
updated. I have been pleased to work in this working group, together 
with the chairman and others, to bring about some sensible reforms.
  The reason we do this, farmers, ranchers, folks back home, my Farm 
Bureau, have been hit by lawsuits. And I appreciate what the gentleman 
just said. It is lawsuits, not science, that seems to be pressuring 
some of this along. In fact, in 2011, the WildEarth Guardians and 
Center for Biological Diversity entered into an agreement with Fish and 
Wildlife that added 1,000 species. Now, the only problem with that is 
that no one in the ag community and others who were affected were 
allowed to participate. Now, I have another bill called Sue and Settle 
that would have taken care of that when we passed it out of this House.
  It was said earlier that, when you take the ESA, you don't take a 
meat cleaver approach. Well, I think the problem is not a meat cleaver 
approach here. It is the fact that many don't want to take an approach 
at all. They want to just leave it alone. They don't even want to take 
up having reasonable caps on attorneys' fees. Instead of putting money 
into lawyers' pockets at a cap of just $125 an hour, they would rather 
go on--which, by the way, in that same 2011 case, the attorneys' fees 
went over $300,000 in this situation.
  You see, the problem here is not wanting to deal with ESA. The 
problem is wanting to continue an ideological bent that says leave it 
alone even at the expense of jobs, even at the expense of saying that 
maybe we messed up, even at the expense of saying maybe we can find a 
different point of view, maybe we can have valid science, or maybe just 
addressing it.
  For those of us in northeast Georgia, we want good, clean water, 
clean air, and protection of our wildlife. But also, we understand that 
taxpayer dollars spent on this needs to happen. We need to do this 
reform.
  By the way, Mr. Chairman, I still have no takers on my bat.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 
minute to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Stewart), a former member of the 
Natural Resources Committee.
  Mr. STEWART. Mr. Chairman, H.R. 4315 is simply a no-brainer. Its 
primary purpose is to require that ESA be available to the public. This 
is nothing but a commonsense reform in the application of a law that is 
subject to extensive bureaucratic manipulation. Some opponents wrongly 
assume that the American people don't need to see this data, but how 
can anyone argue against transparency in our Federal Government?
  Let me quickly list an example in my district. We have the Utah 
prairie dog, a species that was listed under the ESA in 1973. U.S. Fish 
and Wildlife says there needs to be at least 1,500 prairie dogs before 
they can be considered for delisting as recovered, but the Federal 
Government only counts those dogs living on Federal lands, about 442 of 
them. In 2013, there were almost 5,000 of these prairie dogs living on 
private land that went uncovered.
  Earlier this year, I introduced H.R. 4256, the Endangered Species 
Improvement Recovery Act, something which would help in this effort as 
well. H.R. 4315 is a commonsense approach, and I urge my colleagues to 
support it.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 
1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Valadao), a very active 
Member on this issue.
  Mr. VALADAO. Mr. Chairman, this bill brings a lot of common sense to 
Washington. In my district currently today, they have basically shut 
down agriculture because of this tiny fish

[[Page 13414]]

there. We have seen food products coming in from other countries, and 
we see people standing in a food line.
  What has caused all of this? Under the Endangered Species Act, a 
species was added to the Endangered Species Act list.
  And do we know if that listing actually helped that fish, if turning 
off the pump has actually helped save that fish? We know it has put 
people out of work. We know it has changed where we are getting our 
food from. And for all we know, it hasn't even saved that little fish. 
That is something that needs to be looked at. What this bill does, it 
brings some transparency to this.
  When we pass these rules and regulations on these industries that 
affect these people at home and put them in the food line, are we 
actually basing it on real science? Are we basing it on the fact that 
we are actually going to save this species?
  This is a tragedy. What we see going on in my hometown right now, in 
my district is a tragedy. We have an opportunity to actually make a 
difference today with some common sense. Make sure that we know that 
the science is honest and transparent before we pass these laws.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I advise the gentleman from 
Oregon that I am prepared to close, so if he wants to use his time, 
then I will close.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  I will close where I ended my opening remarks, 25 major fires burning 
in the West: seven in Oregon, six in California, four in Washington, 
two in Utah, two in Idaho, and one in Colorado. And by this time next 
week, probably twice as many, but next week Congress will be out of 
session.
  The agencies will run out of money. They can't stop fighting the 
fires. So what they will do is they will pull back money that would 
prevent future intense wildfires from prevention programs. They will 
pull back money from recreation programs. They will pull back money 
from a host of things that Americans care about and want to have funded 
just to fight these fires. It is an endless cycle. We need to deal with 
it.
  We could have dealt with it here today instead of spending multiple 
hours on a bill which is going nowhere, which is poorly drafted to the 
point where anybody, any city, county, tribe, State who writes on the 
back of a napkin can submit that to the agency and it must be 
considered the best available science and commercial data. And under 
the law, the Secretary has to use that to make a decision.
  How the heck is that going to work? You are saying you are worried 
about attorneys' fees; you are creating a universe for new litigation 
with this misguided approach.
  So I wish we would return to a bipartisan addressing of the forest 
fire issue because I know there is bipartisan concern on it. There is a 
bill pending in the House--54 Republicans, 54 Democrats. We should take 
that bill up today, tomorrow, or Thursday before we leave town and fund 
our firefighting efforts.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance 
of my time.
  Mr. Chairman, let me make a couple of points on issues that have been 
raised. First of all, H.R. 4315 is not a comprehensive reform to the 
Endangered Species Act. It is very targeted.
  I might mention that several Members on the other side talked about 
species going extinct. I just want to say, Mr. Chairman, that during 
testimony in the House Natural Resources Committee, nobody testified 
that they are in favor of species going extinct.
  Several Members said this bill weakens the Endangered Species Act. 
Mr. Chairman, how does transparency weaken a bill? I do not see how 
that works.
  Finally, there seems to be a lot of discussion about allowing local 
entities and tribes to use their data in the listing of species. 
Several Members on the other side said the act deems that should 
happen. It does not at all. In fact, let me read it. It says:

       The best scientific and commercial data available includes 
     all such data submitted by State, tribal, or county 
     government.

  Now, we will have more debate on this because there are two 
amendments that address this section, but I just wanted to mention that 
this is a targeted look at the Endangered Species Act. It is not a 
comprehensive reform, but it certainly will, I think, get more people 
involved, especially because of this megasettlement, the impact that 
this will have on the rest of the country.
  Mr. Chairman, I urge adoption of H.R. 4315.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chair on December 28, 1973 the Endangered Species Act 
was signed into law, meaning we are currently commemorating the 40th 
anniversary of one of our nation's strongest and most successful 
environmental laws: the Endangered Species Act.
  Passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed by President 
Richard Nixon, the Act was the first comprehensive law to address the 
global extinction crisis.
  The Endangered Species Act took a zero-tolerance approach to 
achieving its goals: no new extinctions, no exceptions.
  As a result, 99 percent of listed species have been saved from 
extinction and are on the path to recovery.
  Some iconic American species, such as the bald eagle, the American 
alligator, and the Pacific gray whale, have recovered from the brink of 
extinction and are now thriving in their natural habitats.
  Beyond the preservation of individual species, the Endangered Species 
Act helps to keep the strong interdependent web of life.
  Today, conservation efforts under the Endangered Species Act are a 
model for preserving biodiversity around the world.
  Unfortunately, here in the House today we are proceeding with reforms 
that would undoubtedly weaken provisions of the Act with the belief 
that doing so will somehow yield greater benefits for the species it 
was designed to protect.
  As a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, I've been 
committed to protecting our nation's strongest and most successful 
environmental laws.
  Let us reject the bill before us and in doing so commemorate the 40th 
Anniversary of the Endangered Species Act.
  Ms. LEE of California. Mr. Chair, I rise to today in strong 
opposition to H.R. 4315--the ``21st Century Endangered Species 
Transparency Act.''
  Mr. Chair, there is nothing reasonable about this bill.
  This bill is an assault on citizen enforcement and the rule of law.
  If enacted, the bill would place an unreasonable cap on the recovery 
of attorneys' fees in suits brought under the Endangered Species Act 
(ESA).
  By limiting fee recoveries, this bill would make it difficult for 
many citizens to obtain effective legal representation--and undermine 
the enforcement of the law.
  The Endangered Species Act is one of our country's most important 
tools for protecting endangered fish and wildlife populations.
  The fact of the matter is, the bill before us, would increase the 
likelihood of future extinctions.
  Mr. Chair, we are here to protect not only our wildlife, but also the 
very foundation of our justice system--equal access to adequate 
representation.
  I urge a no vote.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of 
this legislation.
  H.R. 4315 is an important first step in reforming the Endangered 
Species Act, and undertaking long overdue.
  This legislation is about three things: increasing government 
transparency, requiring better state and local data and input, and 
limiting excessive payments for lawyers who sue the Federal government 
under ESA.
  First, the bill requires the Federal Government to publish on the 
internet and make publicly available the data that was used to make the 
determination that a species should be considered for listing under the 
ESA.
  Secondly, the legislation would require the Federal Government to 
include and consider data provided by state, local and tribal 
governments. The purpose of this is to ensure that the best ``on the 
ground'' input is taken into account when making such listing.
  Finally, H.R. 4315 would limit attorneys' fees when individuals or 
organizations sue the government under the ESA and prevail.
  In my home state of Pennsylvania, we are currently seeing firsthand 
why these changes need to be legislated. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife 
Service recently proposed the Northern Long-Eared bat for listing under 
ESA--despite significant scientific debate over its population levels.

