EPA Hydraulic Fracturing Study Improvement Act

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green).

(Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps), my colleague and good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko).

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

I am going to have more to say about this bill later, but I want to comment on the comments that were just made to us by the gentleman from Kentucky.

He suggested that we don't need to do anything more about climate change because greenhouse gas emissions are falling in the United States. Well, that is not an accurate story because, while U.S. greenhouse gas emissions did fall in 2008 and 2009 during the economic recession, since that time our overall emissions have grown. Cumulatively, U.S. emissions grew, not fell, in 2010 and 2011, the most recent years for which data is available.

But the fact of the matter is that if coal is being displaced by natural gas, it is not because of any regulation; it is because the market forces are moving in that direction. It is just cheaper.

And why do we want to say that is wrong? Let the market work its will.

But unless we regulate the emissions from powerplants that cause greenhouse gases to be spewed into the air, we are neglecting the major reason we have climate change in this country today.

This bill would prevent the EPA from doing anything about the problem. Burning coal would be completely unregulated, and we would continue to add greenhouse gases to our atmosphere.

I think that this is hiding their heads in the sand, denying that there is climate change, denying that we need to do anything about it, pretending like it is not a problem. This is a disservice to the American people and the future of our economy.

Those businesses that develop the technologies for the future, which will be technologies that reduce carbon pollution, are going to be the place where the economies are going to be benefited, not those that deny the problem and do nothing about it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is not a new bill to be presented on the House floor. It is a compilation of bills that have already been proposed and passed, for the most part, on a partisan Republican basis.

People have complained on the other side of the aisle that their bills didn't go anywhere. Well, they didn't go anywhere because they didn't have support in the other body, the U.S. Senate. The President of the United States said he would veto it.

They can't pass a bill in the House with Republican votes and put it into law. So if you can't pass a law without working with the Democrats and reaching compromises, what Republicans think is the most effective thing to do is to say it over and over and over again.

Let's not forget, we know that our Republican colleagues didn't like the Affordable Care Act, sometimes known as ObamaCare, so on this House floor we voted over 50 times to repeal it.

The Republicans said we are going to repeal it and replace it. Well, we never heard what they are going to replace it with. They just wanted to repeal it. Well, they didn't repeal it when they passed the first vote, and they didn't repeal it when they passed the 50th vote. But they thought if they say it over and over and again and do it over and over again, they would get somewhere, I presume.

When psychologists talk about this, they call it perseveration, saying the same thing over and over again.

But I don't think this is a reasonable way to legislate. If they want to legislate and you don't have the power, you have to compromise. You have to talk with the President. You have to talk with the Senate majority. You have to talk with your own colleagues. But the Republicans don't want to talk to anybody except themselves over and over and over again.

Let me give you an example. Since Republicans took control of the House less than 4 years ago, they have cast over 500 antienvironmental votes. They have voted over 500 times to weaken protection for public health and the environment, to let polluters off the hook, and even to deny science.

Well, I presume they think that is a good idea. They have voted against clean renewable energy and energy efficiency. They have voted to give taxpayer dollars to oil companies. They have voted to allow more toxic mercury pollution in our air and more contaminants in our drinking water.

I suppose they think that is a good idea, but others don't agree with them nor, I think, do the American people.

They have voted repeatedly to deny the reality of climate change and block any action to cut carbon pollution. They don't want a cap-and- trade. They don't want a price on carbon. They don't want the EPA to regulate.

What is their plan? Well, their plan is to deny the existence of climate change and pretend it is not doing any harm.

We have kept track of these votes that we consider antienvironmental, and there were over 300 antienvironmental votes last Congress, and today Ranking Member DeFazio and I released another report that there were over 200 more antienvironment votes in this Congress.

Now, Republicans like to complain about a mythical war on coal. It is a fantasy. But there is a war on the environment that is being waged on the floor of the House, and the bill before us today is proof of that. It contains dozens of antienvironment provisions.

All of us want prosperity and security for America. We know, many of us, that climate change is harming us today through droughts and fires and floods and more, and we know that it will endanger our children's future if we don't act.

Democrats, for the most part, have recognized the threat and we know that we can tackle it while, at the same time, growing jobs and our economy.

How do we know this? Because that was the history of the Clean Air Act. Every time we strengthened the Clean Air Act, industry opponents said it would cost too much, it would weaken our economy, it would mean lost jobs, but when we acted, we found that our air is cleaner and our economy is stronger.

