Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 2609) making appropriations for energy and water development and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2014, and for other purposes.

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

I appreciate Chairman Frelinghuysen's able and collegial leadership throughout this process and efforts to assemble a bill in an inclusive manner in our subcommittee. I also want to say what a pleasure it was to work with him, and I wish all subcommittees could work as effectively.

I want to thank Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Lowey for their efforts to restore a semblance of regular order to this House in consideration of our appropriations bills, and I want to thank all members of our subcommittee for their thoughtful deliberation in considering the best interests of our Nation as they relate to energy and water development and, importantly, America's nuclear security.

I appreciate the dedication, hard work, and sound judgment of our committee staff on both sides of the aisle. On the majority committee staff side: Rob Blair, Ben Hammond, Loraine Heckenberg, Angie Giancarlo, Perry Yates, and Adam Borrelli. And on the minority committee staff side: Taunja Berquam; from the Chairman's personal office, Katie Hazlett and Nancy Fox; and finally my staff, Ryan Steyer, Nathan Facey, and Steve Fought.

While Chairman Frelinghuysen's worthy efforts are to be commended in the highest way, the allocation imposed on our subcommittee by the Republican leaders of this House, and its Budget Committee, move America backwards in a global economy where our Nation's future is at stake.

The Budget Committee's directive to us reminds me of a seafaring expression: ``If you don't know which way your ship is headed, you're bound to run aground or die at sea.''

This bill runs America aground. It says to future generations, we'll risk your lives floating lost at sea. It's simply inadequate to meet the needs of our Nation.

America's budget deficit spiked because high unemployment, resulting from Wall Street's abandon and over a decade of war, caused high unemployment that reduced Federal revenues.

This bill will not embrace the future, nor create the necessary jobs to reverse that trend and lift up America's working families. Our focus has to be on the future, on creating jobs and opportunity, with every single measure that comes before this House.

Foreign energy dependence is our Nation's chief strategic vulnerability. This bill abandons America's quest for energy independence, which has the potential to create millions of new jobs.

For every American life lost in pursuit of our Nation's national security, now dependent on energy imports, I dedicate my work on this bill today. And I also dedicate my work on the floor in memory of Judge Francis ``Buddy'' Restivo, a World War II veteran who passed this weekend, and just a phenomenal citizen of our country.

This bill not only guts funding for alternative energy research and development, it officially heralds the Republican majority's embrace of sequestration.

Sequestration is the most vivid symbol of congressional negligence. With that one dreadful bill, the Republican majority manages not only to turn its back on energy independence, but also to surrender its congressional responsibility to manage the budget of our country responsibly. The majority has waved the white flag.

This year, in the Lake Erie region, we are celebrating the heroics of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, hero of the pivotal battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812. Oliver Hazard Perry's motto was ``Don't give up the ship.''

The majority's motto is ``We just give up.'' We give up trying to perform our constitutional responsibilities with respect to fiscal affairs. We give up trying to create the much-needed jobs that will restore our fiscal footing. We give up trying to help America break free of its dependence on imported petroleum. We just give up. Let the mindless sequester be the status quo.

It's no mystery why Congress' approval ratings have hit an all-time low. This policy is running our economic ship of state aground when we need full sail ahead.

The allocation for the energy and water bill is $30.4 billion, which is $4.1 billion below the administration's request and $2.8 billion below last year's level. There are further allocation cuts beyond even sequestration levels, resulting in deep and severe reductions made to important priorities within the bill.

The chairman worked to include resources for many Federal priorities, including the Corps of Engineers, the Advanced Manufacturing Office, nuclear safety and cleanup, and the bill also prioritizes some of the nuclear security programs.

But funding these programs came at the expense of others so vital to future energy systems for our Nation, including renewable energy, cut by nearly 60 percent, and advanced energy research at ARPA-E, which received an 81 percent reduction.

Shortchanging critical energy and infrastructure investments will slow economic growth and job creation, hindering America's competitiveness.

Let us look at the water accounts. We must continue to invest in America. The scope of damage caused by natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy have laid bare the inadequacies of our water infrastructure.

The Corps of Engineers budget currently has a backlog of authorized projects in excess of $60 billion from coast to coast. But this bill continues a steady decline in water resources infrastructure, reducing the construction account by $304 million from 2013.

Communities across our country will continue to erode as they experience, firsthand, this decreased investment. The risks illustrated by the failure of flood control projects that the American people endured in the wake of Katrina are not gone. Communities across our country are in desperate need of investment, but this bill shortcuts that.

Take St. Louis, Missouri, or Sacramento, California, where a levee break could leave residents with as little as 20 minutes to flee before the water gets 1 foot deep, are just two examples of major metropolitan areas where the Corps must work harder and faster toward more comprehensive protection.

What sense does cleaning up after natural disasters make when preventive measures could prevent destruction and loss of life?

We should be doing more to build infrastructure and create jobs, not less. Investments now will yield future benefits that will far outweigh repayment costs. That is what the Hoover Dam was all about. That is what our Mississippi River lock and dam system is all about. That is what electrifying our Nation, rural and urban, was all about, great visions for a great Nation, not Lilliputian surrender.

On future energy systems, this bill would slash funding for applied energy research and development by more than half, even as foreign competition doubles down to develop 21st century technology while undermining our markets through illegal dumping and intellectual property theft.

Renewable energy is a vital leg of future energy independence beyond the fossil fuel age. It will achieve cost competitiveness, but the question is, which countries will develop and own those technologies?

The United States has spent $2.3 trillion importing foreign petroleum since 2003, representing thousands and thousands of dollars out of the pockets of every hardworking American family. These are dollars diverted not to much-needed American job creation but overseas, assisting our competitors in developing their economies and their energy futures. We are ceding millions of jobs and trillions in income from this country to undemocratic kingdoms far from home.

Wake up, America. Wake up, Congress.

In 2012, every billion dollars of U.S. exports supported nearly 5,000 jobs here at home. But can you imagine what $2.3 trillion in our energy trade deficit translates into lost jobs in America over the last 10 years?

It's a hemorrhage. Our Republic will not compete in this 21st century and beyond if we further reduce investments in this area and cede our energy future to other countries.

Predatory foreign competition in energy poses a real security threat to our country. I view it as the chief security threat to our country. I appreciate the chairman's commitment to ensure that technology developed with taxpayer dollars benefits our Nation first.

The Department of Energy, however, must do more to ensure that intellectual property supported by Federal dollars furthers the interests of the United States economy. And I'm concerned with the level of funding, but I appreciate the chairman's commitment to American manufacturing in this bill.

Manufacturing remains one of the most important job drivers in our economy, and there is little merit in using Federal dollars to foster technological advances or breakthroughs for products that are not ultimately made in America and manufactured domestically.

America must do more to reverse the trend of domestic firms shifting production overseas because, to put it simply, domestic manufacturing drives domestic innovation and jobs here in America.

Tragically, the science account critical to the competitiveness of our Nation is reduced by 5 percent from 2012. And, with an 81 percent reduction, 81 percent reduction in the new ARPA-E program, this bill would effectively end the most advanced research our Nation can launch. That is not a formula for success.

We are beginning to see the initial payment from the ARPA-E, which advances high-potential, high-impact energy technology so advanced it is too early for private sector investment. Return on investment from our publicly-funded research and development ranges from 20 to 67 percent. It's a home run.

With this rate of return, Congress should be increasing our investment in science. This bill moves us exactly in the opposite direction.

Finally, I remain concerned this bill increases spending for nuclear weapons upgrades at the expense of nuclear nonproliferation and cleanup. I support the funding to maintain our nuclear arsenal at acceptable levels, and I appreciate the efforts to improve program and project management, including the reporting requirement on Life Extension Programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration.

However, nonproliferation programs are on the front lines of our defense. They are the most cost-effective way to achieve the urgent goal of securing and reducing the amount of vulnerable bomb-grade material. But this bill cuts these critical efforts by $559 million.

What sense does that make?

Further, I am concerned that the funding the bill includes for environmental management activities is insufficient to meet the Federal Government's legal obligations to clean up its defense nuclear waste.

In sum, this bill should achieve critical investments in our country. It fails to do so. It should promote job creation. It fails to do so. It should ensure national energy security and national security. It fails to do so. It should protect and promote vital infrastructure. It fails to do so. And it should advance American competitiveness, and it fails to do so.

Unfortunately, Republicans on the Budget Committee continue to push the outrageous notion that we can balance our budget through cuts to non-defense discretionary spending, which accounts for only 17 percent of Federal spending. In so doing, they harm America's future in a very major way.

Again, I commend the chairman's effort, however the allocation for this bill is insufficient and irresponsible and I cannot, in good conscience, support it.

It is my firm hope that the committee will be provided a workable path toward the fiscal 2014 appropriation bills, and I look forward to the day we will return allocations to acceptable levels and to working with the chairman to draft a bill worthy of support.

Let me, before reserving the balance of my time, read that quote right up there above the Speaker's rostrum.

Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its

powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great

interests, and see whether we also, in our day and

generation, may not perform something worthy to be

remembered.

That is our charge in this bill, and this bill fails.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), our very able ranking member of the Appropriations Committee.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California, Representative Bera.

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California, Representative Janice Hahn.