[[Page 13415]]

  While the species is unquestionably being impacted by White Nose 
Syndrome, considerably more research still is needed before sweeping 
federal regulations go into effect.
  This species has an enormous geographical footprint and is found in 
38 states. Listing this bat species would have an enormous impact, 
including harming a large number of economic sectors that pose no 
threat to this population.
  During the open public comment period, the Fish & Wildlife Service 
received a significant number of public comments discussing this lack 
of adequate data, and since then, the Service has acknowledged that the 
economic activities most affected by the proposed listing have had 
little impact on population numbers or the decline of the species.
  As a result, the agency has now decided to extend the comment period 
to further review these disparities.
  H.R. 4315 is a package of commonsense reforms that will improve local 
control and increase government transparency and accountability.
  I strongly urge my colleagues to support this legislation.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chair, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 4315, 
which would interfere with scientific determinations for endangered 
species recovery and divert resources towards unnecessary bureaucracy 
at the Fish and Wildlife Service.
  The Endangered Species Act is designed to use the best possible 
science to identify and protect our most vulnerable species from 
extinction. This bill would eliminate rational assessment of data and 
instead mandate that any information from any state, local, or tribal 
government must be named the ``best available science'' to make 
decisions. It includes no minimum threshold, such as peer review, for 
the integrity of that data. Moreover, it invites uncertainty, as there 
is no way to distinguish between conflicting data from two different 
states or localities.
  The bill also creates unnecessary and cumbersome reporting 
requirements for the Fish and Wildlife Service, including listing 
potentially sensitive commercial data and species location information 
online. It includes no additional funding to complete these reports, 
diverting funds from the agency's core mission of safeguarding 
vulnerable species.
  As the Speaker plans to recess the House at the end of this week, 
there are important issues that we should be addressing, including the 
wildfires that threaten public and private lands in the west. Instead, 
we are weakening fundamental protections for endangered species, 
creating more paperwork to distract from recovery efforts, and devising 
bizarre new rules to politicize science. I urge my colleagues to vote 
no on this bill.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chair, I oppose H.R. 4315, the so-called 
``Endangered Species Transparency and Reasonableness Act,'' which is an 
overt assault on the Endangered Species Act designed to weaken its 
protections and guarantee the likelihood of extinction for wildlife, 
plants, and fish.
  The Endangered Species Act is one of the Nation's most important 
environmental laws. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon over 
forty years ago, the Endangered Species Act continues to serves as an 
effective tool for protecting our wildlife, plants, and fish from the 
brink of extinction.
  To ensure enforcement of the Endangered Species Act, Congress 
empowered citizens to bring enforcement actions to hold parties 
accountable for violating the law or to compel the government to 
protect endangered species. Importantly, the law does not provide for 
rewards of damages for the citizen bringing the suit. Rather, the 
Endangered Species Act allows for courts to award reasonable attorneys' 
fees to parties that substantially prevail on the merits.
  Congress has long recognized the importance of encouraging citizens 
to bring meritorious claims under the Endangered Species Act that they 
would otherwise abandon due to the financial costs of hiring competent 
counsel. Many other federal statutes contain similar enforcement 
mechanisms that encourage citizens to act as a private attorney 
general.
  The Supreme Court has likewise observed in numerous contexts that if 
private citizens are to enforce laws against ``those who violate the 
Nation's fundamental laws are not to proceed with impunity, then 
citizens must have the opportunity to recover what it costs them to 
vindicate these rights in court.''
  Contrary to the stated goal of H.R. 4315 to ``standardize the 
awarding of attorneys' fees to prevailing parties against the federal 
government,'' this legislation is a thinly-disguised effort to prohibit 
litigation by citizens and public-interest groups.
  By eliminating the possibility of reasonable attorneys' fees, this 
bill creates yet another hurdle that will make it more difficult to 
find competent legal representation to enforce complex environmental 
laws.
  Reasonable attorneys' fees are particularly appropriate for complex 
and highly specialized adjudications involving environmental law. 
Environmental groups are almost uniformly non-profit organizations. 
Many file lawsuits for injunctive relief to enforce laws and protect 
the public health. But as a result of this bill, many of these 
organizations will be deterred from bringing such actions if they 
cannot recover attorneys' fees.
  For these reasons, a broad coalition of interest groups--including 
Alliance for Justice, Public Citizen, American Association for Justice, 
Sierra Club, and dozens of other environmental, civil rights, and civil 
liberties organizations--oppose H.R. 4315.
  I urge my colleagues to oppose this misguided legislation.
  The Acting CHAIR (Mr. Poe of Texas). All time for general debate has 
expired.
  Pursuant to the rule, the bill shall be considered for amendment 
under the 5-minute rule.
  In lieu of the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by 
the Committee on Natural Resources, printed in the bill, it shall be in 
order to consider as an original bill for the purpose of amendment 
under the 5-minute rule an amendment in the nature of a substitute 
consisting of the text of Rules Committee Print 113-55. That amendment 
in the nature of a substitute shall be considered as read.
  The text of the amendment in the nature of a substitute is as 
follows:

                               H.R. 4315

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Endangered Species 
     Transparency and Reasonableness Act''.

     SEC. 2. REQUIREMENT TO PUBLISH ON THE INTERNET THE BASIS FOR 
                   LISTINGS.

       Section 4(b) of the Endangered Species Act (16 U.S.C. 
     1533(b)) is amended by adding at the end the following:
       ``(9) The Secretary shall make publicly available on the 
     Internet the best scientific and commercial data available 
     that are the basis for each regulation, including each 
     proposed regulation, promulgated under subsection (a)(1), 
     except that, at the request of a Governor or legislature of a 
     State, the Secretary shall not make available under this 
     paragraph information regarding which the State has 
     determined public disclosure is prohibited by a law of that 
     State relating to the protection of personal information.''.

     SEC. 3. DECISIONAL TRANSPARENCY AND USE OF STATE, TRIBAL, AND 
                   LOCAL INFORMATION.

       (a) Requiring Decisional Transparency With Affected 
     States.--Section 6(a) of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 
     (16 U.S.C. 1535(a)) is amended--
       (1) by inserting ``(1)'' before the first sentence; and
       (2) by striking ``Such cooperation shall include'' and 
     inserting the following:
       ``(2) Such cooperation shall include--
       ``(A) before making a determination under section 4(a), 
     providing to States affected by such determination all data 
     that is the basis of the determination; and
       ``(B)''.
       (b) Ensuring Use of State, Tribal, and Local Information.--
       (1) In general.--Section 3 of the Endangered Species Act of 
     1973 (16 U.S.C. 1532) is amended--
       (A) by redesignating paragraphs (2) through (21) as 
     paragraphs (3) through (22), respectively; and
       (B) by inserting after paragraph (1) the following:
       ``(2) The term `best scientific and commercial data 
     available' includes all such data submitted by a State, 
     tribal, or county government.''.
       (2) Conforming amendment.--Section 7(n) of such Act (16 
     U.S.C. 1536(n)) is amended by striking ``section 3(13)'' and 
     inserting ``section 3(14)''.

     SEC. 4. DISCLOSURE OF EXPENDITURES UNDER ENDANGERED SPECIES 
                   ACT OF 1973.

       (a) Requirement To Disclose.--Section 13 of the Endangered 
     Species Act of 1973 (87 Stat. 902; relating to conforming 
     amendments which have executed) is amended to read as 
     follows:

     ``SEC. 13. DISCLOSURE OF EXPENDITURES.

       ``(a) Requirement.--The Secretary of the Interior, in 
     consultation with the Secretary of Commerce, shall--
       ``(1) not later than 90 days after the end of each fiscal 
     year, submit to the Committee on Natural Resources of the 
     House of Representatives and the Committee on Energy and 
     Natural Resources of the Senate an annual report detailing 
     Federal Government expenditures for covered suits during the 
     preceding fiscal year (including the information described in 
     subsection (b)); and
       ``(2) make publicly available through the Internet a 
     searchable database of the information described in 
     subsection (b).
       ``(b) Included Information.--The report shall include--
       ``(1) the case name and number of each covered suit, and a 
     hyperlink to the record or decision for each covered suit (if 
     available);

[[Page 13416]]

       ``(2) a description of the claims in each covered suit;
       ``(3) the name of each covered agency whose actions gave 
     rise to a claim in a covered suit;
       ``(4) funds expended by each covered agency (disaggregated 
     by agency account) to receive and respond to notices referred 
     to in section 11(g)(2) or to prepare for litigation of, 
     litigate, negotiate a settlement agreement or consent decree 
     in, or provide material, technical, or other assistance in 
     relation to, a covered suit;
       ``(5) the number of full-time equivalent employees that 
     participated in the activities described in paragraph (4); 
     and
       ``(6) attorneys fees and other expenses (disaggregated by 
     agency account) awarded in covered suits, including any 
     consent decrees or settlement agreements (regardless of 
     whether a decree or settlement agreement is sealed or 
     otherwise subject to nondisclosure provisions), including the 
     bases for such awards.
       ``(c) Requirement To Provide Information.--The head of each 
     covered agency shall provide to the Secretary in a timely 
     manner all information requested by the Secretary to comply 
     with the requirements of this section.
       ``(d) Limitation on Disclosure.--Notwithstanding any other 
     provision of this section, this section shall not affect any 
     restriction in a consent decree or settlement agreement on 
     the disclosure of information that is not described in 
     subsection (b).
       ``(e) Definitions.--
       ``(1) Covered agency.--The term `covered agency' means any 
     agency of the Department of the Interior, the Forest Service, 
     the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Bonneville Power 
     Administration, the Western Area Power Administration, the 
     Southwestern Power Administration, or the Southeastern Power 
     Administration.
       ``(2) Covered suit.--The term `covered suit' means any 
     civil action containing a claim against the Federal 
     Government, in which the claim arises under this Act and is 
     based on the action of a covered agency.''.
       (b) Clerical Amendment.--The table of contents in the first 
     section of such Act is amended by striking the item relating 
     to such section and inserting the following:

``Sec. 13. Disclosure of expenditures.''.

