Electricity Reliability and Forest Protection Act

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule for providing debate on the National Defense Authorization Act, often called the NDAA, and also the

Gaining Responsibility on Water Act. First let me address that act.

They tried to create an acronym called the GROW Act, Gaining Responsibility on Water, trying to make it seem like it actually might help things grow, when it actually picks winners and losers in water-- and the losers are the environment, the State of California, and many others.

There are also a lot of problems around the process for the GROW Act. It bypassed hearings and markups. In fact, up until this bill was published on the Rules Committee website, only lobbyists and a few Republicans even knew what many of the provisions in this bill were. This kind of backroom dealmaking is one of the reasons the general public holds Congress in such low esteem.

There is an immense amount of opposition to this legislation, including from conservation groups, fishing groups, Native American Tribes, and the State of California.

Mr. Speaker, I have several letters that I include in the Record in regard to opposition to H.R. 23. One of the letters is signed by groups ranging from the American Bird Conservancy to the Animal Welfare Institute, to the Humane Society and a number of others, discussing how this bill would dramatically weaken protections for salmon, birds, and other fish and wildlife.

Another letter that I include in the Record is from a former colleague of ours, now the attorney general of the State of California, Xavier Becerra, and, finally, a letter from the Governor of California as well.

Please Oppose H.R. 23

July 11, 2017.

Dear Representative: On behalf of the undersigned

organizations, we write to urge you to oppose H.R. 23

(Valadao, R-CA). This bill would dramatically weaken

protections for salmon, migratory birds, and other fish and

wildlife in California's Bay-Delta watershed and would

threaten thousands of fishing jobs in California and Oregon

that depend on the health of these species. In addition to

gutting critical federal environmental protections in

California, H.R. 23 also preempts a wide range of state

environmental laws and would prevent the State of California

from protecting and managing its own water and wildlife

resources. In addition to these provisions focused on

California, the bill also includes titles that would reduce

public and environmental reviews of new dams and water

infrastructure across the Western states. Both the Obama

Administration and the State of California opposed similar

legislation in recent years, including opposition to H.R.

3964 (Valadao, R-CA) and H.R. 5781 (Valadao, R-CA) in 2014,

and H.R. 2898 (Valadao, R-CA) in 2015.

California has just emerged from a devastating drought, and

the state is taking proactive steps to protect cities, farms,

and the environment from future dry spells. However, several

provisions in H.R. 23 would undermine California's efforts by

permanently preempting critical state laws that protect

salmon and other native fisheries and the jobs they support.

In addition, this legislation would effectively repeal and

preempt state and federal laws and a binding settlement

agreement that require restoration of the San Joaquin River

and its native salmon runs, instead permanently drying up 60

miles of California's second longest river. H.R. 23 not only

preempts state law as applied to federal water projects in

California, but it also preempts the application of state

laws to the State Water Project and virtually all water

rights holders in California's Bay-Delta watershed. This

extensive preemption of state law in H.R. 23 is contrary to

over a hundred years of Reclamation law and would set a

dangerous precedent for other Western states.

H.R. 23 would also override the Endangered Species Act,

increasing the risk that winter-run Chinook salmon and other

native fish species are driven extinct. Further, H.R. 23

could devastate wildlife refuges that provide habitat for

millions of birds that migrate along the Pacific Flyway by

undermining the refuges' water rights and threatening

critically important funding sources. H.R. 23 would also

eviscerate the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act,

eliminating instream flows to benefit salmon and funding for

habitat restoration projects, which help to mitigate the

adverse effects of the Central Valley Project. The impacts

from these provisions would reverberate along the entire West

Coast, affecting fishing jobs and related industries in

Oregon and Washington that depend on salmon from California's

Central Valley and threatening populations of waterfowl and

shorebirds that migrate to and from Alaska and Canada each

year.

In addition to these provisions focused on gutting

environmental protections in California, H.R. 23 also

includes several titles that would weaken the public's right

to know and environmental protection across the western

United States. For instance, the bill's dam permitting

provisions would give the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation

unprecedented control over the environmental review process

and could undermine the ability of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Service and N.O.A.A. Fisheries to share expertise and inform

the development of major infrastructure investments. These

provisions would make it difficult, if not impossible, for

responsible agencies to meaningfully analyze proposed

projects and could limit the public's ability to weigh in on

infrastructure that could affect communities for decades.

H.R. 23 has not been the subject of a single committee

hearing to receive public input from the State of California,

hunting organizations, sport and commercial fishermen,

tribes, or conservation groups, even though the bill could

greatly interfere with state water rights and cripple the

ability of state and federal agencies to manage limited water

resources for all beneficial uses. Last year Congress passed

legislation addressing California's water operations in the

Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act of 2016

(P.L. 114-322). H.R. 23 would undermine that legislation,

which supporters claim requires that state and federal water

projects are operated in compliance with state law and the

Endangered Species Act.

H.R. 23 also threatens thousands of fishing jobs in

California, Oregon, and beyond that depend on healthy salmon

runs from the Bay-Delta. The closure of the salmon fishery in

2008 and 2009 resulted in thousands of lost jobs in these

states. The livelihoods and recreational interests of salmon

fishermen, Delta farmers, fishing guides, tackle shops, bird

watchers, waterfowl hunters, and communities across

California and along the West Coast depend on the

environmental protections that H.R. 23 would eliminate.

For these reasons, we respectfully urge you to oppose H.R.

23. Thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,

American Bird Conservancy,

American Rivers,

Animal Welfare Institute,

Audubon California,

Center for Biological Diversity,

Center for Food Safety,

Defenders of Wildlife,

Earthjustice,

Endangered Species Coalition,

Environmental Protection Information Center,

Friends of the River,

Humane Society Legislative Fund,

International Marine Mammal Project of Earth Island

Institute,

Klamath Forest Alliance,

League of Conservation Voters,

Natural Resources Defense Council,

San Juan Citizens Alliance,

Sierra Club,

The Bay Institute,

Turtle Island Restoration Network,

Western Nebraska Resources Council,

Western Watersheds Project,

WildEarth Guardians.

Mr. Speaker, the only winners under this bill are actually a few large agricultural producers who will take all the water, leaving none for many others. This bill is a water grab, plain and simple. The so-called GROW Act provides no new water, but it takes the existing water and gives it to those with the best lobbyists here in Washington.

Instead of this highly partisan bill, we should be taking steps to actually grow the water supply for everybody, with water recycling, with water conservation, water efficiency, many other nonideological, nonpartisan fixes, water infrastructure that can actually help deliver water to small farmers, protect our environment, and, yes, our legitimate agricultural producers as well.

Unfortunately, instead, we are stuck with this so-called GROW Act, which jeopardizes fishing jobs, preempts State conservation laws, overrides the Endangered Species Act for salmon and wildlife, weakens critical safeguards under the NEPA process, and undermines water rights. In doing so, this bill would permanently destroy California's rivers, Bay-Delta Estuary, needed fisheries, and the thousands of jobs that depend on those natural resources.

This bill is not a balanced protection. It picks winners and losers and hands over water rights to those who are present for the backroom deals in Washington.

Let's go back to the drawing board. I come from the State of Colorado, and we know how important water is. Let's find a way to find a bipartisan path to grow the water supply across the Western United States.

Let me address the other bill that is contained in this rule, the NDAA, National Defense Authorization Act. For 56 straight years, the United States Congress has come together to craft policies and recommendations for the United States Armed Forces and to put those policies into law under the authorizing statute for our military. Without question, this bill is one of the most consequential and important items that Congress undertakes each year.

Personally, I have found objections to policies, and I have been a fan of other policies contained in these bills while I have been in Congress. And I want to commend the work of my colleagues, Democratic and Republican, who serve on the Armed Services Committee for their important work on this legislation so important for our national security.

Many of my colleagues on the Armed Services Committee have served or do serve in our military. Members of the committee are dedicated public servants, they are experts in their field, they travel and learn and hear from experts, and they set aside many of their political differences to do what it takes to keep America safe and secure, something that Republicans, Democrats, Independents are all committed to. We need to make sure that we give our military the tools they need to safely carry out the tasks that the Commander in Chief and elected officials ask them to undertake.

