Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 5326) making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce and Justice, Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2013, and for other purposes; waiving a requirement of clause 6(a) of rule XIII with respect to consideration of certain resolutions reported from the Committee on Rules; and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 643 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) 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.

Mr. Speaker, I always look around when I hear the Reading Clerk reading the rule because I can't tell if folks are glossing over or if they are excited about it, like I am. If you paid close attention to the Reading Clerk this morning, Mr. Speaker, you're excited about it. You're excited about it because we're here to do the first appropriations bill of the FY 2013 cycle. Now, Mr. Speaker, as you know, there is about two-thirds of the budget that is the mandatory spending--that budget that gets spent whether Congress shows up to work or not. It's just money that gets borrowed from our children and goes right out the door.

This one-third of the budget, the discretionary spending side, is the part that doesn't go out the door unless the House comes together and passes a bill, sends it to the Senate, and gets the Senate to pass a bill, and it goes to the President's desk for signature. This is the first of those bills that we're going to have a chance to do in this Congress. And as we began the year last year, we are going to begin the year this year--with an open rule.

Mr. Speaker, as you know, an open rule allows any Member of this body to bring any idea that they have and offer it as an amendment to the underlying bill. You don't have to be a high-ranking Republican to get an amendment to this bill. You don't have to be a senior Democrat to get an amendment to this bill. You just have to be a representative of constituents back home, and you can show up on this floor and have a say. This is going to be Congress at its best, Mr. Speaker. When you hear it read, it sounds like a lot of legalistic mumbo jumbo, but when you see it in action, it is this House as our Founding Fathers intended this House to be.

This is House Resolution 643, Mr. Speaker, and it is an open rule for consideration of H.R. 5326, the fiscal year 2013 Commerce-Justice- Science appropriations bill.

You know, last year, Mr. Speaker, we only got through 6\1/2\ of the appropriations bills in this House before it became apparent the process was going to break down, and we went to a minibus to finish the deal. But we considered 350 amendments--350 different ideas, Mr. Speaker--350 lines that came from the body right here that said we have a better way than what the committee has reported to us.

Now, this is a special day, as my colleague from Florida knows, because this appropriations bill passed out of subcommittee by a voice vote--a voice vote. Democrats and Republicans came together in subcommittee, passed this bill, and sent it on to the full committee where, again, Mr. Speaker, Democrats and Republicans came together to pass out of full committee this bill on a voice vote, and now we bring it to the House floor today. Goodness knows, we may be able to pass this rule on a voice vote, I say to my colleague from Florida, and perhaps the underlying legislation as well. This is the House working as the folks back home intended the House to work.

Now, this is funding for the Commerce Department, Mr. Speaker. All of those programs intended to grow jobs in this country, to promote trade in this country, Commerce Department, funded under this bill. This is the bill that funds the Justice Department, funds our U.S. Marshals, funds our FBI, funds those parts of our society that we know need special attention, Mr. Speaker, in these difficult times.

This is the bill that funds NASA, Mr. Speaker. This is the bill that funds the National Science Foundation. This is the bill that funds the U.S. Trade Representative and the International Trade Commission. Mr. Speaker, I will quote the subcommittee chairman, Frank Wolf, who said:

This legislation builds on significant spending reductions

achieved in last year's bill while continuing to preserve

core priorities. Those priorities continue to be job

creation, fighting crime and terrorism--with a focus on

cybersecurity--and boosting U.S. competitiveness through

smart investments in science. This bill makes job creation a

priority by maintaining and expanding manufacturing and job

repatriation initiatives.

Mr. Speaker, these are tough times. I don't know if you've seen all the young people outside this Chamber today, Mr. Speaker, folks in town with their schools, folks in town visiting Washington, D.C. You know, 40 cents out of every dollar that this Chamber spends, Mr. Speaker, we borrow from those children. We heard lots of 1-minutes this morning about the student loan program. Of course, every penny that goes out the door is a penny that we borrowed from the next generation of Americans.

This bill, passed out of subcommittee and full committee on a voice vote, represents a 1-percent reduction from the President's request in this title. A lot of folks in this body would like it to be more than 1 percent. I suspect we'll have some amendments on this floor during this wonderful open amendment process that will in fact try to change that number to be greater than 1 percent. But what folks came together to say is these are priorities for this country. These all are important funding priorities that only the national and the Federal Government can do. So we want to fund those in a responsible way that both focuses on not borrowing from the next generation, but still maintaining important core priorities that I think we would all agree are important to this Federal Government.

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

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I'll tell you, I don't actually prepare remarks when I come down here to sit opposite my friend from Florida, because I always know his opening statement is going to be that line by line by line that reminds me of absolutely everything that I want to say. And generally speaking, it reminds me of absolutely everything I'm proud of, and sometimes things that my friend from Florida wishes had not happened.

You know, folks ask me back home, Mr. Speaker--I'm a freshman here. They say, Rob, what have you learned in your first term in Congress? And I say, What I have learned is that when you watch the House floor on C SPAN, it looks like theater. And what I've learned is that the comments from my friends on the other side of aisle, it's not theater at all, it is heartfelt belief in absolutely every word that comes out of their mouth. And that's instructive, because if it were theater, we could go into a dark back room somewhere and try to sort it out around the edges. But when it's heartfelt belief about what direction we ought to take this country, it requires the full and open hearing that we give it here on the House floor.

Mr. Speaker, I don't know if you were here for the deem and pass of the budget several Congresses ago before I was elected, but the gentleman's absolutely right. Deeming a budget as being passed by both Houses of Congress is a terrible way to run this institution. He is absolutely right.

Now, I'm proud that he and I did not shirk our responsibilities. We passed a budget here in this House under yet another open process. We asked any Member of this House that had an idea about what the budget ought to look like in this country to bring that budget to the floor of this House and we'd have a vote and a debate on it. And we did, and we passed a budget here in the House of Representatives.

Now, sadly, our friends on the Senate side have chosen for the 3rd year in a row not to pass a budget. And I would say again, those areas on which we agree, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman's absolutely right. In the absence of actually having a budget that has passed the Senate--and not just because they haven't passed one, Mr. Speaker, but because they have said affirmatively and apparently with some pride they do not plan on passing a budget. So what's the responsible body here on the other side of the Capitol supposed to do? Well, what we said is we need to move forward with our appropriations process, and so we are going to move forward under the budget that has passed this entire U.S. House of Representatives.

Now, the truth is we did that in a rule a couple of weeks back and we got it wrong. This is not the first time we've had to make up for the Senate's mistake. You would think, as often as we've had to take up for those folks, we'd have figured out how to do it right. But sadly, we didn't get it quite right, and I hope we don't get into the habit of getting it right. I hope we get into the habit of actually passing a budget over there, bringing a budget to conference, and having a budget that controls all of Capitol Hill.

But in an effort to make up for what's not happening there, we did absolutely, in this rule that's before us today, Mr. Speaker, specify that the caps that we created, the 435 of us created in the budget that we passed, will be the caps that regulate the activity that the 435 of us engage in for the rest of the year. And I welcome the Senate to join in that debate.

You know, to be fair to my colleague from Florida, we just see the Budget Control Act differently. I think we both voted for the Budget Control Act last fall. I viewed it as budget caps. In fact, if you open up the legislation, it says budgetary caps. And when I read the word ``caps,'' Mr. Speaker, what I see is you can't spend any more than that. I was never under any illusion that I was obligated to spend absolutely all of it.

And, candidly, I think that's one of the issues we have here in this body, Mr. Speaker. You may hear other speakers come down here today on the other side of the aisle who believe exactly that, that because we signed an

agreement with the President that we would not spend a penny more than $1.047 trillion this year that we are, in fact, now obligated to spend every single penny of that $1.047 trillion.

As we talked about, 40 cents out of every dollar that we spend in this town, Mr. Speaker, is borrowed, borrowed from our children, from our grandchildren. Forty cents out of every dollar is money that we do not have but we are borrowing against the next generation's prosperity to spend on our priorities today.

My friend from Florida brings up the COPS program. The COPS program is a neat program, provides dollars to local law enforcement agencies to help them succeed in their local law enforcement mission. But the clever little secret that sometimes we don't talk about, Mr. Speaker, is that my community back home takes all the tax money out of their pocket and they send it to Washington, D.C. We don't have access to any money in my part of the world, my little Seventh District there in northeast Georgia. There's no money that we get back that we didn't send in to begin with.

We can prioritize those local priorities locally. We can control those outcomes locally. Forty cents out of every dollar we're borrowing. Not one budget.

I mentioned earlier, Mr. Speaker, that in this open process we allowed every Member of Congress to bring any budget they wanted to the House floor for debate and consideration. Not one of those budgets, not one, balanced next year. Not one. Not one budget. And some of the brightest leaders I hope that our Nation has to offer, Mr. Speaker, sit here in these chairs in this body, and not one of them had a proposal for how to right this ship next year. Not one.