Madam Chair, we have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

In looking at our bill and looking at some of the accounts, especially for the energy and water accounts and the general provisions, there was an excellent article in this week's International Herald Tribune. It talks about sound investments. I will read portions of it very briefly here. It talks about how the rate of economic growth in Germany is surpassing our own just now, and the unemployment rate as a result has dropped to 5.3 percent, and falling further--much lower than in the United States. It investigates why that is the case. It talks quite a bit here about the German economy having made investments whose future benefits will far outweigh repayment costs. This bill and its accounts, essentially, should be doing that; but, unfortunately, it cuts back on some of the most significant job growth.

The article goes on to say that the U.S. economy is still in doldrums. And that's because many of the needed workers and machines are now idle. If the country waits, it will need to bid them away from other tasks. Also, because of the sluggish economy, the materials required for the work are now relatively inexpensive. So this is really the time to encourage investment in our economy to lift the entire system.

The article goes on to talk about the fact that in Germany there had been certain austerity backers, they call them, and it says:

Now austerity backers urge--preposterously--that

infrastructure repairs be postponed until government budgets

are in balance. But would they also tell an indebted family

to postpone fixing a leaky roof until it paid off all of its

debts? Not only would the repair grow more costly with the

delay, but the water damage would mount in the interim.

Families should pay off debts, yes, but not in ways that

actually increase their indebtedness in the longer term.

I found this article particularly instructive as we move amendments to the floor and move this bill forward.

In the article it says:

Austerity advocates object that more deficit spending now

will burden grandchildren with crushing debt. That might be

true if the proposal were to build bigger houses and stage

more lavish parties with borrowed money.

But, in fact, the dollars were being invested in the nation in projects that were creating opportunity and infrastructure that would advance the worth of the nation in decades hence.

So I think that we ought to think about this as we proceed title by title in this bill and ask ourselves the question why it is that many of the important accounts, such as the Corps of Engineers--and several of our speakers today have referenced those--has been cut by $104 million compared to this year's enacted level and falls far short of the investments that we need in one of the fundamentals in the country, and that is in water systems.

Madam Chair, I will place this article in the Record from the International Herald Tribune.

I also want to point out and place in the Record some of the severe cutbacks in this bill with more specificity:

The Renewable Energy, Energy Reliability, and Efficiency account is $971 million less than the 2013 enacted level and $1.96 billion less than the President's request;

The Department of Energy Office of Science is $223 million less than 2013's enacted level and $499.8 million less than the President's request;

The Advanced Research Projects Agency is $215 million less than the 2013 enacted level and $329 million less than the President's request;

The funding for environmental cleanup is $243 million less than the 2013 enacted level and $133 million less than the President's request;

The Nuclear Nonproliferation account is $334 million less than the 2013 enacted level and $40 million less than the President's request;

In terms of the Army Corps of Engineers, it is $104 million less than the 2013 enacted level;

In the water resources projects within the Department of the Interior, there is a $104 million reduction less than the 2013 enacted level and $85 million less than the President's request.

So when we think about the cumulative impact of it, it is just extraordinary. And I will place this data in the Record as well.

I yield back the balance of my time.

[From the Global Edition of the New York Times, July 6-7, 2013]

When Debt Is a Sound Investment

(By Robert H. Frank)

I recently spent a week in Berlin, where the entire city

seemed under construction. In every direction, cranes and

other heavy equipment dominated the landscape. Although many

projects are in the private sector, innumerable others--

including bridge and highway repairs, new subway stations,

and other infrastructure work are financed by taxpayers.

But wait. Hasn't Germany been one of the most outspoken

advocates of fiscal austerity after the financial crisis?

Yes, and that's not a contradiction. Fiscally responsible

businesses routinely borrow to invest, and, until recently,

so did most governments.

Lately, however, fears about growing government debt have

caused wholesale cuts in U.S. public investment. The Germans,

of course, yield to no one in their distaste for

indebtedness. But they also understand the distinction

between consumption and investment. By borrowing, they have

made investments whose future benefits will far outweigh

repayment costs. There's nothing foolhardy about that.

The German experience suggests how Americans might move

past the stalled debate about economic stimulus policy. In

the aftermath of the financial crisis, the policy discussion

began with economists in broad agreement that unemployment

remained high because total spending was too low. Keynesian

stimulus proponents argued that temporary tax cuts and

additional government spending would bolster hiring.

Austerity advocates countered that additional government

spending would merely displace private spending and that

Americans already had too much debt in any event. And the

debate has languished there.

A preponderance of evidence suggests that Keynes was right.

But as the German experience illustrates, progress is

possible without settling that question. The Germans are

investing in infrastructure, not to provide short-term

economic stimulus, but because those investments promise high

returns. Yet their undeniable side effect has been to bolster

employment substantially in the short run.

Not all German public investments have met expectations.

Berlin's new consolidated airport, for example, has

experienced several delays and cost overruns, and parts of

the city's recently constructed central rail station will be

closed this autumn for major repairs. But private investment

projects undergo occasional setbacks, too, and no one argues

that businesses should stop investing on that account.

The Germans didn't become bogged down in a debate over

stimulus policy, and they didn't explicitly portray their

infrastructure push as stimulus. But that didn't hamper their

strategy's remarkable effectiveness at putting people to

work. The unemployment rate in Germany, at 5.3 percent and

falling, is now substantially lower than that in the United

States, where it ticked up to 7.6 percent in May and held

there in June. (By contrast, in March 2007, before the

financial crisis, the rate in Germany was 9.2 percent, about

five percentage points higher than what it had been in the

United States.)

A prudent investment is one whose future returns exceed its

costs--includIng interest costs, if the money is borrowed.

Opportunities meeting that standard abound in the

infrastructure domain. According to the American Society of

Civil Engineers, the United States has a backlog of about

$3.6 trillion in overdue infrastructure maintenance. No one

in Congress seriously proposes that the country just abandon

crumbling roads and bridges, and everyone agrees that the

repair cost will grow sharply the longer we wait.

The case for accelerated infrastructure investment becomes

more compelling with the U.S. economy still in the doldrums.

That is because many of the needed workers and machines are

now idle. If the country waits, it will need to bid them away

from other tasks. Also because of the sluggish economy, the

materials required for the work are now relatively

inexpensive. If the country waits, they will cost more. And

long-term interest rates for the money to pay for the work

continue to hover near record lows. They, too, will be higher

if the country waits.

Austerity advocates object that more deficit spending now

will burden grandchildren with crushing debt. That might be

true if the proposal were to build bigger houses and stage

more lavish parties with borrowed money--as Americans, in

fact, were doing in the first half of the past decade. But

the objection makes no sense when applied to long-overdue

infrastructure repairs. A failure to undertake that spending

will gratuitously burden the country's grandchildren.

In 2009, austerity proponents in the United States argued

against stimulus, predicting that the economy would recover

quickly and spontaneously. It didn't. Later, they said the

country tried stimulus and it didn't work. But in the face of

a projected $2 trillion shortfall in the spending needed for

full employment, Congress enacted a stimulus bill totaling

only $787 billion, spread over three years. And much of that

injection was offset by cuts in state and local government

spending.

Now austerity backers urge--preposterously--that

infrastructure repairs be postponed until government budgets

are in balance. But would they also tell an indebted family

to postpone fixing a leaky roof until it paid off all its

debts? Not only would the repair grow more costly with the

delay, but the water damage would mount in the interim.

Families should pay off debts, yes, but not in ways that

actually increase their indebtedness in the longer term.

Austerity advocates, who have been wrong at virtually every

turn, are unlikely to change their minds about stimulus

policy. But with continued slow growth in the outlook, it's

time to re-frame the debate. The best available option, by

far, is to rebuild tattered infrastructure at fire-sale

prices. If the austerity crowd disagrees, it should explain

why in plain English.

Highlights of 2014 Energy & Water Appropriations Act

2014 mark: $30.426 billion.

2014 budget request: $34.483 billion.

2013 enacted (including Sandy reconstruction): $36.744

billion.

2013 enacted (excluding Sandy reconstruction): $33.240

billion.

The 2014 Energy & Water Appropriations Act would provide:

$982.6 million for Renewable Energy, Energy Reliability,

and Efficiency (not including a $157 million rescission to

2013 funding), which is $971 million less than the 2013

enacted level and $1.96 billion less than the President's

request for the same activities.

$4.653 billion for the Department of Energy Office of

Science, which is $223 million less than the 2013 enacted

level and $499.8 million less than the President's request.

$50 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency--

Energy (ARPA--E), which is $215 million less than the 2013

enacted level and $329 million less than the President's

request.

$5.5 billion for environmental cleanup activities, which is

$243 million less than the 2013 enacted level and $133

million less than the President's request.

$7.675 billion for Weapons Activities (not including a $142

million rescission), which is $97.7 million more than the

2013 enacted level and $193.4 million less than the

President's request.

$2.1 billion for Nuclear Nonproliferation (not including a

$20 million rescission), which is $334 million less than the

2013 enacted level and $40 million less than the

President's request. The House bill also includes $245

million in activities previously appropriated within the

weapons account, as requested by the Administration.

$1.109 billion for Naval Reactors, which is $29 million

more than the 2013 enacted level and $137.1 million less than

the President's request.