       (c) Prior Amendments Not Affected.--This section shall not 
     be construed to affect the amendments made by section 13 of 
     such Act, as in effect before the enactment of this Act.

     SEC. 5. AWARD OF LITIGATION COSTS TO PREVAILING PARTIES IN 
                   ACCORDANCE WITH EXISTING LAW.

       Section 11(g)(4) of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (16 
     U.S.C. 1540(g)(4)) is amended by striking ``to any'' and all 
     that follows through the end of the sentence and inserting 
     ``to any prevailing party in accordance with section 2412 of 
     title 28, United States Code.''.

  The Acting CHAIR. No amendment to the amendment in the nature of a 
substitute shall be in order except those printed in House Report 113-
563. Each such amendment shall be considered only in the order printed 
in the report, may be offered only by a Member designated in the 
report, shall be considered read, shall be debatable for the time 
specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent 
and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be 
subject to a demand for division of the question.


         Amendment No. 1 Offered by Mr. Hastings of Washington

  The Acting CHAIR. It is now in order to consider amendment No. 1 
printed in House Report 113-563.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment made in 
order under the rule.
  The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
  The text of the amendment is as follows:

       Page 1, line 13, insert ``, State agency,'' after 
     ``Governor''.
       Page 1, strike line 16 and all that follows through the 
     first period on line 17 and insert ``determined public 
     disclosure is prohibited by a law or regulation of that 
     State, including any law or regulation requiring the 
     protection of personal information; and except that within 30 
     days after the date of the enactment of this paragraph, the 
     Secretary shall execute an agreement with the Secretary of 
     Defense that prevents the disclosure of classified 
     information pertaining to Department of Defense personnel, 
     facilities, lands, or waters.''.

  The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to House Resolution 693, the gentleman 
from Washington (Mr. Hastings) and a Member opposed each will control 5 
minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Washington.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as 
I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, I offer this manager's amendment which would clarify 
two important items relating to section 2 and public disclosure of the 
Federal Government's ESA data.
  First, the amendment would provide an important but technical 
clarification that the intent of the bill is for any Federal public 
disclosure of ESA data on the Internet under the bill to be completely 
consistent with data privacy laws of States, including those that 
protect personal identifiable information from disclosure.
  A significant amount of the ``best available scientific and 
commercial data'' currently used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
and the National Marine Fisheries Service for ESA listing decisions is 
derived from States which have diverse laws protecting the privacy of 
their citizens and sensitive species data.
  While some make completely baseless suggestions that more data 
disclosure on the Internet could lead to poaching of species, this 
amendment would allow States an added layer of confidence that the 
information they choose to share with the Federal Government does not 
compromise their own data privacy laws.
  Second, the amendment clarifies that the bill would not require 
disclosure of classified Department of Defense information related to 
lands, personnel, installations, or waters within their jurisdiction.
  The Endangered Species Act has a significant impact on U.S. military 
activities. According to the Fish and Wildlife Service Web site, more 
than 300 ESA-listed species are located on the more than 25 million 
acres spread across hundreds of Department of Defense installations 
across the Nation. While greater data transparency related to U.S. Fish 
and Wildlife Service or National Marine Fisheries Service listing 
decisions is important, branches of the American military should not 
have to disclose information that would in any way compromise national 
security.
  So my amendment would make clear that the Fish and Wildlife Service's 
or the National Marine Fisheries Service's disclosure of best available 
scientific and commercial data on the Internet can be accomplished 
while safeguarding classified or sensitive Defense Department 
information.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, although I 
do not oppose the amendment.
  The Acting CHAIR. Without objection, the gentleman from Oregon is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. This is similar to an amendment offered by the chairman 
in committee which carved out an exemption for private individuals. 
This would carve out another amendment for the Department of Defense.
  Unfortunately, crafting legislation so it doesn't have unintended 
impacts is often a difficult, deliberative process. In this case, the 
overly broad language in this section would still require commercial 
data from timber and oil and gas companies. That is not covered by the 
exemptions in the bill. And also, it could require data containing 
business activity locations, operation plans, information regarding 
species found on their lands, and they would be published on the 
Internet, which would be an invitation to trespass in the case of 
private timber companies having to publish that sort of invitation.
  So I don't think the exemption goes far enough. I think the entire 
provision should be stricken. But again, I will not bother to oppose 
this amendment, but I will oppose the underlying bill.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1615

  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance 
of my time.
  I thank the gentleman from Oregon for his support of 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 Washington (Mr. Hastings).
  The amendment was agreed to.


                 Amendment No. 2 Offered by Mr. DeFazio

  The Acting CHAIR. It is now in order to consider amendment No. 2 
printed in House Report 113-563.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
  The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.

[[Page 13417]]

  The text of the amendment is as follows:

       Page 3, line 1, strike ``The term'' and insert ``(A) Except 
     as provided in subparagraph (B), the term''.
       Page 3, at line 3 strike the closing quotation marks and 
     the second period, and after line 3 insert the following:
       ``(B) Such term does not include any data, study, or survey 
     that has been published solely in an internal Department of 
     the Interior publication.''.

  The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to House Resolution 693, the gentleman 
from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) and a Member opposed each will control 5 
minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Oregon.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, as I said earlier, and it was mentioned by 
a number of Democrats on this side, we don't think the Endangered 
Species Act is perfect and we could work on a bipartisan basis on 
modernization-type reforms to bring it into the 21st century, compliant 
with current science. However, that is not before us today. But I am 
hopeful that this amendment, because of a very unsettling precedent by 
the Obama administration, will get bipartisan support.
  Now, the Republicans may, in this case, agree with the objectives of 
an agency of government which has gone rogue in this case, which is 
Fish and Wildlife. They have been trying for years to remove the gray 
wolf from the Endangered Species Act. Unfortunately, science isn't on 
their side. Wolves have not recovered throughout much of their range. 
Oregon and Washington have a few packs; California, Colorado, Utah, and 
New York have none. However, they have cooked up a little bit of 
science to justify their determination to delist.
  Now, in the case of Oregon, OR-7, his mate, and pups, might be pretty 
safe. They are down in the corner of the State. California won't be 
hunting wolves because of their own Endangered Species Act. But his 
relatives up in the northeast corner of Oregon, should they cross the 
border into Idaho, they will be immediately assassinated. That is the 
result of what Fish and Wildlife and Congress combined have done.
  They cooked up the science. Unfortunately, science has to be peer-
reviewed and published in journals. No journal would publish it. Not 
even some of the captive industry journals or the livestock association 
journal. Nobody would publish it. They said this is junk.
  So what did they do? Well, they came up with a zombie journal. They 
revived an internal journal called North American Fauna, which was an 
internal Fish and Wildlife little newsletter, and it hasn't been 
printed previously since 1991.
  Now, again, I imagine most Republicans are saying: So what, if this 
helps us get rid of the wolf--which many on that side of the aisle 
would like to do--so be it, that is good.
  Well, just think what is going to happen when Fish and Wildlife and 
this administration, or another administration, wants to make a 
decision contrary to what you care about? What if they want to cook up 
a phony science on the sage-grouse, the lesser prairie chicken, or on 
some of these other species that have been talked about today? They 
drag out the North American fauna label and they say: Hey, it has been 
published, and that is what we based our decision on.
  This is a very disturbing trend by an administration--inexplicable 
that this administration would go down this particular path. And again, 
even if you may agree with delisting the wolf and greatly reducing the 
populations, which are nowhere near what they should be for a full 
recovery, threatening again a future, more comprehensive, listing--
again, a bit shortsighted if you support that, but you may.
  But just think if you let this stand. If you let these people these 
Federal bureaucrats, these hacks, get away with this. They cooked 
something up. I mean, really? You can't even get the sheep journal to 
publish this because they really hate the wolves, or the cattleman's 
journal, they really hate the wolves. No, they wouldn't publish it. 
They had to come up with a phony internal journal, because it was so 
bad that they knew they would be subject to ridicule and violating 
essentially their own morals and ethics by doing that.
  I would hope that the Republicans can support this amendment, because 
even though they may agree with the ends here, they surely should 
disagree with the process.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the 
amendment.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield as much time as he 
may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer).
  Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Chairman, as I was listening to the gentleman, I 
was wondering if he was talking about the amendment that he had 
actually offered, because actually he is making the case that I stood 
up to make today.
  Let me tell you what this amendment would do. It would exclude 
scientific information published solely in the internal Interior 
Department publications from the definition of ``best available 
science,'' which would allow the Department of Interior to avoid 
transparency requirements in section 2 of the bill, which requires that 
the data used by the Federal agencies for the Endangered Species Act 
listing decisions to be made publicly available and accessible through 
the Internet.
  So what the gentleman was saying is they cooked the books, they 
cooked the information, and he doesn't want that to be made available. 
So here we are making important decisions about the potential taking of 
people's land, spending millions of dollars in mitigation for what may 
be false science.
  This gentleman's amendment defeats the whole purpose of transparency, 
the intention of this bill.
  What we are trying to do is we are going to say: Let's take the 
facts, let's take the best available science that the Fish and Wildlife 
and some of these agencies say that they have, let's compare it with 
what is the best available science from the stakeholders and come up 
with the truth.
  But the gentleman's amendment, which I urge Members to defeat, 
defeats the whole purpose of that transparency. The American people 
deserve that. Their tax money is being used against them in the fact 
that the tax money is going out and being used to determine what is the 
best available science. Now if we have got the best available science--
in fact, as the gentleman referred to it as ``cooking the science,'' 
then the American people ought to have an opportunity to dispute that 
and it not be hidden from them in some agency memo.
  With that, I encourage Members to defeat the amendment.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, well, I didn't understand that.
  Look, a Federal agency revived a journal that had been extinct for 23 
years. It is an internal document. They took phony science and 
published it in that, and then they based a delisting decision on it. 
If they based a listing decision on it, you guys would be going berserk 
over there.
  What I am precluding is future Federal agencies, no matter where they 
come down on a listing decision, from using phony science which is only 
self-published. This is like whack nuts who write books about crazy 
things and they publish it themselves and say: Look, it was a book. 
Yeah, it is a book. You paid to publish it.
  In this case, they used taxpayer money to publish a phony study to 
justify a decision they had already made, which you might happen to 
agree with.
  But what happens when they use that same tactic to do that with a 
decision you disagree with, to actually list something?
  This has nothing to do with transparency. It doesn't need to be 
transparent because they couldn't use it. It is phony science. They 
would not be allowed to use phony science by self-publishing it. That 
is simply what the amendment does, and I can't believe you guys are 
going to oppose it.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance 
of my time.