I commend the committee for putting forth a bill that takes constructive steps in filling military readiness gaps, requiring strategies from the administration and the Department of Defense with regard to contingencies in several countries, and acknowledging and planning for the real climate change threat that is posed to our national security.

Yet the work of the NDAA is not limited to members of the Armed Services Committee. The Members of this body as a whole, Democrats and Republicans who don't serve on that committee, have submitted over 400 amendments to do what each one of us believes would, in some way, improve this bill and strengthen our national security.

But the work of NDAA continues, and before this week is over, I expect to see the Rules Committee make in order an even greater number of these amendments. We took the first step in this rule by making a few dozen amendments in order, and we will continue that work in Rules Committee this afternoon as we thoughtfully go

through the 400 amendments so a representative number of those from my Democratic and Republican colleagues who don't have the opportunity to serve on the Armed Services Committee can present those ideas for consideration by the full House.

But for all the hard work that the Armed Services Committee has done, what we have before us this week is essentially an argument that needs to be solved by the Budget Committee and can't, frankly, be solved by the authorizing committee.

What we are doing is we are having a very strange debate in this body. We are having effectively a budget debate within the defense bill. We are discussing authorization levels, when we know that the real discussion and battle over tradeoffs will be around the funding levels, not so much the authorization levels.

One of the tricks that we worry about is by blatantly disregarding the proper use of the overseas contingency fund and by deliberately flouting limitations set by the Budget Control Act, this Armed Services authorization bill has been completely overtaken by the debate on the Federal budget.

So this week we see a debate about the inability to pass a budget, adhere to a budget, and balance our budget, and, rather, we are operating kind of in this lala world of, if we had all the money in the world, here is what we would do, but as my Democratic and Republican friends know, we live in a world of tradeoffs, and we as Democrats and Republicans will need to decide what those tradeoffs are. That is not being done in this bill, and, in fact, it is one week less that we have to have those important discussions about how to actually secure America and protect our country.

If the debate over armed services wasn't such a serious topic, I would, frankly, give the Republicans kudos for building such an elaborate and complex budget scheme. It is very clever, more so than the traditional overseas contingency gimmicks that have been presented within recent years. It took me a little while to even understand what this budget gimmick was, and I am going to now seek to explain it.

The Defense spending budget is capped at $549 billion by the Budget Control Act of 2011. $549 billion is the maximum that would be spent on defense. This bill authorizes $621 billion as its discretionary base budget authority. That means that the bill we are debating today goes $70 billion in spending above the spending caps that Congress agreed on. That is all deficit spending. That means Congress will increase the deficit by $70 billion under this bill, but it gets worse.

The United States has been embroiled in conflict abroad since 2001, and many administrations, Democratic and Republican, have requested another pot of money that we call the overseas contingency fund. These funds, as the name indicates, are supposed to be used for paying costs that are incurred due to U.S. engagement in contingency operations, not baseline operations. And they are exempt, rightfully so, from the budget caps, because we never wanted to constrain our ability to provide funding for an unforeseen contingency situation that becomes a necessity for our national security.

This year, however, the bill provides for $74 billion for this overseas contingency fund, a full $10 billion above what was even requested by the President.

Now, a reminder, the Republicans haven't actually produced a budget this year, so we can't exactly make a comparison between the President's budget and the Republican majority's budget. I think one of the reasons they might be afraid to is they will show substantially increased deficits with these tax-and-spend Republican policies that have come to typify the Republican approach to grow our government with every new spending bill.

What the NDAA does is it takes this overseas contingency account, which is often called the slush fund for the Pentagon, it adds $10 billion to that fund, but instead of paying for future contingencies, that will pay for baseline operations. Some of that $10 billion goes to the unfunded priorities of the Pentagon, things it couldn't quite fit in the $621 billion, which already increases Federal spending by $70 billion.

So it is just throwing money, Federal money, your taxpayer money, Mr. Speaker, hand-over-fist, without a plan, indebting future generations for spending money today. The Pentagon gets more big ticket items they want.

And, likewise, it is hard to argue with funds being allocated to operations and maintenance. We are all for maintenance, we are all for readiness, but we are all for understanding the tradeoffs that we have. We cannot simply continue to spend irresponsibly, indebting future generations.

At some level, Mr. Speaker, and I think this kind of throwing additional money well above and beyond the budget caps reaches that level, we make our Nation less secure rather than more secure by making us economically beholden to foreign nations and indebting future generations of Americans.

Congress has set limits on how much we can spend on defense versus nondefense. So when we run out of money under this NDAA plan, either we are going to be forced to spend more, which is what you and I can predict what will happen, of course that is what is going to happen, or they are somehow going to find the money elsewhere, which I can pretty much assure you, Mr. Speaker, is not going to happen. That is a prediction that I am giving you.

And not having seen a budget, by the way, this is, we think, why Republicans haven't come up with a budget, because they know they can't make enough devastating cuts to possibly pay for this military increase, and they certainly don't want to put their name to paper on those cuts. And we all know what is going to happen. They won't make those cuts, spending will go up, debt will go up. I mean, that is what we know will happen. We have been here before, seen that movie.

Now, again, theoretically, Draconian cuts can be made to schools and Head Start and NASA and medical research, money fighting the opioid epidemic, homeland security, police. Yeah, theoretically they can devastate everything inside of our country, leaving a hollowed-out core, a well protected hollowed-out core, but I know Republicans aren't cruel enough to do that. Instead, they are going to kick the can down the road and indebt future generations and make our country less secure by borrowing money from China and Saudi Arabia to fund today's military, making us economically beholden to the very foreign powers that represent a real geopolitical threat to American interests.

That is why budgets matter, that is why these budget gimmicks that are being used through the overseas contingency fund matter, and that is why we need to have a budget debate, not a fake budget debate in the context of a national defense debate, which is what is being done here today.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gallego), a distinguished member of the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McNerney).

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

Mr. Speaker, in April, President Trump and congressional Republicans rolled back the FCC's rule to protect Americans' personal information and their internet browsing history. By doing so, they effectively sold personal privacy to the highest corporate bidder.

Today is Net Neutrality Day of Action, protesting the FCC's proposal to end equal access to online content, which would destroy the internet as we know it. What better day to also protect the future of our privacy by undoing the Republicans' reckless rollback that placed cable profits above our privacy and consumer protections.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Representative Rosen's Restoring American Privacy Act, H.R. 1868. This bill will restore Americans' privacy protections and tell internet service providers they can't sell their customers' personal information without the knowledge and consent of the customers.

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

Mr. Speaker, to discuss our proposal, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Rosen).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Vermont.

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

This bill has several other policies I want to address. For one, it ties our participation in the critical New START with Russia to a separate Europe-focused treaty that Russia is not in compliance with.

The New START is a nuclear arms reduction treaty between our Nation and Russia, and we should not remove ourselves from that, from an agreement that allows us to inspect and gather information about Russia's nuclear facilities.

In addition, this rule, if adopted, would fail to extend the Special Survivor Indemnity Allowance, causing it to expire in May of 2018. The Special Survivor Indemnity Allowance is a program that was originally created in the NDAA, and goes a long way to helping to mitigate the problems that recipients of the Defense Department's Survivor Benefit Plan face.

There are other provisions of this bill which I object to in their current form but are going to be debated through amendments very likely over the course of the next week. For instance, the bill currently prevents the transfer of any detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. This detention facility that is extralegal should be closed, not repopulated, and we certainly will have that debate this week.

This bill, unfortunately, also authorizes far too many funds and continues to overfund our nuclear weapons activities, costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, in fact, as much as $1 trillion over the next 30 years, for a stockpile of weapons that, even if substantially cut, would be enough to end life on the planet.

I testified before the Appropriations Subcommittee with regard to this matter and argued how can we possibly go before the taxpayers back home and say we need to overfund our nuclear arsenal to destroy the world seven times instead of five, or five times instead of three.

One would think that ending life on the planet once would be more than enough, and it is hard to argue from taxpayers that they should, in fact, pay for this planet's destruction multiple times.