So the question is: What, do we just quit trying? Do we just quit trying, Mr. Speaker? Do we just concede that the economic security of this Nation is just going to drip, drip, drip away with deficit spending year after year after year? Are we going to concede that the 50 percent increase in the public debt that's occurred over the last 4 years is just the way it's going to be; that's a pattern that is going to continue, instead of a pattern that needs to be stopped?

But here is the good news. I have heartfelt feelings on that issue, and my friend from Florida has heartfelt feelings on that issue. The rule that we from the Rules Committee, Mr. Speaker--my colleague from Florida and I--have brought to the floor today is going to open up that debate so that absolutely all Members can have their passions and feelings heard on this issue.

One more point of pride, Mr. Speaker, because I really do like coming down here on open rule days.

What we don't talk about sometimes from that Budget Control Act is that those caps--that $1.047 trillion I mentioned earlier, which is the most that we could possibly spend--that's only good from October 1 to the first week of January because that very same agreement said that in the failure of the Joint Select Committee last fall to act--and I will tell you it was quite the failure--it was going to lead to 8 percent across-the-board reductions in every single account that we're talking about here on the floor today--8 percent across-the-board reductions.

What our budget does and what our caps do is recognize that failure, Mr. Speaker, that the House Representatives on that Joint Select Committee and that the Senator representatives on that Joint Select Committee did not come to an agreement on deficit reduction. Thus those caps, those 8 percent across-the-board reductions, are barreling down the road towards this institution, Mr. Speaker, and picking up speed every day.

Now, we can either tell the American people that all is well and let's go ahead and spend the maximum amount possible--but, oh, watch out; here come those across-the-board cuts that nobody planned for--or we can do the responsible thing, and the responsible thing is to plan for that contingency. I say ``contingency.'' I dare say, Mr. Speaker, it's almost a certainty that we're not going to find a way around those across-the-board cuts but that we can find a way around them with the budget that this institution passed. With the numbers that this institution passed, we can replace those revenues--replace that spending that was going to be saved with across-the-board cuts--with targeted cuts, with targeted cuts to programs that we in this body agree on.

Mr. Speaker, I didn't come to this body to do across-the-board cuts. There is good spending and there is bad spending. I didn't come to this body to use the meat ax to go after everything. I came to this body to set the priorities that my constituents sent me here to set. Far from being an abomination of the process, this House-passed budget, this House reconciliation bill that's coming at the end of this week--and yes, this first appropriations bill, the FY 2013-cycle--is the way this process is supposed to be done.

I rise in strong support of this rule, Mr. Speaker, and I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume to say I've just gotten the sad news that our friends on the Senate side hadn't just stuck it to us by not passing a budget last year and didn't just stick it to us by not passing a budget this year, but have just stuck it to us one more time by failing to move forward on the student loan legislation there.

I don't know what to do down here, Mr. Speaker. I mean, on the one hand, my colleagues say--rightfully so--that they don't want us just running on our own down here, doing our own thing all the time, pretending as if the Senate doesn't exist. On the other hand, we've dealt with the student loan issue--we've preserved rates at their current low levels--and the Senate can't get its work done. I don't know what more we can do.

Folks are prepared to go over for a vigil outside the Senate Chamber. I want you to put me on your invitation list. I'll go by there with you, and we'll see what we can do to shake things up over there, but those 6-year term limits are not quite as effective at motivating action as are 2-year term limits here on the House side.

Mr. Speaker, this bill before us today isn't actually about student loans. You might not have believed that in listening to the last speaker. It's about the Commerce Department; it's about the Justice Department; and it's about science funding in this body. Now, the good news is we're going to be able to deal with all of these issues one by one by one.

I came to this Chamber, Mr. Speaker, in wanting to move away from the 2,000-page bills that I'd seen in past Congresses. I came to this Chamber in wanting to deal with one issue at a time, in wanting to deal with things so you didn't have to vote for all or nothing but so that you could vote for the individual items that you actually believe in and vote against those items that you don't believe in. That's the process we have today.

This is the first of a dozen different bills that are going to come down through this Chamber, and folks will be able to offer amendments line item by line item. If I didn't say it before, Mr. Speaker, I want to say it now: that that's actually what can happen here. This isn't a ``take it or leave it'' proposition today. This rule, again, I can't take all the credit for. I was actually tied up in the reconciliation markup yesterday. My friend from Florida was actually as responsible as anyone for bringing a rule to the floor that would allow every single line of the underlying bill to be considered by the 435 folks in this Chamber.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, you have a subcommittee, and that's a small group of folks who knows a lot about the issue on which it works. This is the Commerce, Justice, Science Subcommittee over there. Then you have a full committee, and the full committee has a lot of really smart people who know a lot about their topic here. In this case, that's the Appropriations Committee, the full Appropriations Committee, and, of course, they both passed that out by a voice vote.

If you're like me, Mr. Speaker, if you serve on the Budget Committee and on the Rules Committee, you don't ever get a say in appropriations spending. There are a lot of really smart guys on that subcommittee and a lot of really smart men and women on that full committee. But what about my say? What about the 920,000 people I represent, Mr. Speaker? And that's the solution that the Rules Committee brought out last night.

They said you have not gotten your say yet for the Seventh District of Georgia, Mr. Woodall, but you will get it during this process--and not just you, but you and you and you and you. Every single Member of this House, by virtue of the fact that they were elected by American citizens back home, will have the opportunity to come to this floor and have their voices heard.

Mr. Speaker, this isn't a tough decision today. This is one of the proudest decisions we get to make in this House, and that is to have its membership work its will and report out the very best bill that we can, send that over to the Senate, and see what happens next.

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

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

I actually had this conversation with some schoolchildren in my district over the break, as I'm sure everybody in this body did. They call it a break, Mr. Speaker. The truth is, it's a district work period. You're working every bit as hard down in your home State as you are here and probably harder back home.

I was talking to young people and I said, Does anybody here have a parent that just let's them eat anything they want to, drink all the soda they want, eat all the candy they want? There wasn't a single hand that went up. Apparently, parents had some discipline incorporated in the lives of each one of these children. I asked, Who thinks their parents love them? The answer was every child in that room felt loved by their parents. They didn't get everything they wanted all the time, there were limits to it, but they felt loved.

Mr. Speaker, we're in the business of spending other people's money. It's not my money; it's not my colleague from Florida's money. It is other people's money in this body. Not only are we spending every penny of the money that they send us, Mr. Speaker. We are borrowing even more. If you think about it, we talk about how we borrow 40 cents out of every dollar that we spend. What that means, Mr. Speaker, is we collect every penny that America is willing to give us, and we borrow 66 percent more. Communities back home aren't operating under that kind of funny mathematics. They understand they can only spend the money that they have. Families back home aren't operating under those kinds of funny mathematics. It's only here.

So in the case of these programs--again, student loans are in absolutely no way at issue in the underlying bill, and they are absolutely in no way at issue in this rule. But just to touch on that topic for a moment--and we had the Speaker of this House come down and give a passionate plea for votes in support of the very provision that is being discussed here today. Not only did he speak on behalf of those provisions; this Chamber passed it.

We talk about the ticking time bomb. That's the ticking time bomb in action in the Senate. This body has acted. Now, what did we do? I happen to be one of those folks who took out student loans, Mr. Speaker. So I know a little bit about the student loan process. I happened to take mine out from a private institution. We were using competition to keep the marketplace regulated in those days. Now the Federal Government is the only place you can go for a student loan. That was courtesy of my friends on the other side of the aisle. Again, it was heartfelt. They believed in their heart that it was going to be a better program if only the Federal Government ran it instead of letting private financial institutions who lend money for a living manage it.

But 6.8 percent is the below-market rate that's available for folks who borrow Stafford loan money. You may have had a Stafford loan, Mr. Speaker. Other folks out here might have had a Stafford loan. But there are two kinds of Stafford loans. There is the Stafford loan that you pay interest on after you've borrowed the money. Imagine that, you borrow the money, you pay interest on it. Then there is the Stafford loan that's called the subsidized Stafford loan. That's a much smaller piece of the pie, Mr. Speaker.

We have the loans that families have to go out and get on their own to help pay for their children's education. We have savings that folks are going out and spending on their children's education. We have grant programs that are scholarship programs all that are out there to help with education. We have the PLUS program out there, which is a loan that parents and students can take out together. Then, in addition to all those programs, we have the Stafford loans, which, again, some of them are loans you pay interest on immediately and some of them--a very small fraction of them--are loans that are subsidized while you're in school.

This conversation we're having here today is about whether or not this subsidized Stafford loan, that was over 7 percent when I borrowed it--it's 6.8 percent in normal times; but the rate was reduced to 3.4 percent by my colleagues. This conversation is about whether or not that rate should be allowed to return to normal levels.

Again I say to folks, there is no money that's coming out of anybody's pocket in this room. This is America's money, America's money that we're borrowing, that we're spending. If we want to borrow that money to cut artificially low rates in half, make them artificially lower, we absolutely can. Not only can, we did. We talk about this as if it is something that might happen one day. We did it. It was 2 weeks ago. I was down here on the House floor. In fact, I sat right over there. I remember the vote happening. It's done here.