Republicans take a much different approach. They refuse to admit that climate change is real because then, if they did, they would have to do something about it. Their policies embodied in this bill deny the problem and threaten our future.

Remember the health care debate? We said it is not fair to discriminate against people.

I yield myself 2 additional minutes.

We said it is not fair to discriminate and deny, allow insurance companies to deny the chance for people with preexisting conditions to buy insurance.

The Republicans said, Oh, yeah, we don't think that is a good idea, but they didn't have a plan to do anything about it. They were happy to let it continue.

They wanted to say it was okay for insurance companies to put caps on the amount that the policies would pay. They wanted a system where people were priced out of insurance; if they couldn't afford it, well, that is just too bad.

They deny the realities of what has been happening to millions of Americans, and now we have a health care law that is benefiting millions of Americans.

This bill is not about health care, but they are denying these environmental problems and they are trying to keep Federal agencies from doing their job.

Powerplants are the single largest uncontrolled source of carbon pollution in the United States. EPA has proposed critically important regulations to cut carbon pollution for powerplants in a balanced, cost-effective, commonsense way.

These rules would cut smog, and they would stop deadly particulate pollution. They would save thousands of lives per year and avoid tens of billions of dollars in costs, but this bill eliminates EPA's authority to issue any rules. Nothing can happen.

Mr. Speaker, powerplants aren't the only source of carbon pollution. Tar sands are another big source. They produce 17 percent more carbon pollution than conventional oil, yet this bill grants a regulatory earmark to the Canadian Keystone XL pipeline, effectively exempting it from all U.S. Federal permitting requirements, including ones that apply to every other major construction project in the United States.

I yield myself an additional 1 minute.

This bill creates a new process to rubberstamp every other pending and future tar sands pipeline. It even exempts these massive projects from the National Environmental Policy Act by limiting the NEPA review, which was adopted by Congress overwhelmingly on a bipartisan basis, to only a tiny sliver of the pipeline only where it crosses the border. There are many other anti-environmental provisions. This bill would allow the Department of Energy to veto the rules established by the EPA, even though they are not within the jurisdiction or the expertise of the Department of Energy.

This all may make sense to the oil companies, and this may be a giveaway to the Koch Brothers, but I don't think Americans would agree that this is a good bill. Energy interests should not automatically trump everything else we care about, such as raising healthy children.

Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleagues will vote against this bill. We have had it on the floor too many times, and I hope that we defeat it this time.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time we have remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I won't take 25 minutes to rebut the statement that was just made. I yield myself 3 minutes.

I am impressed by the statement we had from a man who is trying to educate, as he says, the American people in that Republicans worry about 11 million people not working. I don't know if that number is right or wrong, but we have got millions of people without jobs today. It is because the Congress is busy passing, over and over and over again, bills to benefit the oil companies and the energy industry, and not to help people get jobs.

Now, they care so much about them, but they won't give them unemployment compensation. They care so much about them that they want to take away their food stamps. They care so much about them that they don't want to allow them to have a minimum living wage. They care so much about them that they want them to go to the lowest paying jobs they can possibly find, and if they can't find them, well, it must be their own fault.

Harry Reid is the majority leader in the Senate. The Senate allows amendments to any bill--they don't have to be germane--but in the House of Representatives, no bill or amendment can be offered unless it is germane or permitted under the rule, and the Rules Committee is controlled by the Republican leadership in the House.

If we would have been allowed to have voted on an immigration bill that passed overwhelmingly on a bipartisan basis in the Senate, it would have passed the House, but we were denied that opportunity. If we had been allowed to vote on background checks on gun purchases so that we wouldn't find guns and assault weapons in the hands of the people who are a danger to their communities because of mental illness, or who have criminal records where they have already used guns for illegal purposes, that would have passed. Even a majority of the National Rifle Association supports that kind of measure.

Let's not be so pious as we educate the American people to say, ``Oh, in the Senate, they can't even consider these things,'' because, in the House, we are denied every day an opportunity to talk about many things. Let me give you another example that is pertinent to this debate.

The Energy and Commerce Committee has jurisdiction over the issue of climate change. We have not been able to get a single hearing that would bring in the scientists to tell us why they are concerned about climate change, to tell us all the pronouncements from consensus discussions among scientists internationally and here from the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences and others as to why they think this is a problem that we have got to deal with. If you don't even allow the scientists to talk, you are purposely encouraging your own ignorance and acting upon it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the chairman how many more speakers he has?

