To direct the Chief of the Army Corps of Engineers to revise the Missouri River Mainstem Reservoir System Master Water Control Manual to ensure greater storage capacity to prevent serious downstream flooding.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 688 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlelady from New York (Ms. Slaughter), with also a congratulations and a welcome back to the gentlelady from New York, who has been incapacitated for a while. It is nice to see her back on the floor with her health starting to recover.

Pending that, I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

I also ask, Madam Speaker, that all Members may have 5 legislative days during which they may revise and extend their remarks.

This particular resolution provides for a structured rule for the consideration of H.R. 2578, the Conservation and Economic Growth Act, which contains 14 titles containing important legislation impacting our Nation's public lands and our national parks.

The rule provides for 90 minutes of general debate, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources and makes in order the vast majority of amendments which were filed at the Rules Committee. So this structured rule is extremely fair and will provide for a balanced and open debate on the merits of this particular bill.

It was only a couple of Congresses ago, Madam Speaker, in which the Senate sent over an omnibus bill. It had over 100 particular bills added to it. I should have been happy. Three of them were mine. And even though mine were really great bills, some of the rest of them were really bad. That was 1,200 pages. But what was most egregious about that bill that was sent from the Senate is that 75 of those 100 bills had not had any hearing whatsoever in the House. One in particular that dealt with my State, although not my district, not only had not had a hearing in the House, it hadn't even had a hearing in the Senate when it was put into this pile, and it was brought to the floor under a closed rule.

This bill, every single title has gone through regular order. The committee of jurisdiction has had a hearing on each of these elements. They have had a debate in full committee on each of these sections, and they have had a markup on every one of these bills. The committee has heard and has done the work. The amendments that were germane to the issue and were not assigned to other committees were made in order to be heard on the floor.

So once again, this is a bill that is unique in the spectrum of traditional omnibus bills, tying things together, because it did go through regular order, the committee did hear each of these provisions, and it is appropriate to now send it over to the Senate so they can try to consider something at some time in some form of regular order.

With that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Within this bill, there are, as I said, several proposals that are there, all of them dealing with Federal lands and all of them dealing with overreach that has taken place, unfortunately, by this administration. Let me just highlight a couple of them and why these bills are useful and very much important.

Title X of this particular section deals with Cape Hatteras in North Carolina. Cape Hatteras in North Carolina was established as a recreation area. In fact, the economy of that particular county, Dare County, was established as a recreation zone and a recreation area. Authorized in 1937, that's still 30,000 acres for recreation purposes.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service started in negotiations with the community of how they would actually try to manage that land, especially governing off-road vehicles. They established certain restrictions that would limit visitation.

And for local residents who were there, the residents agreed to those, even though they weren't really quite happy about it. And everything was going well until special interest groups started the litigation process.

You see, the Fish and Wildlife Service had issued a biological opinion finding that this interim management strategy that was established in the cooperative, collaborative process had indeed solved the problem and that there would never be any kind of jeopardy to any endangered species listed in that particular area. Everything was going well until, once again, there was a lawsuit.

A year after this agreement had been made, there was a lawsuit which this administration, unfortunately, decided to negotiate out of court. The lawsuit was never actually adjudicated. No judge made a decision. Basically, the administration caved to the special interest groups; and they rewrote the opinion that had been ruled by the Fish and Wildlife Service, their biological opinion that it did not jeopardize any endangered species.

So that went into effect. And, unfortunately, in March of this year, they even shrank the rule again to make it even more restrictive than the consent decree that had been settled out of court.

What this bill, this section of this particular bill, does in Cape Hatteras is do what's logical. It goes back to the original concern, the original land management plan that was done with the cooperation of the Fish and Wildlife Service and the local constituents that had been agreed upon, that had nothing to do with endangered species and did not jeopardize anything, simply going back to what had been done before the administration decided simply to cave in to special interest groups and settled out of court.

There's another section, I believe it's section 11, that deals with grazing rights. One of the things that businesses deal with, especially those that deal with grazing rights, is they need a constant to make sure that business is not uncertain. That is a most significant part.

One of the things we're finding out right now, though, is with grazing, especially in the West, excessive paperwork within the Department means we create missed deadlines that cause environmental litigation. And once again, stability is a constant that is necessary in business, and grazing is a business. It's one of those problems that to redo a permit to allow grazing will take 4 to 7 years for a permit that's only 10 years in the first place.

What this bill does is say those permits now go from 10 to 20 years, once again, to give some consistency to those who are engaged in grazing activities. It also codifies appropriation language that has had bipartisan support for over a decade and makes sure that NEPA review in crossing and trailing of livestock on public lands is not going to be subjected to another layer of red tape.

This industry puts $1.4 billion into our economy every year. And if, indeed, we do not treat our ranchers well, the 22,000 ranchers who have these Federal permits, the ability of maintaining this as a viable occupation is put in jeopardy. This amendment, this section fixes that. It solves that problem.

There are some other good ones. In fact, the one that I am proposing I will talk about in a minute. But for now, let me simply reserve the balance of my time.

Once again, I appreciate the opportunity of talking about a couple of other elements in this bill. I appreciate the gentleman from Texas and his comments.

Unfortunately, yes, the study was taken out because it would be a replication of what has already been done; and the land that could be used to expand this is already in the public domain. And what we are simply saying with this particular bill is, no, we don't need to try and force private property owners to sell their lands. If they want to donate it, that's fine. It's not essential to the expansion of this particular park. I think it's the appropriate thing to do.

Let me, though, Madam Speaker, if I could, talk about the other provision,

title XIV in there, which deals with our border security. It's one of those things that I happen to think fairly significant.

If I could start with just a few charts so that people understand what is going on. This chart is simply the division of this country by Border Patrol sections. You'll find out that certain sections have a lot more people coming into this country illegally than other sections.

For 2009 and 2010--those are the last 2 years for which we have full data--there were about a half million people that were illegally apprehended, just apprehended coming into this country. But of those half million, a quarter million, 51 percent or more, were coming through one sector which happens to be the Tucson, Arizona sector. That's not even the entire State of Arizona.

So the question has to be asked, why are 200,000-plus people being apprehended in Arizona when in Maine it looks like about 39 people were apprehended? Why is this area the entrance of choice?

I think it's undeniably that one of the reasons is simply because of the territory on that southern border. Everything in red on this border is land that is owned by the Federal Government. You'll see that 80 percent of Arizona is Federal land, much of that being wilderness and endangered species habitat or conservation rights-of-way.

One of the ironies is our Border Patrol, which is tasked with securing our border, has almost unlimited rights to do what they need to do to protect our border on private property and no one objects to it, which is why the statement of the gentlelady from New York is somewhat disingenuous, because most of her district is, indeed, private property. Border Patrol already has these kinds of options.

It is only on Federal property that the Federal Border Patrol is prohibited from doing its Federal job, and that seems bizarre and, indeed, unusual.

See, this is what the border actually looks like. That's the fence, and that's the one road that the Border Patrol is allowed to use if this happens to be a Federal wilderness designation. The break in the fence, by the way, happens to be there so that animals can go freely from Mexico into the United States and back and forth. I think I could contend that not only animals are using that kind of break in the fence.

Needless to say, the issue at hand simply is: Why is the Border Patrol prohibited from going into certain Federal areas when they need to do it even though the bad guys--the drug cartels, the human traffickers, the kidnapping rings, the prostitution rings--are allowed to go in there?

We have in these Federal wilderness areas 8,000 miles of illegal roads, created by illegal drug traffickers, going into this area, and the Border Patrol by our rules and regulations and laws is prohibited from going into that same area. Is it right that they, in hot pursuit, should have to go to the edge of one of those wilderness areas and then have to wait? Indeed, that is what has happened.

Secretary Napolitano, when she was first put in there, simply said:

One of the issues is, at the Southwest border, it can be

detrimental to the effective accomplishment of our mission.