[[Page 13418]]

  Mr. Chairman, when I listen to my good friend from Oregon's 
arguments, in many respects, maybe indirectly, he is making precisely 
the argument that we are making with this bill. That is, whatever data 
is being used to list or delist should be made available to the public 
so they can ascertain if that data is correct.
  Now, the gentleman talked about data that was made up. Okay, that is 
his interpretation. If it is made up, shouldn't we know that? Shouldn't 
we know that that is what the data is being used to make these 
decisions rather than just accepting it?
  Mr. Chairman, that is precisely what this bill is all about, to have 
transparency on this scientific data. That is really all we are asking 
about.
  The argument got shifted to other things, like we are destroying the 
Endangered Species Act and so forth. Nothing could be further from the 
truth.
  His amendment, however, does something that I think violates the 
principle we are trying to do. He wants to exclude certain stuff from 
us being transparent with it, or for the people having transparency to 
that data.
  So, Mr. Chairman, I urge also rejection of 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 Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).
  The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the noes 
appeared to have it.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. 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 Oregon will 
be postponed.


                  Amendment No. 3 Offered by Mr. Holt

  The Acting CHAIR. It is now in order to consider amendment No. 3 
printed in House Report 113-563.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, 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 2, line 3, strike ``(a) Requiring Decisional 
     Transparency With Affected States.--''.
       Beginning at page 2, strike line 16 and all that follows 
     through page 3, line 7.

  The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to House Resolution 693, the gentleman 
from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) and a Member opposed each will control 5 
minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  The bill before us today has many problems, but one of the most 
egregious and obvious is in section 3, where the bill declares that any 
and all data submitted by States, tribes, or local governments shall be 
considered the ``best scientific data available.''
  I am offering here an amendment with my friend from California (Mr. 
Huffman), which would strike that provision and would force Federal 
agencies to accept as the best available science actual science.
  The language in question says:

       The term ``best scientific and commercial data available'' 
     includes all such data submitted by a State, tribal, or 
     county government.

  The Endangered Species Act is one of our Nation's strongest and most 
successful environmental laws. One reason for that success is that the 
law has been based on scientific evaluation using peer-reviewed science 
by trained scientists, not the whims and ideological wishes of 
legislators.
  The Endangered Species Act is not a shouting match or a fight for 
power and influence among interested parties; it is a look at the need 
to protect endangered species as determined by the best science. This 
language that the best scientific and commercial data available 
includes all such data submitted is as preposterous as it is 
impractical. Where is the quality control?
  Now, what happens if a locality submits something that is not, in 
fact, true, or not, in fact, established within the scientific 
community? Or how about if a State or a tribe submits one thing and 
another State or tribe submits conflicting views? Are they both the 
best available evidence? What about where a county thinks its data is 
better than the State's data? These are all situations that not only 
might occur, but are likely to occur.
  A witness at the committee hearing on this bill--in fact, a witness 
that was invited by the Republicans--testified to this very point, 
saying that all does not equal best, highlighting the fact that this 
bill creates more problems than it solves.
  Agency decisionmakers must evaluate data from all sources to ensure 
that they are making determinations based on the best information 
available, and we should encourage them to do so.
  Let's not have another case of congressional malpractice where 
Members of Congress play scientists and try to present political 
restrictions on the science.
  The peer review process is the best tool available, and that is how 
we draw out the best science. Maybe scientists occasionally make 
mistakes, no doubt about it, and new findings can call for a revision 
of the science. But surely we don't think that Members of Congress are 
better at determining what is scientifically factual than the 
biological and environmental scientists.
  I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1630

  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the 
amendment.
  The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may 
consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer).
  Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Chairman, basically, what the gentleman's 
amendment would do is strike the language in the section of this bill 
that requires the Fish and Wildlife Service to consider all data 
submitted by State, tribal, or county governments as best scientific 
and commercial data available.
  Let me dispel one of the myths. It says that all of this data has to 
be considered best scientific and commercial data. That is not 
necessarily true. The Fish and Wildlife Service still has 
discrimination over what data that it considers. What it does say is 
that it must consider the data that is submitted.
  The other thing that you hear my friends on the other side of the 
aisle say is that I guess all of the best data and all of the smartest 
people in the country must be in Washington, D.C., but we have Mr. 
DeFazio, the gentleman from Oregon, stand up and say: no, sometimes 
they cook the books. So I wondered if that memo that the gentleman was 
talking about was the best commercial and available science for the 
wolf. Obviously, he was saying it was not.
  What we are really saying about all of this is it is just about 
transparency. It is about recognizing that the people in the States and 
the local governments may actually have better information on the 
ground about a lot of these issues than somebody sitting in Washington, 
looking at some model or some report that someone has drawn up.
  I will talk about my State of Texas, for example. The Texas Parks and 
Wildlife Service has developed over 8,000 wildlife management plans 
covering over 30 million acres. I would probably tell you that those 
people have some of the best available and commercial science on a lot 
of the issues facing Texas probably a little bit more than maybe 
somebody sitting in Washington, D.C., or some other State.
  So one of the things that I am a little perplexed about is my 
colleagues keep fighting the transparency. This President said he was 
going to have one of the most transparent administrations in history, 
but that has been far from the truth.
  I would encourage my colleagues to defeat this amendment. It defeats 
the whole purpose of the bill and the intention of letting the American 
people know the facts.
  If you go to a trial, you don't get to use only your facts. You have 
to hear

[[Page 13419]]

everybody's facts. Since this is a trial that determines whether these 
species are in fact endangered or not endangered anymore, we should be 
able to deal with the facts, but we can't deal with one set of facts. 
We have to deal with all of the facts.
  So if you want to hear all of the facts, defeat this amendment.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, I ask the Chair the time remaining on each 
side.
  The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from New Jersey has 1\1/2\ minutes 
remaining, and the gentleman from Washington has 2\1/2\ minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I am bemused by this.
  It is simple. It says:

       The term ``best scientific and commercial data available'' 
     includes all such data submitted by a State, tribal, or 
     county government.