Did we pay for it, Mr. Speaker? We did. We paid for it with a program that I would characterize as a slush fund. It is $15 billion that exists over there in the Health and Human Services Department. It came out of the Affordable Care Act. The President looked at it and said, You know what, that really was too much of a slush fund. He cut it by almost a third. Now we said, You know what, perhaps we should go after the rest of it because accountability is an issue here, Mr. Speaker.

We hear folks talk about prevention and cancer and women and children. I wish that's where the money went. I went and got the list of where those projects are, Mr. Speaker. In my part of the world, it was a $2.5 million grant to the county I grew up in to help with obesity training in schools. I'm in favor of that. I think we ought to absolutely work on obesity. I hope my home school district is already working on those issues. In other parts of the country, New York, for example, this is money that went to lobby in favor of soda taxes. That's right. This money that is being described by my friends on the other side of the aisle as critical to protecting the health of women so that they can get breast cancer screenings was spent in New York City to lobby in favor of job-killing taxes for my home State of Georgia.

This is not about women and children, Mr. Speaker. This is about unaccountability when you start handing out slush funds to bureaucrats. In Philadelphia, it was to lobby against cigarettes. Is that something we ought to do? Well, golly, we can go out and do that on our own every day. Does the Federal Government need to borrow from our children and our grandchildren to help Philadelphia lobby against cigarette taxes? In California, it's going to put up signs so folks can find the local parks in the name of obesity training, Mr. Speaker. Do we need signs to help us find the local parks? We have them in our community. I thought they had them in other communities. Do I need to borrow from my children and my grandchildren to put up more signs for parks? Mr. Speaker, we don't.

This is not a priority that the American people stood up and voted for. This is a slush fund that is used by bureaucrats to focus on whatever their priority of the day is. And what's so disappointing is that this responsible government endorsed by a vote of this full House, is being described by my colleagues as an assault on women's health. It is offensive to me.

There are so many things that we legitimately disagree about. Go back where we began, Mr. Speaker. We disagree from the heart about so many directions in this country. There is not one person in this body--not one--that wants to put women's health at risk. Not one.

This is about responsible government and cutting out the waste, cutting out the low-priority spending, cutting out the dollars that come from taxpayers' pockets in my district to spend for job-killing legislation in New York.

Mr. Speaker, we're going to have a full debate on this, a full debate. Every Member of this body will be able to bring their voice to the floor. I look forward to that full debate. I believe in this country. I believe in this institution. I believe that full debate is going to take us exactly where we need to be.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say to my friend from Massachusetts that there is only one bill in this institution that abolishes not just the oil company tax credits that he wants to go after, not just all the corporate welfare that he wants to go after, not just all the benefits and exclusions and exemptions that the wealthy in this country utilize to lower their tax bills. There is one bill in this Congress that abolishes every single special exemption, deduction, carve-out, and giveaway in the entire United States Tax Code. It's H.R. 25. I'm the sponsor of that legislation. I join you in your desire to eliminate all those special interest tax breaks and deductions. I welcome your cosponsorship of that legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

As am I.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Florida for joining me here for this debate today. And there really are some things that we disagree about here in this body at large. But one thing we don't disagree about is the importance of bringing open rules to this floor to debate appropriations bills.

This appropriations bill that we're bringing under this rule, Mr. Speaker, is a 1 percent reduction from the levels the President has proposed. As we hear folks talk about the doom and the gloom and the kicking of children and the punishing of women--1 percent. There's a long, hard fall to the bottom coming all right, and it's coming in the American economy. And I'll tell you who gets hurt the most in a bad economy: it's the poorest and the weakest among us. We all know it.

We're asking for 1 percent less than what the President proposed in the name of taking a small step in the right direction. You could have gotten me for 20 or 25 percent less, just to be

clear. You could've gotten me on board if we'd gone 20 or 25 percent less. But this body is trying to move in a responsible fashion.

There's only one budget that's passed in this town, Mr. Speaker. The President's budget didn't pass. It got zero votes last year in the Senate. It got zero votes this year in the House. It didn't even get introduced last year in the House. There's only one budget in this town that has passed. That's the one that came out of the open process that we had right here.

We can take our toys and go home or we can try to do our appropriations bills under the one proposal that has garnered a majority vote in this entire Nation. I vote for the latter. And a vote for this rule is a vote for the latter.

Let's go ahead and start that process. Let's go ahead and do for the American people what we promised them we would do; and that is, operate this institution so that everybody has a voice, and at the end of the day we move our very best legislation forward.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Hastings of Florida is as follows:

An Amendment to H. Res. 643 Offered by Mr. Hastings of Florida

At the end of the resolution, add the following new

section:

Sec. 4. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution the

Speaker shall, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare

the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on

the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R.

4816) to amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to extend the

reduced interest rate for Federal Direct Stafford Loans, and

for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be

dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of

the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the

bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided among and

controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the

Committee on Education and the Workforce and the chair and

ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

After general debate the bill shall be considered for

amendment under the five-minute rule. All points of order

against provisions in the bill are waived. At the conclusion

of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee

shall rise and report the bill to the House with such

amendments as may have been adopted. The previous question

shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments

thereto to final passage without intervening motion except

one motion to recommit with or without instructions. If the

Committee of the Whole rises and reports that it has come to

no resolution on the bill, then on the next legislative day

the House shall, immediately after the third daily order of

business under clause 1 of rule XIV, resolve into the

Committee of the Whole for further consideration of the bill.

Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the consideration

of H.R. 4816.

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

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 5326, and that I may include tabular material on the same.

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

I am pleased to begin the consideration of H.R. 5326, making appropriations for fiscal year 2013 for Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies. The bill provides funding for programs whose impacts range from the safety of people in their homes and communities to the farthest reaches of space.

The bill before the House today reflects a delicate balancing of needs and

requirements. We have drafted what I consider to be a responsible bill for FY 2013 spending levels for the departments and agencies under the subcommittee's jurisdiction. We've had to carefully prioritize the funding in this bill and have had to make hard choices about how to spend scarce revenue.

I want to thank Chairman Rogers for supporting us with a fair allocation and in helping us to move the bill forward. I also want to thank the ranking member, Mr. Fattah, who has been an effective and valued partner and colleague, and I am grateful. I appreciate his principled commitment and his understanding of the programs in the bill.

I also would like to thank the members of the subcommittee for their help and assistance, as well as to thank Congressman Norman Dicks, the ranking member of the full committee.

I want to recognize the subcommittee staff, including our clerk, Mike Ringler; Leslie Albright; Stephanie Myers; Diana Simpson; Colin Samples and Scott Sammis; as well as Darek Newby and Bob Bonner from the minority staff, for their work in preparing the bill before us today.

I also want to recognize a number of the majority and minority associate staff members--all of their names and the offices that they are connected with.

Dan Scandling and Thomas Culligan in my office; Michelle

Anderson-Lee in Mr. Fattah's office; Robert LaBranche and

Ryan Stalnaker in Mr. Culberson's office; Mark Dawson and

Megan Medley in Mr. Aderholt's office; Mike Sharp in Mr.

Bonner's office; Tyler Grassmeyer, Steven Gilleland and

Jessica Talbert in Mr. Austria's office; Jason Lawrence in

Mr. Grave's office; Patrick Carroll in Mr. Yoder's office;

Megan O'Donnell in Chairman Rogers' office; Jeff Lowenstein

and Tim Bergreen in Mr. Schiff's office; Ken Takeda, A.J.

Bhadelia and Eric Werwa in Mr. Honda's office; Jheanelle

Brown and Matt Alpert in Mr. Serrano's office; and Pete

Modaff and Colin Sheldon in Ranking Member Dicks' office.

The bill totals $51.1 billion in discretionary spending, which is a reduction of 3.1 percent below the current fiscal year and 1.4 percent below the President's request.

Since the beginning of the 112th Congress, the committee has cut $13.2 billion, reducing the total amount of the CJS bill by over 20 percent over the 3 fiscal years. We have focused limited resources on the most critical areas: fighting crime and terrorism--including a new focus of preventing and investigating cyberattacks--and boosting U.S. competitiveness and job creation by investing in science, exports, and manufacturing.

For the Department of Commerce, the bill includes $7.7 billion, an increase of $96 million above FY12. The bill makes critical investments in manufacturing, export promotion, and job creation, including a task force and an EDA grant program to incentivize U.S. companies to bring their manufacturing and services activities back to the United States, particularly back to the U.S. from China.

For NIST, the bill includes $830 million, including $128 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, MEP, program and $21 million for an advanced manufacturing competitive research program to make the American manufacturing sector a source of job growth.

The bill also makes critical investments in weather forecasting and disaster preparedness to save lives and protect property, including funding above the President's request for the National Weather Service operations and for tsunami preparedness. Also included is an increase of $126 million for the weather satellite acquisitions, including the full amount requested for the new JPSS satellite. This funding is necessary to better protect Americans from natural disasters such as tornados, hurricanes, and tsunamis, just like we've seen in the Midwest this year, Kansas, Alabama, and places like that this year. It is also with regard to snowstorms and drought.