In fact, it may be inadvisable for officers' safety to wait

for the arrival of horses for pursuit purposes or to attempt

to apprehend smuggling vehicles within wilderness with less

than capable forms of transportation.

The Border Patrol clearly recognizes this. They actually tell us they don't need more money, that they don't need more manpower. What they need is access into that area, which currently they are denied. Let me show you how that works.

This is simply one of the sensors that's used. Instead of having an actual fence, you use the sensor. It's a truck with a sensor on the back of it. In this Federal national monument, which is almost all wilderness designation, the Border Patrol wanted to move this truck from point A to point B. It took the land manager 3 months to grant approval to back up the truck and move it to some other place. During that 3 months, there was a 7-mile blackout area in which there was no surveillance possible. At the end of that 7 months, if the land manager had said, ``No, that area is too sensitive. I don't think you should go there,'' I would have objected, but I would have understood. Unfortunately, after 3 months of review, he let them move the truck, and it was too late to do it then.

That kind of example of what is happening on our border is replicated time and time again. Let me give you some examples.

In 2007, the Border Patrol asked permission to improve two forest roads in the Coronado National Forest, a total of 4 or 5 miles on the border at the edge of this area. They wanted to be able to move their mobile surveillance systems to higher ground to actually get control of the particular area. They would use the road at most once a day, but the Fish and Wildlife Service delayed the decision because they were afraid some of the dirt may eventually get into one of the streams in the particular area. The net result is, in 2011, permission still not being granted in this particular area, a catastrophic wildfire burned 68,000 acres. Three illegal aliens were arrested, and one admitted actually starting the blaze.

In 2010, the Border Patrol requested three helicopter landing sites in the Miller Peak Wilderness. The Forest Service liked the idea because they could use those sites also for fire suppression. Once again, the Fish and Wildlife Service, a competing agency, had concerns because it would have an impact on the Mexican Spotted Owl. Unfortunately, when they did a survey, they found that there were no spotted owls in the area. Nonetheless, the Fish and Wildlife Service stopped the construction of those helicopter pads. Then in 2011--you guessed it--1 year later, a 32,000-acre fire, which destroyed dozens of homes, took place. Once again, it was found that illegals coming into this country started those fires.

The citizens of Tombstone, Arizona, are allowed to go five at a time with hand tools into these wilderness areas in order to repair the pipeline, which supplies water to the city, that was damaged in these fires. Once again, the Fish and Wildlife Service said the Mexican Spotted Owl was the reason for those limitations.

GAO did a survey, a report: 17 of the 26 Border Patrol stations experienced delays, and 14 of those 17 reported being unable to obtain permits or permission from land managers to use it. Stations that were found in California, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico confirmed that they were unable to control the border due to land management positions. Even on the northern border, in the Spokane sector, they found, once again, they were being blocked from existing roads on national forest land due to environmental concerns.

The GAO report found that it could take 6 months or more for permission to improve roads needed for patrolling in New Mexico. Another Border Patrol station reported 8 months in delay for the permission to move a sensor as the land manager required an historic property assessment. A station in California reported that it took 9 months for permission to do road maintenance on Federal land.

These are the factors that are inhibiting our Border Patrol from doing their job.

Now, in the GAO report--and some people look at the executive summary, and they are looking at it improperly--it said that 22 of the 26 agents in charge reported that the overall security status had not been affected. What that meant was their status of being a controlled sector, a managed sector, or a monitored sector had not been changed; but what they did say is they were being inhibited and impeded in doing their job to try and control our particular borders.

Look, those who are coming in--the drug cartels, the human traffickers--they don't care about our laws. This is an endangered species. This cactus was cut down, but it was cut down by the drug cartel to do a roadblock across a public road in the United States so they could use it to stop cars and then mug the participants of those cars, and this is whether in those cars were Americans or other foreign nationals coming in there.

What is probably worst of all are the rape trees that are taking place--violence against women who are coming

down on American land in these areas. That simply means, as the coyotes lead these women across the border, at the end of that road, as the final payment, they will rape the women and then leave an article of clothing on one of the trees as a trophy for their actions.

This heinous activity taking place on American land is not being prohibited now and will not be prohibited unless the Border Patrol is allowed to maintain access on this property. That's why this bill, this section, is so essential. It is the war on women.

We had 19 people in the month of May of this year who died in the Tucson sector alone. Unfortunately, that is an increase from what happened a year ago in May. We need to end this problem. There are three reasons why this section is important:

One, sovereign countries control their borders. We need to be able to say we control our borders.

Two, I want to see a comprehensive immigration package go forward, but every time I hold a public town hall meeting, I know the first question that will be asked of me, which is: When will we control the border? There is a great deal of anger and anxiety out there, and it is very clear that we will never get consensus for other immigration reforms to take place until we have first reduced the anger and anxiety.

C.S. Lewis said, You do first things first, and second things will be added to it. If you do second things first, you will accomplish neither first nor second things.

This administration seems to be intent on trying to do, for whatever political purpose it may have, second things first. The first thing is to control the border. When we can truly look with an honest answer in the eye of our fellow citizens and say, ``America's borders are secure,'' then there will be a reduction in the anger and the anxiety that will allow us to move forward.

Three, we have to stop the violence against women. These rapes that take place on rape trees on American property--on Federal land on American property--because the Border Patrol does not have access to this area to patrol it effectively must stop. It's our duty and obligation to make that stop.

With that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Once again, Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from California's comments, although I'm going to have to push back slightly on a few of those, if it's at all possible.

This particular bill deals with 100 miles from the border simply because that is the legal definition of border land by both statute and judicial decree. It does not deal with coastal areas. In the committee, those areas were taken out because it is maritime area. The Border Patrol deals only with land borders and those particular areas.

The 36 rules that are waivable is precedent established by this Congress. In California, where the gentleman resides, when they wanted to finish the fence and it was being withheld by certain kinds of litigation, Homeland Security came up with 36 specific rules and regulations they wanted to be able to waive so they could do it. That was the precedent. The rules and regulations that are in this particular bill that's now title 15 are the exact same 36. That's where the precedent comes. That's why Homeland Security wanted that time to finish their job. That's what they needed this time.

However, I'm also making an amendment to this bill that will reduce those 36 because, to be honest, some of those never really were a problem. It will reduce it now to the 12 that the Border Patrol thinks are the most egregious. But there is precedent for that particular thing. All we are doing is trying to give the Border Patrol the same rights on Federal lands that they currently have on private property. There is no expansion of power and no expansion of jurisdiction. It's the ability to say our number one goal is to have border security; and if there is a rule or regulation getting in the way--and there are according to the GAO reports--those should be waived for the purpose of border security. That's the whole purpose. We're not expanding a power. We're not taking anything more than that in particular away.

With that, Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King), who would like to speak about this particular rule.

I appreciate the efforts of my namesake from New York. I appreciate what he is doing. Chairman Hastings of the Resources Committee was extremely specific in which he said that after the Democrat Senate had sent over that atrocious omnibus bill with over 100 bills cobbled together, 75 of which have never had a hearing over here, we would only put together this type of regulation if it had gone through regular order. Unfortunately, the gentleman's bill has not had a hearing in any committee. It has not actually been reported yet, which is one of the reasons why it has not been included in this particular list. Although I'm not denigrating his efforts whatsoever.

I would like to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Bilbray).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

I appreciate many of the comments that have been made here. I'm glad the gentleman from Colorado is still here, because in the memo of understanding which controls what the Border Patrol does, Border Patrol is able to go anywhere they want to on foot or horseback. They may go on a motorized vehicle on existing public administrative roads. But there is nothing in the memo of understanding that extends there to prevent them unless it is an existing exigent emergency. And the problem the Border Patrol actually has is no one really knows how to define exigent emergencies. That's one of the reasons why they want to have something specific in the memo of understanding--nor the statute does not help them in those particular areas--because, indeed, land managers have handled those exigent circumstances differently.