  That means all the data. That means if all the counties, States, and 
tribes don't agree, you have conflicting best available data. That is 
what we are saying. We want them to take all data into account, but you 
can't deem that theirs is the best.
  In the case of nitrification in the Columbia River, Oregon and 
Washington disagree. They have competing science, but now, they would 
have to weigh it equally. I have heard tribes say to save salmon and 
delist them, you have to take all the dams out of the river. That 
becomes the best available science, if submitted by a tribe?
  What are you guys thinking? We want them to listen to everybody. 
Everybody can submit something, but we don't then deem it to be the 
best available data. That is nuts.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I am prepared to close, so 
I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, my colleague from Oregon said it well: All 
does not equal best.
  The other side evidently is embarrassed by the language in the bill. 
There are many problems with this bill, but this particular section has 
some language that they should be embarrassed about, and so they are 
saying what they wish the language said or what they want it to say.
  The best scientific data includes all such data. It does not say we 
will consider all data. It says all equals best. That cannot be true. 
That should be removed from the bill. That is what this amendment does.
  Decisions on whether or not a particular study or data set have 
scientific merit with respect to an individual species listing should 
be made in the context of peer-reviewed science, not because one State 
wants one thing and one county wants another thing.
  It should be based on the best scientific data. That is what this 
amendment would ensure.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance 
of my time.
  First of all, Mr. Chairman, I am not embarrassed by this piece of 
legislation. Let me walk through this and explain why this language 
says what it says because I think our friends on the other side of the 
aisle are leaving out a very important word when they are debating this 
issue.
  The language in question is the term ``best scientific and commerce 
data available includes all such data submitted,'' and so forth.
  They are arguing as if the word ``such'' was taken out, where it 
would read ``scientific and commercial data available includes all 
data.'' We didn't say ``all data.'' We said ``all such data.''
  What does that mean? How does that relate? All such data that relates 
to scientific and commercial data coming from the local communities--
what is wrong with that argument?
  By the way, the agency still has discretion to use that data, but it 
should be part of it because lacking having this language in the bill 
means that the only data is what my friend from Oregon criticized when 
we were discussing the wolves.
  Mr. Chairman, I think this language is pretty straightforward. It 
says ``all such data that relates to it, as developed by local 
communities and tribes.'' That should be part of the transparency.
  So I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment, and 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. Holt).
  The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the noes 
appeared to have it.
  Mr. HOLT. 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 New Jersey 
will be postponed.


                  Amendment No. 4 Offered by Mr. Duffy

  The Acting CHAIR. It is now in order to consider amendment No. 4 
printed in House Report 113-563.
  Mr. DUFFY. Mr. Chairman, 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 4, line 22, strike ``and''.
       Page 5, at line 4 strike the period and insert ``; and'', 
     and after line 4 insert the following:
       ``(7) any Federal funding used by a person or a 
     governmental or non-governmental entity in bringing a claim 
     in a covered suit.

  The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to House Resolution 693, the gentleman 
from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy) and a Member opposed each will control 5 
minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. DUFFY. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Chairman Hastings for all of 
his work on this legislation.
  I am from Wisconsin. I have the central to northern part of the 
State. In my part of the State--and for the State as a whole--we value 
our natural resources. We value our wildlife. We have people who love 
to hunt, fish, bike, ski, and hike. It is part of our culture and our 
community.
  We have many organizations that work hard to promote conservation. We 
have hunting groups, sportsmen groups, conservation organizations, 
State and local DNR organizations. Many of them have come together to 
protect the gray wolf population in Wisconsin, so much so that it has 
become healthy, and the gray wolf has been taken off and delisted from 
the Endangered Species Act.
  However, not all organizations come at this with a pure heart. We 
have some whose main purpose and priority is filing lawsuits and suing 
the government under the Endangered Species Act. It is these sue-and-
settle tactics that don't advance the cause of preserving our 
environment, and they aren't good for the American taxpayer.
  What is more, many of these lawsuits are funded by way of Federal tax 
dollars to support the litigation, so in essence, we are spending tens 
of millions of dollars of hardworking Americans' tax dollars to sue 
ourselves.
  So I think it is important that we have transparency in government. 
If an organization is suing the Federal Government under the Endangered 
Species Act and they are using Federal money, let's disclose it. Let's 
all see it.
  We might come together and say that is a good use of our Federal tax 
dollars, or we might say that is outrageous that we should be funding 
suits against ourselves.
  This is a commonsense amendment. I would ask my colleagues to support 
it.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. DUFFY. I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I thank the gentleman for yielding and 
for bringing this issue to the floor. I think it adds very much to what 
we are trying to do with this underlying legislation, which is adding 
transparency to our efforts.
  I support the gentleman's amendment.
  Mr. DUFFY. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
  The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Oregon is recognized for 5 
minutes.

[[Page 13420]]


  Mr. DeFAZIO. I just wonder if the gentleman can name one piece of 
litigation which was sponsored by Federal tax dollars, and I yield to 
the gentleman.
  Mr. DUFFY. Mr. Chairman, that is the purpose of my legislation. We 
don't know.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Reclaiming my time, the gentleman can't name one 
lawsuit, one organization using Federal tax dollars. I guess that is 
probably because he is familiar with OMB Circular A-87 that says 
neither a State, local government, or an Indian tribal government can 
use money provided by the Federal Government for legal expenses for 
prosecution of claims against the Federal Government.
  Well, okay, that leaves a big hole. What about nonprofits? They get 
Federal money. That would be OMB Circular A-122, ``Cost Principles for 
Nonprofit Organizations,'' which says, ``Costs of legal, accounting, 
and consultant services, and related costs, incurred in connection with 
defense against Federal Government claims or appeals, antitrust suits, 
or the prosecution of claims or appeals against the Federal Government, 
are unallowable.''
  So we are now going to have the agency chase a chimera--that is, 
something that has never happened and can't happen under law. They have 
got to go out and spend a bunch of money trying to unearth it.
  If the gentleman could just name one instance, then that might change 
the argument, but he can't.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DUFFY. Mr. Chairman, I would just note that money is fungible. To 
the point that this is going to cost a lot of money, I would disagree.
  All we are asking for is that if you receive Federal money and you 
are suing the Federal Government, that you disclose it. You don't have 
to go on a witch-hunt. You don't have to go find it.
  If you receive these dollars and you are suing the Federal 
Government, tell us. If the gentleman is correct, there won't be any 
disclosure, but if what I suspect is true, there will be a lot of 
disclosure, and the American people will see how their tax money is 
being used to sue themselves.
  Mr. Chairman, I would note in closing that good government is a 
government that has transparency, and we should know how our tax 
dollars are being used. This is not overburdensome. This is a simple 
request that if you use hard-earned taxpayer money to sue the Federal 
Government under the Endangered Species Act, the Federal taxpayers know 
how their money is being spent.
  This makes sense. It doesn't cost any money. It is not a hardship, so 
let's stand together. Let's work together, and let's make sure we have 
full knowledge in how this money is being used.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, unfortunately, the gentleman misstated 
what his amendment does. It doesn't say that individuals filing 
litigation under the Endangered Species Act must disclose whether or 
not they receive any Federal funds and are using any Federal funds in 
this case. It doesn't say that.
  It says that Fish and Wildlife Service must determine. How is the 
Fish and Wildlife Service going to determine whether or not someone 
used Federal funds?
  As he said, money is fungible. He is saying they may be violating the 
circular that prohibits nonprofit organizations from doing this. They 
may be violating the circular.
  These are, of course, criminal offenses, that prohibit State, local, 
and Indian tribal governments from using Federal money for such 
litigation. He is saying that may be going on, so then Fish and 
Wildlife should just discover it themselves.
  How is that going to work? It sends Fish and Wildlife on a mission 
that it is not equipped to handle. They can't say: pretty please, tell 
us.
  If someone is violating the law, they are probably not going to 
volunteer it to Fish and Wildlife.

                              {time}  1645

  If you wanted to do this, you would have to write an amendment that 
amends the Rules of Civil Procedure or whatever--I am not a lawyer--
that would require that these litigants disclose at the time of filing 
their litigation. Saying Fish and Wildlife should find out after it has 
been filed is absolutely absurd.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy).
  The amendment was agreed to.


                    Announcement by the Acting Chair

  The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, proceedings 
will now resume on those amendments printed in House Report 113-563 on 
which further proceedings were postponed, in the following order:
  Amendment No. 2 by Mr. DeFazio of Oregon.
  Amendment No. 3 by Mr. Holt of New Jersey.
  The Chair will reduce to 2 minutes the minimum time for any 
electronic vote after the first vote in this series.


                 Amendment No. 2 Offered by Mr. DeFazio

  The Acting CHAIR. The unfinished business is the demand for a 
recorded vote on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Oregon 
(Mr. DeFazio) on which further proceedings were postponed and on which 
the noes prevailed by voice vote.
  The Clerk will redesignate the amendment.
  The Clerk redesignated the amendment.