Science. A primary area of focus in the bill this year is scientific research, innovation, and competitiveness.

Investments in scientific research are key to long-term economic growth and job creation. The bill includes $7.3 billion for the National Science Foundation, an increase of $299 million, or 4.3 percent above FY12, for basic research and science education. This funding will go toward the types of research that will keep America's economy strong by setting the groundwork for the development of new technologies.

Developing a well-educated STEM workforce is also critical to America's competitiveness. More than $1 billion is provided throughout the bill for science education, including $876 million for NSF to improve the quality of science education.

NASA. The bill includes $17.6 billion, including funding above the aggregate request, to keep the development schedule for the Orion crew vehicle and heavy-lift rocket. Commercial crew development is funded at $500 million, consistent with the current authorization and the report accompanying the House budget resolution.

To find the fastest, safest, and most cost-effective means of achieving a U.S. capability for access to the international space station, the bill directs NASA to winnow the commercial partners and advance the schedule for moving to traditional government procurement methods. Continuing on the current path runs a high risk of failure by one or more companies receiving government subsidies, similar to what we last saw last year with Solyndra, and leaving the taxpayer with no tangible benefits in exchange for a substantial investment. We do not need a space Solyndra. I say this to Members on both sides of the aisle. We have heard Solyndra thrown around. We do not need a space Solyndra.

We have received letters from Neil Armstrong, Gene Cernan, and James Lovell endorsing the committee's approach to commercial crew as ``reasonable and appropriate.''

According to the GAO, we have invested $100 billion in the station, so we need to develop our own capability to get our astronauts up there to use it quickly rather than relying on the Russians and paying the Russians.

The bill also includes $570 million--which is $18.4 million above the request--for aeronautics research. Aerospace is a pillar of the American manufacturing sector and one of the leading exports. This is an industry that creates thousands of jobs in America. This investment will boost our aviation competitiveness so America continues to be number one.

The bill includes $5.1 billion for NASA science programs, including $1.4 billion for planetary science. This amount restores cuts in the President's request that would have inhibited progress on all planetary science goals, including flagship missions to Mars and Europa.

For the Department of Justice, the bill includes $27.1 billion, $11 million above the current level.

The top mission priority of the Justice Department is defending national security from both internal and external threats. The bill includes $8.3 billion, an increase of $148 million, for the FBI, including an increase of $23 million to prevent and combat cyberintrusions. Director Mueller has predicted that cyber will soon overtake terrorism as the Bureau's number one threat. The increase will be the first step in building a nationwide capability for cyberinvestigations that complements the other cyberinitiatives under consideration in the House.

The bill restores funding for the National Gang Intelligence Center, which the President wanted to terminate. Every district in this country has violent gangs running throughout your districts, such as MS 13 and many other groups. If you've been down along the border, you will see many of the gangs in Mexico have operations up here. To shut that down and terminate it, this is a major threat to the country. It also provides an additional funding for FBI's Safe Streets Task Forces. Now is not the time to retreat in an effort to combat the growing gang problem, not only on the border but throughout the country.

Bureau of Prison operations are funded at the requested level of $6.8 billion, an increase of $269 million above FY12, to activate newly constructed prisons and ensure safe and secure Federal prison facilities in light of, unfortunately, continued population growth.

This bill includes $1.85 billion for justice programs that provide grants for States, localities, and nonprofits. Despite the reduction, the bill prioritizes proven high-priority programs, including justice assistance grants, SCAAP.

The administration was at $70 million on SCAAP. We're at $165 million.

It also includes funding for missing and exploited children programs and DNA grants.

The bill includes funding for prescription drug monitoring grants. And I want to give a lot of credit to Chairman Rogers for his effort here.

It also includes a significant increase in DEA's Tactical Diversion Squads to address our Nation's fastest growing drug problem: prescription drug abuse.

The funding for violence against women and for victims of trafficking is increased above the current level and above the President's request. There's more money in here for violence against women than this administration put.

We recently marked the fifth anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech. Following this terrible tragedy, Congress passed a bill to improve the National Instant Background Check System, NICS, a critical tool for keeping firearms out of the hands of prohibited persons. But the NICS is only as effective as the State databases on which it relies. This bill includes $12 million to improve NICS records, $7 million more than the 2012 request.

Finally, we're asking the Office of Inspector General to do a follow- up review of the justice task force that looked at cases affected by flawed FBI lab practices in 1990. A new OIG review is a necessary next step to ensure that prosecutors follow through on task force findings and that defendants' rights are upheld. No one should get sentenced to jail for life when we know there is information that has not been shared. So we've had the OIG review and take a look at this.

In closing, that is a summary of the bill before us today. It provides increases where needed to maintain and strengthen operations of critical law enforcement. It carries on the fight against terrorism, crime, and drugs and provides important increases to boost scientific research, innovation, and competitiveness. It provides strong support for all the various NASA missions. It represents our best take on matching needs with scarce resources.

We have tried hard to produce the best bill we possibly could within the resources we had, And I would hope that all Members would support the bill.

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

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I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers), the chairman of the full committee.

I yield such time as he may consume to the chairman of the full Committee on Science, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall).

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kinzinger).

Will the gentleman yield?

I want to thank you, Mr. Kinzinger, for your work and for bringing up this important topic.

The Department of Commerce can play a pivotal role in educating companies on the benefits of manufacturing in the U.S. We need to ensure that the Department is using innovative tools such as online calculators to assist companies. This online tool has the potential to not only educate companies but also provide clarity in advantages and disadvantages of manufacturing in the U.S.

Also, I think people ought to know this is not only a tool; this is almost a moral issue. We just went through and had hearings with Congressman Chris Smith when Congress was away. The country of China had Chen and beat up his wife and did a lot of other things. So not only is it this issue, it is a moral issue. And Apple, if you have an iPad, it is made in China; iPhone, made in China; iPod, made in China, and those jobs ought to be coming home. So we also have language in there to provide for grants to repatriate, to bring these jobs back.

China is a trouble. They have a one-child policy. Fifty million men cannot find wives. They have corruption in the military, and they are unraveling. And this is a great opportunity, using this tool, but just for the American manufacturers to come home, to come back to the United States. So I thank the gentleman for raising the issue.

I yield to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Yoder) for such time as he may consume.

I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for raising the issue, and I promise we will work with him and our colleagues in the Senate during the conference to ensure an adequate level of funding for this program.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

I rise in opposition to the amendment.

The bill already includes important increases for trade enforcement, including $15 million for the Interagency Trade Enforcement Center, an increase of nearly $11 million.

We pushed Kirk to add Chinese speakers. He wouldn't even do it. He wouldn't even do it. We have pushed him to do it.

This is a bad amendment. The offset is a problem. Sometimes you can come here and be for one thing but also want to protect the other.

The Cross Agency Support Account is not free money that can be cut without consequences. The committee has already extracted more than $150 million of savings from this account relative to fiscal year 2012, and NASA will not be able to absorb the additional reductions through efficiencies.

NASA has already been cut. Now we want to cut it more. These cuts will include critical programmatic functions. These are the functions that they want to kind of cut in there. Cybersecurity, cybersecurity to fend off relentless attacks by China. Their computers have been hit. While NASA is a civil Agency, much of its technology also has military applications, and protecting this information is a national and economic--that area they will be taking money from that.

Human space flight safety oversight. We learned the hard way on the Challenger and Columbia tragedies that relentless attention to safety is necessary. Cuts to this account could hamstring NASA's efforts to minimize the risk of loss of life or property.

Verification and validation of mission-critical software that operates the satellites and the space station. We spend billions of dollars on these space projects, and those investments could easily be wasted by fundamental software errors if such software isn't rigorously tested.

This account also deals with medical support services to keep the astronauts and ground workers healthy. Many NASA employees work regularly in hazardous environments, and I don't want to be responsible for endangering them. The procurement account, which is the operation of agency-wide testing, is a big source for jobs. It funds nearly 10,000 contractor workers, and nearly 8,000 are government employees, FTEs, who carry out these activities.

This cuts vital, important things for NASA. If you want to cut NASA, then you ought to cut this. If you support sticking it to NASA and cutting NASA--if you're against the Orion, if you're against the commercial crew, if you're against all the things they do for space safety--support this amendment. If you want to protect NASA, then I urge you to oppose this amendment.

Lastly, I take a backseat to no one in this body in criticizing the Chinese Government. Frankly, this administration has been weak in aggressively pushing with regard to trade and things like that. We forced and urged and told Kirk to put Chinese speakers on. We put the money in for Chinese speakers when they didn't ask for it.

If you want to protect NASA, I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Broun). His heart is in the right place, and I think the whole concept of getting control of the budget is very important. But I rise in opposition.

It would cut the FBI, DEA, NIST, U.S. Trade Rep and the National Science Foundation. Some of the increases are in here because the House Intelligence Committee approached us. As Mr. Rogers said:

There are two kinds of companies in America: those who have

been hit by cyberattacks and know it, and those who have been

hit by cyber by the Chinese and do not know it.

