End Tax Uncertainty Act of 2011

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 587 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

I am obviously in favor of consideration of this resolution.

The question before the House is: Shall the House now consider House Resolution 587?

While the resolution waives all points of order against consideration of the bill, the committee is not aware of any point of order. The waiver is a complete waiver in nature.

Note, there is not a specific waiver against an earmark simply because the bill contains no earmarks. It is in compliance with the earmark definition provided for us in the House Rules, a rule that goes back to, actually--to make the record complete--the 109th Session of Congress and the earmark ban instituted by the House Republicans when they took the majority in January of last year.

As is required by House Rules, the committee report filed for this bill on January 18 includes a specific determination and statement that the bill does not contain an earmark. I will quote from page 5 of the report: The bill does not contain any congressional earmarks or limited tax benefits or limited tariff benefits as defined by the Rules of the House of Representatives.

With all due respect to my friend from Arizona, each person may have his own perception of what an earmark is, but, with all due respect, the term ``congressional earmark'' means a provision that provides or authorizes or recommends a specific amount of discretionary budget authority, credit authority, or other spending authority or expenditures with or to an entity. It has to have money involved in it.

Specifically, the definition of an earmark requires that there be spending in the form directed to an entity or targeted geographically. This bill does not involve the spending of money or loan authority or credit authority or any other form of payment of funds.

The land in question is already with the county. It will remain with the county. Whether we pass this bill or not, it is still with the county. The only issue is the deed restriction, not the value of the land, not the transfer of money.

This parcel is with Virginia on Federal land that at one time had a deed restriction. It simply removes that deal.

The CBO viewed and scored this bill, and concluded it would not cost money, stating it ``would have no significant impact on the Federal budget.''

Moreover, this type of bill, clearing the title to land, has repeatedly been approved when the House has been controlled by both Republicans and Democrats. The definition of an earmark is clear. There has not been a fiscal impact, and this bill does not meet the House rules definition used by either Democrats or Republicans.

This is really a red herring to stop economic development and the creation of jobs caused by lingering Federal bureaucratic red tape.

This county is one of the poorest counties in the Commonwealth of Virginia, with more than 16 percent of its population living in poverty and a higher rate of unemployment than the rest of Virginia. This very small bill, at no cost to the Federal taxpayer, will help to turn that around.

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

Mr. Speaker, once again, the rule does not waive an earmark, because there are no earmarks. It is a general waiver that is in there. If one were to look back at the past three Congresses, official bills that have been prepared that are very similar to this have also included the same type of language and were determined as not to have an earmark. Specifically, go back to H.R. 944 in the 112th Congress, H.R. 86 in the 111th Congress, H.R. 356 in the 110th Congress, H.R. 2246 in the 110th Congress, and S. 404 in the 112th Congress--same language, same situation, same condition.

Once again, the rules of our House say this is not an earmark. The

Let me try and once again put this in perspective.

The Federal Government, in and of itself, owns no land, especially in one of the original 13 States.

Virginia had the land and gave it to the Federal Government. In 1976, the Federal Government gave this back to the county with a lease for a park and restrictions, a deed restriction only. There is no transfer of money if we take away the deed restriction. There is no transfer of authority. The county has it. The county will continue to have it.

The dollar value that was given was made up in the minds of the Department of the Interior. This county actually said, if you really want more parkland, we will create 32 acres somewhere else for more parkland. The Department of the Interior said, No, let's have cash instead. They are the ones that determined that this land was worth 25 grand an acre, asking almost a million dollars from one of the poorest counties. They came up with that on their own. That does not mean it's reality.

The reality is the county has the land. The county will continue to have the land. There is no transfer of dollars. There is no loss from taxpayers in America. Actually, these guys who live in Virginia are taxpayers, too. Transferring from one pocket to the other is a ridiculous requirement to place on them, and all we're talking about is a deed restriction--how can we best use the land to actually help people.

Now, if the other side does not care about this county, does not care about the 16 percent of the population living in poverty, does not care about the unemployment rate, does not care that they actually use this land in a logical, rational manner, I can understand that. It still doesn't mean that's an earmark.

The point of order is a delay tactic of today's consideration of this legislation.

Sometimes in the past, a couple of other Members who have declared what I think are earmarks as non-earmarks have always used the old cliche if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. But as Hans Christian Andersen told us, sometimes those ducks you perceive are actually the honking of a swan. This bill is a swan. This bill will help these people to produce themselves.

This point of order has no merit to it. In order to allow the House to continue its scheduled business of the day, I urge Members to vote ``yes'' on the question of consideration of this resolution.

I yield back the balance of my time.

For purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlelady from New York (Ms. Slaughter), pending which 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 ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

The resolution provides for a modified open rule for the consideration of H.R. 2087, a bill to remove certain restrictions from a parcel of land that's situated in the Atlantic District of Accomack County, in Virginia. It provides for 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources. This rule makes in order all amendments that were preprinted in the Congressional Record and which otherwise comply with the rules of the House.

So this modified rule is a very fair rule. It is a generous rule. It will provide for a balanced and open debate on the merits of this bill that is not an earmark.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to the sponsor of this bill, who will once again try to describe to this body how this county land should stay with the county and needs to be dealt with by the county and all we have to do is remove an unnecessary restriction on its deed.

With that, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Rigell).

I would be more than happy to close at any time you are ready.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak in favor of the underlying bill. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Rigell) knows his constituents; he knows the needs there and has worked very hard for their benefit.

This, as we already discussed and voted, is not an earmark. The gentlelady from New York introduced a heritage area for Niagara Falls that got $10 million sent from the Federal Government to that place. That was officially not an earmark. This bill has no money going anywhere. The land is the county's, no exchange of profit whatsoever. There is no earmark, and there is no money being exchanged.

This land was originally Virginia's land. They gave it to the Federal Government for a Federal purpose. Thirty-six years ago, the Federal Government, in no longer needing the land, gave it back to this county for a public park. As a public park, it is useless. Now that's the common bond here. It is not needed as a park; it is not used as a park; there is no parking; it is inaccessible; and it is lousy for that purpose. The county, though, would like to use their land to do economic development because that is where it is and for what it would best be used, how it would help the public and the general good if it were used for economic development. All they need is the Federal Government to graciously grant a deed restriction, which they refuse to do--for whatever purpose, no one really knows, but they won't do it. That is why the county needs to keep the county land, to do something that is common sense, simply use the land for the purpose in which it best suits the needs of the people.

I don't know why the Department of the Interior, in its infinite wisdom, decides they want to tell the county in Virginia what is best for Virginia, but that is exactly what they are trying to do by being hard-nosed, not on a law, but on an internal rule from the Department of the Interior.

Look, this government already controls 1 out of every 3 acres in this Nation. One-third of America is controlled by the Federal Government. That means the Federal Government's in-holdings are larger than any country's in the world, with the exception of Russia's and Canada's. That's what we already have. And yet the Department of the Interior is straining over 32 acres that shouldn't be a park and that need to be used to help the people of this particular county, and that is simply illogical. It is irrational.

I have faced similar circumstances in countless bills that we have had and passed before this body. There was public land in the middle of Park City in my district that was controlled by the Bureau of Land Management. They didn't need it; they didn't want it; they didn't use it. It was actually being occupied by squatters. The city had no control over it because it was public land, and yet the Department of the Interior did not want to let go of that land because the control was already there.

We passed another bill earlier that went through the House and the Senate that transferred land that the Forest Service had that they didn't even know they had. We had to do a title search to remind them, oh, yeah, that actually is ours. They didn't need it; they didn't want it; they didn't use it; and after 6 years, we finally got them to give it up so it could be used for a better purpose.

We have another bill for 2 acres in Alta that the Park Service doesn't want to give up, for whatever reason, even though on that 2 acres there is already the city building, a public safety building, and public bathrooms for the community and those that go to that ski resort; and yet the Forest Service, in this case, doesn't want to give that up for whatever reason there may be.

Mr. Speaker, we were just in a hearing earlier this morning that dealt with a proposed Eisenhower memorial. In all due respect, I just recently read a biography of Eisenhower. When he was just a lieutenant in the Army, he had his first child, and he applied for and received permission for a housing increase that he thought he deserved and so did the commanding officer who approved that housing increase. A little while later, they did an audit, and the acting inspector general did an audit and found out that there was a technicality to which General Eisenhower was not entitled to that housing increase. When he was confronted with that, he immediately apologized and said he was more than willing to pay back the $250.67 that he owed the government.

But that wasn't good enough for the inspector general. That acting inspector general wanted a court-martial because that was what the rules where. That acting inspector general had this blind fetish for fealty to follow rules because that's what bureaucrats always want to do. Fortunately, there was a commanding officer that realized that this young Army officer had a talent and an ability and intervened and allowed General, then Lieutenant, Eisenhower simply to pay the $250.67 and get on with it.

It is amazing to consider what this Nation and what this world would be like if Lieutenant Eisenhower had actually been court-martialed over $250.67 because that was the rule.

We have the same situation, 32 acres that is useless. Right now it has no purpose. It sits there, and the Federal Government wants to deny a county in Virginia the ability to do something useful to help people on 32 acres because it violates their internal rule. There has to be some time when common sense takes over and we actually do things because it's the right thing to do, because it is the better thing to do.