$4.876 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers (not

including a $200 million rescission), which is $104 million

less than the 2013 enacted level and $50 million more than

the President's request.

$965 million for water resources projects within the

Department of Interior, which is $104 million less than the

2013 enacted level and $85 million less than the President's

request.

Sequestration Impact on Energy & Water Accounts

This bill fails to address the sequester, ensuring it will

harm our ability to meet energy and water needs next year, on

top of the following impacts that are already taking hold.

Forgone hiring by Department of Energy of 300 full-time

employees; reduced contractor labor by estimated 1,200

employee-years through furloughs, layoffs, and hiring

deferrals; furlough of approximately 60 employee-years

affecting approximately 3,600 contractor employees; and

layoff or voluntary separation of more than 300 contractor

employees.

Severe cuts to renewable energy and efficiency research,

including $16 million from advanced vehicle technologies, $14

million from solar energy, $10 million from biofuels, $5

million from wind, $3 million from hydropower, $3 million

from weatherization assistance, and $5 million from

electrical grid modernization.

Cuts to Office of Science delaying or cancelling laboratory

construction, maintenance, and upgrades; and reducing math,

computing, physics, atmospheric, and cytogenics research at

labs and universities around the country.

Cuts to Environmental Management resulting in furloughs,

terminated activity and forgone work at Hanford Site (WA),

Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge Reservation (TN),

Savannah River Site (GA), and Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

(NM).

Will the gentleman yield?

I wonder, for those that don't come from your part of the country, Congressman Garamendi, talk about what it's like to face that possibility of nonrepair of the facilities that you are discussing.

Madam Chair, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi).

I would just like to reclaim a couple of seconds here and place on the record that, as to the Army Corps of Engineers, the gentleman is correct. If we look back to the years 2011 and 2012, the bills terminated or suspended over 300 projects across this country. That is not an insignificant number. That is a very significant number. It's one of the reasons that we weren't able to put in New START, because we've got so many other wounded and casualties standing in line, waiting for assistance across the country, including the communities you represent.

Madam Chair, I seek to identify my side with the gentleman's remarks on the importance of the Asian carp issue to the freshwater lakes of our country and certainly to Lake Erie. He and I share that. The lake is neither Republican nor Democratic. It is the largest fishery in the entire Great Lakes system, which contains 20 percent of the world's fresh surface water, and Lake Erie actually has more fish than all of the other Great Lakes combined.

Honestly, this Asian carp threat is truly a nightmare for those people and the multibillion-dollar industries--the maritime industry, our fisheries, our tourism centers. I especially appreciate the gentleman's desire to have a multiagency effort and more dispatch within the executive branch to deal with the possibility of these fish, these very destructive fish, coming in and destroying our perch, our walleye--our native fish. It is a very, very worrisome invasive species to our lakes.

I yield to the gentleman.

In reclaiming my time, I have the desire to work with the gentleman in any way possible.

Literally, the gentleman is right. This fish is like a guided missile except there are millions of them, and until you actually see it happen, you don't believe it. It's like some kind of movie--``The Twilight Zone''--except it's real. It came from the aquaculture industry down in Mississippi, which had an accident, and they brought these fish in to do the cleaning in the fish tanks. Yet, when the walls were breached, they started swimming north in the Mississippi River, and now they are about 30 miles from the Chicago harbor and through the ship canal there. They are about 30 miles from there, but they're coming up into the St. Joseph River in Indiana. They've caught some there. We don't know about the Ohio River, but the Maumee River, which I represent--the largest river that flows into the Great Lakes--is a spawning area for walleye, for example, and this species is really a predator, one that could wipe out our entire multibillion-dollar fishing industry in the Great Lakes.

There is no scientific solution at this point. So I hope the administration is hearing us. I hope the Army Corps and the Department of the Interior and others are hearing us. Our country needs a real solution to prevent the spread of this predator into our freshwater lakes, and it is an unsolved challenge for the Nation.

So I thank the gentleman so much for coming to the floor today. You have my full support. I know the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Frelinghuysen, will work with us in any way possible.

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

Madam Chair, I support the gentleman's amendment. I have been listening to the debate and thinking we're a great Nation because we figured out how to build a nation. We had 13 Colonies. And then, miraculously, somehow, through the Northwest Ordinance and other means, we added more States and we figured out where their boundaries were. Sadly, Michigan and Ohio had to fight a little war on a piece of territory between us, but we even got that figured out. Then, golly, you know, we sort of expanded. Even Alaska became a State. As we became more adult as a Nation, we figured out where the watersheds were. We even have maps for watersheds in our country. We've always been a country that is a can-do Nation, not a can't-do Nation.

So I believe the amendment takes America in an important direction by allowing the Corps the needed flexibility to deal with real confusion that has reigned in the wake of two Supreme Court decisions and, frankly, climate change. As water distribution changes around our country, we are moving into a different era, if anybody cares to open their eyes and look at what is happening across our country.

Without this amendment, the bill would result in increased implementation costs to Federal and State resource agencies, as well as to the regulated community, increased delays in the implementation of important public works projects, and protracted litigation on the disparity between existing Federal regulations and the two court decisions.

Further, the current provision does not apply to just this year; it applies to any subsequent energy and water development act, ensuring the uncertainty continues indefinitely.

How is that good for anything? Why is can't do better than can do?

Let's provide clarity. Let's provide some certainty to the market. We should be allowing the Corps to take actions that address the Supreme Court's rulings, bringing clarity and certainty to the regulatory process, not prolonging the confusion, further delay, further uncertainty. How does that help anything, regardless of what region of the country you live in? I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I rise in support of Congressman Moran's amendment to strike section 112 and to protect the fresh waters of our Nation for future generations.

I note that many of those who have spoken in opposition to the Moran amendment do not live in parts of the country that actually would be affected by the burial of this material.

Section 112 would prohibit the Corps from amending its regulations to change the definition of fill material and discharge of fill material so that discharges of mine wastes and similar materials into the waters of the United States would be regulated under the more environmentally protective regulations and standards issued under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit program in section 402 of the Clean Water Act and administered by the States, along with EPA.

I don't know how many Members actually have had to deal with cleaning up messes in their districts. But I didn't know that, once I became a Member of Congress, how significant the work would be and what I would have to do just in my region of the country to clean up the mess from the past. Well, I've learned too much.

Maybe the districts of those who are standing up in opposition to Mr. Moran's amendment have never had to do this. But let me tell you there are dead freshwater lakes in Ohio that are very close, in fact, to the gentleman who just spoke in opposition to Mr. Moran's amendment. There are lakes that have been polluted and no one knows how to clean them up. I have actually had the task of representing a river that is dead with waste that's in the bottom of the river that washed out into adjoining streams in the lake and all the scientists are trying to figure out how to cap it, how to do this, how to do that with the PCBs and everything else. There are Love Canals all across this country. We have to change the way we live for the future generations of this country.

How about trying to clean up beryllium that's moving in streams and washing out and you see rising cancer rates? And why are cancer rates in certain parts of the country more than in other parts of the country? Well, it's the legacy of the past and the messes that aren't cleaned up.

How about unexploded ordnance on the bottoms of streams and rivers and lakes across this country? If you get the Department of Defense charts on what exists in this country that needs to be cleaned up, the defense cleanup costs that are necessary just across this Nation, including in some of our freshwater lakes, is staggering.

If you don't know about the problems, I'm sorry that you don't. But I don't see how adding mine waste to the rest of this mess is going to make the future better than the past.

If you think about the population of the country, we had 146 million people in the country 50, 60 years ago. Today, we have 310 million. By 2050, it's going to be 500 million. But do you know what's not going to increase? The amount of water we have. The amount of fresh water is not an infinite resource. It is absolutely finite. And it's used once and maybe it drops down again in the rain. But nobody is going to give us more water. It's either going to be snowfall or it's going to be rain, and it's going to wash into our streams and rivers. There's not going to be anymore. We're going to have five, six, seven times more people than we had in the past.

Why would we risk burying more junk in our rivers, in our streams, and throwing it out in these riverbeds around the country? If you haven't faced the task of trying to clean it up, then you shouldn't even be voting on this bill. The cost of past cleanups is enormous.

I wish I didn't have to deal with it in my region of the country. I came here to make the parks better. I came here to build better housing. I came here to create jobs. And I'm finding I have these billion-dollar cleanup jobs for which we have no money, no money to clean them up. Why would we add to the problem?

Under the current definition, such discharges are evaluated under the Clean Water Act section 404(b)(1) guidelines, which are not well suited for evaluating the environmental effects of discharging hazardous wastes like mining refuse and similar materials into

jurisdictional wetlands and waters. Further, the current provision does not apply to just this year. It applies to any subsequent energy and water development act, precluding potential changes that may be necessary to protect public health or the environment.

If you haven't seen babies that have tumors in their brains because some company buried waste in parks that those children played in, then somebody better wake up around here and change the way that we do business in this country, because we cannot do this. We cannot continue the bad practices of the past. We have to make life better for future generations that will have more pressures on them simply because of the population growth in this country.

I urge my colleagues to support the Moran amendment, and I commend him for offering it on this bill today.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to Representative Noem's amendment.

I think that there is a worthy objective of providing freshwater to all parts of our country. We talked about that earlier today. The problem is her amendment takes funds from other accounts to try to move some of those dollars to rural America.