Many of those important functions the Intel Committee has asked us to carry in order to help and many others would be severely hurt. So I thank the gentleman for the amendment. I think what he's trying to do is important, but I think this would be the wrong way to do it.

I urge a ``no'' vote and yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

This would be a draconian cut. I heard that 5,000 of the 6,000 products in Wal-Mart are made in China. We want to export our jobs. We want to export our products. We want to make cars in Michigan and send them around the world. We want to make things and export them. We want to develop applesauce and export it. We want to export. So I have a long list I'm not going to say, and there are so many things in this bill that are not authorized. There are four pages of things that are not authorized, and if we didn't do things that weren't authorized, then we would have to shut this place down and move off to some other place.

I just think it's a bad amendment. I understand what the gentleman is doing to save money. But I think we need to export and create jobs, and I want to see American products sold in China, American products sold in England, American products sold in Berlin, American products sold in Indonesia. So I urge a ``no'' vote for the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I accept the amendment. I think it's a good amendment. The committee continues to support the International Trade Administration, particularly with regard to China. And I won't go on. But I thank the gentleman for the amendment, and I completely agree with it. I urge all Members to support it.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.

It would zero out EDA. Last year the House voted 305 127 to, strangely enough, increase funding for EDA by $80 million. This year, we are

funding the EDA at $219.5 million, which is $38 million less than the base appropriation provided to EDA last year. Last year and this year, we in the subcommittee directed the EDA to designate a portion of its grant funding to work with companies to bring back their outsourced manufacturing activities to economically distressed communities in the United States.

So we have asked them to change their whole thrust of the grants, to not do what the gentleman says--and I think he makes some valid points here--but to now have it whereby a community can work to incentivize to bring a company back from China or back from Mexico. Last year, the House voted 305 127 to increase the funding to EDA by $80 million. This year, we were at $219.5 million, $38 million less, so I urge a ``no'' vote.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, this costs no money. We have no objection to the amendment and accept the amendment.

I rise in opposition to the gentlelady's increase. The bill already funds the Minority Business Development Agency at the level requested by the administration of nearly $29 million. The administration has not asked for more money.

Also, the offset would not be good. It would cut the scientific research activities at NIST that are vital to increasing our competitiveness, giving the edge to American manufacturing and also doing a lot of work in the area of cyber. Funding the sciences and research programs has been a top priority of both political parties, so I urge my colleagues to reject this increase and to vote down the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I have no objection to the amendment. I think it's a good amendment. The committee has also been very supportive. Also based on the recommendation of Mr. Meehan, they have broadened it now with regard to veterans, too.

But I thank the gentleman, and we accept the amendment.

The amendment would cut $21 million we provided for NIST to establish an Advanced Manufacturing Technology Consortia, or AmTech.

Revitalizing the manufacturing sector is important to a strong economy. Is America going to be making anything? Aren't we all tired of going into Wal-Mart and seeing ``made in China''? We have to begin to make things in this country. AmTech would be a competitive-grants program designed to leverage existing or establish new industry-led consortia to develop roadmaps for key long-term industrial research needs and support research at universities and government labs. AmTech will address multiple components of the innovation cycle from discovery to commercialization to accelerate the pace of innovation through the various industrial sectors.

These are precisely the types of programs that we need now to support American manufacturing and innovation, and NIST has a strong track record of proven success in supporting American manufacturing. Manufacturing should be the cornerstone of the economy, and this amendment would help stop it.

I'm going to digress for just a second. When this Congress on two different occasions was asked by the administration to do away with the so-called ``payroll tax,'' that cost this Congress $125 billion. By doing that, both sides of this Congress and the administration gave Jimmy Buffett a break and Warren Buffett a break, and they created no new jobs. We took $250 billion and literally threw it away and jeopardized the Social Security program. They said they were going to pay for it by borrowing from the general fund. The general fund is broke. This is manufacturing, and we need a manufacturer. We need to create jobs in this country.

I know the gentleman has got a great record on the cutting, but this is not the place we want to do it. And I urge a ``no'' vote and yield back the balance of my time.

If the gentleman will yield, I think it's a good amendment, and I accept the amendment.

I wish we could have worked something out. I visited the RISS center up in Bucks County. My dad was a Philadelphia policeman. I take a back seat to no one on the issue of crime.

But it doesn't cut the climate. We don't go down to that. What we're cutting, basically, is weather. What we're cutting is a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research and facilities issue. The account the gentleman is proposing would cut funds for the National Weather Service and the satellite office that process all the data with regard to weather--hurricanes, tornados.

As we go on, no matter what the outcome of this amendment, it doesn't cut climate service. Also, this is the same level fiscal year as it was in the 2012 level and the request. Some Members come down and want more cuts; others want an increase. This bill is below the President's numbers. It is below last year. It is a good program, but it's balancing out.

So I would urge people to vote ``no,'' and as we go to conference, I'll tell the gentleman, we'll work on it. As of now, I urge a ``no'' vote. If you vote ``yes,'' then the money is coming out of the weather. If there's a hurricane, a tornado, a snowstorm, a problem, then you make your own judgment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I want to start out first and foremost by thanking my colleague and the chairman of the subcommittee, Frank Wolf, for continuing to be a model chairman for the Appropriations Subcommittee. He is a professional; he's principled, and he has involved us, the minority, in every level of the distributions as we've developed this bill.

I would also like to thank my staff and the committee staff on both the majority and minority side for their work on this bill, along with all those who have had input in it.

Now I start out in this process with a number of priorities. First and foremost in the science arena, neuroscience. And I want to thank the chairman--I will speak about it in some detail in a minute--but for his collaboration and this effort around brain research.

Manufacturing. We will talk about the support in this bill, the hundreds of millions of dollars to continue to position our country in terms of manufacturing. We now lead the world in manufacturing, and we want to continue that, but we have real competition that we have to contend with.

And then also in the area of steering our young people away from antisocial activity, youth mentoring. And the chairman, in the chairman's mark, as passed in the subcommittee and the full committee, and as we bring this bill to the floor, again makes significant improvements in our investment around youth mentoring.

So let me start with the Department of Commerce. There are healthy funding levels for research at NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and for the NOAA satellite programs, which are so important to our weather forecasting challenges as a Nation.

In the chairman's mark, he very wisely rejected the proposed cuts that were going to be made in both the technical capabilities and the personnel at the National Weather Service, including air quality and the tsunami warning system and wind profile measurements, in which we've already invested tens of millions of dollars as a Nation.

The bill provides funding at or near the requested level for the Department of Justice law enforcement agencies, including an increase above the request for the FBI and to augment its capabilities in terms of cyberinvestigation and surveillance. I know that all of the members of the committee and all of the Members of the House understand the very significant challenges that the country faces in terms of cybersecurity. And the chairman has appropriately focused resources in that regard.

The bill provides an increase for the Office on Violence Against Women grant programs. Of course these are programs that we are dealing with the authorization of in a different part of our processes, but they are very important in terms of support for women who face abuse. And also, there's a small increase for Crime Victims Fund programs.

The chairman's mark in the bill, as passed from the full committee, provides a healthy increase for the National Science Foundation, the world's premiere national entity focused on basic scientific research.

The bill makes a strong commitment, as the chairman has noted, to NASA science and also fully funds the James Webb Space Telescope and makes a significant investment in commercial crew and in space technology. And even though I don't go as far as the chairman, I do support the idea that we need to move as rapidly as possible to this new focus on having American enterprise compete for opportunities to participate fully and at a much more cost-effective level in terms of our space exploration. The bill makes a significant increase in terms of future robotic missions to Mars, and we make a requirement in the language that this be part of a sample return mission, as the National Academy of Sciences' report indicates.

Due in some part to the limits on the allocation, there are a number of areas in the bill which we should try to improve as we move through this process. And we'll hear some of that in the amendment process, and we will do as much as we can in the conference process that will follow. But because this bill is based on the Ryan budget, it is less than the Senate counterpart, which was moved out of committee $731 million higher in its allocation. This will have to be reconciled in this process.

I hope that as we go about that, we can look at the EDA, the Economic Development Administration, and look at the Census Bureau. And most importantly, to me, the Legal Services Corporation and the COPS program are areas where I hope that we are able to raise to additional levels of funding. The State and local grant programs also take a significant decrease off of what we would hope that they could be.

But I want to focus a little bit of my comments on the fact that in full committee, there were a number of nonfinancial items added to the bill. One related to firearms, another related to swimming pool regulations for the disabled. There are always going to be disagreements around regulatory issues, but I'm not sure that this bill is the appropriate place. In fact, I would suggest that this bill is not the appropriate place to try to reconcile those issues. And I'm sure that as we move through, there will be additional input as to how we might deal with this question.

But let me talk in some detail for a minute about some of the great initiatives that I think we were able to come to agreement on. And again, I want to thank the chairman and the staff. For our country and for my caucus, there's nothing more important than manufacturing. And we see that the Manufacturing Extension Partnership receives $128 million, with a special carve-out for the National Innovative Marketplace, a Web-like portal that will help our manufacturers compete for manufacturing initiatives at the Federal level. I think it's very important. The $21 million requested by the President was met in this bill for a new Advanced Manufacturing Technology Consortia program at NIST. And also, we provide $149 million to the National Science Foundation for their advanced manufacturing initiative.