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton), who ought to be here rightfully as a full voting Member of the House, in my opinion.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I thank the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, as I understand what the gentlelady has said is that, if we had passed a transportation bill, that would have provided help for our infrastructure and provided jobs. We didn't vote for that bill even once.

The gentlelady also said we should have done a paycheck fairness law. Well, we didn't have a chance to vote on that. The Speaker of the House or the majority leader of the House wouldn't allow it to be brought to the House floor.

So many young people are struggling with student loans, and there have been proposals to deal with that, yet we were not allowed to even vote on a bill to deal with the student loan problem.

We haven't tackled the real things that people care about, and, if they care about what is in this bill today, it has been passed by the House. Why aren't we moving on and using the time on the House floor for other worthwhile purposes?

I think that is a question that the American people are going to have to think about as they go to the polls in another month, but we have had a 6-week recess. Now, we have been here for 2 whole weeks, and, now, we are going to take another recess until the election, and then we will come back for maybe another couple of weeks.

It doesn't mean you have to work too hard in the Congress of the United States to get nothing done. We are getting nothing done, and the American people are losing out.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 727, I call up the bill (H.R. 2) to remove Federal Government obstacles to the production of more domestic energy; to ensure transport of that energy reliably to businesses, consumers, and other end users; to lower the cost of energy to consumers; to enable manufacturers and other businesses to access domestically produced energy affordably and reliably in order to create and sustain more secure and well-paying American jobs; and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

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. 2.

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

Mr. Speaker, I stand here on the House floor, only a few hundred yards away from the Senate, and it feels as if we are worlds apart. In the House, we are listening to the American people who are telling us that it is time to expand American energy production.

Hardworking Americans know how important energy is in their lives. They need it to commute to and from work. It fuels the buses that take our kids to school. It powers the businesses on Main Street.

It provides jobs and improves the livelihoods of millions of Americans who are struggling to make ends meet in President Obama's economy; and, Mr. Speaker, Sunday, it will power the Jumbotron at CenturyLink Field in Seattle as the Seahawks take on the Broncos.

Unfortunately, on the other side of the Capitol, these calls to expand American energy production are falling on deaf ears. The House has passed dozens of energy bills, including a number from the House Natural Resources Committee, on which the Senate has failed to act. By doing so, they are standing in the way of American job creation, affordable energy, and increased national security.

H.R. 2, the American Energy Solutions for Lower Costs and More American Jobs Act, would protect and expand American energy production by removing this administration's roadblocks and preventing unnecessary bureaucratic red tape.

Mr. Speaker, since President Obama took office, total Federal offshore oil production has dropped 13 percent, Federal offshore natural gas production has dropped by nearly one-half, and the Obama administration has placed over 85 percent of America's offshore acreage off limits.

Onshore, Mr. Speaker, it is the same story. This administration has had the 4 lowest years of Federal acres leased for onshore energy production going back to 1988. It has also pledged to impose a duplicative layer of red tape on hydraulic fracturing, which would only hurt American job creation.

The Obama administration has also waged a war on coal and on coal jobs. Coal is a reliable and affordable energy resource that provides 30 percent of America's electricity and supports millions of American jobs.

Unfortunately, with one proposed regulation by the Obama administration, those jobs could disappear. Their rewrite of the stream buffer zone rule could cost 7,000 coal jobs and cause economic harm in 22 States.

But there is good news, and the good news are the provisions in these bills. These provisions are a direct response to the Obama administration's actions that have locked up our energy resources. The bill would end the regulatory delays blocking the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

After nearly 6 years of review, this is a commonsense solution that would eliminate the need for a Presidential permit, addresses all other necessary Federal permits, and limit litigation that would delay the project.

The bill would also expand offshore energy production. It would require this administration to responsibly move forward with new offshore energy production in areas that contain the most oil and natural gas resources. What a novel idea, going where the product is, and those areas include areas off the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts.

It also requires the administration to hold oil and natural gas lease sales that have been delayed or canceled, such as offshore of Virginia. This expanded offshore production would generate over $1 billion in new revenue to the Federal Treasury and create up to 1.2 millions of jobs long-term.