We also continue to use force in our ongoing operations in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. I join my colleagues from the other side of the aisle in calling for an updated Authorization for Use of Military Force. To date, Congress has taken zero meaningful actions toward achieving that, yet we hear on this floor regularly from my friend from Alabama and others that Republicans and Democrats need to do that, especially before we put another soldier in harm's way.

That is the role of this body, and it is time to stop avoiding the task of writing an Authorization for Use of Military Force. Have that debate and make it happen.

These are the types of questions we should be debating, but instead we are continuing to avoid those and plunging our Nation deeper into debt without a real budget plan.

Instead of focusing on real questions about how to improve our defense, the general debate on this bill will largely focus on budget tricks. This debate on this budget should happen on the floor, in the Budget Committee, in a budget passed by this body.

One of the amendments I offered with my colleague, Ms. Lee, that we will be debating, would cut 1 percent of the money authorized in that bill. That would help. It would be a starting point. It would still be a spending level above the budget caps, but at least 1 percent in the record, reckless deficits from this Republican spending bill.

At some point we have to make decisions about tradeoffs, about the directions of our budgets, our entitlements, our discretionary, our revenues, our defense, and our nondefense. We can't resign ourselves to plunging future generations into further debt.

My amendment with Ms. Lee is a small, first step taking a stand against unsustainable budget levels that make our Nation less secure rather than more secure. It is the wrong way to do things. It is the wrong time to have this debate. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule so we can go back to the starting board and discuss the items that my Republican colleagues agree are important in terms of the use of the Authorization for Use of Military Force, ending the budget gimmicks, and figuring out how to balance the budget, rather than plunge our Nation deeper into debt.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no,'' and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

First, I want to rise in agreement with my friend from Washington's statement about civility in this Chamber and beyond. I think that, while it is extremely important that those of us who are elected to represent 700,000 to 800,000 people reflect the passions that we bring to our service, at the same time, we need to make sure that nothing that we say in these walls or outside is used to incite those who hear those words in a different way than they are intended.

That is the fine line that we walk as elected Representatives who are passionate about our ideals and our values, and it is one that I encourage the President to walk, as well as other opinion leaders who we often see on the cable talk shows hurling inciteful phrases back and forth that could be used to further incite the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and the two underlying bills: H.R. 1873, the Electricity Reliability and Forest Protection Act; and H.R. 1654, the Water Supply Permitting Coordination Act.

Frankly, both of these bills are trying to address real problems that have bipartisan solutions that I support, but neither of these bills solve the problems in a thoughtful, effective way without creating collateral damage that, in many ways, is as damaging as the problem that they are designed to solve.

The majority will claim that similar bills received hearings last Congress, but I want to point out from a procedural perspective that neither of these bills have had hearings. These bills have not gone through the committee process. But what they won't say is there are dozens of new Members of Congress. New members of the Natural Resources Committee didn't have hearings at all, but it was rushed through a markup in committee and to the floor without any hearings in this session, without the new members of the National Resources Committee having a chance to ask questions about these bills.

There is a reason we have regular order. It is so that we elected Representatives can use the passion we bring to service to ask the difficult questions to find out how to get at these very real problems that we are trying to solve.

Unfortunately, this secrecy, lack of hearings, and lack of participation appears to be the norm, and, in fact, the standard that Republicans are setting in both Chambers of Congress right now. It is how the Republicans handled the healthcare bill in the House. It is how the Republicans are handling the secret healthcare bill behind a closed door somewhere over in the Senate.

We know some things about the Republican healthcare bill. We know it will increase healthcare costs, throw people off their insurance, reduce access for the American people. We know it will burden small businesses and the middle class. We know it will hand hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans. But there is also a lot we don't know because the process has been closed. This type of secret backroom deal is, unfortunately, becoming the norm of the way Republicans are running their agenda in Washington.

The rule for this bill is another example. It blocked at least three amendments from being considered on the floor.

Why can't we discuss the ideas of all Members, especially since there was no hearing on this bill?

Representative McEachin from Virginia, Representative Schneider from Illinois, and Representative Torres from California all offered amendments, all had good ideas and were not even allowed to discuss those on the floor for 10 minutes, 5 minutes, not even for 1 minute, to offer or discuss any of those amendments.

If my colleagues on the Republican side don't think they are good ideas, let's at least have a vote. They can vote against them. If they defeat them, that is the process. But they are not even allowing a vote on these amendments.

Unfortunately, the process of this bill is typical of the Republican process on healthcare and the way they have approached so many other issues. Republicans are working in secret and limiting debates so the American people won't see the horrible things they are trying to do, like throwing tens of millions of Americans off of healthcare.

Now, getting to these bills.

First, the Electricity Reliability and Forest Protection Act has the goal of preventing forest fires and disruptions to power distribution; something that I strongly agree with.

I represent a district that has over 60 percent public land and a number of rural power districts. It is an admirable goal. We are a district that is at risk for forest fires. We had several devastating fires in the last several years alone. In fact, I am representing a State that is getting even more ravaged by fire, in light of the changing climate.

We need to take action to prevent them and allow additional work with

regard to preventing the forest fire risk. Unfortunately, this bill is not a positive step, but I am glad to say there is an alternative out there.

Representative Cramer from North Dakota and I, along with five of my Colorado delegation colleagues, recently introduced bipartisan legislation that will decrease these types of fires and protect power lines and transformers the right way--a way that Democrats and Republicans can agree on; a way that we can probably run the bill as a suspension and get 410 votes; a way that the stakeholders are involved and utilities, fire prevention experts and firefighters, environmentalists all agree on.

My legislation, known as the National Forest System Vegetation Management Pilot Program Act of 2017, gives power and electricity companies the ability to remove dead trees, but without the recklessness included in the bill that we are considering today.

It is a stark contrast. We can actually solve this problem in a way that would bring the country together, or there can be a divisive bill--maybe against one Democrat, maybe against five; I don't know, but it is not a broadly bipartisan bill. It is not one that has the support of the communities that are most affected by forest fires in my district. It is not even a bill that has the support of our main utility company in Colorado that actually sought the ability to reduce forest fire risks, which is done by Representative Cramer's and my bill.

This bill we are considering today simply lacks the protections that we need to have confidence. In this bill, the company can come up with a plan to remove vegetation, and then it can be accepted with no questions asked. They can't require them to fix obvious problems, like the power company cutting down trees for no reason other than to sell it for timber. They can't even deny an application.

Frankly, I think this legislation's real goal is to take a small step toward turning management of public lands over to private industry.

Once this plan that they would submit under this bill is approved-- because the plans have to be approved--the utility companies would be able to do massive devegetation and clearing work without any reason related to fires and without any risk of liability.

On the other hand, the bipartisan legislation I introduced with Mr. Cramer gives that liability waiver that the utility companies need to do the additional work, but only if there is no gross negligence by the utility company and has something to do with actually reducing the risk of fires, as well as putting reasonable limits on the distance that the work can be done from the power lines or transformers themselves.

Mr. Cramer's and my bill has some of the most conservative and some of the most liberal Members of this body as cosponsors. So I just wonder and I ask the majority leader why we aren't bringing that bill to the floor--a bill that lacks controversy, that helps prevent forest fires, that saves American people time and money, a bill that this body could be proud of advancing with, if not all, almost near unanimity.

I would suggest that, instead of bringing the bill we are considering today to the floor, we should have been focused on fixing something that we know needs to be fixed: the Forest Service's problem with fire borrowing.

Fire borrowing means the Forest Service has to spend all their money fighting fires and little money to reduce the risk of forest fires, deal with climate change, or clear the extensive backlog of maintenance. We can do that today by bringing to the floor the bipartisan Wildfire Disaster Funding Act that Representative Simpson and I introduced, along with my colleague, Mr. Schrader.

These are the types of commonsense measures that would actually reduce the risk of forest fires, put the right parameters around utility companies doing additional work, and free up additional resources to prevent forest fires from occurring, rather than simply doing the cleanup after they occur.

H.R. 1654, the Water Supply Permitting Coordination Act, also is an admirable and needed goal, one that there is potential for bipartisan cooperation to speed up the process of approval of water projects and hydro dams.

