TSA Loose Change Act

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1095) to amend title 49, United States Code, to direct the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security (Transportation Security Administration) to transfer unclaimed money recovered at airport security checkpoints to nonprofit organizations that provide places of rest and recuperation at airports for members of the Armed Forces and their families, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include any extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

I stand in strong support of this bill, the TSA Loose Change Act, sponsored by my friend and chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Congressman Jeff Miller, and 42 bipartisan cosponsors.

The Committee on Homeland Security ordered this legislation reported during the 112th Congress and again this Congress, but this is the first time it is being considered by the full House. I am pleased to be here today to express my strong support for the measure, and I urge its adoption.

Mr. Speaker, in the hustle and bustle of our Nation's airports, with millions of people traveling every day, it is no surprise that some travelers will inadvertently leave behind loose change at TSA screening checkpoints. That pocket change may not add up to much at one airport, but when you total it across 450 airports, it amounts to half a million dollars every year.

TSA is currently authorized to keep the money for its own use, but the agency has been slow to spend it, and already receives $7 billion towards its operations ever year. I believe this bill is a unique opportunity to put that loose change to better use by spending it on airport centers that provide our military heroes with a more relaxing and comfortable experience while they travel. What better time to make this change than during this busy holiday

season when servicemembers are traveling to spend time with their loved ones?

According to the CBO, this bill will not have a significant impact on the budget in any given year, given the modest amount of money involved. Supporting our military servicemembers and their families is a goal we can all get behind, and this bill represents a commonsense step toward that objective.

Earlier this year, we passed the Helping Heroes Fly Act, sponsored by the Congresswoman from Hawaii, Tulsi Gabbard. That bill is already making a difference for wounded warriors traveling through our airports, and H.R. 1095 is another chance to further our commitment to our U.S. soldiers.

I commend Chairman Miller for sponsoring this legislation, as well as my colleagues on the committee and across the aisle for their support.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller), the sponsor of the legislation and chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hudson), chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation Security.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I also want to thank Hudson, Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Richmond, and Ranking Member Thompson. I am proud of the work we have done on this committee.

At a time of intense partisanship and acrimony, we have conducted ourselves very professionally and in a bipartisan way. I think when it comes to national security issues that is precisely what we should be doing. It is what the American people, as Chairman Hudson said, expect and deserve.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge the adoption of this bipartisan, commonsense bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentleman for yielding, and let me rise to indicate my recognition of the importance of this legislation and to support it.

I want to make a point simply on this bill dealing with the Secretary of the Interior, that it is to study the issue of large parks, urban parks in our respective urban areas as being in the jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Interior, the Interior Department, because we are losing that park land because of the inability to collaborate with the Federal Government on the resources that are so necessary.

I recognize that we are in sequestration, but I believe that it is important that we collaborate. I wanted to make sure that I put that on the record.

Let me also put on the record, as a member of the Homeland Security Committee, my support for the TSA Loose Change Act, H.R. 1095; my support for H.R. 2719, the Transportation Acquisition Security Reform Act; and my special support for H.R. 1204, the Aviation Security Stakeholder Participation Act of 2013 because, in fact, that stakeholder committee is going to help provide more security for our TSA officers and have stakeholders dealing with issues like phones on airplanes and knives on airplanes. Certainly, guns are only held by the pilots in the pilot program. But it is going to be able to allow stakeholders to be able to have a real say in aviation security, and I think that is crucially important.

Let me also acknowledge my support for the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988 and its extension. I would hope that that bipartisan support, along with Mr. Coble, whom we have so much great respect for, will lead us to universal background checks and the passage of Federal legislation that would require all of us to store our guns. It is not difficult to provide or buy a simple safe to store your guns and to protect those from undue harm.

I thank my colleague for yielding to me.

My understanding is that we are here on the floor of the House to do work. Some people find it humorous when Members rise to the floor and add additional commentary dealing with their constituency and their work. And since I believe in working and I believe in working on behalf of my constituents, I am very grateful to the gentleman from Arizona recognizing the seriousness of which I make these points and allowing me to have this time on this legislation. I think all of us can recognize that when the floor is open, it is open for Members to come and make serious commentary about the work that they would hope this Congress would be able to do.

I close by thanking the gentleman. He has many capacities, such as the cochair of the Progressive Caucus. I want to thank him for his leadership on immigration reform. And for those of us who were down with the Fast for Families, I again say that we pray for them. We pray that the hearts of this Congress will be touched, that we will be able to finish and complete comprehensive immigration reform, something my constituency is also now praying for on the steps of the city hall.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2388) to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to take certain Federal lands located in El Dorado County, California, into trust for the benefit of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians occupies a Federal reservation in the Sierra foothills in El Dorado County, California. They lost much of their land when Highway 50 was constructed through the reservation several decades ago. They were left with enough land to eventually build a successful casino, but have very little additional space for tribal housing.