                             Recorded Vote

  The Acting CHAIR. A recorded vote has been demanded.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 188, 
noes 227, not voting 17, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 460]

                               AYES--188

     Barber
     Barrow (GA)
     Bass
     Beatty
     Becerra
     Bera (CA)
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Bonamici
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brownley (CA)
     Bustos
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardenas
     Carney
     Carson (IN)
     Cartwright
     Castor (FL)
     Castro (TX)
     Chu
     Cicilline
     Clark (MA)
     Clarke (NY)
     Clyburn
     Cohen
     Connolly
     Cooper
     Costa
     Courtney
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis, Danny
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delaney
     DeLauro
     DelBene
     Deutch
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Duckworth
     Edwards
     Ellison
     Engel
     Enyart
     Eshoo
     Esty
     Farr
     Fattah
     Foster
     Frankel (FL)
     Fudge
     Gabbard
     Gallego
     Garamendi
     Grayson
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hahn
     Hastings (FL)
     Heck (WA)
     Higgins
     Himes
     Hinojosa
     Holt
     Honda
     Horsford
     Hoyer
     Huffman
     Jackson Lee
     Jeffries
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kaptur
     Keating
     Kelly (IL)
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilmer
     Kind
     Kirkpatrick
     Kuster
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee (CA)
     Levin
     Lewis
     Lipinski
     Loebsack
     Lofgren
     Lowenthal
     Lowey
     Lujan Grisham (NM)
     Lujan, Ben Ray (NM)
     Lynch
     Maffei
     Maloney, Carolyn
     Maloney, Sean
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McNerney
     Meeks
     Meng
     Michaud
     Miller, George
     Moore
     Moran
     Murphy (FL)
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Negrete McLeod
     Nolan
     O'Rourke
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor (AZ)
     Payne
     Perlmutter
     Peters (CA)
     Peters (MI)
     Pingree (ME)
     Pocan
     Polis
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Richmond
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruiz
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schneider
     Schrader
     Schwartz
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sewell (AL)
     Shea-Porter
     Sherman
     Sinema
     Sires
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Speier
     Swalwell (CA)
     Takano
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Titus
     Tonko
     Tsongas
     Van Hollen
     Vargas
     Veasey
     Vela
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Welch
     Wilson (FL)
     Yarmuth

                               NOES--227

     Aderholt
     Amash
     Amodei
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Barletta
     Barr
     Barton
     Benishek
     Bentivolio
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Black
     Blackburn
     Boustany
     Bridenstine
     Brooks (AL)
     Brooks (IN)
     Broun (GA)
     Buchanan
     Bucshon
     Burgess
     Byrne
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carter
     Chabot
     Chaffetz
     Clawson (FL)
     Coble
     Coffman
     Cole
     Collins (GA)
     Collins (NY)
     Conaway
     Cook

[[Page 13421]]


     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crawford
     Crenshaw
     Culberson
     Daines
     Davis, Rodney
     Denham
     Dent
     DeSantis
     Duffy
     Duncan (SC)
     Duncan (TN)
     Ellmers
     Farenthold
     Fincher
     Fitzpatrick
     Fleischmann
     Fleming
     Flores
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gardner
     Garrett
     Gerlach
     Gibbs
     Gibson
     Gingrey (GA)
     Gohmert
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Granger
     Griffin (AR)
     Griffith (VA)
     Grimm
     Guthrie
     Hall
     Hanna
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hastings (WA)
     Heck (NV)
     Hensarling
     Herrera Beutler
     Holding
     Hudson
     Huelskamp
     Huizenga (MI)
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurt
     Issa
     Jenkins
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jolly
     Jones
     Jordan
     Joyce
     Kelly (PA)
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kinzinger (IL)
     Kline
     Labrador
     LaMalfa
     Lamborn
     Lance
     Lankford
     Latham
     Latta
     LoBiondo
     Long
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     Lummis
     Marchant
     Marino
     Massie
     Matheson
     McAllister
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McHenry
     McKeon
     McKinley
     McMorris Rodgers
     Meadows
     Meehan
     Messer
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Mullin
     Mulvaney
     Murphy (PA)
     Neugebauer
     Noem
     Nugent
     Nunes
     Olson
     Palazzo
     Paulsen
     Pearce
     Perry
     Peterson
     Petri
     Pittenger
     Pitts
     Poe (TX)
     Posey
     Price (GA)
     Reed
     Reichert
     Renacci
     Ribble
     Rice (SC)
     Rigell
     Roby
     Roe (TN)
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Rokita
     Rooney
     Roskam
     Ross
     Rothfus
     Royce
     Runyan
     Ryan (WI)
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Scalise
     Schock
     Schweikert
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (MO)
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Southerland
     Stewart
     Stivers
     Stockman
     Stutzman
     Terry
     Thompson (PA)
     Thornberry
     Tiberi
     Tipton
     Turner
     Upton
     Valadao
     Wagner
     Walberg
     Walden
     Walorski
     Walz
     Weber (TX)
     Webster (FL)
     Wenstrup
     Westmoreland
     Whitfield
     Williams
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Wolf
     Womack
     Woodall
     Yoder
     Yoho
     Young (AK)
     Young (IN)

                             NOT VOTING--17

     Brady (TX)
     Cassidy
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Conyers
     DesJarlais
     Diaz-Balart
     Garcia
     Graves (GA)
     Graves (MO)
     Hanabusa
     Israel
     Nunnelee
     Pelosi
     Pompeo
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Waxman

                              {time}  1712

  Messrs. WALDEN, MULLIN, COTTON, DUNCAN of South Carolina, DUNCAN of 
Tennessee, WESTMORELAND, and MATHESON changed their vote from ``aye'' 
to ``no.''
  Ms. CLARKE of New York changed her vote from ``no'' to ``aye.''
  So the amendment was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  Stated for:
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 460, had I been present, I 
would have voted ``yes.''


                  Amendment No. 3 Offered by Mr. Holt

  The Acting CHAIR. The unfinished business is the request for a 
recorded vote on amendment No. 3 printed in House Report 113-563 
offered by the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) on which further 
proceedings were postponed and on which the noes prevailed by voice 
vote.
  The Clerk will redesignate the amendment.
  The Clerk redesignated the amendment.


                             Recorded Vote

  The Acting CHAIR. A recorded vote has been demanded.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The Acting CHAIR. This is a 2-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 204, 
noes 215, not voting 13, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 461]

                               AYES--204

     Barber
     Barrow (GA)
     Bass
     Beatty
     Becerra
     Bera (CA)
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Bonamici
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brownley (CA)
     Buchanan
     Bustos
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardenas
     Carney
     Carson (IN)
     Cartwright
     Castor (FL)
     Castro (TX)
     Chu
     Cicilline
     Clark (MA)
     Clarke (NY)
     Clyburn
     Cohen
     Connolly
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costa
     Courtney
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis, Danny
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delaney
     DeLauro
     DelBene
     Deutch
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Duckworth
     Edwards
     Ellison
     Engel
     Enyart
     Eshoo
     Esty
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fitzpatrick
     Foster
     Frankel (FL)
     Fudge
     Gabbard
     Gallego
     Garamendi
     Garcia
     Gibson
     Grayson
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Grimm
     Gutierrez
     Hahn
     Hall
     Hanna
     Hastings (FL)
     Heck (WA)
     Higgins
     Himes
     Hinojosa
     Holt
     Honda
     Horsford
     Hoyer
     Huffman
     Israel
     Jackson Lee
     Jeffries
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kaptur
     Keating
     Kelly (IL)
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilmer
     Kind
     Kirkpatrick
     Kuster
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee (CA)
     Levin
     Lewis
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Loebsack
     Lofgren
     Lowenthal
     Lowey
     Lujan Grisham (NM)
     Lujan, Ben Ray (NM)
     Lynch
     Maffei
     Maloney, Carolyn
     Maloney, Sean
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McNerney
     Meeks
     Meng
     Michaud
     Miller, George
     Moore
     Moran
     Murphy (FL)
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Negrete McLeod
     Nolan
     O'Rourke
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor (AZ)
     Paulsen
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Perlmutter
     Peters (CA)
     Peters (MI)
     Pingree (ME)
     Pocan
     Polis
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Richmond
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruiz
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schneider
     Schrader
     Schwartz
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sewell (AL)
     Shea-Porter
     Sherman
     Sinema
     Sires
     Slaughter
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (WA)
     Speier
     Swalwell (CA)
     Takano
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Titus
     Tonko
     Tsongas
     Van Hollen
     Vargas
     Veasey
     Vela
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walz
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Waxman
     Welch
     Whitfield
     Wilson (FL)
     Yarmuth

                               NOES--215

     Aderholt
     Amash
     Amodei
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Barletta
     Barr
     Barton
     Benishek
     Bentivolio
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Black
     Blackburn
     Boustany
     Bridenstine
     Brooks (AL)
     Brooks (IN)
     Broun (GA)
     Bucshon
     Burgess
     Byrne
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carter
     Chabot
     Chaffetz
     Clawson (FL)
     Coble
     Coffman
     Cole
     Collins (GA)
     Collins (NY)
     Conaway
     Cook
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crawford
     Crenshaw
     Culberson
     Daines
     Davis, Rodney
     Denham
     Dent
     DeSantis
     Duffy
     Duncan (SC)
     Duncan (TN)
     Ellmers
     Farenthold
     Fincher
     Fleischmann
     Fleming
     Flores
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gardner
     Garrett
     Gerlach
     Gibbs
     Gingrey (GA)
     Gohmert
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Graves (GA)
     Griffin (AR)
     Griffith (VA)
     Guthrie
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hastings (WA)
     Heck (NV)
     Hensarling
     Herrera Beutler
     Holding
     Hudson
     Huelskamp
     Huizenga (MI)
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurt
     Issa
     Jenkins
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jolly
     Jones
     Jordan
     Joyce
     Kelly (PA)
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kinzinger (IL)
     Kline
     Labrador
     LaMalfa
     Lamborn
     Lance
     Lankford
     Latham
     Latta
     Long
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     Lummis
     Marchant
     Marino
     Massie
     Matheson
     McAllister
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McHenry
     McKeon
     McKinley
     McMorris Rodgers
     Meadows
     Meehan
     Messer
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Mullin
     Mulvaney
     Murphy (PA)
     Neugebauer
     Noem
     Nugent
     Nunes
     Olson
     Palazzo
     Pearce
     Perry
     Peterson
     Petri
     Pittenger
     Pitts
     Poe (TX)
     Posey
     Price (GA)
     Reed
     Reichert
     Renacci
     Ribble
     Rice (SC)
     Rigell
     Roby
     Roe (TN)
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Rokita
     Rooney
     Roskam
     Ross
     Rothfus
     Royce
     Runyan
     Ryan (WI)
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Scalise
     Schock
     Schweikert
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (MO)
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (TX)
     Southerland
     Stewart
     Stockman
     Stutzman
     Terry
     Thompson (PA)
     Thornberry
     Tiberi
     Tipton
     Turner
     Upton
     Valadao
     Wagner
     Walberg
     Walden
     Walorski
     Weber (TX)
     Webster (FL)
     Wenstrup
     Westmoreland
     Williams
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Wolf
     Womack
     Woodall
     Yoder
     Yoho
     Young (AK)
     Young (IN)