We continue a program authorized under the America COMPETES Act that we funded last year to help small manufacturers bring technology onto the plant floor. And I would note that the chairman held, as his last hearing, a hearing on manufacturing. And I think it really brought light to the subject of what the country can and needs to do in terms of helping our manufacturers compete with competitors abroad and much larger countries that are trying to overtake us in terms of manufacturing.

I would like to personally thank the chairman for fully funding the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the White House, which has taken the lead in this neuroscience initiative that has been a bipartisan agreement to really try to build a collaboration of Federal agencies focused on some of the challenges that we have in terms of brain research, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, autism, and addiction, which is a big issue for the chairman of our full committee, Chairman Rogers, and for many of the people that we represent. There are issues related to traumatic brain injury affecting our veterans. So this collaboration is critically important, and I want to thank the chairman for fully funding that office, which is leading this effort, and the other important work that it does.

There is a lot more that I could say. Let me conclude, however, because we're going to spend a long time on the floor, and I will have plenty of chances to speak about the Youth Mentoring Initiative, which funds a variety of national groups that do work. But I think the shining light at the very top of the pyramid is the Boys & Girls Clubs, with some 4,000 clubs all across our country, on all of our military bases, and also in sovereign Native American reservations and lands, working with over 4 million young people, along with Big Brothers and Big Sisters and a number of other organizations which work to help American youth move in positive directions in their lives.

So I think that the bill that we bring to the House, even though it is not the bill in every respect that I would bring--and obviously there is room for improvement, and that's the part of the process that we'll go through on the floor and in conference--this is a bill that had complete unanimous, bipartisan support out of subcommittee

and was voice-voted out of the full committee. And I am happy to join my colleague, the chairman, as we present it now for House action.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield such time as he may consume to the ranking member of the full committee, the gentleman from Washington State (Mr. Dicks).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from the great State of Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) who is a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee.

I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I am glad there is a recognition of the importance of manufacturing, and the chairman has done a yeoman's job in making sure we, in a number of ways, attack this.

I would like to yield 3 minutes to my colleague on the committee, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano).

I would note that the chairman and I are both in a significant minority on this floor in voting for the Bowles-Simpson proposal, so we're for a balanced fiscal approach, but we also know that we have to make important investments.

I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (Mr. Keating) to enter into a colloquy on an important matter related to marine science.

I yield 2 minutes to my fraternity brother, the gentleman representing the great State of Michigan (Mr. Clarke) to talk about the importance of science and STEM-related education.

On behalf of the Democrats, I yield back the balance of our time. We have no further speakers.

I move to strike the last word.

In part, I rise out of a desire to have my cake and eat it, too.

I agree with the gentleman, Mr. Peters, that trade enforcement is critically important. This administration has put a premium on it in that regard, bringing case after case--the tire case--against the Chinese. We could go through the laundry list. There is an $11 million increase embedded in the bill, as it has come to the floor, over last year's appropriation. I am not sure you can find a part of this budget in which there has been a more significant increase. However, it is not at the level of what the administration had requested.

I could support moving additional dollars in this direction, but this target of the Cross-Agency account at NASA, which we're going to see repeated dozens of times on the floor, I think is not the appropriate way to go. We don't want to rob our space agency of the important resources it needs to protect our astronauts, to protect its cybersystems. We have to be careful here.

So I would say to the gentleman that, no matter what the result on the amendment, I will be glad to work with him as we go forward in the conference to try to find additional resources for trade enforcement. I think this administration has done a great job in fighting the good fight, but they do need the resources. The chairman has provided $11 million in additional resources, but if we can find a few more dollars in that direction, I think it's a worthy investment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Let me give just one example, and then I will just stand in opposition to the amendment.

On page 30, line 15, this amendment would cut the FBI by $245 million. Now, we know of the important work being done on behalf of the safety of Americans throughout the world by the FBI and, most particularly, here in our own country. Our job under the Constitution is to figure out what appropriations are needed. Under our Constitution, the Ways and Means Committee is responsible for figuring out how to pay for it. We can't say that somehow the safety of our citizens is too expensive for the wealthiest, greatest country on the face of the Earth. I stand in opposition to this amendment.

I yield to the gentleman.

In reclaiming my time, you are, indeed, a person who provides a lot of leadership here in the House, and you lead our Thursday prayer efforts. I want to thank you for all the work that you do, but in this instance, I disagree with you.

I have met with Director Mueller right in my office. The FBI needs additional resources. The chairman has provided $128 million in this committee bill. This cuts $245 million when we're trying to deal with the principal responsibility for the world these days in providing protection against terrorist attacks. We just saw in the news today a new device that was attempted to be used to bring down an American commercial airliner. If such a device were to go off, it would cost our economy more, not just in lives, but in real economic costs if we had to reshape our airline industry. It would be, I think, foolish of us as a Nation to retreat from investments at this time in the FBI.

On that point, on page 30, line 15, I oppose this amendment, and I ask my colleagues to do likewise.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Less than 1 percent of American businesses export to any other country. We've been engaged in a process to increase the level of exports, in part with the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank. A number of these other activities are connected. But this is an activity that has borne fruit. I've met with businesses and the people who run these efforts around the country, and they're doing real work, helping real businesses all across our country, and it creates real jobs.

I'm against the amendment. And I guess if you don't think that we should be focused on jobs and exports, you could oppose it. As for myself--and I would ask those who want to support American jobs--partly we have to do that through selling to the 90 percent of consumers who are somewhere else other than in our own country. So I support continued funding for this effort.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

We would agree to the amendment.

I rise in support of the spirit of this amendment, and I move to strike the last word.

I also have reservations about the offset. But let me talk first about EDA.

It's critically important--and I'm sorry, I want to apologize to the gentlelady from Ohio--we don't want, in this debate, to substitute insult for insight. I think that what we want to do is focus on the issue at hand. We do need to create jobs.

The EDA is a program that I think almost everyone should be able to support because it's local decisionmaking, investing in communities of interest. It's worked in every State of the country to help communities work through difficult economic circumstances when plants close and the like. It's a return of taxpayers' money to their communities for economic development activities.

What we need to do as we go forward is think about how we pay for this. This is a $38 million increase that the offset of the census will have political attractiveness. But the truth is that we can't substitute that for our constitutional responsibilities to conduct a census and to do it properly. And we have to prepare for it.

So I want to work with the gentleman as the bill goes through the process to try to find additional dollars for EDA, but I hope that at the end of the day we're able to provide more revenues for the census, to do our job as a Congress to fully fund our constitutional responsibilities to have a census and to do it correctly.

I yield back the balance of my time.

And I think the gentleman might be in opposition. Last year he voted to increase by $80 million to EDA as we went through this process; and today he comes and says he wants to zero it out.

Let me just put this in some context. We have seen gas prices go down for the last 5 weeks in a row; 200,000 homeowners today have their principals being reduced. We have 4.25 million jobs created over 26 months by the private sector. Our economy, unlike those in Europe-- Britain has slumped into a double-dip recession; we have 25 percent unemployment in Spain--America is coming back. So this notion that somehow we need to kind of just stop trying to help communities move in the right direction I don't think makes a lot of sense to me. So I join the chairman on the majority side asking that we oppose this amendment.

If there are some people somewhere who don't want economic development assistance from the Federal Government, they don't need to apply. These are merit-based competitive grants, locally decided; and it is helping communities all across our country. We had testimony in the Appropriations Committee from Members on both sides of the aisle about work being done by EDA in Alabama and all across our country. So the notion that we should support this amendment to zero this Agency out, to me, doesn't move us in the right direction. We want to go forward as a country. I move to oppose this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

We are prepared to accept the amendment.

I rise to oppose the amendment.

My colleague mentioned small businesses. It brings to mind that, in today's financial times, it shows that we have the highest enthusiasm for hiring and economic optimism in the small business community that we've had in this country in a very long time.

Over $70 billion was made available through the Obama administration for small business loans, through 2009 and 2010, and we now see the results of it. We see millions of private sector jobs being created. Our economy has seen a decrease over 11 months from an unemployment rate of 9.1 percent to now 8.1 percent, and most economists agree it's going to drop into the 7 percent number over the next few months.

This notion that we can cut programs and, therefore, we should cut administration sounds like a lot of common sense. But when you think about it, whether one Member comes over to the floor today or 100 Members, we still have to have staff on the floor. There's still security; there are still lights. There are still expenses in an agency when you have to run any part of the program. So if you have to run a loan program, if you have to run other programs, you need the expertise and the staff to do it. Whether you cut the program back a little bit-- it's like a classroom in a school. Unless you're going to eliminate an entire classroom, you need to hire the teacher; you need to have the lights on.