Mr. Speaker, the bill would expand onshore energy production. It would reform the leasing and permitting process to remove unnecessary delays, set

clear rules for the development of U.S. oil shale resources, and establish Internet-based auctions for leases. It would also help foster expanded energy production on tribal lands.

The bill would stop the Federal Government from imposing duplicative Federal hydraulic regulations and prevent it from implementing job- destroying coal regulations. It would help protect consumers from EPA regulations that could destroy jobs and increase energy costs.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, the bill would expand production of clean, renewable hydropower by removing outdated barriers and streamlining the regulatory process. It would authorize hydropower development at existing manmade water canals and pipes at 12 Bureau of Reclamation projects.

Mr. Speaker, the American Energy Solutions for Lower Costs and More American Jobs Act is a commonsense action plan to create over 1 million new American jobs and provide relief to hardworking Americans who are feeling the squeeze of higher gasoline and electricity prices. It would strengthen our economy and--probably more importantly in this unsettled world--increase America's energy security.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this important bipartisan piece of legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), my colleague from Oregon, across the Columbia River from my district.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry), the author of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn), the subcommittee chairman on the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Marino).

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Cassidy).

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman 30 additional seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 2

minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), the distinguished majority whip.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Daines), a hardworking member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte), the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Whitfield), one of my classmates.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Johnson).

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert), a member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton), the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

I yield the chairman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I will advise the gentleman that we still have several more. I will advise you when we get down to that point, but we do have several Members still waiting to speak.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis).

Mr. Speaker, I would advise my friend from California that I am prepared to close if the gentleman is prepared to close.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, this is a good bill. It has been acknowledged on both sides of the aisle that this bill is a package of bills that has passed the Senate. It has been talked about that the Senate hasn't acted on the individual bills. It has been talked about the Senate hasn't acted on a lot of bills.

As a matter of fact, the main bill we passed yesterday, the continuing resolution--which is a terrible way to run the government, by the way, when you haven't got certainty--was passed largely because the Senate had not passed one of the 13 House bills out of the Senate. How do you negotiate when you have that sort of a situation?

Here is a point that has not been made today--and maybe my friends on the other side of the aisle aren't familiar with what our Founders envisioned when they created a bicameral legislative body.

In order for our system to work, both Houses have to pass bills. Now, the American people, in their judgment--

you know, they made good judgments every 2 years. Sometimes, some of us don't like what that judgment is--but, in their wisdom, they created one of the Houses that is controlled by the Democrats, and, in their wisdom, they created a House that is controlled by Republicans.

Now, just by the very definition of that, clearly, you are going to have two different views--clearly, you are going to have two different views. I acknowledge that, and I doubt if anybody on the other side would dispute that too.

When we talk about sending bills that we think are important from here over to the Senate--and, by the way, I should add that within this package of bills were a number of bills that came out of the House Natural Resources Committee that I have the privilege to chair. Every one of them, every one of them passed with bipartisan support. That means there are Democrats that voted for it.

Here is the issue: if the Senate, then, has a different view on these topics than we do, then fine. Pass a bill. Pass a bill. If there is a difference between the House version and the Senate version, we have a means to work that out. It is called going to conference, but the fact is the Senate hasn't passed anything.

So how do you go to conference? The only way that we find that we could make our point over and over and over again is to say, ``Okay. We will send it over.'' Maybe somebody, somebody in the other body will finally get the message and say, ``Maybe we ought to pass it.''

Finally, I just want to make another point too. I had the privilege of serving on the Rules Committee for 12 years, and, yes, the Rules Committee, in a larger body like the House, does set the rules for debate.

When the Democrats were in the majority, they set the rules for debate that we criticized. Obviously, they are criticizing us because we are setting the rules for the debate, but my friend from California said that the Senate doesn't work that way with rules. They work by unanimous consent, that anybody can offer an amendment on any bill.

Well, that may be, that may be how the Senate rules work, but, when it is manipulated by the majority leader, all that goes away. It is a process that--I admit I don't know a whole lot about the Senate rules-- but it is a process called filling the amendment tree, amendments to be offered, and the majority leader fills the tree, and nobody has an amendment.

It has gotten so bad, so bad over there in the last 6 years that the junior Senator from Alaska, the junior Senator from Alaska who has been there for 6 years has not had an opportunity to offer one amendment on the floor, and the junior Senator happens to be a member of the majority party. You talk about openness. There is no openness that way.