There truly is a problem with the speed of which some of these problems are approved. I represent a district and a State where we understand how difficult and important water is, and we also believe in the new renewable energy economy.

Unfortunately, this bill also does it the wrong way. It circumvents and undermines important input from experts and scientists that actually understand the reviews that are being made by the Clean Water Act. It even circumvents tribal sovereignty in the Native American Tribes and their sacred lands by overriding their input.

That is why a wide spectrum of organizations are opposed, from conservation groups like Oceana and League of Conservation Voters to sportsmen's groups like Trout Unlimited and The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. Dozens are opposed to this reckless bill.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter of opposition.

July 20, 2017.

Please Oppose H.R. 1654

Dear Representative: On behalf of the undersigned

organizations, we write to urge you to oppose H.R. 1654

(McClintock, R-CA), a bill that would significantly limit

meaningful public and environmental review of new dams and

other surface storage projects throughout the west. H.R. 1654

would likely reduce protections for fish and wildlife, and

could lead to further damming and destruction of western

waterways. Similar provisions were included in H.R. 2898 and

H.R. 23--anti-environmental bills from 2015 and 2017,

respectively--and the Department of Interior has previously

expressed opposition to these efforts.

H.R. 1654 would undermine existing laws by making the U.S.

Bureau of Reclamation (``Reclamation'') the lead agency for

all environmental reviews, including reviews under the

Endangered Species Act. Giving Reclamation this unprecedented

power over project permitting could undermine the ability of

the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and N.O.A.A. Fisheries to

share expertise and inform the development of major

infrastructure investments, placing imperiled fish species at

risk. H.R. 1654 also establishes strict project-review

timelines, including provisions that could require expedited

review under the National Environmental Policy Act. These

fast-tracking provisions could make it difficult for

responsible agencies to meaningfully analyze proposed

projects, and could limit the public's ability to weigh in on

infrastructure that could affect communities for decades.

Further, the bill permits non-federal public entities to

contribute funds to expedite project permitting, raising

questions about the fairness of the federal review process.

This damaging bill would affect states throughout the west,

and could even impact how state agencies are able review

proposed projects within their jurisdictions. H.R. 1654

allows states to subject state agencies to the bill's

procedures, thereby requiring those agencies to cede control

to Reclamation and comply with Reclamation's timelines.

Consolidating project review in this manner could weaken the

essential role that states play in reviewing water

infrastructure projects within their jurisdictions.

As we recently learned from the emergency at Oroville Dam

in California, careful planning and design for major

infrastructure projects is critical for ensuring public

safety and protecting the environment. Environmental review

of surface storage projects is also essential for protecting

endangered and commercially important salmon runs and the

thousands of jobs that depend on healthy salmon populations.

With so much at stake, the streamlining provisions in H.R.

1654 are unwise and irresponsible. Instead of fast tracking

dam projects in the West, we should be investing in fiscally

sound, environmentally friendly water supply solutions like

conservation, water use efficiency, wastewater recycling, and

stormwater capture.

For these reasons, we respectfully urge you to vote no on

Mr. Speaker, the letter is signed by a number of sportsmen and environmental organizations, the very groups that we should seek to work with, the very groups that actually support, as I do, hydropower, facilitated permitting of hydropower, the right way.

We need to speed up the process. In Colorado, we have had water projects that have been waiting on a decision for far too long.

But instead of going around experts, rolling over tribal sovereignty, why don't we fund the agencies doing the reviews so that they have the manpower and time to look at an application, give feedback, and make a decision quickly?

Again and again we have underfunded the Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA, not acknowledging that that is what is causing and contributing to this very slowdown.

We can solve these issues that we are facing. We can expedite permitting for water projects and hydropower. We can allow utilities to do additional work to reduce the risk of forest fires.

I call upon this body, please, let's do it in a way that brings Democrats and Republicans together, proudly gets a bill to President Trump's desk in a fast and effective way involving input from Democrats and Republicans, not just Republicans.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

Absolutely. I agree with the gentleman from Texas. This House and the institution of Congress, as a separate agency of government in Article I, section 1 of our Constitution has the responsibility to exercise oversight of the executive branch.

It absolutely is.

Sometimes the American people in the back-and-forth say: Hey, why aren't Democrats participating in the healthcare debate? And the reason, as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett) articulated, is we have never been invited into this room.

I would ask the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett): Have you seen the Republican healthcare bill in the Senate?

I yield to the gentleman.

Isn't that too short a period of time to even come up with a thoughtful amendment?

I have one more question on that.

I am a member of the Education and the Workforce Committee, one of the three committees that had original jurisdiction over the Affordable Care Act. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett) is a member of the Ways and Means Committee, one of the two committees with jurisdiction under the budget reconciliation for this healthcare bill. I want to ask: Have you ever been invited by President Trump to discuss your ideas for healthcare reform?

I yield to the gentleman.

I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett) and would just add, look, fire prevention, expediting water projects and hydropower, these are not partisan issues; and to prove that point, there are bipartisan bills sponsored by conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats that would solve these issues. Rather than moving either of those bills through the floor, they are moving a divisive ideological bill with unintended consequences--or, perhaps, intended consequences--that would devastate a lot of our natural resources that sportsmen and recreationists rely on for our quality of life in the mountain West and across the country.

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

Mr. Speaker, President Trump campaigned on a promise to bring, somehow, jobs back home. He said he was going to overhaul the Tax Code, introduce an infrastructure package, and remove barriers to job creation. Unfortunately, we have yet to hear specifics on any of the administration's plans to accomplish that.

My colleagues will be happy to hear that in my hand I have an amendment that will help to accomplish this goal by providing tax incentives to companies that bring overseas jobs back home. What a great idea.

Mr. Speaker, when we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Representative Pascrell's Bring Jobs Home Act, H.R. 685. This bill closes a tax loophole that actually rewards companies for moving jobs overseas while providing a tax credit to companies that move jobs back home to our country, the United States of America.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell) to discuss our proposal.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Buck), my friend, that there is a problem here we are trying to solve. Unfortunately, these are not the bipartisan bills that Democrats and Republicans from both sides of the aisle have worked hard to put together to do.

Of course, Democrats, myself, and so many others want to expedite water projects permitting for hydro renewable energy projects. Of course, we want to free up utilities to do extra mitigation work around power lines to reduce the risk of fires. We have solid bipartisan bills that would do that. We could put them on the floor today or tomorrow, and they would have over 400 votes. There are liberal Democrats, conservative Republicans, and firefighters who support them. Utilities, Democrats, Republicans, and sportsmen support them.

That is a route we could go. We could get those bills to President Trump's desk by next week and actually start preventing forest fires and facilitate the permitting process around hydro projects. But, no, instead, we are doing a very divisive bill, one that has a lot of problems that it creates, in addition to solving some of the problems that it sets out to address.

I encourage my Republican friends--they are in charge; they control the agenda--to take a look at pragmatic, smart, and thoughtful ways to reduce forest fire risk, speed up water project approval, such as the bipartisan National Forest System Vegetation Management Pilot Program Act, which is a bipartisan bill.

Look, this bill around the expedited water projects would circumvent a lot of the public input process that is actually so important to the success of these projects. My colleague from Colorado was referring to several water projects. One that we both care deeply about, the Northern Integrated Supply Project, NISP, is currently with the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation.

I strongly supported extending the public comment period from 30 to 60 days--a very reasonable time to allow people more input, which actually changed how the project was done and planned. It was a very meaningful form of input to build additional public support for the project; and, when the project is completed, will lead to a better, more meaningful project, serving the water needs of our communities, as well as the impact on the lives of those who live in and near it.

So, look, whether it is fixing fire borrowing, giving utilities a liability waiver while not giving them a free pass, making sure that our agencies doing water project reviews have the men and women power they need to actually get them done quickly, these are reasonable, good ideas that I think we could pass with unanimity, or near unanimity.

I promise the Republicans, if you would just work with us and have an open process, we could find common ground. Let's start with these small things. Let's start with preventing forest fires around electrical fires. We will get to healthcare. We can find common ground with you on that, too.