I would like to say one other thing as well, because there are some places in this Nation in which the idea of title XIV in this bill, which is the bill that deals with border security, has been expanded with information that is simply inaccurate. Montana, for example, has a 545-mile border with Canada. It has different issues than the southern border--but it's not numbers--but it is remote, and who can cross that border illegally is significant.

The junior Senator from Montana actually asked the GAO to come up with a study on border security in the North, and the report was only 1 percent of the northern border is secure. That was his study that he wanted. Despite the fact that the Missoulian has warned about al-Qaeda plots in Montana, that the Border Patrol chief from Montana has begged some kind of action--indeed, this month the Border Patrol has sent out a warning of the use of terrorists who are talking about--chatter abusing wildfires as an area to distract so they can come in entrance, and one of the States they specifically mentioned was Montana.

Even though that is taking place, there is a campaign going on where this particular issue, border security, has been hijacked in the name of politics. And only because it is my idea that's being the center of this, I find that somewhat unusual, somewhat offensive. It is an effort to say that this effort to try to control our borders is related in some way to the PATRIOT Act or the REAL ID Act or, indeed, that it deals with some other element of expansion of power. Some people have gone as far as saying it is a land grab.

It is unusual to me that this concept of border security was presented in the Senate on an appropriations bill and was passed by a voice vote. Then the bill in which this amendment was placed was then passed by the Senate, and the junior Senator from Montana did not object to the voice vote and actually voted for it and now claims that this same idea is an expansion of government power, thus, something not work.

I yield myself 1 additional minute.

What I also found somewhat distressing is that in this campaign in Montana there is another group called Montana Hunters and Anglers, who, unfortunately, are simply a partisan hit group that are taking out ads directly against this particular provision and saying that other members in the delegation from Montana are supporting something that is wrong. Unfortunately, the members of that hit group have ties to Democrat organizations. The secretary is part of the Obama Committee in the State of Montana. The treasurer is a former Democratic staffer up there.

This group, the Montana Hunters and Anglers, are a faux group. The real supporters of this bill are people like the Montana Wool Growers Association, the Montana Association of State Grazing Districts, the Montana Public Lands Council, Montana Stock Growers Association. These are real groups, and they all support this particular provision and this particular bill because they realize the value of border security that takes place. They also realize what Secretary Napolitano recognized: that if you improve border security in the area by removing violators from public lands--those are the people that destroy things-- the land value is enhanced. It is better for Border Patrol if they have enhanced ability to control those particular borders.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I reserve the balance of my time to close.

In my last minute, Madam Speaker, there are a couple of things I would like to say. First of all, I appreciate the words that were read. Unfortunately, reality is different. One of the reasons why this particular provision is supported by the Border Patrol Union as well as the Association of Retired Border Patrol Agents, reality is sometimes different than what we think it should be. And I also have a list of three pages worth of groups who support not only this provision but the other 13 provisions.

I must in closing, though, bid the apology of the gentlelady of New York for one thing. One of the former Parliamentarians wrote a book and said when we put C SPAN cameras in here, everyone started to read their speeches, and our debates became extremely dull. That's true. But when you read something, you don't make a misstatement. I did. I did a couple. My amendment does not reduce it from 36 down to 12; it reduces it from 36 to 16. I also used the ``disingenuine'' in talking about the gentlelady's remarks. That was the wrong word. That was, indeed, the word I said, but it is not what I meant to say, and I apologize for saying that. That goes over the line of comity and I'm sorry, and I just want you to know that I apologize for ``oopsing.'' That should only be done by Governors, not by Members of Congress.

Madam Speaker, in conclusion, each of these bills in here has been heard by the committee of jurisdiction. It's had a hearing. It's had a markup. The difference between this and other bills that we have seen in the past is that everything had to go through regular order first. Nothing was included in this rule that had not gone through regular order through this particular committee.

It's a good bill. It's a good rule. It's a fair rule, and I urge its adoption.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, it's my honor to be recognized to address you here on the floor. And before I go into my presentation, I want to go into the subject matter the gentleman from Texas has led this previous Special Order on, just as a means of discussing a way to look at victims' rights.

For me, I was caused to reexamine the situation as a victim. I had had some heavy equipment that was destroyed by vandals back in the year 1987, a year that shall live in infamy. It was in the middle of the farm crisis years. A lot of that damage was uninsured, but we did catch the perpetrators. A long, long story; it was hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage. I followed through on everything, seeing myself as a victim who had an obligation to assist the prosecution as a citizen and a victim would and should. And I remember sitting in the courtroom in Sac City, Iowa, when they brought up the trial of one of the perpetrators. The bailiff announced to the court: This is the case of the State v. Jason Martin Powell. And I sat there thinking, how is it the State versus the perpetrator? I'm not in this equation. I'm not even the versus; I'm just here as a spectator. And so I began to examine what that really means. What it means is that the State and the law enforcement component, in this case the State, is the intervenor. If you have a grievance with someone, and I certainly had a grievance with the people that destroyed my equipment and nearly destroyed my business, before the law and order days, that would be settled in some other fashion, likely in some violent fashion. And if you go back a couple thousand years or 3,000 years before the law was established, like Mosaic law, or Roman or Greek law--but as law was established, it was to eliminate the vigilante component of this, and the State stepped in and intervened.

Another way of looking at it would be when everything was owned by the State. The subjects in, let's say, old Western Europe, old England, the subjects were the property of the king. The State supplanted the king. The subjects and everything they owned were the property and the ownership of the king in England, so when you see old English common law and you see how it transfers into the United States, and it becomes the State v. Jason Martin Powell, the perpetrator, convicted perpetrator, I will say, and I can say his name in the record here now, that transfer was, if you committed a crime, you shot one of the king's deer, if you murdered or assaulted one of the king's subjects, you were committing a crime against the king. So in our society when you commit a crime, you are committing a crime against the State.

I'm taking us all to this point, Mr. Speaker, because once the State is satisfied that they have established justice, the victim doesn't really have anything more to say about it. The victim is not in that equation. My position needs to be developed more than it is, but my point is if the State is going to intervene, then the State has to enforce the law, then the State has to protect the citizens adequately. And when they fail, then what's the obligation of the State? They are not ensuring us to be protected from violent crime. They're simply doing the best they can without a consequence for the State. All the way around that circle is this.

Back in those years, I remember a study that was done, and that study will come to me in a moment. It was a 1995 study. In that study, they put a value on each crime. And I remember that a rape victim--they valued murder at around a million dollars; rape at about $82,000. Now, I can't imagine who would submit to rape for $82,000 dollars, but that was the quantity.

Then they also put in that study that a criminal who was loose on the street--an average criminal loose on the street--would commit $444,000 worth of crime in a year. Well, it costs about $20,000 a year to lock them up. They do $444,000 worth of damage to the society in a year. But that damage is not compensated. That comes out of crime victims in great, huge, whopping chunks of their lives, their security, and their property.

So I would just suggest that if the State were liable for all of the damage that's caused by perpetrators, we would have a more effective criminal justice system. I'm not advocating that we bring that forward in this Congress, but I just discuss that way of looking at this, how we got to the point where the State is the intervenor. Because the State is the successor to the Crown in old English common law, and a crime committed under the Crown was a crime committed against the King, because he owned everything, and it damaged his ability--even if it was the serf--to produce.

So we are now the successor philosophy, but we've forgotten this part, that victims are paying the price. The State is not paying the price. It's no longer a crime against the State, even though the State is the intervenor.

I would yield to the gentleman from Texas and thank him for presenting this. It just sparked that memory, and I wanted to put that into the Record and let you know how I think about crime victims.

Reclaiming my time, and I thank the gentleman from Texas for making those points.

We the people have vested our authority in our government, and that's how that transfer takes place. But I remember clearly the bailiff saying, ``The State versus,'' and that rang my bell; and I looked back through history to understand the root of that.