We feel in this body here that the best way to make the case by debating bills that we think are important for the American people-- jobs bills, energy bills, energy security bills--the best way to do that is to continue to send the same stuff over to the Senate. Maybe, maybe--because hope springs eternal, at least from my perspective--they will take one of these up.

All they have to do, by the way, is take up one of these bills and change it and send it back over here, and we will negotiate the difference, but they haven't even done that. You see, that was never acknowledged during this whole debate of defense of what the Senate has or has not done, but, as a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what has happened, and that is why we are where we are.

Mr. Speaker, this is, once again, a very good bill that deals with energy and energy security and American jobs. I urge its passage, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Objection.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. Speaker, this is probably my last opportunity to respond to a Democratic motion to recommit, and I have heard a whole gamut of them in the time that I have had the privilege to do that, and I kind of surmise, from reading the motion to recommit, that he is talking about energy and energy supply.

Well, Mr. Speaker, that is precisely what the underlying legislation is all about. My friends on the other side of the aisle talked about how oil and gas production has gone up in the United States--increased in the United States--which it has.

But, Mr. Speaker, he left out the important part: it is not because of this administration, it is in spite of this administration's actions, because all of that activity is increasing on State and private lands where they don't have the burdensome regulation from the Federal Government inhibiting that growth.

However, the focus of this legislation is to do exactly the same thing which happened on private and State lands on Federal lands because, if you have a problem with supply, what is the best way to respond to that? You increase the opportunity for supply.

What does that do to the marketplace? In the long run, it tends to lower prices. Who benefits? American people, American jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I just simply want to say these motions to recommit have been procedural motions. They have been political motions over time, not that that isn't something we deal with on the floor, but, once again, it is a motion that, I think, is not worthy of passing.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject--reject--the motion to recommit and vote for the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Well, Mr. Speaker, I would start out by saying this feels like Groundhog Day, but I have already done that when we brought up these same bills multiple times in the past. I could start, as I did the last time we considered this package of bills, by reading a statement from the last time we debated these bills and then pretend to get angry at my staff because they gave me a statement that is 8 months old, but I made that point the last time we debated this energy package on the floor.

Mr. Speaker, the House has passed nearly all the provisions in this bill at least two times. Now, I think most Americans still remember high school civics. The House passes a bill; they send it to the Senate.

The Senate either takes it up or not; and, if they do, then we work out our differences in conference committee and send it to the President for signature. We just keep sending the same bills over to the Senate under the premise that, somehow, they will do something because it has been sent multiples times from the House. It hasn't worked in the past, and it won't work in the future.

This package really also ignores reality. We are producing more natural gas than we ever have and more oil than in over 25 years. We are projected to be the number one oil producer in the world in the next few years.

Meanwhile, thanks to a worldwide glut of oil, gas prices are going down. They are the lowest they have been this time of year since 2010, except perhaps in my State, where we are getting price-gouged because we don't have a refinery.

If Republicans really cared about keeping gas prices down for American consumers, maybe they would take a serious look at the fact that we are exporting 1.6 million barrels of gasoline and diesel every day. There is no shortage.

We are exporting 1.6 million barrels a day; yet truckers are paying extraordinarily high diesel prices because we are exporting more and more diesel and saying, ``Well, you have got to pay the same price they are going to pay in Europe.''

Mr. Speaker, inside the Beltway here, we don't really deal with facts and statistics very much; so, today, we will take up and pass the same tired legislation for the second, third, or fourth time so any Republican Members who happen to be in a tough race can claim that they have been productive on this issue.

This is just an opportunity to check the energy box again and again so you can try to get voters to check the box for the so-called energy experts on the ballot, but we are not legislating; instead, we are wasting time and taxpayer money to put on a rerun show. If you are going to do a rerun show, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, then I am going to do the same.

Every time we have come to the floor to debate another legislative fish wrap this summer, I have brought up the same issue, Western wildfires.

Now, this poster shows Weed, California--or what is left of it. A wildfire destroyed half the town and over 150 homes. In my home State, a major fire is burning 10 miles away from the town of Estacada, threatening over 150 homes, forcing evacuations, and forcing the Governor to use the State's conflagration act to mobilize emergency resources.

In the West, there are over 50 active fires burning, one in the Willamette Forest outside of Eugene and Springfield. It is costing $1 million a day with attempts to keep it from running toward a town. Two days ago, the Forest Service said they have $179 million left for suppression.