Frankly, our fundamental problem is that this bill is $2.8 billion under what was being expended in this fiscal year of 2013, and it's $4 billion under the administration request. So what she's essentially doing is taking money from something else in order to move it to rural areas of the country. I represent some of those. They're very worthy. Some of them do receive funds through the Department of Agriculture. Some smaller communities also have associations with the Environmental Protection Agency. But to cut funds, to take money from the Renewable Energy account--$15 million from there--and from other water-related accounts and to cut departmental administration really is sort of picking off very scarce bones. And I have to oppose the amendment on that basis.

The Renewable Energy accounts, which are America's future--they're a major part of our downpayment on the future--have been cut 60 percent. You are withdrawing additional funds from those accounts to try to move toward needed rural water needs. But, frankly, these accounts have been severely cut, and the gentlelady's amendment harms them more. We simply can't cut more from those accounts.

I support more funding for the rebuilding of America's urban water systems, which are leaking all over this country. In fact, we just had a collapse in my home community. For some reason, a major intersection just imploded because the water systems underneath weren't properly attended to. This is happening from coast to coast.

So our urban water systems are severely constricted. There are all kinds of problems there. And in parts of rural America, obviously we are still trying to extend lines, trying to clean water, trying not to pollute water anymore in order to make sure that citizens who live there and the livestock that is there has sufficient freshwater resources.

So I identify with what you're trying to do, but not where you are taking the funds from. Those dollars simply can't be cut any further. So I have to oppose the amendment, and I urge my colleagues to join me in opposition to the gentlelady's amendment.

Perhaps we can work in other ways in the future, but the fundamental problem is the bill has been cut $2.8 billion, and some of that is coming from the dollars that would be available for rural water programs.

So I strongly oppose the amendment, not because it isn't worthy, but simply because she's raiding other accounts that are cut, literally, to the bone.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time and urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the Noem amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I would say to Congressman Hastings that I rise with sympathy toward the situation you face at Hanford, but must oppose your amendment.

The amendment essentially would cut funding from energy efficiency and renewable energy, specifically the weatherization program, which affects dozens and dozens of communities across this country, many of them very low income, as well as departmental administration, which has already been cut to the bone, to move money to Hanford.

It is true that the communities that contributed to the Manhattan Project cannot be left with the remnants of that war effort. We have a moral obligation to clean up these sites. Without question, the bill is inadequate to meet the commitments to States and local communities faced with cleanup.

However, we cannot take those dollars out of the hides of elderly people who might live in Newark, New Jersey, in the wintertime, or in Portland, Oregon, or places where they can't afford their energy bills, or we can't divert money from administration, which is already cut to such a low level at the Department in order to move dollars to Hanford.

Hanford already receives over $2 billion a year--$2 billion. I wish my community received $2 billion. I wish your communities received $2 billion a year.

Those dollars come from the River Protection program, over $1.2 billion, plus an additional $877 million, well over $2 billion a year. That's more than most communities represented by Members here can even imagine coming to their region of the country.

The defense waste cleanup in Ohio is extraordinary. We don't get $2 billion a year. So to say to senior citizens across this country we are going to take it out of your weatherization program so you can't put plastic around your windows in the wintertime and try to retrofit your houses, or we are going to take it out of departmental administration where we risk accounting for the funds properly for all of these programs that the Department has to administer, including the cleanup, some of these contracts that we've had problems with in that Department, I simply can't support the manner in which the gentleman and the gentlelady have identified where they are taking the money from.

So while I agree with their intent, as I've said many times, the allocation for this bill is $2.8 billion under last year and $4 billion under the administration's request and is simply insufficient. We can't keep picking the bones off the most needy parts of our country to try to divert additional dollars to efforts at Hanford that are spending well over $2 billion a year already.

I would ask my colleagues to oppose the amendment. I reluctantly oppose the gentleman's amendment. But in being fair and looking at all the accounts, we simply can't keep picking from the bones of other programs at the Department.

I ask my colleagues to vote against the Hastings amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

This debate is a perfect example of why this bill's funding is so inadequate.

What is really being debated is whether we are going to trade off the science of the future, which is so essential to America's competitiveness in the global economy, to take care of necessary past cleanup. Who can make that choice? They are both essential. Are we going to sacrifice the future for the past? That's really what this debate is about.

We know that this bill is $4 billion under the administration's request and over $2 billion under what we spent in this fiscal year of 2013. So we really have an argument that nobody wins. If we fund the past cleanup, we sacrifice the future. If we sacrifice the future, do we really take care of all the past cleanup? We hardly do what's necessary, even with current funding.

So I think it's a perfect example of where the sequestration process is so counterproductive and moves America backwards. We have very imperfect choices here and actually very dangerous choices that we're being forced to make. I think the majority would be much better suited to come back to us with a budget that allows us to do the job that the Energy and Water Subcommittee is charged with doing.

We simply can't try to solve the problem internal to the resources we've been given. It's an impossibility. So somebody is going to lose; and I guarantee you in the past amendment that just came up, some of the people that were the losers have no lobbies here in Washington. The poorest people in our country, who are getting weatherization assistance in order to stay a little bit warmer in the wintertime, they just lost money. They've got no lobby here. They've got none of those people from these various nuclear sites to come in here and lobby for them. Yet they just lost out in a prior amendment.

They have a right to an existence in this country, but we are seeing inside the strictures of this set of choices that we've been given that somebody is always a loser. Actually, the country is a loser because of sequestration and the fact that our subcommittee has been given a mark so far below what is reasonable and frankly what we could do if we had a budget that allowed us to move the country forward, rather than create a can't-do Nation. We can't do science, we can't do cleanup because of what we were handed by, what, a Budget Committee whose members don't even appear on the floor to argue their positions during this debate?

I feel sorry for our country, and I feel sorry for those who have to come down here and take from one another during this debate and hurt people across this country because our allocation is simply too insufficient to meet the needs of the Nation.

So I want to thank the gentlelady for rising on this very important point of

science of the future versus cleanup of the past, but we simply don't have the funds in this bill to do both and it puts us in a very destructive position for the interests of our Nation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Let me say to the gentleman from California that I am sympathetic toward his efforts on the renewable energy activities at the Department of Energy as they are critical for America's energy future, and I'm torn as I listen to his arguments.

I just wanted to demonstrate a chart here that shows the relative superiority of the United States in the nuclear weapons field, the largest total inventory in the world, with Russia right behind. We have a significant nuclear capacity, much greater than nations that follow: France, China, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, North Korea. The United States has quite significant nuclear complexes, and we must maintain them, and we must provide security for them.

I think that the President's negotiations with Russia provide us with a very important opportunity to cut the systems and to do so in a responsible way that continues our superiority and our security, while bringing down the possibilities of reducing these weapons globally.

The gentleman's amendment would actually move funds--$335 million from our weapons accounts--and move them to energy efficiency and renewable energy, which is a move that I would like to support at a future date--the sooner, the better. I appreciate him offering the amendment.

Though I agree with his intent, as I've said many times before, the allocation for this bill is simply insufficient, and we're robbing one account to try to put funds in another account.

I must very reluctantly oppose the gentleman's amendment. I think he's moving in the right direction, and I think that this helps our Nation move in a more constructive direction for the future. We have a responsibility on the nuclear security front. Hopefully, with ongoing negotiations, we'll be able to make this move in the very near future.

I want to thank him for his leadership in moving the country forward and showing us a new path. Let's hope that with the administration's engagement, we can move to that path sooner rather than later.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose the gentleman's well- intentioned amendment and again reiterate that our budget is simply insufficient in our subcommittee to meet all of the needs of the country.

What the gentleman is proposing is to take an additional $31 million out of the Department's administrative accounts and to shift them to renewable energy systems relating to dams and small dam construction. That is a very worthy objective. However, if you know anything about the Department of Energy, one of the challenges we face in the administrative accounts is getting them to manage their contracts in a way that properly oversees taxpayer dollar expenditures. That Department has had some of the worst cost overruns I have ever seen in my career in Congress, on the nuclear side and on the nonnuclear side. So when the gentleman wants to cut administrative costs, my worry is that we will not have the kind of rigor that the chairman and I have been trying to reinfuse in the Department to better manage the dollars that we allow them to spend. And so I think the gentleman's amendment runs a real risk of creating mismanagement there simply because they don't have the personnel to do the job.

And so I think that your end purpose is a very, very worthy one. And, frankly, we have some small dams in Ohio that would benefit from the gentleman's amendment, but I have to come down on the side of rigor and proper administration by the Department in all of their accounts, and the amount of mismanagement and cost overruns in some of their programs is into the billions.

The administrative accounts overall are only $187 million to manage a Department that is over $30 billion worth of expenditures and all kinds of contractors, all kinds of cleanup programs that stand on that thin reed of $187 million for nationwide contract administration and personnel administration.

So I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment. I understand what he's trying to do, but we simply can't risk improper contract management in that Department at this time. I urge opposition to the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on consideration of H.R. 2609, and that I might include tabular material on the same.

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

It is my honor to bring the fiscal year 2014 Energy and Water Development bill before the membership of the House.