Fortunately, there was an officer in Texas that realized, in the case of General Eisenhower, common sense should take over. It would be nice, it would be wonderful if, within the Department of the Interior, there were some element of common sense that said it is stupid what we are doing with this land. We need simply to use common sense and use the land for a better, better purpose.

There is no transfer of land. The county has it. If we don't pass this bill, the county will still have it. They just can't use it effectively.

If we pass this bill, there will be no transfer of money. All you're saying is the county can use the county's land to do something the county needs to help the people in that county. And, honestly, should that not be our goal? Is that not our purpose, to actually use common sense? Or do we have the bureaucratic blood running through our veins that we put these little blinders on and, unless we check the right box, it doesn't matter if it helps, it doesn't matter if it's good, it doesn't matter if it's possible, we won't do it because of our internal rules?

That is, indeed, where this country and this Congress has come. There is something definitely wrong with us.

This rule is a fair rule. It will provide for a good debate. It provides for all those amendments that were preprinted and are in order to be debated here on the floor.

Let us proceed forward with this bill. Let's help this county that desperately needs our help and that desperately needs us just to use some good, old-fashioned common sense. Vote ``yes'' on this amendment.

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

The previous question was ordered.

Mr. Speaker, this proposed rule seeks to waive House rules requiring disclosure of any earmarks in the underlying bill, H.R. 2087. Therefore, pursuant to clause 9 of rule XXI of the rules of the House, I make a point of order against consideration of this rule.

Mr. Speaker, the majority frequently congratulates itself for adopting a policy ``banning'' earmarks. Republican leadership often points to the earmark ban as an important accomplishment in improving the legislative process.

It should be noted, for the record, the provision requiring the disclosure of earmarks was inserted into the rules of the House during the 110th Congress, under a Democratic majority.

The American people might be surprised to learn that, despite claims of strict opposition to earmarks, the majority is bringing a proposed rule to the House floor that would not only allow an earmark in the underlying bill, but even waives the basic requirement that such an earmark be disclosed.

Clause 9 of rule XXI of the rules of the House specifically states that it shall not be in order to consider a rule that waives the requirement to disclose earmarks, and yet the rule the majority is seeking to call up specifically states, ``All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived.''

And the question of whether the underlying bill, H.R. 2087, contains an earmark is critical. If enacted, the bill would transfer full ownership of Federal land to a county in Virginia. All parties agree the land has an appraised value of $815,000, but the bill would transfer this Federal land to the county for free. The county is in the congressional district represented by the sponsor of the legislation.

This is not county land; this is Federal land. The county has been granted limited authority to control this land as long as it is used for public recreation. According to the deed, the county cannot sell the land or rent it or lease it or develop it. Only H.R. 2087 will give the county this land with no limitation.

I suspect that every Member of this House would like to be able to pass legislation giving his or her constituents an $815,000 windfall.

Mr. Speaker, either this is an earmark, and the majority should follow its own rules and not bring this rule or the underlying bill to the floor, or this is not an earmark, and the waiver should be removed from the rule. Either way, the proposed rule is a clear violation of House rules and should not be taken up by this House.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, under current law, the county controls these 32 acres of Federal land, but the deed clearly states that the county may not sell or lease the land or use it for anything other than public recreation. The county received control of the land with those restrictions in 1976, free of charge.

The underlying bill, H.R. 2087, will remove all restrictions from the deed. The county would be free to sell the land or lease it or do whatever it wants with it and pocket any and all revenue. This is clearly an $815,000 windfall for the county created specifically by this bill.

Regardless of whether you agree the bill is an earmark, the proposal from the Rules Committee to waive the earmark disclosure rule should also be cause for concern. If H.R. 2087 contains no earmarks, why is the waiver necessary? Why have an earmark disclosure rule if you just waive it every time you bring a bill to the floor?

Any Member who has ever claimed to oppose earmarks should insist that the rule waiving the disclosure requirement be rejected.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, reading from the remarks to the Natural Resources subcommittee from Thursday, September 15, by the sponsor of this legislation, he stated a recent appraisal valued the land at $815,000, which is more than $25,000 per acre.

There is economic gain for the county, and waiving the disclosure only adds to the confusion that the public feels when we say we have a ban on earmarks and yet we are waiving rules that would disclose that and fully be transparent as to the kinds of decisions we're making with public lands.

The CBO is unable to value what public land is worth. It's certainly here in the testimony of the sponsor of this legislation. The appraisal value is listed, and that, to me, leads to the conclusion that this is an earmark and that the rule that is presently before us should be rejected.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Utah, my colleague (Mr. Bishop), for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and yield myself such time as I may consume.