Last week alone, they spent $150 million on suppression efforts. That means, next week, while we are out of session, they will run out of money, and they will do what they always do: they will start pulling back money from the fuel reduction, forest health, and other programs to fight the fires.

You can't stop fighting the fires. These fires are enormous, unnatural, and unprecedented in many ways. On top of that, we have a drought which might or might not have to do with climate change, which the other side of the aisle doesn't believe in, but, nonetheless, they are a fact.

Now, it doesn't have to be this way. We could do something real. We have the rarest thing in Washington, D.C.--a bipartisan--that means Democrats and Republicans are on a bill, 52 House Members, including myself, 52 Republicans on a bill--bicameral--similar bill, same bill in the Senate--supported by Democrats and Republicans, and, lo and behold, it is a bill supported by President Obama.

Maybe that is why they won't even hold a hearing on it or move it-- because the President supports it--despite the fact that it would deal with a very real problem.

We aren't investing enough money in a regular fashion to get ahead of the fire problem in the West and to do the fuel reduction and the forest health we need. The agencies don't have enough in their budgets, and, every year, in fact, they overspend their firefighting budgets, and they have to cancel projects and other needed activities.

There has been no hearing on the bill. We can't find time to hold a hearing on a bill that has to do with wildfires that are burning up the West. We can't find the time; instead, we are going to pass these bills for the second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth time. We can't find the time. We are too busy here pretending.

We have 196 Democrats who have signed a petition to overrule the Republican leadership and bring that bill to the floor of the United States House of Representatives. Fifty-two Republicans are cosponsors of that bill.

Many of them have active fires burning in their districts; and will they defy their leadership and do something that is needed for Americans in the Western United States, needed for our natural resources, and needed to prevent these towns from burning down? No. They can't do that. They will not sign the petition.

So here we are. Western communities are burning. You can pretty much step outside the door and smell the smoke from here. We have a potential solution to get ahead of this problem in the future and deal better with it, but, instead, we are wasting time here today passing, yet again, bills that have already been passed and have already been sent to the Senate, but we will send them over to the Senate again, and they can put them on the same stack of paper.

If you look at these pictures, we are wasting the second-to-last day--well, now, it is the last day, actually--on repeat because we have to get home for elections.

I mean, we don't need to pass the budget for the year, the appropriations bills. We don't need to take more meaningful consideration of what we are getting into in the Middle East and spend more time on it, and we can't certainly find any time to deal with the wildfire issue. Let's just pretend.

Yet, again, you get to check a pointless box, and I don't think the American people are going to be fooled.

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

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jeffries).

I thank the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee who has been most helpful in our endeavors in the West on the issues of private property, water rights, improving the health of our forest, and diminishing wildfires through active forest management.

I want to thank him again for his legislation and one that a number of us have shared in helping draft, H.R. 1526, which has been part of our jobs package that we are again sending over to the Senate because they have done nothing in the area of improving forest health and management and stopping these horrible wildfires that we are all trying to deal with--because they are much more than just a budgeting issue, although that is important, it really is about how do you get ahead of these fires, have active management, generate revenues, and generate jobs.

Mr. Speaker, another bill that we are taking up again in the House is one that actually has passed twice in this House unanimously-- unanimously--in the last couple of years.

This will be the third time in less than 3 years we have acted. Why are we doing that? Because, at some point, we hope to wake up the Senate to where they actually will take up this issue and pass it because it means jobs for Crook County, which has a very high unemployment rate and a very high poverty rate.

It means better water quality for fish because we changed a designation on a dam that will allow the water to come out in a better way by adding renewable, carbon friendly hydropower to be generated off this dam. It would create 50 jobs over 2 years when they do the hydro piece. The water will come out better, and it will be better for the fish.

The city of Prineville--you talk about drought--the city of Prineville has several hundred residents who cannot access city water because they don't have enough of it.

This legislation will free up 5,100 acre feet of water that will take care of the city of Prineville for some time to come and allow them to actually take care of their citizens with city water. They will pump it out downstream, and water will stay instream for--I think it is something like 20 miles upriver from Bowman Dam.

There is 80,000 acre feet of water sitting unallocated in this reservoir. We take 5,100 acre feet of it. The city is going to pay the appropriate price so there is no cost to the Treasury. It will serve 500 homes, and we have got a bunch of data centers that have come up in Prineville.