I would point out also that the $82,000 for a rape victim, I believe, was quantified in this way--loss of work, medical treatment, psychological treatment; that kind of impact that was just simply the economic impact on her life, not the emotional impact and the trauma. But even still, to quantify that--and the Department of Justice has quantified crime also with different values. And I don't recall them well enough from that chart, but I know there's a 1992 Department of Justice study that laid some values out.

I think it would be a plus for us, even though pain and suffering and the loss of life is immeasurable in a dollar form, if we could quantify it in a way we begin to understand what crime does to society. That would be helpful if we could move down that path. It's been a long time since there's been a real broad study done in this country that laid out the complete loss of all of the crimes in the United States that are committed. I would think it's in the billions of dollars. We accept it because it's a victim here and a victim there. It's not like they're all coming together in one large group. It's scattered out across our society. And the higher the level of crime in your community, the higher your tolerance has been because of the continual incidence of that violence.

I appreciate the sentiment from the gentleman from Texas, and I wanted to add some words to the sentiment that you brought to the floor here tonight in this Congress.

Reclaiming my time, again, I thank the gentleman from Texas.

I came here to talk about a couple of other subject matters, Mr. Speaker. The one that's on the front of my mind that I want to make sure I address is the Missouri River flooding that has taken place all down the Missouri River drainage area all summer long. I think for the rest of the country it hasn't been brought to their attention how bad and how devastating this flood is.

You can pick your river in the world and you will know that every river has flooded in history. That's what they do. That's why we have river bottoms. They're flattened out because of the floods. Whether it's the Mississippi River flood or the Missouri River flood or any of the floods that we've had up and down--the New Jersey floods, for example, and the other floods in the northeast part of the United States--they have been devastating; and we have watched on television as we've seen people scramble to get above the waterline and to sandbag to protect the assets that they have.

We watched as the water flooded into New Orleans several years ago with Katrina and the human suffering that went on down there. Some of us went down and did what we could. Myself, I've made four trips down after Katrina to try to lend a hand down there. I've contributed in some way, and I say humbly, in a small way, Mr. Speaker.

But this summer, Midwesterners--people in Missouri and Kansas and Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana--have all suffered from the greatest runoff experienced in recorded history from the Missouri River. This greatest runoff is accumulated this way. It wasn't particularly dramatic in snowcap in the wintertime, not particularly dramatic by March 1 as they measure that snowcap, but several things contribute to the runoff. It's the snow up in the mountains all the way up into Montana; it's the rainfall that takes place there; and it's any dramatic rainfall events.

All of those things came together in the perfect storm fashion--late season, significantly higher snowcap up in the mountains, and then early spring rains that saturated and became a significant runoff. On top of that, a very heavy rainfall event around particularly the Billings, Montana, area where they got 10 to 12 inches of rain; 8 inches, I think, in Billings and 10 to 12 across a vast area, some of it up to 15 inches in some areas.

So the circumstances were that we had all the snow that needed to come down--a large, large amount of snow. We had a lot more rain than expected. The ground was saturated so it didn't soak in. That was running off from broad rains across that had taken place in April and in May. And then on May 22, the massive rainfall that fell in the Billings area and around that was unprecedented in its volume. All of that together created a runoff that if you think of it in these terms, that the largest experience that they had seen was actually 1997. Prior to that was 1881.

In 1881, there were 42 million acre-feet of runoff. That's water a foot deep over 42 million acres; all of that volume, if you just calculate that volume, running off into the Missouri River.

There are six dams that have been built in the upper Missouri River, reservoirs created by them. And these six dams start in Montana and string down through North Dakota and South Dakota. The furthest most downstream one is Gavins Point at Yankton, South Dakota, and that would be the last valve that controls the flow of the Missouri River from that point, just upstream from Sioux City, all the way down to St. Louis. That's the control valve at Gavins Point.

Forty-two million acre-feet of runoff in 1981, 49 million acre-feet of runoff in 1997, 61--or I guess they said last night 60.4 million acre-feet of runoff this year in 2011, roughly 20 percent more than we had ever experienced before. If you would exempt '97, it was a third more than we had experienced in 1881. These six dams were designed to protect us downstream from serious downstream flooding in the largest runoff event experienced. That was 1881.

He used the commonsense logic of the floods of 1881. The floods in 1943, the floods in 1952 accelerated the construction of the Pick Sloan program. By 1968, we had built the six dams. They were completely operational for the full season of 1968. They were built to protect us from serious downstream flooding, and they were designed to the design elevations necessary to protect us from the largest runoff ever.

And the Corps of Engineers has always held 16.3 million acre-feet of storage as the volume necessary to protect us from the largest runoff ever, 1881. That hasn't changed. Over five different versions of the master manual, the document that governs how they manage the river, hasn't changed at all; but neither had the largest experienced runoff in history, 1881.

Now, I have to quantify that. The 49 million acre-feet in '97 was for the

breadth of the year. You compress the 1881 into several months--I believe 4 months of runoff, but it was a shorter period of time. So the monthly volume of runoff was greater in 1981 than it was in 1997. And so the Corps of Engineers had managed this all these years. In 113 years, we had not seen the kind of runoff that we saw in 1881. But it was designed to protect us from the largest runoff ever.

This year, we have the largest runoff ever, and the discharge that previously, coming out of Gavins Point, that last valve to release into the river that goes all the way to St. Louis, the largest discharge was 70,000 cubic feet per second. This year, because of the large volume, the discharge became 160,000 cubic feet per second, substantially more than twice as much volume as we've ever seen before coming through Gavins Point. Designed for a large amount of that, it did hold together and the system held together very well upstream.

But here's their problem, Mr. Speaker, and that is that the Corps of Engineers has determined that this runoff this year is an anomaly, that it's a 500-year event. And so in a 500-year event, they wouldn't change their management of the river substantially because they argue that it's unlikely that it will ever happen again.

My response to that is, a year ago, standing here, no one knew we were going to get the runoff in 2011. The odds of this kind of flood happening that has happened to us in 2011 weren't any greater than they are for the same thing happening next year. And it's the equivalent of--the risks for 2012 are the same as they were for 2011 for a runoff of that magnitude for a number of reasons, but the simple one is this: if you flip a coin twice in a row and it comes up tails twice in a row, what are the odds it will come up tails three times in a row, the third time?

Now, that's just one of those classic examples of statistics. You might think that the odds get to be one in six or something like that; but, truthfully, the odds are 50/50 that that coin will come up tails the third time in a row. If you flip it on its tail six times in a row, what are the odds that it will be tails the seventh time? Fifty/fifty, because we don't know next year whether there's going to be any more or any less runoff than we've had this year. The odds are the same, except that because of the damage to our system, our levees, and our storm protection, because of all of that damage, we're not as prepared to deal with a runoff of that magnitude as we were coming into 2011.

So the risk is greater, even though the odds of it happening again next year are the same. And no one, no mortal that's looking at 113 years of records--and maybe a little more than that--can tell you what a 500-year flood event is. It's not within the capabilities of mortal man.

And the reasons are, because if you're going to calculate the odds of a 500-year event, you would have to look across several thousand years to try to find a pattern to see if you could make that prediction. How many times did this kind of runoff happen in the previous 2,000 years or the previous 3,000 years? I mean, 3,000 years would only be six different increments of 500-year events. Would it happen six times over 3,000 years? Who knows. We have no records to go by. So it's a judgment call made by somebody sitting in an office somewhere--probably in Omaha--that this is a 500-year event. Therefore, they're not going to change the way they manage the river. They got by, okay, for 113 years--not managing the river all that time, just since 1968. But this time we got burned really badly, Mr. Speaker.