However, before I go through its highlights, I would like to thank my ranking member, Ms. Kaptur, for her partnership on this bill and hard work and friendship. It's been a real honor to work with you, and I look forward to working with you to get through the entire process. I would also like to thank all the members of our committee on both sides of the aisle for putting this bill so quickly together and so responsibly.

I would also like to recognize the hard work of Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Lowey to bring this bill, and several others before it, to the floor under an open rule.

The bill for fiscal year 2014 totals $30.4 billion, $2.9 billion below last year's levels and more than $4 billion below the President's request.

The budget allocation we received this year made for some very difficult decisions, but in our bipartisan tradition, we worked hard to incorporate priorities and perspectives from both sides of the aisle.

Mr. Chairman, we placed the greatest priority on national defense, our nuclear deterrent, also the critical work of the Army Corps of Engineers and other activities on which the Federal Government must take the lead. The reductions we had to make to the applied energy research and development programs will shift more of their work to the private sector.

The bill provides $7.6 billion, an increase of $98 million above the fiscal year 2013 amount, to modernize the Nation's nuclear weapons stockpile and its supporting infrastructure, excluding rescissions.

I would also like to note that the recommendation contains no funding to

implement the President's recently announced plans in Berlin to reduce the nuclear stockpile. No funding for such purposes will be available until Congress has judged that these plans will fully support our national defense.

The recommendations increase the Corps of Engineers by $50 million above the President's request and redirects funds to ensure our waterways and harbors keep America open for business and economically competitive. These waterways and harbors handled foreign commerce valued at more than $1.7 trillion last year alone. As in previous fiscal years, the bill maintains the constitutional role of Congress in the appropriations process by ensuring that all worthy Corps of Engineers projects have a chance to compete for funding.

Basic science programs total $4.7 billion, just above last year's post-sequestration levels.

Environmental cleanup programs to address the legacy of the Manhattan Project and other contaminated sites are funded at $5.5 billion, approximately $185 million above the post-sequester levels for fiscal year 2013.

In order to find room for the bill's core priorities, applied energy research and development had to be cut. The recommendation prioritizes funding in this area for programs which truly support American manufacturing jobs, stable energy prices, and diversity of energy supplies.

Our bill includes $450 million for fossil energy technologies and $650 million for nuclear energy activities. Both of these programs are cut below the fiscal year 2013 post-sequester level.

The bill combines the electricity delivery program and the energy efficiency and renewable energy program, and provides $983 million for these activities, excluding rescissions. The recommendation orients these programs to focus on electricity infrastructure resilience--to include cybersecurity--and gasoline prices.

Finally, on Yucca Mountain, our recommendation includes $25 million to sustain the program, along with similar language as last year's prohibiting activities which keep that facility from being usable in the future. It also includes support for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to get that Yucca license application finally finished. No funding is included for requested activities to move past the Yucca Mountain repository program. If and when Congress authorizes changes to the program of record, the committee will consider funding for alternatives.

Mr. Chairman, this bill recognizes our fiscal realities and makes the tough decisions to ensure we get our spending under control without sacrificing our most critical of Federal functions. I'm expecting a vigorous and open debate during an open process over the coming days so all can have a chance to contribute to this legislation.

Before I reserve the balance of my time, I want to thank those who helped bring this bill on the floor. On the majority side: our clerk, Rob Blair; Angie Giancarlo; Ben Hammond; Loraine Heckenberg; Perry Yates; Adam Borrelli. On the minority side: Taunja Berquam. From our personal offices, Ms. Kaptur's: Nathan Facey, her deputy chief of staff; and Ryan Steyer. From my staff: Nancy Fox, my chief of staff; and Katie Hazlett.

All of these individuals and others behind the scenes make this process work, one that we can be proud of, and I think we have a bill that, indeed, we can be proud of.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, may I ask if the ranking member, Ms. Kaptur, is prepared to close.

I yield back the balance of my time.

The gentleman from Michigan is correct: the Department of Energy would have the flexibility to transfer funds, as needed, to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission either from funds appropriated in our bill or from funds previously appropriated for this purpose that remain unspent. This language would also allow the Department of Energy to reprogram funds and subsequently transfer them to the NRC for this purpose, if necessary, to ensure that no one could claim that access to adequate funds is a barrier to completing the review of the Yucca Mountain license application.

I thank the gentleman for his comments. I would also like to recognize his leadership on this issue as the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He has worked hard with his colleagues to ensure that the will of the people is heard. The administration must apply the law that Congress already enacted and get this job done.

We look forward to working with the gentleman to get this appropriation enacted and to get this license wrapped up at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan for being a strong advocate for sufficiently maintaining his waterways and the Nation's waterways. These ports and channels are very important, not only to the Great Lakes' economy, but to our national economy, and I want to commend him for his attention to the needs of his constituents. He is extremely knowledgeable from a professional point of view and certainly as a Member of Congress, who voted to the needs of his constituents.

The committee has heard from many Members, including from those from the Great Lakes, who are concerned that the administration's budget processing has left small, remote, subsistence ports across the Nation unable to continue to conduct business due to inadequate or oftentimes nonexistent maintenance. These are what prompted the committee to include a minimum of $30 million to be made available to such ports. The Great Lakes' ports will certainly be eligible for this funding. I believe our bill addresses his concerns to the greatest priority possible in light of other priorities which he mentioned in our bill, which are, obviously, balancing the Federal budget and controlling spending.

I want to thank our colleague for bringing the concerns of the Great Lakes' ports to our attention. We will do our level best to work with the gentleman. We honor his request.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I reserve a point of order on the gentleman's amendment.

Will the gentleman yield?

I appreciate your longstanding commitment to Hanford, and I support this amendment, which is aimed at strengthening environmental management in the Richland Operations Office. EM is a priority for the subcommittee. I look forward to returning to Hanford, as I have in the past, to get a firsthand look at the latest challenges and progress, and we know there are lots of challenges.

As you know, Representative Hastings, the Department of Energy has not yet provided confirmation of probable tank leaks, a Record of Decision on the potential for tank TRU waste, or a plan for the waste treatment plant. This information will be required as Congress completes the appropriations process for the Office of River Protection.

In the event of a continuing resolution, the Department of Energy has the flexibility in determining funding levels for individual programs and projects, including EM.

Mr. Hastings, I am pleased to support your amendment and I wish its success.

I object.

Would the gentlewoman be able to identify the amendment which she is proposing?

I withdraw my objection.

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

This amendment increases funding for science, ARPA-E, and renewable energy, energy reliability and efficiency by a total of $1.7 billion, using defense environmental cleanup as an offset.

Defense environmental cleanup provides funding to clean up the legacy of the Manhattan Project, as we discussed earlier, which is a huge task that will take years to do. It will be a major expense and will take significant resources. We heard part of the Washington State story, but there is part of it in other parts of the country as well.

The Federal Government has an inherent responsibility to address this legacy and to ensure that the materials created to build our nuclear weapons stockpile do not endanger the public health and the environment. There are also some other daunting technical challenges in cleaning up this waste, and this amendment would, frankly, completely gut those types of programs. It is doubtful that this level would even sustain the basic operation and maintenance of the facilities, let alone allow for any progress in the cleanup effort. The cleanup effort needs to be sustained.

Our allocation has made, as I said earlier in the afternoon, for very tough choices. We placed the highest priority on activities on which the Federal Government must take the lead. While the applied energy and advanced research programs are down substantially, admittedly, there is a strong interest in advancing these areas of research, and the responsibility for conducting that research can shift, in many ways, to the private sector. Therefore, I strongly oppose the amendment, and I urge other Members to do the same.

I yield to the gentlelady.

In reclaiming my time, we know that the gentlewoman's heart is in the right place. We know of your heartfelt views. We would be happy to work with you to see what we can do to assist in these other areas, but this environmental cleanup, in some respects, is court-ordered besides there being, obviously, the potential for human health to be adversely affected.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I rise to oppose the gentleman's amendment, and I understand he may be offering some other amendments similarly related later on the floor. Suffice it to say that my remarks here will also pertain to those amendments.

This amendment would unacceptably strike funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration's weapon activity by $245 million in order to increase funding for renewable energy, energy reliability, and efficiency activities. Ensuring funding to maintain our nuclear stockpile is our highest priority in our Energy and Water development bill. Historically, it always has been and will continue to be. We have put off for too long the investments that are needed to ensure that we maintain our nuclear weapons stockpile in the future.

Because of this historical underfunding, there's been strong bipartisan support for increasing weapons activities. Our bill takes a responsible approach to meeting those needs, reducing funding $193 million below the request for nonessential activities within the weapons activities account that are not required to maintain the nuclear weapons stockpile, but there are no further savings available. A reduction of this magnitude would severely impact the National Nuclear Security Administration's ability to ensure the continued reliability of our weapons, something which the Secretary of Energy has to do to our Commander in Chief each and every year.

I support the programs championed by my colleague. That's why we worked hard to increase the advanced manufacturing program by $5 million over fiscal year 2013 within an account that is cut by $971 million.

I oppose the amendment and urge Members to do likewise, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I reluctantly rise to oppose the gentleman from Pennsylvania's amendment. First of all, I want to salute him for being a strong advocate for water power. I think those of us on the committee are as well.