But let's start on finding common ground around reducing forest fire risk around electrical wires, Mr. Speaker. There is a path to do that. Let's solve our small problems, and let's build a pathway to work together on the big problems our country faces.

I urge everyone to vote ``no'' on this restrictive rule, this rule that goes to the floor with no hearing, this rule

that rules out Democratic amendments, doesn't even allow discussion of them, and has a controversial piece of underlying legislation, when there is no need for controversy around such an important aspect of life in the American West, and, nationally, reducing forest fire risk and facilitating water projects and hydroelectric projects. Please join me in voting ``no,'' so we can get this House back to working on commonsense legislation that is bipartisan, with the full support of the American people.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 431 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

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

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 431 provides for full consideration, including making six amendments in order to H.R. 23, the Gaining Responsibility on Water Act, and allows us to begin consideration of H.R. 2810, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018.

H.R. 23 is legislation necessary to deal with the severe water supply crisis facing California and other Western States. The region has experienced the worst drought in over 1,000 years, and many Western communities have been very negatively impacted.

This commonsense legislation fixes the broken regulatory system that is only exacerbating the impact of the drought conditions. The current regulatory system is overly complex and inconsistent. Making matters worse, various court decisions have only further complicated efforts to resolve these issues.

For example, this bill will help bring California's water infrastructure into the 21st century. The current water storage and delivery system is designed to serve approximately 22 million people, but the State currently has 37 million residents.

The bill is not only important to people in California. In fact, around half of our Nation's fruits and vegetables come from California. Every American could be hit in the pocketbook at the grocery store or checkout line if the California drought is allowed to continue.

Through this legislation, we can help expand water infrastructure and allow for greater water conveyance while ensuring environmental and water rights protections. Passing H.R. 23 will directly help address the drought crisis and benefit families, farms, the environment, and the American economy.

The rule also allows us to begin consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act. The bill provides for general debate and makes in order 88 amendments, including 41 minority amendments and 20 bipartisan amendments. Another rule is expected tomorrow to provide for consideration of additional amendments.

This open process actually started in the Armed Services Committee on which I serve. At the committee level, 275 amendments were offered, and 231 amendments were adopted during our committee markup last month.

I have said this many times on this floor, but it is worth saying again: there is no greater responsibility of the Federal Government than to provide for the safety and security of the American people. This year's NDAA does just that by reforming, repairing, and rebuilding the United States military.

The bill addresses the realities of the dangerous threat environment facing our Nation and ensures our troops and their families have the necessary resources and benefits.

Over the last decade, we have cut our military at an alarming rate. As the threats rack up, we have planes that can't fly, ships that can't sail, and soldiers who can't deploy. We must reverse this readiness crisis.

Thankfully, there is bipartisan support for boosting our Nation's military. In fact, this bill passed out of the Armed Services Committee by a vote of 60-1, continuing a strong bipartisan tradition of passing NDAAs.

I want to briefly highlight just a few of the positive provisions of this legislation.

The bill increases total military spending by 10 percent to rebuild the military from the current readiness crisis. This includes increasing the size of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Army Guard and Reserve, Naval and Air Reserve, and Air Guard.

Given the serious threat posed by North Korea, the bill boosts missile defense programs, including adding an additional $2.5 billion above the President's budget request.

The bill also authorizes the construction of 13 new Navy ships, including three more littoral combat ships, as we work to grow toward a 355-ship fleet. It funds a 2.4 percent pay raise for our troops and extends special pay and bonuses for servicemembers.

Importantly, the bill continues to advance Chairman Thornberry's priority of reforming and strengthening the military's acquisition process to make it more effective and efficient.

Given the evolving threats related to cyber, the bill improves the oversight of cyber operations.

The bill also helps set policy for the U.S. military relating to Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Russia, Africa, and the Asian Pacific region.

All told, this bill achieves important priorities of reforming, repairing, and rebuilding our military.

Each and every day, more than 2 million men and women put on the uniform of the United States and serve our country. As we have seen by two recent tragedies, the Marine plane crash in Mississippi and the USS Fitzgerald collision off the coast of Japan, these individuals put their lives on the line in order to protect the freedoms we all hold dear. They deserve the resources necessary to fulfill their mission and the benefits worthy of those who sacrifice so much.

So I am hopeful we can continue to move forward in a bipartisan manner to pass this NDAA, to support our troops, and to fulfill our constitutional obligation to provide for the common defense.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support House Resolution 431 and the underlying bills, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman referred to what this would do to the budget. I would point out to the gentleman, and I think I did this in committee yesterday, that if this is passed, it will only be 16.8 percent of total Federal outlays, which means the single most important thing that we do here in government only gets less than 20 percent of the money that we are going to spend. So I don't think it is asking too much of ourselves, as the people responsible for providing for the defense of America, that we spend 16.8 percent of all the Federal money we are going to spend next year on making the American people safe and secure.

He spoke about tradeoffs. Let me tell you one tradeoff I don't think any of us should be willing to make, and that is trading off the safety and security of the American people for trying to keep some other overspending in some other part of the budget going.

We need to focus today, and in this bill, on what it takes to authorize the defense and the safety and security of the American people, and I believe this bill does that, as did all but one of my colleagues on the House Armed Services Committee.

So I believe that we have struck the appropriate balance here that does all that. Yes, we have got some budget things we need to take care of. That is for later. For today, we are going to focus on defending the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Austin

Scott), my colleague on the Armed Services Committee.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my colleague from Arizona.

This was not done in the middle of the night in secrecy. This was done in full committee with cameras watching us, and done early in the evening with full debate, so I disagree with him about that.

Let's talk about the wall for a second.

I support President Trump and what he is trying to do with the wall. I hope we get to a point where we can deal with that.

This is a defense authorization bill. This is not a wall authorization bill. The wall is already authorized. We don't need an authorization bill for the wall. It is already there. The next step for us to take for the wall is an appropriations bill, and this is not an appropriations bill.

So what the Rules Committee has done is made it clear that we are not going to deal with the wall one way or the other in the National Defense Authorization Act. That is not the proper place for it. That is not the proper place to be spending money for it. There is another part of our budget, another law for us to deal with there.

So I hope that we all will understand that what we have done is made it clear there is nothing in this bill--nothing--about a wall, nor should there be anything in this bill about a wall, because that is for another committee, another bill, another time, and another place.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Ms. Cheney), our newest member of the Armed Services Committee and the Rules Committee.

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

I appreciate the gentlewoman's comments and concerns about protecting all of our privacy on the internet. I think we all should be about that. But instead of having a misguided and unauthorized regulatory action that left vast gaps in this system, we should have a comprehensive bill to deal with it. That bill is not before the House today.

What is before the House today in this rule are two bills: one that deals with the drought in the West, which is very important; and the second is provide for the safety and security of the American people. So that is what we are here today about.

I appreciate her concerns about that. I join with her, and I hope that we have a bill on this floor that comprehensively deals with the issues that she brought up, but now is not the time, these are not the bills, and this is not the rule to deal with it.

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

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

I strongly agree with my colleague from Vermont's remarks regarding the Budget Control Act. It was passed for a good intention, but it has worked out quite differently from what people thought it was going to accomplish.

It is time for us to take responsibility, as the gentleman from Vermont said, and to do what we are supposed to do to make the priority decisions about what is important for America and what is not. Providing for the safety and security of the people of America, that is important. And if we have to make cuts in other parts of our budget to make sure we are doing that, first and foremost, I am happy to do it.

The gentleman is absolutely right about micromanagement. We have been micromanaging the people that we charge with defending America with how they are going to carry out combat responsibilities, particularly in the Middle East. President Trump, I think, quite rightly, has delegated many of those decisions down to Secretary Mattis so that our combatant commanders can make the decisions they have got to make as and when they need to make them.

I understand what he is saying about the State Department budget, something that we all should be concerned about. The appropriate time to talk about that is when the appropriations bill for the State Department is here, not when we are talking about the National Defense Authorization Act.

Finally, with regard to Afghanistan, which if I may make a little bit broader and talk about the Middle East in general, it is time for a new AUMF. The AUMFs that were passed in this Congress over 15 years ago were for a different time, with different circumstances altogether. And I do sense

a bipartisan urging for us to do that, but this is not the right time for us to do it on this particular piece of legislation.