Adjacent to their reservation is a 40-acre abandoned and landlocked property. I say ``abandoned'' because it was never developed, and it is presently dangerously overgrown with scrub brush that is just waiting to become a wildfire, which could rapidly spread either to the existing reservation or to an adjacent residential neighborhood.

As it turns out, this abandoned parcel is owned by the Bureau of Land Management. The Bureau of Land Management didn't even know that it owned the property when the Miwok first approached it about this matter. In fact, I am told the BLM actually had to be convinced that it does, indeed, own the land that it has obviously never managed.

The Miwok would like to acquire this parcel for the reservation, making up some of the land they lost due to the construction of Highway 50. It would be used for tribal housing, and the bill specifically forbids its use for gambling, a condition that the Shingle Springs Band has agreed to.

The parcel is untended, overgrown, and unused, and this land transfer

would put it to productive use for reservation housing, use fully compatible with adjacent land usage. Indeed, by doing so, the tribe will be removing a major risk for both the reservation and the nearby community. Access would be through the existing reservation to avoid any impact on the existing neighborhood, and the tribe is committed to working with the nearby homeowners association to assure that it doesn't affect the rural nature of the community.

The property is on unincorporated county land, and the County Board of Supervisors, which is the land use planning agency with jurisdiction over this land, fully supports the transfer.

The administration supports my bill. I urge adoption of the legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for their support of this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I rise in support of H.R. 1095, the TSA Loose Change Act. It is a straightforward bill with an admirable goal: take unclaimed money left behind at passenger screening checkpoints, often in the form of loose change, and put it to good use aiding our servicemembers and their families as they travel.

Under current law, unclaimed money left at passenger screening checkpoints is used to offset civil aviation security costs. In recent years, TSA has collected slightly less than $500,000 annually in unclaimed money at checkpoints. H.R. 1095 would amend current law by directing that these funds be transferred to a nonprofit organization, such as the United Service Organizations, to provide places of relaxation and recuperation at airports for members of the Armed Forces and their families.

I am pleased to lend my support for this legislation. I know that the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee has been a champion of this legislation for several Congresses now, and I applaud him for his persistence on this issue.

Chairman Miller will be glad to know that this is not the first bill regarding servicemembers and veterans that the committee has seen moved during this Congress. Earlier this year, the Helping Heroes Fly Act, of which I was an original cosponsor, went on to become law. That legislation, introduced by my colleague on the Committee on Homeland Security, Representative Gabbard from Hawaii, requires TSA to provide expedited screening for severely injured servicemembers and veterans. Together, the Helping Heroes Fly Act and the TSA Loose Change Act display the committee's commitment to honoring our servicemembers and veterans.

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

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, let me thank the chairman of the full Committee on Homeland Security, who is the chairman of the committee that I am ranking member on, and Mr. Miller for introducing this legislation and for working in such a bipartisan manner. Of course, let me thank my ranking member, Mr. Thompson, from the neighboring State of Mississippi.

This bill is a bipartisan effort, and it goes to show the American people that we do have good common sense here in Congress and that we do things that are right just because they are the right things to do.

I urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation, which will give resources to some of our most valuable citizens in the country-- the ones who put their lives on the line for us--so that we may help them in expediting and in making their travels more relaxed throughout the United States.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1095, the ``TSA Loose Change Act.''

This legislation, introduced by the Chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, received the unanimous support of the Committee on Homeland Security in October.

It would require the Transportation Security Administration to transfer money left behind by passengers at airport security checkpoints to nonprofit organizations such as the United Services Organization.

Under this measure, places of rest and relaxation for service members and their families

at our nation's airports would have new resources to provide critical services.

Over the past few years, TSA has collected, on average, over $400,000 per year at passenger screening checkpoints.

Last year, the agency collected over $500,000.

To be clear, this is money left behind by passengers that goes unclaimed.

Currently, TSA is obligated by law to use those funds for security operations.

Given that TSA has a robust budget and troubling propensity for spending taxpayer dollars on programs that do not work, such as its behavior detection program, I am supportive of redirecting these unclaimed monies to the worthy cause of maintaining dedicated spaces for relaxation at our nation's airports for our service members and their loved ones.

During the holiday season, service members and their families will be traveling through airports across the country to be with family, friends, and colleagues.

H.R. 1095 seeks to ensure that organizations, such as the United Service Organization, have the resources necessary to ensure their comfort as they do so.

I would like to point out that this legislation builds upon the Committee on Homeland Security's previous work this Congress to support service members and veterans.

Earlier this Congress, the Committee saw enactment of the Helping Heroes Fly Act.

That legislation, introduced by Representative Gabbard, a member of the Committee, requires TSA to provide expedited screening for severely injured service members and veterans.

I am hopeful that the legislation before us today is met with the same support as that measure and likewise becomes a public law.