                             NOT VOTING--13

     Brady (TX)
     Cassidy
     Clay
     Cleaver
     DesJarlais
     Diaz-Balart
     Granger
     Graves (MO)
     Hanabusa
     Nunnelee
     Pompeo
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Stivers


                    Announcement by the Acting Chair

  The Acting CHAIR (during the vote). There are 2 minutes remaining.

                              {time}  1717

  So the amendment was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.

[[Page 13422]]

  The Acting CHAIR (Mr. Womack). The question is on the amendment in 
the nature of a substitute, as amended.
  The amendment was agreed to.
  The Acting CHAIR. Under the rule, the Committee rises.
  Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. Poe 
of Texas) having assumed the chair, Mr. Womack, 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. 4315) to 
amend the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to require publication on the 
Internet of the basis for determinations that species are endangered 
species or threatened species, and for other purposes, and, pursuant to 
House Resolution 693, he reported the bill back to the House with an 
amendment adopted in the Committee of the Whole.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the rule, the previous question is 
ordered.
  Is a separate vote demanded on any amendment to the amendment 
reported from the Committee of the Whole?
  If not, the question is on the amendment in the nature of a 
substitute, as amended.
  The amendment was agreed to.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the engrossment and third 
reading of the bill.
  The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was 
read the third time.


                           Motion to Recommit

  Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion at the desk.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentlewoman opposed to the bill?
  Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. I am opposed to it in its current form.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to 
recommit.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mrs. Kirkpatrick moves to recommit the bill H.R. 4315 to 
     the Committee on Natural Resources with instructions to 
     report the same back to the House forthwith with the 
     following amendment:

     SEC. __. CONSULTATION WITH INDIAN TRIBES.

       (a) Requirement.--The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (16 
     U.S.C. 1531 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the 
     following:

     ``SEC. 17. FULFILLMENT OF FEDERAL TRUST RESPONSIBILITY WITH 
                   RESPECT TO INDIAN TRIBES.

       ``In carrying out this Act, the Secretary shall consult 
     with affected Indian tribes to ensure that the Federal trust 
     responsibility with respect to Indian tribes is fulfilled.''.
       (b) Clerical Amendment.--The table of contents in the first 
     section of such Act is amended by adding at the end the 
     following:

``Sec. 17. Fulfillment of Federal trust responsibility with respect to 
              Indian tribes.''.

  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington (during the reading). Mr. Speaker, I ask 
unanimous consent that the reading be dispensed with.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Washington?
  Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. Yes, I object.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  The Clerk will read.
  The Clerk continued to read.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from Arizona is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. Mr. Speaker, this is the final amendment to the 
bill. It will not kill the bill, nor send it back to committee. If it 
is adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage.
  Mr. Speaker, I am honored to represent a district that has more 
Native American tribes that own tribal land than any other district in 
the country. I have 12 tribes in my district, including the Navajo 
nation, where the people speak a beautiful language called Dine. So I 
am going to start my speech tonight in Dine.
  (English translation of the statement made in Dine is as follows:)
  Hello, my esteemed elders, my relatives, and my Navajo friends. It's 
your Congresswoman speaking, Ann Kirkpatrick, and I work for you.
  YA'ATEEH SHI' NANTAI SHI'KE SHI'DINE' ADO. AHE'HEE. NI'HI' 
CONGRESSWOMAN ANIH, ANN KIRKPATRICK. ADO NI'HA NASHNISH.
  Mr. Speaker, I grew up on tribal land, on the White Mountain Apache 
where my father ran the general store, and my mother was a 
schoolteacher. My father spoke Apache. My first words were in Apache. 
And it is important that we know that the language of our Native 
American tribes addresses their spirituality, their culture, and their 
land.
  What I want to talk about tonight is tribal sovereignty, because all 
of our tribes have their own culture, their own history, and their own 
language, but what they share is a deep respect for tribal sovereignty. 
What that means is that they are entitled, they have a right to 
government-to-government negotiations.
  So what I want my colleagues to do tonight is do not turn your backs 
on our Native American people. Do not turn your backs and shut the door 
to our tribes. I urge you to push for the inclusion and the respect of 
tribal sovereignty in this legislation and that there be abundant 
government-to-government negotiations. Our tribes deserve that. They 
have that right. Let's stand with our Native Americans and make sure 
that we do everything possible to strengthen those government-to-
government relationships, conversations, negotiations, tribal 
sovereignty.
  I will close my remarks tonight as I began, in Dine.
  (English translation of the statement made in Dine is as follows:)
  Okay. Let's move forward. Thank you.
  HAGONEE, AHE'HEE!
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from Arizona will provide 
the Clerk a translation of her remarks.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the 
motion to recommit.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Washington is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, of course this body should 
recognize the treaties that we have made with our Native American 
neighbors. And I say that with the privilege of representing a central 
Washington district that has two Indian tribes and reservations within 
my district. So that goes without saying.
  However, we have had on this floor I don't know how many motions to 
recommit. And sometimes I wonder exactly what these motions to recommit 
are trying to do, other than maybe just make a political point. And I 
have to say, Mr. Speaker, that is probably so true with this motion to 
recommit.
  Now why do I say that? I say that because this motion to recommit 
implies that tribal members should be part of the discussion. Well, of 
course they should. But apparently my friend from Arizona did not read 
the bill because section 3 in the bill says very specifically that 
consultation should be made with locals, including tribes.
  And to add insult to injury, Mr. Speaker, the last amendment that was 
offered, offered by my friend from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), would take 
out the section that says tribal respect ought to be in the underlying 
bill, and the gentlewoman from Arizona voted for it. Now she comes down 
to the floor and says we ought to insert into the bill something for 
tribal authorities that we already had in the bill.
  I have no idea, Mr. Speaker, where these motions to recommit are 
going, but I will say this. This bill deals with transparency in the 
Federal Government to the citizens of the United States. That ought to 
be number one on our minds, and that is what this bill does.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against the motion to recommit and for 
the underlying bill.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is 
ordered on the motion to recommit.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 and clause 9 of rule 
XX, this 5-minute vote on the motion to recommit will be followed by 5-
minute

[[Page 13423]]

votes on the passage of the bill, if ordered; the motion to suspend the 
rules and pass H.R. 4809; and agreeing to the Speaker's approval of the 
Journal, if ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 197, 
noes 225, not voting 10, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 462]

                               AYES--197

     Barber
     Barrow (GA)
     Bass
     Beatty
     Becerra
     Bera (CA)
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Bonamici
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brownley (CA)
     Bustos
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardenas
     Carney
     Carson (IN)
     Cartwright
     Castor (FL)
     Castro (TX)
     Chu
     Cicilline
     Clark (MA)
     Clarke (NY)
     Clyburn
     Cohen
     Connolly
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costa
     Courtney
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis, Danny
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delaney
     DeLauro
     DelBene
     Deutch
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Duckworth
     Edwards
     Ellison
     Engel
     Enyart
     Eshoo
     Esty
     Farr
     Fattah
     Foster
     Frankel (FL)
     Fudge
     Gabbard
     Gallego
     Garamendi
     Garcia
     Grayson
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hahn
     Hastings (FL)
     Heck (WA)
     Higgins
     Himes
     Hinojosa
     Holt
     Honda
     Horsford
     Hoyer
     Huffman
     Israel
     Jackson Lee
     Jeffries
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones
     Kaptur
     Keating
     Kelly (IL)
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilmer
     Kind
     Kirkpatrick
     Kuster
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee (CA)
     Levin
     Lewis
     Lipinski
     Loebsack
     Lofgren
     Lowenthal
     Lowey
     Lujan Grisham (NM)
     Lujan, Ben Ray (NM)
     Lynch
     Maffei
     Maloney, Carolyn
     Maloney, Sean
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McNerney
     Meeks
     Meng
     Michaud
     Miller, George
     Moore
     Moran
     Murphy (FL)
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Negrete McLeod
     Nolan
     O'Rourke
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor (AZ)
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Perlmutter
     Peters (CA)
     Peters (MI)
     Peterson
     Pingree (ME)
     Pocan
     Polis
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Richmond
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruiz
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schneider
     Schrader
     Schwartz
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sewell (AL)
     Shea-Porter
     Sherman
     Sinema
     Sires
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Speier
     Swalwell (CA)
     Takano
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Titus
     Tonko
     Tsongas
     Van Hollen
     Vargas
     Veasey
     Vela
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walz
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Waxman
     Welch
     Wilson (FL)
     Yarmuth