They need to make sure they have access to water for cooling. Apple and Facebook and a couple of others need access to this, and all we do is fix an errant boundary decision made many years ago that laid down the boundary of wild and scenic right across the top of the dam.

Now, there is nothing wild or scenic about a dam unless you are falling off the face of it. It was temporary, and that has been decades ago. This moves it a quarter mile downstream.

Beyond that, there are benefits for Ochoco Irrigation District farmers to ensure they will continue to operate their family farms for generations to come. We make sure there is enough water behind the dam for flat water recreation and fishing, which is an important part of the economy there. And we worked with the tribes and others to expedite the McKay Creek restoration project, which will result in increased water flows for redband trout and summer steelhead, a project long supported by the Warm Springs Tribe and the Deschutes River Conservancy.

Just like other bills in this package, this is a good, commonsense piece of legislation. It has achieved overwhelming--in fact, in the House, unanimous--support.

We look forward to working with the Senate, but it is hard to dance with yourself. It is just no fun. So we need a dance partner over in the Senate that will come to the table so we can take this years of work, pull it together in a package that can finally get to the President's desk.

I don't know what else you do. You try again. You never quit trying. And that is what this package of bills is all about. One more time before we leave town, trying to create jobs in America, do the right thing for the environment, and take care of problems at home, that is what this is about.

We hope the Senate will finally take a look at these bills in a meaningful and thoughtful way and be able to come to the table with terms and work these things out.

So I commend the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee for all his work over the years, but especially for the work he and I have done together to improve forest health, improve forest jobs, improve water quality, take care of these issues that are so important to the rural West.

I thank the gentleman from California for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, the bill before us today is yet another exercise that explains why the public has such a low opinion of Congress.

We have considered this package of bills before. The Senate will not take it up. The President and administration would not approve it. We are wasting valuable time on our last day in session before the lameduck period.

This bill delivers more benefits to big fossil fuel and mining interests. It would allow them to extract fossil fuels and minerals from our coastlines and public lands with no serious consideration of public health, the environment, or of the many other business interests that rely on a clean, healthy environment to support their continued success.

Our Nation has real challenges. We need faster, broader job growth in all regions of our country and in all sectors of our economy. We need a national energy policy that provides more energy security through efficiency and expanded use of renewable energy resources.

We need an energy policy that recognizes and deals with the challenges of climate change. We need a thoughtful path forward that enables a transition to the energy sector of the future that brings workers and communities into this new model productively and profitably.

We need to invest in our transportation and water infrastructure-- infrastructure that is in need of repair, in need of rebuilding, and in need of redesign--to meet our needs into the future. The financing structure in place today and the Federal resources being devoted to these essential systems is outdated and inadequate.

We need to do more to address the lingering problems from the financial debacle that crashed the economy in 2007. Too many of our citizens are still struggling under heavy debt loads as a result of the housing bubble, the stagnant wages, student loans, unemployment, and underemployment.

Our Tax Code needs revision to spur business investment, to bring down the deficit, and to make the Code fair for all taxpayers. We need to invest in research and development, the lifeblood of innovation and progress; instead, this legislation proposes to provide more to a sector of the economy that is already thriving.

Oil and gas production are at record levels, as are the profits of these industries. This bill continues the same old energy policy that we have been following for decades and ignores the mounting social and environmental costs associated with its continuation. This package doubles down on carbon emissions because it is a fossil fuel only policy.

With this proposal, we ask our citizens to accept greatly reduced public health and environmental protection not just to support our domestic use of these fuels, but to enhance our exports of fossil fuels.

It is sad and ironic that, during the week of the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act and of the Land and Water Conservation Fund--laws that recognize all the values of public lands and resources to current and future generations and that have provided so much--that we are considering this bill.

H.R. 2 represents a narrow view of natural resources as assets to be exploited for short-term profit by this generation with little regard for our stewardship responsibility to our children and to our grandchildren. If we do not act decisively and soon, our generation's legacy will be one of shortsightedness and wasted opportunity.

We have ignored real challenges for far too long. We need to demonstrate the vision, the courage, and generosity of spirit that previous generations expressed on our behalf. We need to stop making policy in increments of months and do what we were sent here to do, govern by working together and compromising to find solutions with consideration of the present and an eye to the future with bold plans and initiatives.

Generally, I am a big fan of recycling, but H.R. 2 is only suitable for disposal. This is a deeply flawed piece of legislation. I cannot support it, and I strongly urge my colleagues to reject it.