And I want to make this point, that to visualize this, this thing that Members of Congress haven't seen--not very many of us--the public hasn't seen hardly at all, think of this, think in our mind's eye of what it looks like to go up near the northwest corner of Iowa, South Dakota border--Sioux City, Iowa--and look at a Missouri River bottom that was flooded with water all summer long from around the first week in June until the first week in September.

That's a mile and a half wide where normally it's a few hundred feet wide. And go downstream a few more miles and the river is 8 miles wide hill to hill. And go down stream a little further to Omaha, right where Interstate 680 goes across, and the water is 11 miles wide. And once it goes through Omaha, Council Bluffs and Glenwood, that's compressed it down within the levees that miraculously held or we would have had a similar-to-Katrina event in Council Bluffs where we had at least 30,000 people living below the water level in their homes. If there's a breach in that dike, they get flooded like they did in New Orleans.

But downstream from there, the river that was narrow enough to go through the cities widens out again four or five, six miles wide on down into Missouri--and Sam Graves can tell you the rest of that story. Now, that's water from hill to hill in many cases, and water that's not sitting there stagnant, Mr. Speaker. This is water that is flowing out in the channel, 11 to 12 miles an hour, and out against the hillside, oh, let's just say six miles away from the channel, or seven. That water is still flowing at four to five miles an hour, and 12, 14, 16 feet deep. Farm buildings, businesses flooded up to the eaves--they're built on the highest piece of ground in the bottom, by the way--this water flowing at four or five miles an hour, dropping sand, debris--not as badly as I thought, but debris--and sand now that's laid out over thousands of acres, some of it 6 feet deep, everywhere, drifts of sand, dunes of sand that are 10 or 12 feet deep.

The trees that are up and down the river that have stood in water for 3 months, most of them will be dead next year. Farms have been destroyed. Thousands and thousands of acres have been destroyed. That's the magnitude of this flood.

Now we have to put the pieces back together, and some people have lost a lot and they can't be made whole again. There are others that will find a way to put it back together. There is a lot of indecision with floods; that's the nature of floods. And we have trouble getting definitive answers to people. But if they're under water June, July, August, into September, if their building sites are surrounded by an ocean--and I have boated to these farm sites. I've flown over it a number of times, and they are sitting in the middle of an ocean where it might be five miles to dry land. And that's the happy family home where they've invested their future.

We can, at the minimum--even though we have some programs, we have some individual disaster assistance, there is some ag assistance, there is also some public assistance for the public utilities that are there, but there is not enough to put the pieces back together. The least we can do is manage the river system so that this doesn't happen again with the similar runoff that we have this year.

We built the Pick Sloan program, the six reservoirs to protect us from the largest runoff ever experienced. Now we have a larger runoff. I cannot comprehend how it isn't just simply an automatic to lower the water level marginally in the upper six reservoirs to have the storage capacity to protect us from this type of runoff.

And just to do the math on it, the bill that I've introduced requires the Corps of Engineers to manage the river to protect us from serious downstream runoff in the event of the largest runoff in history. All it really does in the end is it replaces 1881 with a 2011 flood year.

It is not particularly complicated. Yes, they have to lower some water levels; but if those water levels are lowered, the effect of that isn't nearly as dramatic as some of the people have described.

First there were some, I will say, some things that alarmed people when the Corps announced that they would have to lower the water levels 12 feet, and that was too much, and they couldn't manage the river. I looked into that. It was 12 feet on the upper three reservoirs, not on all six; and that was with 70,000 cubic feet per second at discharge at Gavins Point, that lowest valve that we have there just upstream from Sioux City.

After a series of questions, they did another analysis. They raised the flow of discharge up to 100,000 cubic feet per second, and just the adjustment of that in the upper three reservoirs changed the 12-foot lowering level elevation down to six.

We should be able to deal with six because, historically, since 1968, on average, Fort Peck has been 7.4 feet below

the target elevation. We just lower the target elevation 6 feet; it's still higher than the average of what Fort Peck was. That's also true of each of the dams in the top three, which are the only ones they wanted to adjust because they're the largest.

So that's the effect of the bill, but it also has the effect of protecting us from flooding, serious flooding downstream. And I'm asking my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to sign on to this bill, particularly those who represent the Missouri River bottom area, those of us who have been affected by the flood, those of us who represent Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri. And by the way, all the delegation in Iowa, Democrats and Republicans, have signed on and endorsed the bill. Most of Nebraska has. A lot of the Missourians that are affected have.

I'd ask the others, take a look. This isn't complicated. The red herrings that have been drug across the trail have been addressed and corrected. And the meeting last night in Omaha was, I will say, volatile and dynamic with people that have suffered all summer long. They want to be able to make plans on whether they should be investing in trying to put their farms back in shape. They can't do that, Mr. Speaker, unless we give them some assurance that we're going to manage the river to protect them from serious downstream flooding.

And while that's going on, we just set that highest priority up. Congress has the authority, in fact, we have the obligation to set the standards for the Corps of Engineers. If we fail to do that, they are, then, whip-sawed by all of the litigation that comes of all the special interests. Those special interests can be taken care of below the level that I'm suggesting, and they can have those same levels of priorities that they had within that--irrigation, barge traffic, electrical generation, recreation, fishing. All of those things can work at that level without hardly even noticing it upstream. But you notice it downstream, and the billions of dollars that it takes to put this back together from the damage can never be matched by the recreational investment that goes on upstream. They'll have it anyway. It won't be diminished in any appreciable way. We need to have the protection.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that's H.R. 2942. I have trouble remembering that bill number. I could be wrong. It's the King bill, and I appreciate all those that have cosponsored it; and I'm hopeful that the rest of the Missouri River Representatives will take a look at it. I'm under the understanding that there will be a companion bill introduced in the Senate. Hopefully, it will be bipartisan. That will give us some more incentive to get this done this fall while there's still time to address this issue. If we fail to do so, this river will be managed for another year the same way it was in this past year.

Could I inquire as to the amount of time I have remaining?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I will then just conclude this discussion on the river and not address any other subject matter.

We have not, as a Congress, looked at this Missouri River issue. It's a natural disaster that has been, to some degree, mitigated by the Corps of Engineers. Some of those decisions were awfully tough on a lot of people, and I believe we have an obligation to manage this river system, to protect us from serious downstream flooding, to set that priority and to set the levels, not at 16.3 million acre-feet anymore, that was 1881, but to increase those million acre-feet, not all that much, but enough to protect us from that serious downstream flooding.

If the Members of Congress that represent those areas come together unanimously, we can move a piece of legislation through this Congress, and I would think we could do it under suspension. It's a no-cost piece of legislation. It is a commonsense piece of legislation. It really isn't all that tricky, although we went through all 450 pages of the master manual, and it was hard to write; but now it's a pretty simple solution to a complex problem. I would urge my colleagues to take a look.

I would thank all of those involved for their public statements last night in Omaha and all the meetings that will be taking place up and down the river. I thank the Corps of Engineers for their cooperation in getting me accurate data to work with. And I look forward to resolving this issue, at least for the long term, while we help put people back together in an individual basis in the short term.

With that, Mr. Speaker, thank you for your attention, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in

which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the further consideration of H.R. 5325, and that I may include tabular material on the same.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

I do appreciate the passion of both of these gentlemen for coastal restoration. I know it's a high priority for his district and his State. Of course, the focus is Louisiana, and they have suffered greatly.

The bill before us includes $10 million to continue studies, engineering, and design work on various components of their program in Louisiana. That is more than 9 percent of the entire investigations account dedicated to continuing work on coastal restoration in Louisiana.

The committee has had to make some tough choices in this bill, though. While overall funding for the Corps of Engineers has increased slightly above the President's request, unfortunately, it is reduced by 4 percent from fiscal year 2012. The construction account, specifically, is also slightly above the President's budget request, but that is still a reduction of almost 13 percent from fiscal year 2012.