So I would just suggest that, even though the gentleman may be focused on trying to do something, he says, about the deficit, that, in reality, unless he's actually trying to cripple the Commerce Department as it competes with much larger countries like China and India, economic competitors like

the European Union, trying to work on behalf of the American businesses, our Commerce Department, we cannot afford to be cutting back and cutting in a way that actually does harm to our economy. So I rise in opposition to this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I rise in support of the amendment.

This amendment, in all likelihood, is not going to pass in the House today.

The chairman is correct that the appropriations request from the administration was fully met in the bill, but I do want to associate myself with the remarks of the gentlelady from New York.

I share a birthday with Dick Durbin, who is the majority leader in the Senate, and with the gentlelady from New York. We all happened to be born on the same day, but at least between me and Durbin, she is at least the best among us.

This effort to increase our focus on underserved communities is an important one, and that is why I am happy that she, along with the gentleman from Tennessee, have brought this amendment forward. I think that, in order to increase economic opportunity in our country, we need to be focused on this agency. It's not so much whether we save an office here or there. Rather, it's that we need to put increased focus on loans and technical assistance and contracting opportunities for businesses that have been left out. I know the chairman agrees with me in this regard. We need to continue to look for ways to increase the opportunities for this agency in order to serve these communities.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I also can support this amendment.

I led the effort in the Pennsylvania legislature to create drug courts in our State. I'm a big supporter, and I think that the chairman--in the bill before us, we've already increased this account, but I think that the amendment as offered by my colleague is something that we would support.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition.

Madam Chair, there is nothing more important in our country than the revival of manufacturing. Over the first decade of this century, we lost so many manufacturing jobs.

At the front edge of this recovery is manufacturing. So that's 370,000 new jobs. To take our Federal laboratories, which we invest billions of dollars that we have--I've visited Sandia and Los Alamos and the Fermi Lab and the Argonne Lab. We have tens of thousands of scientists and researchers there. This consortia program will allow them to work with local manufacturers and communities to help build our manufacturing base so that as we compete across the globe to build it here and sell it everywhere, that we have the manufacturing capabilities to do it.

I think this is an amendment that is unwise. We have a budget that is built not only on the agreement last year, but on the Ryan budget. We're operating within the 302(b) allocation. So for people to rise and say we don't have the money, no, this is money that's been allocated by the majority Republican Congress to spend on behalf of moving our country forward. So we should have a debate on what's important. I think manufacturing is important. I hope that we will reject this amendment.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. And, again, I thank my friend and colleague, Mr. Woodall, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

I also appreciated his comments about the fact that we are borrowing from the next generation. I gather that the previous generation borrowed from us. I don't know when the borrowing stops, but at least that seems to be the way of the world until we get to a point where we can be self-sustaining, as rightly we should be.

This rule provides for consideration of Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations for fiscal year 2013.

Many of my Republican colleagues have been patting themselves on the back for the open rule associated with this bill. They claim that this effort demonstrates transparency and their commitment to regular order. Putting aside for the moment whether a single open rule in 304 days makes for an open legislation process, the fact is that now the Republicans are using this rule to correct a mistake they made in their previous effort to deem and pass the Ryan budget.

It seems, Mr. Speaker, that the deem and pass didn't work the first time around. It was supposed to break the spending agreement made by my friends in the Republican Party in the Budget Control Act, but they bungled that effort a couple weeks ago and now have to try to go back on their word. It seems to me that if you're going to break an agreement that you made in good faith, you ought to get it right the first time. Doing this twice just calls attention to what little regard there is for bipartisan cooperation and agreement.

I heard my colleague, Mr. Woodall, comment about this coming out of the subcommittee and the committee by voice vote, and there is no disagreement in that regard. I guess to some that is to be a commendable effort. But he also suggested that we may very well, if we were to choose, carry this on voice vote. I would disabuse him of that notion. That is not going to happen. The deem and pass was wrong the first time around, and it's still wrong the second time around--and shouldn't have been placed in here--and it will be wrong the third, fourth, and however many more times around there are, in spite of open rules, if you put it in it, until the Republicans have repudiated every last promise they made.

If breaking the Budget Control Act agreement wasn't enough, the Republican majority is also using this rule to silence Members on the upcoming reconciliation legislation being considered by this body later this week. Rather than using regular order--and I stick a tack in that to compliment my colleague on the Rules Committee, who does believe and has made it manifestly clear that he believes in regular order--but rather than using regular order to debate the merits of breaking their promises, Republicans are imposing martial law to prevent Members from properly considering the legislation and having their say.

Forcing same-day consideration--that's what we mean when we say ``martial law''--of the legislation simply reinforces the majority's intent to use this legislation for partisan gain. Instead of working with Democrats on a bipartisan process, Republicans want to jeopardize funding for essential government programs so they can both go back on their agreements and force the House to consider the legislation sight unseen.

This is an unfortunate situation because Democrats would have been pleased to support this open rule. Had the Republicans followed regular order, Democrats would support this rule; and I, for one, would argue that we should do so by voice if it had been that way. If the Budget Committee Democrats end up taking the entire 3 days that they are entitled to under the rules of the House before they finish their

views, we could consider the reconciliation bill on Monday instead of Thursday.

This is no way to run a budget process and no way to conduct the business of the House. I'd be amused at the Republicans' failed efforts here, Mr. Speaker, except that I'm dismayed to point out that millions of Americans depend on the programs considered under the appropriations process.

An agreement was made with the Budget Control Act, and under the agreement the Republicans promised certain levels of funding for essential programs. That funding is now in jeopardy because the majority wants to spend time trying to go back on what they promised. Let me remind this body that the House and Senate both passed the Budget Control Act. The Senate has not passed the Ryan budget.

And deeming and passing does nothing but force this body, as I say all the time, to pretend that the budget, as offered, is in effect.

As I said in the Rules Committee when the Republicans tried to do this the first time around, if we're going to pass legislation that pretends things exist, then I guess we don't need either the Senate or the President of the United States since we can just pretend that the laws have passed when, in fact, they have not.

I don't have my copy of ``I'm Just a Bill,'' and my colleague wasn't here when I read it in committee at one point in time, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't mention that the way to pass legislation is to first pass one agreement and then try twice to pretend it never happened.

I don't know what that looks like in a cartoon version, but probably less like ``Schoolhouse Rock'' and more like Wile E. Coyote falling straight off a cliff, because if we're going to get out of the business of reality and into the business of pretending, let's just pretend that every American has a job, that every student can go to college, and that no child goes to bed hungry. Let's pretend that the billions we wasted on unnecessary wars were, instead, actually invested right here in the United States of America. Let's pretend that Thanksgiving is in June and Christmas is in July and the election season is over and the deficit is gone.

And since we've now pretended that everything is fine in our great country, let's go tell all of the unemployed, the middle class, the hungry and the poor that their problems aren't real. Or better yet, let's just pretend those people don't exist, because that's exactly what I believe the majority's budget does.

Rather than using the power of the Federal budget to lead this country into a new era of economic growth, Republicans want to cut taxes for those that are wealthy among us, including those of us that serve in the House of Representatives, cut services for everyone else, and then feel like they've set the country on the right track.

Instead of spending our time debating the merits of the appropriations legislation before us, we're, again, trying to convince the majority to stick with the promises they made in the first place.

Rather than uniting in bipartisan fashion to support an open and transparent legislative process, Republicans are using partisan gimmickry to silence debate.

Rather than debating this legislation under the Budget Control Act, we have to debate whether the Republican majority should even have to keep their promises.

And rather than considering whether the inadequate levels of funding in this legislation, particularly in certain arenas--let me use one: the COPS program that I thought it was wrong when Democrats cut that program, and I think it's wrong now that Republicans are talking about less money for a program that all of us know is desperately needed in our various communities.

We have to consider doing more for struggling Americans, and we have to consider whether we ought to be cutting even more, as my colleagues would have it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

General Leave

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

If we defeat the previous question, I am going to offer an amendment to the rule to make sure that we bring up the bill by Mr. Tierney of Massachusetts in order to prevent a doubling of student loan interest rates, which would be fully paid for by repealing tax giveaways for big oil companies.

To discuss our amendment to the rule, I am very pleased at this time to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California, the ranking member of the Education and the Workforce Committee, Mr. Miller.

I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

Mr. Speaker, I'm very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Connecticut, my good friend, Mr. Courtney.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to my very good friend, Mr. Tierney from Massachusetts.

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

I would inform my colleague that I am the last speaker. I don't know whether he is, but I am prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time, and I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record along with extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, the majority tried once 2 weeks ago to go back on what they agreed to. It did not work. So now here we are again, trying to ``re-deem'' ourselves. But this is no way to run an economy, no way to run a budget process, and no way to stick up for the millions of struggling Americans who need us to focus on improving the economy.

We can ``pretend'' that the Ryan budget has passed when, in fact, it has not. We can deem it or come here to re-deem it. But while we are living in legislative fantasyland, millions of other Americans will still be struggling to find jobs, to pay off their student loans, to access affordable health care and decent housing, and, really, in the final analysis, just to survive in an economy that--not just this year or last, not just in the last decade or the decade before--but in an economy that favors those who have the most, rather than look out for those who have the least.