His amendment would increase, as we're aware, funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy by $31 million using the Department's administration account as an offset to restore the water power program to the requested level. Our allocation, as I've said a number of times, made for some really tough choices. Our bill cuts applied energy and advanced research programs to allow more funding for inherently Federal responsibilities.

While I support the program championed by my colleague, we can simply not afford to increase energy reliable activities so significantly by diverting funding from other essential activities within the Department of Energy. One of the issues within the Department of Energy is they've had management issues. They need money to better manage a lot of the activities. They have a new Secretary of Energy. He needs the resources to do it. If we keep tapping from this account, there will be no money to pay for the management and operation and the accountability we expect from the chief executive of this Department. Therefore, I reluctantly oppose his amendment and urge Members to do likewise.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I object to waiving the reading, and I reserve a point of order on the gentlewoman's amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I insist on my point of order.

Mr. Chairman, the amendment proposes a net increase in budget authority in the bill. The amendment is not in order under section 3(d)(3) of House Resolution 5, 113th Congress, which states:

It shall not be in order to consider an amendment to a general appropriation bill proposing a net increase in budget authority in the bill unless considered en bloc with another amendment or amendments proposing an equal or a greater decrease in such budget authority pursuant to clause 2(f) of rule XXI.

The amendment proposes a net increase in the budget authority in the bill in violation of such section. I ask for a ruling from the Chair.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the underlying bill, H.R. 2609, the fiscal year 2014 Energy and Water Appropriations Act.

Having this bill on the floor this week is another example of how we, as a body, our Congress, has its priorities wrong. It's why Congress has an approval rating of 12 percent.

Rather than fixing our broken immigration system and replacing it with one that works for our country, rather than doing something about the fact that student loan rates just doubled for students that are incurring new loans, here we are sacrificing our renewable energy future while simultaneously increasing spending for new and unneeded nuclear weapons far above even the sequestration level of funding.

It's no wonder this institution has the disapproval rating that it does.

This legislation is fundamentally flawed. It underfunds programs that not only grow our Nation's clean energy sources but also create jobs, promote emerging technologies, and maintain critical infrastructure. Yet, while making these cuts, it increases weapons activities by $97.7 million above the 2013 enacted levels. Here we have a bill that prioritizes unnecessary weapons and defense programs at the expense of our Nation's innovation and international competitiveness.

The underlying bill slashes program funding for a valuable program called the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E. Yesterday, in our Rules Committee, both the ranking member and the subcommittee chair agreed that they were fans of this critical program; yet it cuts funding by $215 million below last year's funding level. ARPA-E was modeled after DARPA, the Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which has led to so many great, innovative technologies that improve our security as a country. In its few short years of existence, ARPA-E has funded 285 projects in 33 States that promise to transform the energy future for our country.

ARPA-E's rigorous program design and competitive project selection process show that our taxpayer dollars are being used wisely, and the program has paid off. Since 2009, at least 17 ARPA-E programs have leveraged the government's small initial investment of approximately $70 million into what is typically $500,000, $1 million, or up to $2 million in private sector capital.

I was a founder of several startup companies before I came to Congress, and I understand the value of risk-taking and the role the government has in promoting innovation in basic technology. I represent a district with two major research universities that receive a combined Federal research investment of about $700 million. Many of these basic technologies which we as a country invest in lead to the jobs and the companies and the consumer technologies of the future. And what could be more critical than putting our Nation on a path to sustainable energy development?

Just this last February, I met with an ARPA-E project team from my district. Within the first year of receiving ARPA-E funding, this University of Colorado project team has demonstrated important energy yield improvements and cost-reducing potential in solar photovoltaic power systems. That's an example of an ARPA-E project that will help boost our economic well-being as a country and lead to our energy independence and national security far more than a few more unneeded nuclear missiles.

My colleagues on both sides of the aisle know that this program is essential to protecting our energy future; and that's why this program, ARPA-E, has been lauded by Democrats and Republicans alike, as it was in our Rules Committee yesterday evening.

Mr. Speaker, this bill also disproportionately cuts from science and clean energy programs while bolstering wasteful spending for fossil fuel subsidies, continuing to have our country subsidize oil and gas, to subsidizing nuclear weapons, while making cuts in our energy future. By maintaining these fossil fuel subsidies while cutting clean energy research, we're prioritizing fossil fuels over innovative technologies that actually hold the key to our clean, sustainable energy independence.

While I appreciate that this bill has some decreases to the amount of Federal subsidies going to the fossil fuel accounts compared to last year--and I think it's high time that we end these subsidies to one of America's most profitable industries--the report language from the committee seems to be searching for a reason to spend our precious taxpayer dollars at a time of sequestration and at a time of deficits. How can we spend more on fossil fuels when we should be spending less?

In addition, this bill needlessly increases the funding for weapons activities and defense programs at a time when we're winding down our involvement in two wars that have been very costly in lives and dollars in this last decade. That's why I'm offering an amendment with Representative Quigley that would reduce the B61 Life Extension Program back to the agency's request level, which would save $23.7 million in taxpayer dollars and reduce the deficit. This bill actually increases funding by over $20 million for these ongoing missile programs in an era where Americans should expect our government to be more transparent about how this money is invested.

While some of these missiles represent a strategic commitment we have to our NATO allies, there have been growing concerns raised by the Air Force's own Blue Ribbon Review Panel about the effectiveness and security vulnerabilities of the B61. That's why the price for this program has continued to rise dramatically and confidence in the missile program has dropped. In fact, some of our NATO allies, like Germany, have actually called for the B61s to be removed from their borders.

Again, given our fiscal constraints, it's a time of choices. It's not to have it all, but I think we need to ensure that taxpayer money is not wasted on programs that fail to sufficiently protect our national security and that in fact some of our allies don't even support.

Another unneeded increase in this funding bill, throwing more government money after more government money, is for the W76 Life Extension Program. The current bill requests $248 million--$13 million more than the administration requested--because of a fear of a lack of nuclear deterrence capability if we reduce our stockpile below the levels required in the New START Treaty. To put that in perspective, the START Treaty requires us to have no more than 1,550 nuclear weapons. Isn't that enough, Mr. Speaker? How many times can we completely obliterate not only our enemies but the entire world with 1,500 weapons?

Even this lower stockpile of nuclear weapons is, frankly, a relic of our foreign policy during the Cold War and can be drastically reduced. Unfortunately, this bill increased it. In fact, the Arms Control Association identified over $39 billion in savings to the taxpayer if it reduced our nuclear weapons stockpile to 1,000 nuclear weapons--more than enough to deter any threat to the United States, more than enough to obliterate humanity from the planet. We can save $39 billion by going down to 1,000 nuclear weapons.

These are some of the many reasons why I oppose the underlying bill. I'm very supportive of this rule coming forward from our committee that will allow for a full and open debate. I hope that many of these ideas that I have presented, as well as other ideas from Members on both sides of the aisle, will prevail so the end work product of this House is something that Democrats and Republicans can join together in supporting--something that no longer sacrifices our renewable energy future for yet more and more nuclear weapons today.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I was going to comment to the gentleman that the committee work product, the bill before us, is a highly flawed bill. I certainly hope that the open process and the will of the House will significantly alter and improve upon this bill. We will find that out in the days ahead.

It is my honor, Mr. Speaker, to yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California, a former colleague on the Rules Committee (Ms. Matsui).

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

To further address the student loan issue, this body did pass a bill to prevent the increase in the student loan rates that just occurred. However, that bill--a very similar bill--failed in the Senate. So the Kline bill failed in the Senate. So, too, a Democratic bill to provide a 2-year extension of the student loan rates also failed in the Senate.

So at this point, the victims of all this are students in our country who are going back to school and will be forced to borrow at twice the rate--6.8 percent--if Congress can't get its act together. And that's why if we defeat the previous question, I'll offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 2574, the Keeping Student Loans Affordable Act, sponsored by Representative George Miller, Representative Ruben Hinojosa, myself, and several others, which would undue the recent doubling of student loan interest rates.

It's that simple. While we work towards a market-oriented solution along the parameters President Obama has spelled out, making sure we have the protections in place like caps for students everywhere, we need to at least make sure that students returning to school this fall are not borrowing at a rate twice the rate of last year.

To discuss this bill, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa), my colleague on the Education and Workforce Committee.

Again, to respond to that, the bill that the House passed failed in the United States Senate. So, too, did a 2-year delay in keeping the student loan rates low; that has failed in the Senate. So we can simply say, oh, we're just not going to do anything and let student loan rates double, or we can take it upon ourselves in this body to try to find a new way. That's what the Democrats and Ranking Member Miller have put forward, a way to say, look, we couldn't agree on 2 years, we couldn't agree on a long-term solution. Let's give us a 1-year window where the kids coming back to school in a month aren't going to be borrowing at twice the rate that they were last year.

We have the chief sponsor of the bill here to speak about it. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), the ranking member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Will the gentleman yield?

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

I thank the gentleman. I just know that there have been less speakers on the other side, and I was hoping that we might be able to use some of the ``all kinds of time'' in a bipartisan way.

The gentleman from Texas was not accurate in saying that the House bill awaits action in the Senate. It had a vote in the Senate; it did not pass. So, too, a 2-year extension did not reach the cloture vote.

So, again, here we are. We can either start blaming each other--the folks on the other side of the building--or we can actually do something and get to work to keep student loan rates low for America's college students.