The Corps has numerous projects already under construction that were not included in the President's budget and so are unlikely to be funded in fiscal year 2013. While construction funding is trending downward, I believe it is most prudent to prioritize funding for ongoing projects so they can be completed, actually completed, and the Federal Government can realize the public safety, economic and other benefits from previous spending rather than starting new projects.

Given this particular project as currently authorized approaches $2 million and likely will continue to grow in costs, it would not be prudent to begin another new major new project while we have so many existing commitments.

For these reasons, I must oppose the amendment and urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I understand the gentleman, my colleague from New Jersey, is trying to show support for the Army Corps of Engineers' construction program. He's been a longtime advocate for projects important to his district, and I commend him for that.

And I agree with him in his desire to invest more in water resources infrastructure. There have been numerous flood control needs, for instance, across the entire country, including our home State of New Jersey. Experience has shown us that it's cheaper to try to prevent flood damages than trying to recover from them.

Although I believe the underlying bill that we've put together--Mr. Visclosky and I--struck a careful balance among all priorities in the bill, including national security and innovation, I do not have any objection to his amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I move to strike the last word, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, let me commend the gentleman from Iowa for his strong advocacy and passion for his district and his State and his constituents. First and foremost, he's very, very concerned about a critical issue.

We all know that there are significant water resource needs across our country, and we're doing our best in our bill to address them responsibly. The clarification I would like to be make is that the amendment simply adjusts overall account numbers. It does not direct funding to any specific project.

I would advise, respectfully, the gentleman and any other colleagues thinking of offering similar amendments--and we understand why people do; because they have a passion--that under the earmark ban, the final bill will not include funding towards specific projects in an amount above the President's budget request.

Instead of listing specific projects, our bill includes additional funding for categories of ongoing projects, primarily navigation and flood control. Final project-specific allocations will be made by the administration following the enactment of our bill.

With that clarification in mind, I'm pleased to support the gentleman's amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. Let me assure the gentleman that we are very sympathetic to his concern for fixing the infrastructure that was damaged in last year's flood event. In fact, we provided $1.7 billion to the Corps of Engineers for that exact purpose.

The issue the gentleman raises, however, is something that all Members need to be aware of: based on the definitions in last year's amendments to the Budget Control Act, disaster relief funds may only be used in locations declared major disasters under the Stafford Act.

For some agencies, like FEMA, that may make sense. But for the Corps of Engineers, there are times when that definition is too restrictive. We all need to be aware of the potential consequences of forcing regular appropriations to the account for these disaster-related damages that happen to be in the wrong location according to the Budget Control Act.

That notwithstanding, the gentleman's amendment would try to address some of these needs, and I'm pleased to support his amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose the amendment, but certainly understand it and share the passion of the gentleman for reducing Federal spending, and our bill does plenty of that. As we went through the process, we did exactly that.

This amendment would cut administrative expenses across the entire bill. Over many months and public hearings, our committee, in a bipartisan way, has already considered each administrative account separately and has made specific cuts while maintaining oversight to prevent wasteful spending. We've done our job. The gentleman's amendment cuts all administrative accounts indiscriminately without regard to where funds are needed and where cuts are possible.

We understand where he is going, but the committee has done its work. Therefore, I must strongly oppose his amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time. I continue to reserve my point of order, though.

Mr. Chairman, I make the point of order that the amendment proposes to amend portions of the bill not yet read.

The amendment may not be considered en bloc under clause 2(f) of rule XXI because the amendment proposes to increase the level of new budget authority in the bill.

I ask for a ruling from the Chair.

I rise to oppose the gentlewoman's amendment. I appreciate my colleague's passion for solar energy. She has been a tireless supporter of American innovation in this energy and technological area. I also have the pleasure of serving with her on the Defense Appropriations Committee, and she's been an innovator and promoter of responsible energy policy with the Department of Defense as well.

But within tight budgets, we need to focus funding on our highest priorities, which is what we've done in our Energy and Water bill. To make room for our national security and infrastructure responsibility, our bill cuts energy efficiency and renewable energy by $428 million and reprioritizes funds within the program to support American manufacturing and address rising gas prices. The focus is on jobs, the economy, and American manufacturing.

Our bill also preserves $155 million for solar energy research that continues to advance American manufacturing and helps our companies compete globally. While I support activities that help American manufacturers compete, we cannot afford to add unnecessary funds to solar energy by cutting other important priorities.

Indeed, the amendment would cut departmental administration, a cut that we all know simply cannot be sustained in the final appropriation without jeopardizing the Department of Energy's ability to run and oversee their operation. They have enough management problems now. Reducing that management amount would make it difficult for them to run and oversee the problems that they really need to oversee.

So this amendment uses money we simply do not have. It has perhaps the

effect of crippling management by the Department. We need to live within our means. And I, regretfully, oppose the gentlewoman's amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I rise very reluctantly to oppose the amendment. I do recognize the passion of the Members of Congress from Illinois and South Dakota who have spoken, and I may say repeatedly spoken and advocated to me over the last couple of months on behalf of the high-energy physics program and national laboratories in their congressional districts and, in fact, all relevant national laboratories that play a critical role in maintaining our Nation's scientific leadership and competitiveness. So I recognize their advocacy, I appreciate it, and I certainly will be working with them to do whatever we can to be of assistance.

We tried our very best in our bill to help those and all of the Department's remarkable national laboratories, but our constraints did not afford us the luxury of bringing more money to the table in many cases. Many labs wanted money, and these are remarkable labs, and they are deserving as well.

We did what we could for high-energy physics by shifting $16 million into project engineering and design for the Long Baseline neutrino experiment. This allows the Department to move quickly in choosing a path forward for the program.

We also ensured that the Homestake mine, which is a remarkable mine and a remarkable structure and a national asset, has sufficient minimal funding to operate while that path forward is yet to be determined.

If more funding were available, we certainly would have brought more resources to bear. Unfortunately, the amendment finds resources by cutting a program--and we discussed this earlier--that has already been reduced by $428 million. That's a 24 percent reduction from fiscal year 2012 and a 40 percent reduction below 2010.

I recognize--the committee recognizes--the importance of these programs, and I promise we'll work with our colleagues as we move forward in the appropriations process to be supportive and helpful, but I must reluctantly oppose the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Madam Chairman, I rise to oppose this amendment, which would eliminate the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the Department of Energy.

This year, the committee continued fulfilling its responsibility to reduce government spending by eliminating ineffective and wasteful programs. Our bill cuts EERE by $428 million. That's a 24 percent cut below fiscal year 2012, nearly 40 percent below 2010, and well below the 2000 level. Our bill slashes programs that are ineffective and cuts activities that improperly intervene in private markets.

The committee will continue its work to reduce spending and to keep the government out of private enterprise where private enterprise could make those substantial investments themselves.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

I rise to strongly oppose the gentleman's amendment. His amendment would put at risk our nuclear security activities, the things we're doing to modernize our nuclear stockpile, the type of investments we're making there that help protect our country. And we would be adding money to programs that, quite honestly, don't need the money. He referenced some of those programs.

The Weatherization Program has hundreds of millions of dollars in unspent money. Some of it's been obligated; some of it has not been obligated. But sitting in that program and in the State programs he referred to is a lot of Federal money from the stimulus and other prior appropriations that remains unspent. So it's not a question of not having enough money. They just haven't spent it down.

Our bill provides enough funding, new funding, that when combined with the unspent funds, our bill will fully fund each State at the fiscal year 2010 level. That's enough money for the States. More funding is unnecessary.

This amendment has unnecessary funding, adds unnecessary funding, and it cuts our security, our national security, things we need to do for our nuclear stockpile, and I strongly oppose it.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I rise to oppose the gentleman from Utah's amendment.

Our bill works hard to cut Federal spending. We're on his side. We want to reduce spending. Our committee has gone through the budget for the Department of Energy. We've taken a look at it, and we've prioritized. In fact, we've already said in other debates on other amendments that we've cut this EERE, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, by $428 million. That's 40 percent below the fiscal year 2011 level. With the remaining funds, we re-prioritize to invest in our Nation's most pressing needs, one of which is in doing more research to help American manufacturers compete and survive.