I hope that at a future time the Foreign Affairs Committee, that has appropriate jurisdiction over that issue, will come forward with an AUMF that we can all discuss because we are now not just in Afghanistan and Iraq, we are in Syria, we are in Yemen, we are in Libya, we are in Somalia, where we have had some past history that is not so good.

We all--everybody, not just from the Armed Services Committee--need to understand these threats to our country and what we are going to do about them, have a strategy with a clear endgame, which we need and we haven't had for the last several years.

Then we should authorize it because only Congress has the power to declare war. We should authorize it. And by authorizing it, we not only take responsibility, but we communicate to our friends and our foes alike, and to those servicemen and -women who put themselves at risk out there that we are behind it. We, as the Representatives of the American people, are behind it. So I hope that we can do that, but it won't be in this particular bill.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's remarks, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

If I may make sure that we are all clear about where we are on the START; the START runs through 2021. That is 4 years from now. What the bill says is that if we find that Russia is in violation of the INF Treaty--and there is some indication that that is true--that we wouldn't extend it beyond 2021. But that is 4 years from now.

So what does that mean?

This is a shot across the bow to Russia. We are telling Russia: If you continue to violate the INF Treaty, we are not going to extend with you on START.

This is telling them: We are not going to let you get away with this.

And I would think, at this point, after all that we have heard, we would want to stand up to Russia, and this is a very vital way to do that.

Secondly, about the GTMO issue that he brought up, there are two amendments made in order by this rule for us to discuss GTMO, and I believe we are going to have that debate tonight. Now, I don't agree with the amendments, but we made them in order so we can have that debate on this floor.

So we are going to debate GTMO. My prediction is that we are going to defeat both of those amendments, but the people on the other side of the aisle have been given a great opportunity to make their argument that we shouldn't do that.

Nukes. Why are we trying to modernize our nuclear force?

Because our adversaries are modernizing theirs, and if we don't, we are not doing the proper thing to protect the people of the United States.

And then the gentleman talks about the budget bills. Now, there is a budget bill coming. Now, the budget bill is for the next fiscal year, October 1, 2017. That is several weeks from now. We have got time to pass a budget for next fiscal year.

But the way we have everything set up here, we try to move these defense bills about this time of year so that we can do what we have got to do to make sure we have communicated to the military what they are going to have to do their jobs.

If I may walk briefly around the world to remind us about where we are. Kim Jong-un has continued to test missiles throughout last year and this year, and he is getting better. And what he seeks is not just to strike South Korea or Japan, he wants to strike America. That is why you have an ICBM if you are in North Korea.

We need to step up to the plate and do more in missile defense and more in other things to make sure we are doing everything we can to protect America from an attack from North Korea.

China wants to take control of the South China Sea and the East China Sea. What does that mean to us for America?

Forty percent of the trade in the world moves through those two oceans. The greatest population center in the world is right there. It is where we want to do more business, where people there want to do more business with us; and not having a robust military presence there means we cede that part of the world to China.

I guess we could pull back to where we were on December 6, 1941, when we didn't have a presence in Guam and Japan and South Korea and Singapore. Or we could take the understanding from what happened that terrible day on December 7, 1941, that we have to be thinking now for the challenge to us then and, by making those preparations and making sure we have the defense in place, we keep December 7, 1941, from happening again.

Then we have our good friends in Russia, as they push not only into Eastern Europe, but now into the Middle East. It used to be we thought that Russia was kind of off the table; you know, the Soviet Union collapsed; didn't have to worry about Russia anymore.

Russia is back. They are back in many different military ways, in their navy, in their missiles, and what they are doing with their armed forces, including the little green men in Ukraine. We need to take that threat seriously, as we haven't had to take it for years.

And then there is the Middle East. We know what is happening today in Mosul and in Raqqa. Perhaps ISIS is being pushed out of those places, but it is not disappearing. It is not going away as a threat, any more than al-Qaida has gone away as a threat. We still have terrorist groups like them and others who seek to do harm to the American people, whether it is over there or over here, and we have to provide for the defense against that.

Then there is Iran; Iran that, because of an ill-considered agreement reached with them by the Obama administration, now is on a path to get an ICBM of its own, which it doesn't need to strike Israel. It needs an ICBM to strike us.

Then they get as close as they want to under that agreement that we reached with them. Right up to the edge of violation, where they perfect their nuclear technology, they decide in a short period of time to violate it, put a nuclear weapon on one of those ICBMs and threaten us directly.

That and a host of other threats are what we are talking about in this bill. We have never faced such a complex set of threats since the end of World War II. It is not my word. It is the word of countless experts who have come before our committee.

We have to do this. The American people expect us to do this. Like many other people in this body, I do tele-townhalls. At my last two tele-townhalls, I have asked this open-ended question: What is the most important issue to you?

We give them a broad range of issues to pick from: healthcare, tax reform, you name it. The number one issue in those two tele-townhalls, by far, for the people in my district was national security. They see what is happening in North Korea. They see what is happening in the Middle East. They know what Russia is up to. They are worried about China, and they want to know what we are doing.

This bill that this rule provides for does what we need to do to protect the American people. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate everything that I have heard today from my colleagues on both sides of the aisle because I know people on both sides of the aisle care a great deal about these issues.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support House Resolution 431 and the underlying bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 392 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

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

Mr. Speaker, before I begin the rule on the two measures that are before us today, let me just make a couple of comments that have come to mind in light of the events over the last week.

Mr. Speaker, you may know that this is the first formal debate that we have had as a legislative body since last Wednesday morning's shooting. I think

it is appropriate that we take a minute to reflect and remember those who were injured and are still struggling to recover from their injuries as well as those who did not receive physical injuries on last Wednesday morning but who are still recovering.

Let me also say, if I could be so presumptuous, Mr. Speaker, I believe that perhaps some people in the United States look to us here in Congress--their Representatives--and look and see how we act towards one another and how we conduct ourselves in our interaction with each other. Let me just say that if we are disrespectful to each other, others may see that and think that it is okay; that if Congress can be that way to themselves, maybe we can act that way, too. They may not even realize that. It may be just a subconscious thing.

I ask how can we expect others to have a high opinion of us if we don't even show each other the respect that we should and that we deserve?

I believe that we must all remember that we are--before we are Republicans, before we are Democrats or Independents--all Americans. We are all here trying to do what is right, what is right for our country, certainly what is right for our constituents, and we shouldn't say that someone is not here for those purposes.

I don't know your district, Mr. Speaker, and I might say that you don't know mine. So let's argue, which is what we are here for. As ugly as sometimes it can be, that is our job, to debate on the merits of ideas. But it is not our job to win a debate by degrading the ones who are making the arguments against. I think we all have this obligation to win debates or to argue debates on the merits of the issue. Last Wednesday reminded me that it is up to us, if we want changes, to make them and to begin them here in this body.

I was heartened in our meeting as a Congress in the auditorium over at the Capitol Visitor Center that there were several Members asking for a change in tone--a change in tone in how we interact with each other. It is important that we act civilly, that we be polite, and that we be respectful--kind of like how we treat each other on the journey over here from our offices in the elevators and in the hallways.

I would assert that this is also something that is the responsibility of our President, our country's leader, someone who can set the tone for our country, someone who can describe our hopes and our dreams and help us aspire to reach those things. It is also the responsibility of our media and for those advocacy groups that we all have and that we all work with. It is up to our parties. I think it is up to every single American.

We need to rediscover the faith that we should have in each other, our respect for each other and those bonds that make us one nation under God.

Now, it is simple to state, but how do we accomplish this?

It can start right here on this floor. Say something positive. We all call each other lady and gentleman. We all start off that way, and then sometimes the gloves come off.

I can assert to you that not every idea that is presented here is all good or all bad.

What is the risk of acknowledging a good part of a larger idea even if you may disagree with that larger idea?

I believe we have some very articulate people in this body who can figure out quite easily how we can accomplish that.