And of course Democrats are open to tying something into market-based rates; President Obama even proposed such. So, if that's what the gentleman wants to do, let's engage in a discussion about that. In the meantime, let's pass a 1-year extension so the rates don't double-- which they already did 2 weeks ago--when the kids come back to school in the fall.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews), a leader on this issue and a colleague of mine on the Education and the Workforce Committee.

(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

We're not aware of any at this time. There might be one more coming, but if they're not here, I'm prepared to close.

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

Again, we wonder why this body has an approval rating of 12 percent. Instead of tackling issues that Americans want us to tackle--like finally fixing our broken immigration system, which, by the way, a bill received more than two-thirds support in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans. It's hard to get two-thirds of anybody to agree on anything, and yet 70 percent of Americans support comprehensive immigration reform, two-thirds of the United States Senate. Let's bring that bill up and pass it.

Student loans? Sure, we can cast blame on the Senate. We can cast blame on whomever we feel like. But the fact is American families are borrowing at 6.8 percent instead of 3.4 percent--now, this fall, student loans. So we can either just say, okay, it's not our fault, we passed something, let's go home, or we can actually try to reach a solution.

If we can defeat the previous question today, we can bring Representative Miller's bill right to the floor to allow a 1-year window for Congress to work this out and keep the student loan rate at 3.4 percent and prevent our next generation of college kids from having their backs broken under the weight of high-interest student loans.

Mr. Speaker, with regard to this bill--again, not the bill that America wants us to be discussing; instead, a bill that cuts our renewable energy future, puts even more money into nuclear weapons--I can't support this committee report on the energy and water spending bill. I hope that through this process the will of the House changes this bill dramatically. If not, then we're simply making the wrong decisions for our energy future.

The bill slashes critical funding that would create jobs, grow our economy, lead to energy security, and increase our competitiveness. At the same time, the bill adds spending to increase our nuclear weapons stockpiles.

How can we expect to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists if we cut the nuclear nonproliferation activities by $600 million under this bill?

While the bill increases funding for our weapons programs and continues funding for fossil fuel subsidies, it guts many of our renewable energy programs, like ARPA-E, the Department of Energy's Office of Science, and investing in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

This bill threatens to increase our reliance on foreign oil, reduce job growth, increase pollution, and damage the health of American families. If we don't act to reverse this legislation's deep cuts to science programs and energy research, the United States will have many, many missiles armed with nuclear warheads, but we will fall behind our global competitors who are investing heavily in renewable and next- generation energy technologies.

I strongly urge that we defeat the previous question. I urge a ``no'' vote on the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Madam Chairwoman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Madam Chairwoman, if you like confusion, keep the status quo and oppose the amendment.

If you want to get clarity and you want to understand and you want to get investment and progress and if you want to have people understand what the law is, support the amendment.

The proposal that has been put forward by the Corps of Engineers is clarity itself. It does not change the decision wrongly made by the Supreme Court, no matter how much I might dislike that decision. What it does is it allows people to know what the law is as set forth by the Supreme Court. Foreclosing the Corps of Engineers from carrying out its proper responsibilities under the law going back before 1899 is an act of extraordinary unwisdom and stupidity. My colleagues on the other side do not understand the issue. The simple fact of the matter is all this does is to allow the Corps of Engineers to tell the people of the United States what the law is with regard to what is navigable waters that may be affected by pollution, ditching, draining, and doing other things.

So when you vote to strike this section, you are not changing the law; you are allowing the Corps of Engineers to set forth what the rules happen to be, and you're allowing the Supreme Court to bring clarity to the decisionmaking of the United States and seeing to it that people may then go forward and invest and do the other things that are necessary in the light of the decision of the Supreme Court, which again, I repeat, is not changed, not by the amendment which is offered by my friend from Virginia.

I urge my colleagues to support the amendment offered by Mr. Moran of Virginia because it brings clarity to a confused situation, and it makes plain and apparent what the law is.

So if you want to get progress so that people will know how they're going to invest in doing things that affect their property and the waters of the United States, supporting the amendment is the way to do it; and failing to support the amendment is to ensure that confusion will continue to exist and that businesses, industry, and the communities of the United States that need to act upon the waters to see to it that they are protected and that they are preserved, you're seeing to it by opposing the amendment that that cannot be done.

The Supreme Court was wrong in the decision which they made. I was here on the floor when we agreed that the navigable waters are all of the waters of the United States. The Supreme Court was either too ignorant or too lazy to bother reading that particular debate, but the legislative history of the law is clear. And I repeat, this does not move us back to the old way, and it does not change the unfortunate decision of the Supreme Court. What it does is it ensures that for the first time since this kind of amendment was offered on the floor, that we are able to finally begin to move forward to deal with the law as it affects navigability, the Clean Water Act, and the other things which are so important both to protecting our waters and to ensuring that business and industry may invest with a clear understanding of what the law is.

To oppose this amendment is to ensure that there will be more litigation, which will cause more obfuscation and delay and more difficulty in terms of achieving our purpose of having American citizens be able to enjoy the water in accordance with the law as the Corps of Engineers will set it out so that everyone will know what the law is rather than the Congress stultifying the law and seeing to it that we're incapable of having a clear pronouncement of what the law is as made by the agency which has the responsibility to do so under the law.

I urge you to support the amendment. I urge you to strike section 107, and I urge you to get this country going forward on a very important matter which is being thoroughly obfuscated by a lot of people who know nothing about the matter. I urge adoption of the amendment and the striking of the section.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in support of the Moran-Dingell amendment which will protect not only the Clean Water Act but also the power and integrity of the United States Congress.

When the Clean Water Act was passed, I stood on the floor of this House and explained the intent of the Conference Report on the Clean Water Act. I said, ``the conference bill defines the term `navigable waters' broadly for water quality purposes. It means all `the waters of the United States' in a geographical sense. It does not mean the `navigable waters of the United States' in the narrow technical sense we sometimes see in some laws.''

In 2006, the Supreme Court wrongly restricted the original Congressional intent of the Federal government's authority under the Clean Water Act. The Supreme Court completely ignored Congress' intent to provide a broader definition of ``U.S. waters'' and instead upended 35 years of precedence simply because they refused to review the facts.

But the issue before us today is not whether or not you agree with the Clean Water Act. The question is, simply: Is the Corps of Engineers going to be able to tell people what the law is and how it is to be interpreted by the Corps and how citizens will then have to behave?

Under the law, our amendment simply says the Corps may inform people of what the law, as set forth in the Supreme Court's rulings, means. I think that is something which is important in terms of seeing to it that people may go forward with their planning, with economic development and everything of that sort.

In light of the Supreme Court's misguided decision, the Army Corps of Engineers is working on updated guidelines that will take into account the decision of the Court and define what their new jurisdiction will be under the Clean Water Act. This is not a massive expansion of power by the Corps as some would have you believe. This is simply attempting to comply with the Supreme Court's decision.

By preventing the Corps from spending any funds to implement these new guidelines, this House would be casting a pall of uncertainty over the country. If someone wants to build a home or new business near a wetland or other body of water, do they need to consult with the Army Corps of Engineers before doing so? The language in this bill would not answer that question and would likely lead to more costs on that homeowner or businessperson in legal and court fees. The language in this bill would certainly lead to more court battles and create a wonderful mess that would lead to lawyers making plenty of money.

To say anything else about this legislation is either to be misled or to mislead. I would beg my colleagues to vote in favor of the intelligent approach of seeing to it that we are going to allow people to know what the law is and allow the Corps of Engineers to set out what the law is for the benefit of business, industry, and people.

I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Madam Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support the amendment offered by my good friend from Virginia. I urge them to strike section 112.

There's no one in this Chamber that owns this world. We borrow it from those who come behind us in the future, and we owe them a duty to see to it that we return it in proper form.

The bill, as drafted, forbids the Federal Government from seeing to it that all manner of defilement is not dumped into the navigable waters of the United States. This is having an appalling consequence, destroying waters, killing fish, polluting the water sources of our communities and cities. But beyond that, it's doing something else.

A race of unscrupulous people are sawing the tops off our mountains in the Appalachians and other places, and they're taking that spoil and dropping it in river valleys and filling them up, the result of which is that the water flowing through that valley becomes highly acidic, and it produces severe danger, not just to fish and wildlife, but to human beings. These are the waters of the United States that are being defiled.

The amendment would at least afford a moderate level of authority to the Federal Government, which has always been that authority of the Federal Government, to protect one of the greatest treasures this Nation has: its flowing waters.

My colleagues on the other side think that that is a question of jobs. We're going to mine, and we should, but we should do it carefully and wisely and well, with due attention to the future and to our trusteeship of the world that we love.

We do not have the right to defile our waters. We have a duty to protect this land and to see to it that it is returned to future generations of Americans in as good a shape as we have found it, and perhaps, if we can, in a better shape.

What they have done is to change the situation, where now almost anything goes, and the result is a calamity for the future of the United States.

Water is one of the next coming great shortages of this Nation. It's something that is going to be very much missed by our future generations because we have, by adopting this bill without this amendment, defiled those waters, made them unsafe to drink and to recreate in, made them unsafe for all kinds of purposes, including even industrial use of those waters.