Let me restate: We do not increase this account. We re-prioritize to address our Nation's most pressing needs. In this case, the challenge is to keep our American manufacturers competitive and to keep jobs here. Our bill does that. Therefore, I must oppose the gentleman's amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise to oppose the amendment.

The amendment will reduce fossil fuel energy by $50 million. And let's start by noting that fossil fuels produce most of our Nation's energy, nearly 70 percent of our electricity and nearly all of our transportation fuels.

But I do appreciate the gentlewoman's passion for electric vehicles. In fact, our bill already funds research in that area at above the fiscal year 2012 level as part of our focus on programs that address future gas prices. Therefore, I do oppose her amendment. I understand her views and her passion, but I strongly oppose it.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, briefly I rise to oppose the amendment.

I share my colleague's concerns that we should not be funding activities that the private sector should do on its own. That's why our bill cuts 24 percent out of this account, only preserving appropriate Federal activities that are too risky for the private sector to take on alone. The amendment goes too far, undercuts our ability to address gas prices, and therefore I must oppose it.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I appreciate the recognition and rise to express, first of all, to my colleague and friend from Louisiana my appreciation for his argument today, and particularly the football analogy that he used. I say that as a Notre Dame graduate, and I would congratulate him on his victory the last time our two teams played on the field.

Having said that, however, both he and my colleague on the Democratic side, I join with the chairman in reluctant opposition to the amendment. The chairman has opted for a policy of no new starts, a policy that I strongly support and have opted for during these times of budgetary constraints.

I would point out that while there is only $10 million in the amendment before the House today, the fact is this project will cost several billion dollars by the time we are done, and starting it now is a cost that we cannot afford to adequately fund because we do not have the resources in the bill.

Over the last several years, we have, in fact, terminated hundreds of ongoing projects, to our great dismay and to the weakening of the infrastructure of our economy in this country. But until we as an institution, the Congress, have the intestinal fortitude to adequately fund our infrastructure in these types of very necessary investment-- that is not the argument before us--I cannot support adding to the inventory of projects that we must start but cannot.

If the allocation for the bill were different, I might be able to support the gentleman's amendment. Again, as it now stands, we are short of cash. The fact is the amount in the bill today--and the chairman and I and every member of the subcommittee fought to add $82 million to the President's request. We are $631 million today, in this bill, below what we were spending as a Nation on these projects 2 years ago. We don't have the money, unfortunately, to fund the gentleman's amendment, and therefore, again, I express my sincere appreciation for what he wants to do but my reluctant opposition to his amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I would join the chairman in supporting the amendment.

I would mention that the Corps' investment in 2010 alone protected infrastructure in this country and prevented over $28 billion worth of damages. The amendment is a modest one and it is spread across all of the accounts for a 0.14 percent increase. As the chairman noted, he worked very vigorously to increase the amounts over the President's request by $6 million. We remain $217 million below last year's level.

So, again, I would join the chair in supporting the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

While I regret that we just received a copy of the gentleman's amendment while he was speaking, I have no objection to it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

The Acting Chair. The gentleman from Indiana is recognized for 5 minutes.

I rise in support of the amendment, and join with the comments made by the chairman, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move to express my strong opposition to the amendment. Some would suggest outrage; I will simply say opposition.

The fact is, across-the-board cuts to administrative accounts when we have significant problems as far as the administration of some of these programs in the Department of Energy is a profound mistake.

What I really want to emphasize at this point to all of our colleagues in the House is that members of this subcommittee and the full Appropriations Committee--which approved this bill, the people of this committee approved this bill--have made value judgments account by account.

The fact is, for renewable energy--and we will have amendments on this issue--there is a $428,345,000 reduction in this bill. In the Office of Science, there is a $72,203,000 reduction. For environmental clean-up for defense sites, for example, there is an $88,872,000 cut. These were all discrete decisions made and value judgments.

So I would emphasize to my colleagues that there are significant cuts and savings in this bill. I strongly oppose the gentleman's amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Point of Order

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of Mr. Moran's amendment and would point out that I think the gentleman from Michigan in his earlier remarks hit the nail on the head. This is an issue of clarity versus confusion.

The fact is we have become the ``Congress of Confusion.'' We are charged with running a Nation of 300 million people with domestic and international responsibilities. We have now confused the physician community of the United States more than 17 times--sometimes at a 2- week interval--as to what the reimbursements are going to be under the Medicare program. We have people who have suffered loss of life, significant property damage, and dislocation through floods in our Nation. We are unable as an institution to resolve our differences on flood insurance and have continued it--if I am correct--at least 11 times. The fact is we have an infrastructure, as far as our highways and bridges, that is crumbling. We have now eight or nine times continued that because we cannot make a decision, and we continue to confuse the States, contractors, and our communities as to what the policy of the United States Government is going to be. And depending on what year you died, the last four years--including 2012--this Nation has had three different estate-tax laws, and the current one expires at the end of this year, leading to confusion and the hiring of numerous accountants, insurance agents, and attorneys, all of whom I love.

Why confuse this Nation more by not adopting the clarity of the Moran amendment? There is no question that the two Supreme Court decisions have significantly confused this issue and created uncertainty as to the scope of the Clean Water Act. During multiple hearings before the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, witness after witness spoke of how these cases have blurred the lines on what the waters subject to Federal protection are.

The reason in short is because in neither case could the majority of Supreme Court justices agree on what was the appropriate test for determining the scope of Federal protections based on their reading of the term ``navigable.'' No majority or the court could agree what navigable means. In fact, in one of the cases the level of confusion on the court is reflected in that there are five separate opinions filed in the case with no opinion having more than four supporters on the Supreme Court of the United States.

The resulting confusion in interpreting the Clean Water Act is apparent to both the regulated community and regulators. The fact is, the industry has asked for clarification of this confusion through agency rulemaking. The gentlewoman mentioned that we need a rule in this. We do need a clarified rule. However, this legislative rider that is in the bill proposes the status quo of confusion and that that is acceptable. It will only result in increased implementation costs to the Federal Government, to the States, and to the regulated community. It will increase delays in the implementation of important public works projects and protracted litigation on the disparity of this language.

We need to adopt Mr. Moran's amendment to ensure that we have clarity. We should be taking actions to address the legitimate concerns that have been expressed. But the fact is this is an issue that Congress and the administration needs to address in the authorizing process to clarify it. This is not an issue that should be continued in confusion and perpetuity through the appropriations process.

Again, I strongly support the gentleman's amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the gentlewoman's amendment. There is $10 million contained in her amendment. That is a significant sum of money. When compared, however, to current year level spending for the renewable accounts of $1.825 billion, and as the chairman rightfully pointed out, a reduction of $428 million from that account, the gentlewoman's amendment is as much a statement of Congress as it is a monetary initiative. That is, we need to make an investment in our energy future as well as our economic future.

Renewable energy must be a part of that future, and the vast majority of industries in our country throughout our history have received substantial support from the government to become established and to be part of this great Nation.

This amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Ohio takes a very small, but very positive, step towards making that investment, and I do urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the amendment; and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I also would rise in reluctant opposition to the gentleman's amendment. As a resident of the neighboring State, I realize all of the great scientific research that is done in the State of Illinois alone at some of our wonderful Federal facilities. There is no question that we need to invest in the science account, as evidenced by the fact it is in this bill. Again, we had a very difficult allocation. Science is cut by $72,203,000.

But, unfortunately, I do think the gentleman's amendment is counterproductive in that he, because of the

budget rules, needs a $30 million cut from renewable research to gain a $15 million add for scientific research. Given the constraints we face, I think that's a bad bargain and we ought to leave the $30 million right where it is and have that aptly applied.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I appreciate the recommendation and also rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment, and will simply state that my objection is based on national security concerns.