We shouldn't impugn the motives of others. We don't assign blame. We don't get personal. In fact, if you look in the rules that were adopted by this Congress, in section 363 of Jefferson's Manual of Parliamentary Practice, it says: ``The consequences of a measure may be reprobated in strong terms; but to arraign the motives of those who propose to advocate it is a personality, and against order.''

So it says in no uncertain terms that we should not make this personal. We can object without being objectionable, and maybe--just maybe--others will see this and discover a tone that we need and a change in America. I believe that we can start this right here, today, with our very first debate right now.

Will we agree on everything?

Absolutely not. In fact, this is where our disagreements should show the most. We are duty-bound to shape legislation by pointing out weaknesses but also by accentuating strengths. Mr. Speaker, every debate, every speech on the floor or in committee, our interactions with the media, in townhalls, or press releases, we are being listened to and being watched. I hope that we can change our tone and begin to change the tone in the United States of America.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I would like to announce that, on Tuesday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 392, providing for consideration of two important bills: H.R. 1873, which is the Electricity Reliability and Forest Protection Act; and H.R. 1654, the Water Supply Permitting Coordination Act.

This combined rule provides for consideration of H.R. 1873 under a structured rule, making three amendments in order, all of which were submitted by Democratic Members of our Chamber. H.R. 1654 will also be considered under a structured rule, with one Democratic and one Republican amendment made in order.

H.R. 1873 will help ensure reliable electric service and reduced wildfire hazards, which can result from inadequate vegetation management near power line rights-of-way on Federally owned and operated lands.

Mr. Speaker, over the past several decades there have been numerous electricity outages as well as incidents of wildfires due to contact between power lines and trees on Federal lands.

In 1996, my home State of Washington was impacted when three power lines in the Pacific Northwest sagged onto overgrown trees, leading to a massive electricity blackout that impacted 7.5 million people across 14 Western States, two Canadian provinces, and even parts of Mexico. Then, in August of 2003, an outage left 50 million electricity customers without power when a falling tree came into contact with transmission lines.

These are not isolated incidents. According to the U.S. Forest Service, in 2012 and 2013, contact between power lines and trees on Forest Service lands led to the outbreak of 113 and 232 wildfires, respectively. This legislation would reduce such wildfires in part by promoting Federal consistency, accountability, and timely decisionmaking to protect electricity transmission, grid reliability, and distribution lines on Federal lands from overgrown and under- maintained trees and vegetation.

H.R. 1873 will cut red tape to create a streamlined and consistent process for removing hazardous trees and vegetation without wasting time and money before they cause a wildfire or an outage. Preventing forest fires and maintaining a reliable electrical grid for our communities is an obvious priority for all of us here in Congress, which is why I was pleased to see this bill pass through the House Natural Resources Committee with bipartisan support.

I have seen countless catastrophic wildfires devastate Western communities just in the past several years, which is why this issue must be addressed and resolved. However, due to existing regulations, it is extremely difficult for utility companies to remove hazardous vegetation or trees that have the potential of falling on these power lines.

The scope of this problem is evident when considering the U.S. Forest Service manages 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands-- encompassing over 192 million acres--that include 2,700 authorized electric transmission and distribution facilities.

Similarly, the Bureau of Land Management administers 245 million acres, including over 71,000 miles of electrical transmission and distribution lines on its Federal lands.

In order to perform infrastructure inspections and operate and maintain power lines on these lands, electric utilities must seek permission and approval from the appropriate Federal land management agency, which typically use processes under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 to assess whether the proposed vegetative management measures comply with Federal environmental laws.

This often leads to delays and cumbersome bureaucratic requirements, which often prevent utilities from carrying out important vegetative management activities on a consistent and

timely basis. Yet the costs of operating, maintaining, and repairing these electric lines on Federal lands fall to the utility companies and their customers, which can lead to higher electricity costs for ratepayers.

Mr. Speaker, the rule also provides for consideration of H.R. 1654, the Water Supply Permitting Coordination Act. This legislation will streamline the permitting process for new surface water storage projects, which is critically important for many Western and rural communities that have endured severe droughts in recent years.

Currently, the regulatory process for constructing new surface water storage projects often involves applying for a host of Federal, State, and local permits, as well as approvals from various agencies, which can be a very cumbersome, costly, and time-consuming undertaking.

Additionally, conflicting permit requirements and agency reviews can add time to the project, the planning, and implementation process while also increasing the potential for last-minute surprises that could endanger the success of a project or require significant additional work.

In order to address this problem, H.R. 1654 creates what is seen as a one-stop-shop permitting process to expedite construction of both new and expanded non-Federal surface water storage projects. The measure establishes the Bureau of Reclamation as the lead agency for purposes of coordinating all reviews, analyses, permits, licenses, or other Federal approvals as required by law, which will streamline the current multiagency permitting process and eliminate unnecessary delays for job-creating construction projects that directly benefit local communities and economies.

As the lead agency, Reclamation will be required to coordinate and prepare the unified environmental documentation that will serve as the basis for Federal decisions authorizing the use of Federal lands, as well as to coordinate project development and the construction of qualifying projects.

Additionally, H.R. 1654 will allow the Secretary of the Interior to expedite the evaluation of permits for qualifying projects through the use of funds contributed by a non-Federal public entity.

Mr. Speaker, the rule we consider here today provides for the consideration of two bills that will have positive and lasting impacts for the American people, ratepayers, rural communities, and many Western States, as well as our entire country's economy.

H.R. 1654 will provide the type of coordination and streamlining that is essential to the development and construction of much-needed water storage projects, certainly benefiting my home State of Washington, as well as water-stricken communities across the country.

H.R. 1873 will create a framework for vegetation management near transmission and distribution lines on Federal lands while also providing electric companies with much-needed clarity and defined authority to remove hazardous trees that pose a risk of falling into power lines. Managing this vegetation is a critical component in ensuring the safety and reliability of the electrical grid, which will benefit all of our constituents.

For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to support this rule as well as the underlying legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, the beauty of having a diverse membership in this body is that we have people from all over the country who live and breathe the issues that are before us. We are privileged today to have the young lady from Wilson, Wyoming (Ms. Cheney) here to speak on these bills. I appreciate her offering to help in these arguments.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Ms. Cheney), my young colleague.

Mr. Speaker, let me just say that it is good news that our brother from Louisiana is in fair condition. I appreciate that news report.

And I also want to take up the previous speaker's offer to work with us on tax reform. We look forward to his assistance in moving that issue forward.

I might say that he is mistaken. The bill that we are talking about today is about protecting public interests. The last time I checked, people who I know like green trees, not black ones; they like their electricity to be there when they turn their light switch on; and they like water. These are three issues that we are looking to protect and make sure that people in the United States can enjoy all of these attributes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Buck) to talk about exactly that.

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

I appreciate the time of my colleagues, who have joined me on the floor today, to speak in support of these underlying bills, as well as for the hard work of the House Natural Resources Committee.

First of all, H.R. 1873 is a bipartisan bill by any measure--five Democratic cosponsors, passed bipartisanly through the committee.

This will reduce the threat of electricity outages caused by contact between overgrown trees and power lines. It is that simple.

Existing Federal regulations and red tape can make it extremely difficult for utilities to gain the access that they need to their rights of way in order to perform needed maintenance. Before taking this action, they must receive approval from Federal agencies. They have been criticized for not allowing these utilities to carry out vegetative management policies on a consistent and timely basis.

Mr. Speaker, as you know, just one down tree on a transmission line can have devastating impacts, causing blackouts for thousands or millions of homes as well as businesses, or it can ignite fires that consume entire forests. Yet it can take months to remove one single tree, due to our outdated Federal regulations and cumbersome bureaucracy.

H.R. 1654 streamlines the current multiagency permitting system, which creates significant delays for project construction and completion, by creating a one-stop shop, a permitting process at the Bureau of Reclamation.

Mr. Speaker, the Bureau was created to oversee water resource management in the West and to prevent water shortages by building dams and conveyance systems. Yet, over the past 40 years, Federal regulations and policies have slowly made it increasingly difficult to build dams and reservoirs throughout the Western United States. Presently, it is nearly impossible to even expand the storage capacity at existing facilities.