We begin yet another week of inaction in the House of Representatives. Last week, our colleagues in the Senate, working together in a bipartisan fashion, approved a transportation bill that would be the biggest job creation measure this body has considered in this Congress. But are we talking about a bipartisan job creation bill in the House? No.

Instead of creating thousands of jobs through a bipartisan transportation bill that has already passed the Senate, and just awaits our action, we are talking about an $800,000 earmark to benefit a single county in a single State. And if somebody talked about the day's work that we were getting around to, this is it.

In other words, instead of creating the millions of new jobs that would result from a strong bipartisan transportation bill, we're spending the entire day debating a bill that affects 32 acres of land in a single State. No other community in America has received the kind of special treatment that is provided to a single community in this bill. This earmark hardly seems like a fiscally responsible way to create jobs and to protect the tax dollars of our hardworking American citizens.

This is not the first time the Federal Government has had to make decisions about transferring public lands to new uses. Fortunately, there is an established procedure in existing law to ensure that the taxpayers get just compensation in such cases. We are being asked today to ignore that. Instead of letting the National Park Service and the local community handle the transfer of this land in the tried-and-true way, the majority proposes making a one-time exception--an $800,000 earmark for a single community.

If this majority were serious about job creation, we would right now be discussing the Senate-passed transportation bill. But instead, as I said before, we've spent an entire day of this week debating 32 acres of land.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule and the underlying legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I just wish to make a comment or two. The most unusual thing about this bill is that when we have a Federal land swap and a deed that goes with it, they're always the same--you can use this land for public purposes. Should you decide not to use this land for public purposes, it reverts to the government. It's as simple as that.

So what we're doing now is giving away $800,000 that belongs to my constituents, your constituents, and everybody else's constituents. We're giving away the tax money. I have got a good idea because there's a Democrat amendment today that can remedy that, and it says the county can pay for the land with the revenues they get from developing the land and renting it out. That way we'll get our money back; the county should be very happy; and we hope that a lot of jobs are created there.

May I inquire, Mr. Speaker, if my colleague is ready to close?

I am ready.

In closing today, let me reiterate what I've said all along: This is not a

jobs bill. It does nothing to put millions of unemployed Americans back to work. By considering this bill, the majority has made a decision that it is more important to vote on an earmark than to vote on a transportation bill that would create thousands of jobs, perhaps millions, throughout the United States and had strong, bipartisan support. We must do something because, as we know, the current legislation will expire at the end of this month.

If the House passes today's legislation, we will have taken a vote, but we will not have helped the American people. We all know we were not sent here to avoid solving the pressing problems facing our constituents, and we certainly weren't sent here to spend our days giving away public land so one county in one State could receive a windfall while all the rest of the taxpayers get nothing.

I urge my colleagues to get back to the single biggest problem facing the country--the lack of jobs--and to vote on the bipartisan Senate transportation bill, which easily passed the Senate 74 22. Until we do, we are just treading water as our roads, bridges, and highways crumble and our constituents are neglected.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on today's rule and the underlying legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

I thank the gentleman from Utah.

Mr. Speaker, it's a real privilege today to speak on behalf of the bill that I'm introducing. It is indeed a jobs bill. It is a bill that reflects common sense. It's a bill that reflects common ground. And I think, importantly, it reflects the wisdom and the will of the good, hardworking residents of Accomack County in Virginia, whom I have the privilege of representing. It enjoyed bipartisan support in coming out of committee, and it enjoys and should enjoy and merits today bipartisan support when it comes before the full House for a vote.

Here's why if it's passed it will work toward job creation. Unlike so many measures that some have proposed, instead of looking to Washington to actually spend more money or for Washington to do something, the folks of Accomack County are simply asking for the Federal Government to get out of the way and allow the greatest job-producing engine the world has ever known, Mr. Speaker, the American entrepreneur, to go forward and to put hardworking folks to work and put precious and limited capital to work.

This bill simply removes a deed restriction. That's all it does. And this deed restriction is, in effect, a restriction on job creation. It's a restriction on much needed tax revenue that this county so desperately needs. Sixteen percent unemployment; sixteen percent of the folks there live at the poverty level.

Accomack County is 90 percent agricultural, a bit of tourism, and then the NASA Wallops Facility. This piece of property is adjacent to the NASA Wallops Facility; and presently, with this deed restriction, they can't use it at all for any economic growth or opportunity. Removing this deed restriction will allow the board of supervisors there to move forward with their Wallops Research Park. They are desperate to get this done, and I am ready to help them today.

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned earlier, this bill enjoyed bipartisan support in committee. It does not require any money coming from the Federal Government. We're simply asking for the Federal Government to get out of the way and let the hardworking folks of Accomack County get on with job creation.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall Nos. 111 and 112, I was delayed and unable to vote. Had I been present I would have voted ``yea'' on both.