The fact is, as the senior Senator from Indiana, Senator Lugar has characterized our energy crisis for years, and I absolutely agree with him. The fact is the importation of petroleum products in our use of carbon, because of where we buy them, has created a significant national security issue for the United States of America.

One of the accounts in the renewable accounts that will be eliminated under the gentleman's amendment is vehicle technology. There is no question American citizens are suffering today because of high gas prices. I myself--and I only speak for myself--can't do anything about that particular price at the pump today. But if through the vehicle technology program and the wise investment of the Federal taxpayers dollars we can get every American another mile per gallon, we have removed some of their economic discomfort and burden. We have also helped to begin to ensure our national security by reducing our dependency on foreign oil. Therefore, I do strongly oppose the gentleman's amendment and yield back the balance of my time.

I would join the chair in opposition to the amendment.

I would point out one of the fallacies of the gentleman's argument that he

used on the floor in his language of the committee's report, that being our very serious concern that in the past we have applied moneys to research that has essentially been siphoned off overseas.

During general debate yesterday on this floor, in my opening remarks, I commended the members of the subcommittee and particularly Chairman Frelinghuysen for making sure we don't do that in this bill this year, and that there is throughout this bill and that report language directives to the Department of Energy to be focused on using this money wisely so that we maintain and begin to grow our industrial base and our manufacturing base and keep these jobs here.

This would be a mistake, and I am opposed to the gentleman's amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chairwoman, I move to strike the last word.

Madam Chairwoman, I rise in reluctant opposition to the gentlewoman's amendment for the very reasons that I mentioned earlier in debate when the gentleman from Illinois had an amendment to cut EERE--the renewable accounts--to add $15 million to science. Again, in this case, I don't think it is wise for us to make a choice of cutting fossil energy research by $100 million to increase the energy efficiency account by one-half that amount, $50 million.

The fact is I understand that some people have a significant concern about the use of fossil fuels. I certainly do myself. But the fact remains that 83 percent of all energy consumption in the United States today is generated by fossil fuel, and we need to apply ourselves to the wise and efficient use of that fuel as well.

Again, I would reluctantly be opposed to the gentlewoman's amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

I simply would add my agreement to the chairman's opposition to the amendment.

I had already remarked earlier in the day relative to my support for vehicle technology and am opposed to the gentleman's amendment.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

I object to the suspending of the reading.

I move to strike the last word.

I received a letter from the American Fisheries Society, the American Fly Fishing Trade Association, the Sportfishing Association, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. I think these are very important groups. As a westerner, I pay attention to these people. It says:

March 30, 2012.

Dear Representative: As sportsman-conservation

organizations representing millions of hunters, boaters, and

anglers nationwide, we ask you to oppose any legislation that

would block the administration's very deliberate and vital

action to clarify and restore long-standing Clean Water Act

protections for streams and wetlands across the country. We

reaffirm our support for Clean Water Act guidance currently

being reviewed and finalized in an interagency process

coordinated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Sportsmen rely on clean water to ensure the opportunity to

enjoy hunting, angling, and other outdoor-based recreation

(and business) in the great outdoors. When wetlands are

drained and filled and streams are polluted, sportsmen are

often the first to be directly impacted. Consequently,

hunters, boaters, and anglers have consistently advocated for

conserving our nation's waters.

Since 2001, U.S. Supreme Court decisions in SWANCC (2001)

and Rapanos (2006), along with 2003 and 2008 agency guidance

that is inconsistent with those decisions and the related

science, have combined to erode long-standing Clean Water Act

safeguards for headwater streams and critical wetlands.

Headwater and intermittently flowing streams comprise 59

percent of all stream miles in the continental United States,

and are particularly vulnerable under the decisions and

existing agency guidance. At-risk wetlands and tributaries

provide clean water for iconic systems such as the

Mississippi River Delta and the Chesapeake Bay. They recharge

aquifers like the Ogallala, help retain floodwaters in areas

such as the Prairie Pothole region and Missouri River Basin,

and provide important fish and wildlife habitat throughout

the nation. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

(FWS), prairie pothole wetlands in the northern Great Plains,

together with similar wetlands in southern Canada, produce 50

to 70 percent of all North American ducks. However, in its

most recent report on the status of wetlands nationwide, the

FWS found the rate of wetland loss jumped 140 percent between

2004 and 2009. As these waters are polluted and diminished,

their ecological, public health, and recreational benefits

are lost, as well.

As we all work to create jobs and support economic

recovery, we should nurture rather than neglect the economic

benefits of hunting, angling, and other outdoor recreation.

Hunting, boating, and angling have a tremendously positive

impact on the nation's economy, including in rural

communities, and support millions of jobs across the country.

Consider the following:

Using data from the FWS, the American Sportfishing

Association estimates angling generates $125 billion in

annual economic activity and supports more than 1 million

jobs.

Using similar information, the Congressional Sportsmen's

Foundation estimates hunters contribute nearly $25 billion to

the economy, which supports 600,000 jobs.

Data from the National Marine Manufacturers Association

indicates that recreational boating contributes over $41

billion and 337,000 jobs to the U.S. economy.

The FWS reports duck hunting alone generates $2.3 billion for

the economy every year and supports 27,000 private sector

jobs.

In order to effectively safeguard key components of our

economy, the sports and traditions that millions of Americas

enjoy, and the health and integrity of some of our most

important fish and wildlife resources, it is essential to act

now to restore lost Clean Water Act protections consistent

with existing law and science.

The Army Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection

Agency (EPA) proposed new guidance last spring for

determining Clean Water Act jurisdiction. The draft guidance

is science-based and clearly respects the Supreme Court's

decisions. Over the course of three months last summer, the

agencies conducted an almost unprecedented public engagement

process for a guidance document. More than 200,000 Americans

commented and EPA has reported that the clear majority of

those comments support the proposed guidance. During this

process, more than 250 hunting, angling, and conservation

groups from 28 states also weighed in backing the guidance

and subsequent rulemaking.

To complete this process the guidance must be finalized as

a first step in affirming longstanding clean water

protections for many wetlands and streams. This guidance

importantly maintains existing exemptions for normal

agricultural activity. At the same time, it will provide

increased clarity and consistency that is badly needed by

land owners, developers, conservationists, and state and

federal agencies alike. We urge you to support--and not

oppose--this important first step.

As a follow-up to final guidance, we also support agency

action to further clarify and strengthen the regulatory

definition of ``waters of the United States.'' There is

widespread agreement among groups across the spectrum about

the inherent value of rulemaking to address critical aspects

of this issue. In closing, we urge you to support--and not

oppose--the important and careful steps being taken by the

administration to clarify and affirm long-standing

protections for wetlands and streams across the United

States.

Respectfully,

Gus Rassam, Executive Director, American Fisheries

Society; Randi Swisher, President, American Fly Fishing

Trade Association; Gordon Robertson, Vice President,

Government Affairs, American Sportfishing Association;

Jim Akenson, Executive Director, Backcountry Hunters

and Anglers; Bruce Akin, Chief Executive Officer, BASS,

LLC.; Jim Martin, Conservation Director, Berkley

Conservation Institute; Rob Olson, President, Delta

Waterfowl; David Hoskins, Executive Director, Izaak

Walton League of America; Thom Dammrich, President,

National Marine Manufacturers Association; Larry

Schweiger, President and CEO, National Wildlife

Federation; Paul Krausman, CWD, President, The Wildlife

Society; Whit Fosburgh, President and CEO, Theodore

Roosevelt Conservation Partnership; Chris Wood,

President, Trout Unlimited; Steve Williams, President,

Wildlife Management Institute.

So that's why we must today enact the Moran amendment that takes out the language unfortunately added in full committee on this subject. It is the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do. From an environmental perspective and from a hunter, fisherman, outdoor recreational perspective, it's necessary to protect our future.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.