The Water Supply Permitting Coordination Act establishes a framework where the Federal agencies with jurisdiction over new surface water storage projects must work together, coordinate their schedules, share technical information and data, and publish their findings publicly. This important measure will allow water providers to better manage their systems to modernize and enhance their water storage infrastructure and optimize water resource management in preparation for future droughts and shortages, which we know will come.

The Electricity Reliability and Forest Protection Act will prevent wildfires and power outages while enabling utilities to safely supply electricity to rural and Western communities.

H.R. 1873 will ensure that practical measures are taken to protect power lines and conserve our public lands, which is especially important in Western States where overgrown Federal forests are too often the norm rather than the exception.

Mr. Speaker, I believe the rule provides for consideration of two commonsense measures that will implement much needed improvements to the Federal management of our water resources, our Federal lands and forests, and electricity infrastructure. I urge my colleagues to support this rule as well as the underlying bills.

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

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

Wildfires are a huge problem in our country. They are becoming more frequent and more intense, and they pose a growing threat to public safety and local economies.

But, instead of taking steps to reduce wildfire threats, this bill tries to scare us into weakening environmental safeguards and giving away public land management to States and localities.

I agree with the bill's sponsor that overgrown vegetation and falling trees can spark forest fires. However, government data shows that this accounts for less than one-third of 1 percent of fires in the past 5 years.

Why are we focusing on this minor problem when it is clear that real wildfire solutions require treating these fires like the disasters that they are under the law, and allowing the Forest Service to use its base budget for preventing wildfires, not just fighting them?

Given what we have seen from Republicans in the Natural Resources Committee, the answer is simple: to chip away at the National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA; shut expert Federal agencies and concerned citizens out of the land management process; and allow Big Business to profit at the expense of taxpayers and our public lands.

The bill lets State and local electricity reliability standards trump public land management rules. There is not even any requirement that the standards are based on sound science or principles of risk assessment.

If a county says it needs to clear-cut a half mile into a national forest to protect power lines, this bill would allow it, and the Forest Service could only watch. Further, there is no prohibition on selling timber harvested during these operations.

The bill also mandates the Forest Service and BLM use its NEPA categorical exclusion authority, even when vegetation management projects could cause environmental damage. This means that people who value public lands would be completely shut out from the management process. So much for transparency and public input.

Adding insult to injury, the bill waives liability for companies that start forest fires or cause other damage. This is nonsense and shifts an incredible burden and risk onto American taxpayers.

The bill also fails to deal with the root causes of our fire crisis, including the fact that the Forest Service cannot afford mitigation work to prevent wildfires because it spends half of its budget fighting them.

I support legislation making wildfire disasters eligible for disaster assistance under the Stafford Act, and I know many of my colleagues, both Republicans and Democrats, do as well. I am disappointed that we are not passing a bill to do that today, and, instead, are here just pretending to do something about a very serious problem.

I urge a ``no'' vote on this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, let me repeat: We are talking about caution and what is causing fires; and 0.03 percent of fires caused by transmission lines is the data that is available to us. I know facts sometimes don't matter, but they should matter in something as important as this; and 0.03 percent is the cause by transmission lines of fires in the forest on public lands.

We are generalizing the huge wildfires that we have seen to make a case for this bill when the case is about transmission lines, rights- of-away; and it is 0.03 percent as the root cause of those fires over 5 years.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Schrader).

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

An example that supporters of this legislation use is from Oregon. It is from 1984. In the 33 years since then, I am aware of no example of a Federal agency refusing to allow a company to do vegetation management work and then holding the company liable for the damages.

In fact, as the committee report for this bill states, the issue of land managers allowing access to rights-of-way was largely resolved by language in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, stating:

Federal agencies responsible for approving access to

electric transmission and distribution facilities located on

lands within the United States shall, in accordance with

applicable law, expedite any Federal agency approvals that

are necessary to allow owners and operators of such

facilities to comply with any reliability standard approved

by the Commission under section 215 of the Federal Power Act

that pertains to vegetation management, service restorations,

or any situation that imminently endangers the reliability or

safety of the facilities.

If the utility companies feel that BLM and the Forest Service are not complying with the law, they should seek resolution in the court. Instead, they are coming after a backdoor opportunity to affect our public lands.

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

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

At a hearing on similar legislation in the Natural Resources Committee last Congress, both the Forest Service and BLM testified in opposition and explained how they work with utility companies to address vegetation management issues.

In addition to entering into voluntary vegetation management plans, the Forest Service testified that the agency's 2013 vegetation management guide specifies for field staffs the procedures and practices that should be included in operation and maintenance plans for power lines. This guide states that, where vegetation conditions inside or outside the authorized right-of-way pose an imminent threat to power line facilities, utility companies may remove those threats immediately, without prior approval from the Forest Service.

For its part, BLM testified that, under the terms and conditions typically included in a right-of-way grant, a utility company may conduct minor trimming, pruning, and weed management to maintain the right-of-way of a facility after simply notifying BLM. The utility company can often obtain BLM approval for removal of hazardous trees through a streamlined process. For an emergency situation causing an imminent hazard, no BLM preapproval would be necessary.

I understand that some of the companies believe they should be able to do whatever they want whenever they want, but the land does not belong to them. It belongs to the American people, and Federal agencies have a responsibility to all Americans to ensure that those lands are not abused.

Again, facts do matter, and 0.03 percent of fires in public lands were caused by trees falling on transmission lines in the last 5 years--0.03 percent. So we continue to exaggerate the common sense behind the facts that I just laid out.

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

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

My colleague from California (Mr. Costa) brought up one of the real causes of wildfire, and that was climate change, the lack of mitigation, and the situation within the Forest Service budget in which half of the revenue dedicated to that department is used to suppress wildfires.

This administration has denied the existence of climate change, scrubbed it from its vocabulary, from its science, from its study. If we are going to look at the causes of wildfires, if we are going to look at strategies and how we protect the urban and forest interface, if we are going to look at really addressing the subject, then the very salient point that Mr. Costa brought up regarding climate change has to be part and parcel of the discussion.

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

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

You know, this legislation, with a few modifications, could help prevent the 0.03 percent of wildfires that are caused by electricity infrastructure, but the majority refused to work with us on those modifications.

Most importantly, the failure to make vegetation management plans for utility rights-of-way mandatory negates any positive impact this bill might have had. As we have heard from Forest Service and industry at a hearing on similar legislation last Congress, voluntary vegetation management is already allowed and is quite common. This includes the ability for rights-of-way holders to access these areas and conduct vegetation management without notifying Federal land managers until after the fact. This is current law.

The majority claims we need this bill to address delays caused by the approval of unplanned work and delays

associated with removing dead trees on public lands outside of rights- of-way.

Without an up-front planning requirement, I can see authorizing limited activity for utility companies to do targeted vegetation management adjacent to rights-of-way. But instead of offering the commonsense trade off, the bill before us today simply cuts Federal agencies out of the process of managing the American people's land by requiring the Forest Service and BLM to approve plans with no option to modify or reject them if the plans are inadequate.

So whatever the company turns in--the utility company turns in, that is the plan that will become the management plan for that vegetation, regardless of any opinion by Forest Service or BLM.

Further, the bill does not define ``adjacent,'' meaning that companies could cut trees that are well outside the rights-of-way on public lands. This makes public lands vulnerable to a level of abuse that no one who values them would be willing to support.

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

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

Let me just say that this legislation is a solution without a problem. And as I mentioned earlier several times, facts do matter.

When we are doing a whole-scale change of how we manage rights-of-way on public lands because of 0.03 percent of the causation by utility lines of fires on public lands, that is a heavyhanded way to approach doing legislation. There have been opportunities and modifications, opportunities of expediting the process, but those were not allowed as part of this legislation.

If we, indeed, are going to look at both the wildfire situation, the budget stress on Forest Service to suppress those fires, and this rights-of-way issue, which is miniscule compared to the bigger issues, then I think this legislation has to be rejected, and work on a piece of legislation that has consensus, that is bipartisan, and that addresses the real problems with wildfires in this country, not this utility giveaway that we are doing here today.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.