In the celebrated cartoon that carries Wile E. Coyote, he used to pretend that there was going to be some kind of rubberized floor mat when he landed off a cliff, only to find that soon after that, he was in a very long and painful fall to the bottom.

I've said before and I will repeat: we are better people than what's happening here. I agree with my friend from Georgia (Mr. Woodall) that we see things differently. And in our heart of hearts, both of us and many of the Members of this body are in agreement and want things to be better.

As long as Republicans insist on replacing substantive debate with partisan gimmicks, broken promises, and misplaced priorities, the fall to the bottom is going to seem very long and is likely to be very painful for millions of Americans.

I would urge my colleagues to oppose this rule for the reason that it is deeming something that is being pretended to be passed. I'd ask them to oppose this rule for the reason that it includes in it martial law that disallows the open discussion that my colleague rightly points to in an open rule. But this particular provision disallows that as it pertains to the reconciliation. And that is just no way for us to go about trying to come to terms with the enormous consequences and circumstances that we face by not having faced them many, many, many years ago.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

I, of course, rise in support of H.R. 5326, the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act 2013. This bill includes over $30 billion for four key agencies under the Science, Space, and Technology Committee's jurisdiction: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

It's a very strong bill, and I want to commend the gentleman from Virginia, Chairman Wolf, for his continued passionate support for science and space issues in a challenging fiscal environment. Mr. Wolf is a true champion of science, and this bill is reflective of that. I also appreciate Chairman Wolf's work to address my concerns and priorities as chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, and want to highlight a few specific areas of importance to us in this bill.

With regards to NASA, this legislation recognizes the budget realities that we must confront by responsibly imposing measured reductions across the Agency's portfolio. Importantly, this bill maintains development of a new heavy-lift launch system and crew capsule. It maintains a healthy space science enterprise, continues to support innovative aeronautics research, and funds the administration's commercial crew program at the authorized level of $500 million. Our committee will continue to provide oversight on the commercial crew program and work with the appropriators to support a program that has the best chance to succeed on schedule, with appropriate safeguards for the crew, and with the best use of taxpayer dollars.

With regards to the National Science Foundation, the modest increase for the Foundation is appropriate, as basic research and development play a critical role in our economic success. I strongly encourage NSF to broadly use this funding for fundamental research which keeps the United States at the very leading edge of discovery and not to blur this essential role with other initiatives that are best left to the private sector.

Chairman Wolf has also worked to sustain the programs of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, that directly benefit our Nation's competitiveness. The critical link between fundamental measurement science and our economic success allows NIST to innovate new ways to help U.S. companies excel within a global marketplace and create high-paying jobs.

With respect to NOAA, I thank Chairman Wolf for his continued strong support and oversight of NOAA's satellite programs and for his efforts to restore balance to NOAA's research portfolio. The bill does this, in part, by redirecting the administration's proposed significant increases for climate science to higher priority weather research that will help to protect lives and property through improved severe-weather forecasting. This topic is important to all regions of our Nation and, most recently, to northeast Texas, where an outbreak of tornadoes and severe weather in April caused significant damage to homes and property, including in my home county in Royse City. Regarding these weather research priorities, I hope to work with you as the bill moves to conference to preserve and enhance this particular NOAA priority.

House of Representatives, Committee on Science, Space,

and Technology,

Washington, DC, April 17, 2012.

Hon. Frank Wolf,

Chairman, Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies

Appropriations Subcommittee, House Appropriations

Committee, U.S. Capitol, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Wolf: On April 2, President Obama delivered a

speech highly critical of the recently passed House

Republican budget. The speech included the direct and serious

charge that approval of the Republican budget will result in

degraded storm warnings. Specifically, the President stated:

``Over time, our weather forecasts would become less

accurate because we wouldn't be able to afford to launch new

satellites. And that means governors and mayors would have to

wait longer to order evacuations in the event of a

hurricane.''

I object to the President's characterization of this issue,

and believe it is important that we set the record straight

with respect to the origin, outlook, and mitigating options

associated with the potential weather satellite data gap

referenced by the President. More importantly, I would like

to work with you in our respective leadership roles on the

relevant authorizing and appropriating Committees to redirect

questionable priorities in the President's budget and place a

greater emphasis on saving lives and property through

improved weather forecasting. Recent tornado outbreaks across

the country--including in and around my Congressional

district and Northeast Texas--serve as a reminder of the

importance of accurate and timely severe storm forecasts.

As you know, the Science, Space, and Technology Committee's

fiscal year 2013 (FY13) Views and Estimates (V&E)

communicated general concerns with and recommendations

regarding the President's budget request for the National

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). These views

were delivered to the Budget Committee on March 9, 2012.

However, in light of the President's remarks, as well as

NOAA's failure to send Congress its budget until March 19--

ten days after the Budget Committee V&E deadline--I believe

it is important to reiterate and expand upon key concerns

with the President's budget.

Regarding the President's suggestion that the Republican

budget will result in a satellite data gap, the Committee

views explicitly addressed this issue, noting:

[T]he Committee remains extremely concerned about the

potential for a data gap between the time that NPP expires

and the first JPSS satellite is launched in 2018.

Furthermore, the Committee does not agree with NOAA's

characterization of the gap as a result of insufficient

funding in prior fiscal years. For years, this program and

its predecessor have been plagued with cost over-runs, poor

management, agency infighting, technical problems and

contractor mistakes. The program restructuring in 2010

increased costs and delayed the program schedule.

Furthermore, in the two years since the Administration

announced the separation of the original program, NOAA has

not re-baselined the JPSS budget as required under P.L. 110

161 and P.L. 109 155. This inaction and delay is troubling,

and significantly hinders the Committee's ability to conduct

proper oversight and undertake a complete assessment of the

program's future. Additionally, the Committee is extremely

concerned that NOAA has not developed a viable plan for

acquiring necessary data if the gap materializes as expected.

The Committee recommends an immediate focus on such an effort

and believes that any such plan should be developed in a

scientific manner, utilizing the resources and expertise of

other NOAA line offices.

These concerns remain and provide important context to the

President's misleading charges. Additionally, it is important

to note that while the Joint Polar Satellite System the

President refers to is a key component of two- to five-day

forecasts, significant increases in warning times for

tornadoes must come from better models, advanced radar

technology, and more measurements from ground-based and

aerial sensors that directly measure wind speed, direction,

temperature and moisture. These relatively inexpensive Earth-

bound observing and computing systems provide the most vital

information for severe storm forecasting, and are

unfortunately the types of systems President Obama is

actually proposing to cut.

Finally, I believe the President's request misses critical

opportunities to advance much higher priority weather-related

research and technology development that will increase the

accuracy and timeliness of severe storm forecasting,

ultimately improving protection of American lives and

property. Instead, the Administration has chosen to direct

virtually all of its $29 million (7.6 percent) increase for

Oceanic and Atmospheric Research to climate research. In

fact, proposed FY 2013 climate spending of $213 million is

over $60 million more than the level approved by your

Subcommittee in last year's House-passed appropriations bill.

Simply diverting some of this increase for climate research

to research on Earth-based observing systems and development

of weather forecasting innovations would greatly improve

allocation of taxpayer resources and pay important dividends

to the country. In particular, I recommend a shift of funding

of $13 million to the President's anemic weather research

request of less than $70 million for the following four

areas:

1. Unmanned Aircraft Systems ($6 million), which will allow

for testing and use of instruments to significantly enhance

atmospheric observations, particularly in severe weather such

as hurricanes and tornadoes.

2. Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) supercomputing R&D ($5

million) to enable weather forecast models to run much faster

and more accurately with significantly greater detail.

3. Weather radar advanced algorithm and software

development ($2 million) to maximize the utility and use of

new dual-polarization radar hardware capabilities.

4. Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs $3

million) to objectively and quantitatively assess the

potential benefit of alternative weather data systems to

improve global weather prediction, hurricane track intensity

and forecasting, tornado warning times, and the prediction of

local severe storm outbreaks. At a recent SST Committee

hearing, a broad cross-section of stakeholders recommended

NOAA fund OSSEs to better guide weather data system decision-

making and also inform options associated with minimizing the

loss of forecast accuracy in the event of continued satellite

launch delays and resulting gaps.

Although I support maintaining resources for important

climate research activities such as the National Integrated

Drought Information System, I would also recommend an

additional shifting of funding of $10 million from climate

research to the National Weather Service to fund observing

systems such as the NOAA Profiler Network and the National

Mesonet. These on-the-ground systems have already proven

vital for providing

data increasing the accuracy of short-term weather forecasts

and severe storm warnings.

Taken together, these initiatives, with a small relative

cost paid for by simply diverting a portion of the

President's requested increase for climate research, could

provide tremendous returns in terms of lives saved, out-year

budget savings and the avoidance of billions of dollars in

property loss and damage.

Thank you for considering this important request. I look

forward to working closely with you as you develop and

advance the FY13 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related

Agencies appropriations legislation.

Sincerely,

Rep. Ralph M. Hall,

Chairman.