I urge my colleagues to support the amendment offered by my good friend from Virginia. I urge you, my dear friends and colleagues, to look to the future of the country whose custodians and trustees we are, to see to it that we return this beautiful Nation of ours to the future generations in the condition in which we found it and which is suitable and fitting to the greatest Nation in the world.

We can have mining, we can have all of the other things we need, but all we have to do, under the law, as it has been, is to do it wisely, carefully, prudently and well, with due regard for the future.

This language in the bill stricken by the amendment offered by my colleague from Virginia would defile those waters and defile the future of this Nation.

I beg you, support the amendment. I beg you, strike the section. I beg you, be good trustees of the future and of the great gifts that God has given this Nation, and to strike section 112 so that we can properly protect one of the great blessings that this Nation has, an abundance of water, which the language of the bill, as now drawn, will defile and destroy.

And people in the Appalachians will curse us for what we have done to them by filling stream valleys with muck and corruption, by defiling the waters and the rivers and the streams and the lakes of the United States.

This is not good custodianship. This is a disregard of the greatest opportunity that we have, and that is to return to our future generations this Nation in the shape in which they will want it to be and we want it to be.

Madam Chairman, I rise in support of the Moran-Dingell amendment that gives this and future administrations the flexibility they need should they decide to address the issue of ``fill material.''

While the Clean Water Act has been a success, we still have a long way to go to fulfill the promise of the Act. According to the EPA, for the first time in many years, the Nation's waters have actually started to get dirtier. The response to this disturbing news should be a renewal of the Nation's commitment to clean water. Unfortunately, the previous administration charted a different course and worked to dismantle the very tools that make the Clean Water Act work.

Through regulatory changes, the previous administration eliminated a 25-year-old ban on dumping mining and other industrial wastes into streams and wetlands, and adopted policies abandoning the long-standing national ``no net loss of wetlands'' goal. That administration also proposed weakening the Clean Water Act's program that guides the cleanup of polluted waters.

Congress made it clear that the Clean Water Act covers all of these waters. I know this because I was there. In 1972, I spoke on the floor of the House about Clean Water Act and stated for the legislative history that that the bill covers all the waters of the United States. What we in Congress said when the law was passed remains true today: in order for the goal of clean water to be met, all waters must be protected for water pollution to be eliminated at its sources.

We in the Congress knew in 1972, as we know now, that the purposes of the Act--to restore and maintain the integrity of the country's waters--could not be achieved if any of the nation's vital waters are removed from the law's scope.

As a conservationist, hunter and avid sportsman, I see a pressing need to protect and restore our Nation's waterways and wetlands. These valuable systems support a diverse array of migratory birds, as well as many other species of wildlife. These waters are also an integral part of the landscape that serves mankind. Wetlands help prevent floods and are natural filters, removing pollutants from drinking water.

I was proud to play a part in enacting the Clean Water Act. Prior to that landmark legislation, rivers were catching on fire and fishermen dubbed Lake Erie the Dead Sea. We have come too far to allow a roll- back. I ask my colleagues to support both Moran-Dingell amendments.

Madam Chairwoman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chairwoman, I just want to say Asian carp, is a very troubling situation. In fact, we've got the snakeheads in this part of the country that can walk on dry land from river to river and pond to pond. Something's happening, and it's not good. But I'm glad that the issue was raised.

Madam Chairwoman, I do have an amendment with our colleague, John Dingell. The amendment simply strikes section 107 of this bill. The reason for doing that is that section 107 would prevent the Corps of Engineers from updating regulations and guidance defining what waters and wetlands are subject to the Clean Water Act.

Even though everyone, including the building industry, agrees there's confusion regarding what waters fall under Federal jurisdiction, section 107 would deliberately continue this confusion. In fact, many private commercial interests have gone on record in support of clarifying the term ``waters of the United States,'' but that clarification would be prohibited under section 107 of this bill.

Madam Chairwoman, there have been two Supreme Court cases on this subject: Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County in 2001 and Rapanos in 2006. Combined, these two rulings have created confusion and uncertainty regarding the limits of the Federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. In layman's terms, the Court called into question the Federal Government's jurisdiction the further away the water was from where you could float a boat all year long. In both cases, though, a majority of the Court could not agree on where Federal jurisdiction should end. Intermittent streams and rivers that only flow seasonally, are they under Federal jurisdiction? Sixty percent of all stream miles in the lower 48 States fall into the category of intermittent or ephemeral; in other words, they don't exist for some part of the year, yet they receive 40 percent of all individual wastewater discharges.

Even more importantly, more than 117 million Americans get some of their drinking water from these very streams that don't flow year round. Section 107 of this bill, though, would ensure that these sources of drinking water remain at increased risk of pollution. And with rising temperatures, more severe droughts and climate change, the protection of our waters and wetlands are a greater concern than ever. That's why I mentioned the Asian carp and the snakeheads. Extreme things are happening, but the most important thing that's happening is that climate change is creating a very extreme threat to every American, and we're seeing it in bodies of water across the country.

Before my colleague suggests that we shouldn't worry about climate change, that the States have authority in the absence of Federal authority, I should tell my friends that that argument doesn't hold water in States that use the Federal definition to run their program. Forty-eight States share common water bodies. Without Federal jurisdiction, no State can tell an upstream State what to do unless we have a baseline minimum Federal standard that all States must abide by.

Through a public comment process and appropriate congressional oversight, we can allow the administration to finalize its guidance and eventually move forward on a formal rulemaking process, or Congress could define navigable water ourselves. But why would this Congress do its job when it can complain about the administration not doing its job?

Madam Chairwoman, 2 years ago, the Court and EPA issued a draft guidance to provide additional clarity on this issue. They took public comment on the draft for 90 days and received over 230,000 comments on the guidance, comments that were overwhelmingly favorably. The draft guidance provides a more predictable and consistent procedure for identifying waters and wetlands protected under the Clean Water Act. It focuses on protecting smaller waterways that keep downstream water safe from upstream pollutants and on protecting adjacent wetlands that filter pollution and store waters and help keep communities safe from floods. The guidance also maintains all of the existing exemptions for agricultural discharges and identifies specific types of water bodies to which it does not apply, areas like artificial lakes and ponds and many types of drainage and irrigation ditches.

It does not extend Federal protection to any waters not historically protected under the Clean Water Act, and it's fully consistent with the law and the decisions and instructions of the Supreme Court. So I think we should let the administration go forward, provide greater clarity, and we can only do that by striking section 107.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, my colleague, John Dingell and I have another amendment that strikes, in this case, section 112 of this bill because section 112 would prevent the Corps of Engineers from updating regulationsdefining the terms ``fill material'' or ``discharge of fill material'' for the purposes of the Clean Water Act.

Presently, the Army Corps issues a section 404 permit if the ``fill material'' discharged into a water body raises the bottom elevation of that water body or converts an area to dry land.

When Congress first enacted the Clean Water Act, and that's why Mr. Dingell is so concerned about this, the 404 permit process was supposed to be used for certain construction projects, like bridges and roads, where raising the bottom elevation of a water body or converting an area into dry land was simply unavoidable.

But then, some clever attorneys in the George W. Bush administration found a way to allow mining waste to be dumped into rivers and streams without a rigorous environmental review process. They simply changed the definition of what qualifies as ``fill material.''

Under a 2002 rule change, the Bush administration broadened that definition to, and I'd put this in quotes, ``include rock, sand, soil, clay, plastics, construction debris, wood chips, overburden from mining or other excavation activities.''

Now, these guidelines are simply not well-suited for evaluating the environmental effects of discharging hazardous waste, such as mining refuse and similar materials, into a water body or wetland.

When Congress first enacted the Clean Water Act, and for the first 30 years of its passage, the law helped keep America's lakes, rivers and streams safe from mining pollution, protected wildlife and drinking water. But that's no longer the case today.

Perhaps it would come as no surprise to many that, in 2009, the Supreme Court upheld this newer, broader definition of ``fill material'' that was adopted by the executive branch in 2002. The Court allowed this new definition to be used for a Kensington mining operation near Lower Slate Lake in Alaska.

I want to point out this anecdotal example, although it's a very important one. So the permit allowed the discharge of toxic wastewater from a gold ore processing mill to go, untreated, directly into the lake, despite the fact that the discharge violates EPA standards for the mining industry. Today, all of Lower Slate Lake's fish and aquatic life is gone, dead.

Now, Madam Chair, that's why we raise this amendment to strike section 112, which would permanently preclude the Corps from considering any regulatory changes to the current definition and permit process. I would

note that, to much of the environmental community's frustration, the Corps hasn't issued any regulations to change the definition of ``fill material'' or ``discharge of fill material.''

You can go back to that language that came about as a result of that clever change in 2002. You can find no effort by the Corps to change it, and the Corps hasn't expressed any plans to do so. That's disappointing.

But since there is no time limit on the provision in this appropriations bill, it would not only block the current administration but any future administration from considering any changes, even one less sympathetic to the adverse health and environmental consequences of discharging hazardous waste into our drinking water.

Madam Chair, this provision that's in this bill is intended to be a preemptive strike against protecting our drinking water. We should not be putting this kind of legislation onto an appropriations bill, particularly when it has such adverse consequences to the future health of our population. And that's why I would urge my colleagues to join me in removing this section from this appropriations bill.I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.