                               NOES--225

     Aderholt
     Amash
     Amodei
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Barletta
     Barr
     Barton
     Benishek
     Bentivolio
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Black
     Blackburn
     Boustany
     Bridenstine
     Brooks (AL)
     Brooks (IN)
     Broun (GA)
     Buchanan
     Bucshon
     Burgess
     Byrne
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carter
     Chabot
     Chaffetz
     Clawson (FL)
     Coble
     Coffman
     Cole
     Collins (GA)
     Collins (NY)
     Conaway
     Cook
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crawford
     Crenshaw
     Culberson
     Daines
     Davis, Rodney
     Denham
     Dent
     DeSantis
     Diaz-Balart
     Duffy
     Duncan (SC)
     Duncan (TN)
     Ellmers
     Farenthold
     Fincher
     Fitzpatrick
     Fleischmann
     Fleming
     Flores
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gardner
     Garrett
     Gerlach
     Gibbs
     Gibson
     Gingrey (GA)
     Gohmert
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Granger
     Graves (GA)
     Griffin (AR)
     Griffith (VA)
     Grimm
     Guthrie
     Hall
     Hanna
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hastings (WA)
     Heck (NV)
     Hensarling
     Herrera Beutler
     Holding
     Hudson
     Huelskamp
     Huizenga (MI)
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurt
     Issa
     Jenkins
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jolly
     Jordan
     Joyce
     Kelly (PA)
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kinzinger (IL)
     Kline
     Labrador
     LaMalfa
     Lamborn
     Lance
     Lankford
     Latham
     Latta
     LoBiondo
     Long
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     Lummis
     Marchant
     Marino
     Massie
     McAllister
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McHenry
     McKeon
     McKinley
     McMorris Rodgers
     Meadows
     Meehan
     Messer
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Mullin
     Mulvaney
     Murphy (PA)
     Neugebauer
     Noem
     Nugent
     Nunes
     Olson
     Palazzo
     Paulsen
     Pearce
     Perry
     Petri
     Pittenger
     Pitts
     Poe (TX)
     Posey
     Price (GA)
     Reed
     Reichert
     Renacci
     Ribble
     Rice (SC)
     Rigell
     Roby
     Roe (TN)
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Rokita
     Rooney
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Ross
     Rothfus
     Royce
     Runyan
     Ryan (WI)
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Scalise
     Schock
     Schweikert
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (MO)
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Southerland
     Stewart
     Stivers
     Stockman
     Stutzman
     Terry
     Thompson (PA)
     Thornberry
     Tiberi
     Tipton
     Turner
     Upton
     Valadao
     Wagner
     Walberg
     Walden
     Walorski
     Weber (TX)
     Webster (FL)
     Wenstrup
     Westmoreland
     Whitfield
     Williams
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Wolf
     Womack
     Woodall
     Yoder
     Yoho
     Young (AK)
     Young (IN)

                             NOT VOTING--10

     Brady (TX)
     Cassidy
     Clay
     Cleaver
     DesJarlais
     Graves (MO)
     Hanabusa
     Nunnelee
     Pompeo
     Rogers (KY)


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (during the vote). There are 2 minutes 
remaining.

                              {time}  1734

  So the motion to recommit was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the bill.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. This is a 5-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 233, 
noes 190, not voting 9, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 463]

                               AYES--233

     Aderholt
     Amash
     Amodei
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Barletta
     Barr
     Barrow (GA)
     Barton
     Benishek
     Bentivolio
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (UT)
     Black
     Blackburn
     Boustany
     Bridenstine
     Brooks (AL)
     Brooks (IN)
     Broun (GA)
     Bucshon
     Burgess
     Byrne
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carter
     Chabot
     Chaffetz
     Clawson (FL)
     Coble
     Coffman
     Cole
     Collins (GA)
     Collins (NY)
     Conaway
     Cook
     Costa
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crawford
     Crenshaw
     Cuellar
     Culberson
     Daines
     Davis, Rodney
     Denham
     Dent
     DeSantis
     Diaz-Balart
     Duffy
     Duncan (SC)
     Duncan (TN)
     Ellmers
     Enyart
     Farenthold
     Fincher
     Fleischmann
     Fleming
     Flores
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Garamendi
     Gardner
     Garrett
     Gerlach
     Gibbs
     Gingrey (GA)
     Gohmert
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Granger
     Graves (GA)
     Green, Gene
     Griffin (AR)
     Griffith (VA)
     Guthrie
     Hall
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hastings (WA)
     Heck (NV)
     Hensarling
     Herrera Beutler
     Holding
     Horsford
     Hudson
     Huelskamp
     Huizenga (MI)
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurt
     Issa
     Jenkins
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jolly
     Jones
     Jordan
     Joyce
     Kelly (PA)
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kinzinger (IL)
     Kline
     Labrador
     LaMalfa
     Lamborn
     Lankford
     Latham
     Latta
     Long
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     Lummis
     Marchant
     Marino
     Massie
     Matheson
     McAllister
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McHenry
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McKinley
     McMorris Rodgers
     Meadows
     Meehan
     Messer
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Mullin
     Mulvaney
     Murphy (PA)
     Neugebauer
     Noem
     Nugent
     Nunes
     Olson
     Palazzo
     Paulsen
     Pearce
     Perry
     Peters (MI)
     Peterson
     Petri
     Pittenger
     Pitts
     Poe (TX)
     Posey
     Price (GA)
     Reed
     Reichert
     Renacci
     Ribble
     Rice (SC)
     Rigell
     Roby
     Roe (TN)
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Rokita
     Rooney
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Ross
     Rothfus
     Royce
     Runyan
     Ryan (WI)
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Scalise
     Schock
     Schrader
     Schweikert
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (MO)
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (TX)
     Southerland
     Stewart
     Stivers
     Stockman
     Stutzman
     Terry
     Thompson (PA)
     Thornberry
     Tiberi
     Tipton
     Turner
     Upton
     Valadao
     Vela
     Wagner
     Walberg
     Walden
     Walorski
     Weber (TX)
     Webster (FL)
     Wenstrup
     Westmoreland
     Whitfield
     Williams
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Wolf
     Womack
     Woodall
     Yoder
     Yoho
     Young (AK)
     Young (IN)

                               NOES--190

     Barber
     Bass
     Beatty
     Becerra
     Bera (CA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Bonamici
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brownley (CA)
     Buchanan
     Bustos
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardenas

[[Page 13424]]


     Carney
     Carson (IN)
     Cartwright
     Castor (FL)
     Castro (TX)
     Chu
     Cicilline
     Clark (MA)
     Clarke (NY)
     Clyburn
     Cohen
     Connolly
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Courtney
     Crowley
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis, Danny
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delaney
     DeLauro
     DelBene
     Deutch
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Duckworth
     Edwards
     Ellison
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Esty
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fitzpatrick
     Foster
     Frankel (FL)
     Fudge
     Gabbard
     Gallego
     Garcia
     Gibson
     Grayson
     Green, Al
     Grijalva
     Grimm
     Gutierrez
     Hahn
     Hanna
     Hastings (FL)
     Heck (WA)
     Higgins
     Himes
     Hinojosa
     Holt
     Honda
     Hoyer
     Huffman
     Israel
     Jackson Lee
     Jeffries
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kaptur
     Keating
     Kelly (IL)
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilmer
     Kind
     Kirkpatrick
     Kuster
     Lance
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee (CA)
     Levin
     Lewis
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Loebsack
     Lofgren
     Lowenthal
     Lowey
     Lujan Grisham (NM)
     Lujan, Ben Ray (NM)
     Lynch
     Maffei
     Maloney, Carolyn
     Maloney, Sean
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McNerney
     Meeks
     Meng
     Michaud
     Miller, George
     Moore
     Moran
     Murphy (FL)
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Negrete McLeod
     Nolan
     O'Rourke
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor (AZ)
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Perlmutter
     Peters (CA)
     Pingree (ME)
     Pocan
     Polis
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Richmond
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruiz
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schneider
     Schwartz
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sewell (AL)
     Shea-Porter
     Sherman
     Sinema
     Sires
     Slaughter
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (WA)
     Speier
     Swalwell (CA)
     Takano
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Titus
     Tonko
     Tsongas
     Van Hollen
     Vargas
     Veasey
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walz
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Waxman
     Welch
     Wilson (FL)
     Yarmuth

                             NOT VOTING--9

     Brady (TX)
     Cassidy
     Clay
     Cleaver
     DesJarlais
     Graves (MO)
     Hanabusa
     Nunnelee
     Pompeo


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (during the vote). There are 2 minutes 
remaining.

                              {time}  1741

  So the bill was passed.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
  Stated against:
  Mr. HORSFORD. Mr. Speaker, during rollcall vote No. 463 on H.R. 4315, 
I mistakenly recorded my vote as ``yes'' when I should have voted 
``no.''

                          ____________________