Floor Statements

Offered By: Mr. Cassidy

Amendment No. 2: At the end of the bill, before the short

title, insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Cassidy

Amendment No. 3: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Cassidy

Amendment No. 4: Page 3, line 16, after the dollar amount,

insert ``(increased by $5,000,000)''.

Page 26, line 24, after the dollar amount, insert

``(reduced by $5,000,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. Cassidy

Amendment No. 5: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Cassidy

Amendment No. 6: Page 4, line 24, after the dollar amount,

insert ``(increased by $5,000,000)''.

Page 26, line 24, after the dollar amount, insert

``(reduced by $5,000,000)''.

Mr. Chairman, this act is important. It is important for Americans.

Now, first, just to allay some fears, actually, this does not eliminate the need for Federal permitting for the entire process, but what it does is eliminate the President's ability to sit on a project, not allowing it to go forward, abusing the trust of the American people, that he is actually working in their interest, as opposed to pursuing his own narrow agenda.

Now, let's make this very clear: the fact that the President is just reviewing this is beyond credibility, but what it does do--his kind of interminable delays eliminates 20,000 to 40,000 jobs just on the one project, Keystone XL pipeline--which the other side is speaking so much of--and 100,000 indirect jobs.

By the way, when we buy products from Canada, 80 percent of the dollars that we spend there stay on the North American continent, improving the economy, not just in Canada, but also in the United States.

If we buy oil from overseas--say the Middle East--only about 40 percent of those dollars return. This is beyond the impact of building pipelines themselves, but also a global economy.

Now, the State Department--this administration's State Department has said that this project, Keystone XL pipeline, will have negligible impact on the economy. Indeed, if we continue to truck or ship by rail, more people will die--Americans will die, Mr. Chairman--than if we build a pipeline in which they anticipate, of course, there is no deaths.

One thing this will do is this will really--the opposition of the President and the other side, it will do wonders for China's economy.

Canada has just announced they are going to build a pipeline to their west coast to send these oil sands to China, creating Chinese jobs, but also Chinese pollution that, once it is into the atmosphere, will blow over onto the United States. Talk about a fruitless policy of delay.

Now, let me just finish by saying there is one more aspect of this. It helps create North American security. No longer are we buying oil from countries which hate us, financing their efforts to undermine our society; rather, we keep that money with our closest ally who, in turn, buys goods for us.

We should approve this bill and this project in particular. We should build it for Americans. It is better for the environment. It is better for our economy. Most of all, it is better for our workers.

Madam Chair, I offer an amendment.

Madam Chair, the point of this amendment is to bring transparency and accountability to the process of awarding TIGER grants. Now, TIGER grants were created in 2009 with money from the stimulus bill to provide competitive grants that were to fund infrastructure projects and supposedly on a merit-based criteria.

There has been about $3.6 billion in TIGER grants awarded since 2009 going to States, local governments, and other entities for highway, transit, rail, and port authorities. DOT is currently reviewing grant applications to award $600 million for a sixth round of TIGER grant funding, applications due April 28, 2014.

Last month, the GAO reported numerous problems with the awarding of TIGER grants. The findings found in the report that DOT continued to accept specific applications for 30 days after the notice of funding availability deadline and did not notify the public. The DOT policy office did not follow its own guidelines and advanced projects with lower technical ratings instead of more highly-rated projects, providing no documentation or evidence of the factors that led to these decisions.

This leads me to why we are offering this amendment, again to bring transparency and accountability to the process of awarding TIGER grants.

In 2011, GAO recommended that DOT should develop a strategy to document decisions and work with Congress to disclose how it makes its decisions. The Government Accountability Office further recommended that the DOT limit the influence of geographic considerations and instead have a merit-based process. In their most recent report, the Government Accountability Office again made similar recommendations to provide transparency to the process.

Now, my amendment does not do away with TIGER grants. Private sector partners, State and local governments, metropolitan planning organizations, transit agencies in Louisiana and elsewhere have applied for these. This amendment will not prevent them from the opportunity to receive funding, nor do I wish to prevent consideration of the hundreds of applications that have been offered for this current cycle. However, this amendment requires that the Department of Transportation follow the Government Accountability Office recommendations to be transparent and objective in the management and decisionmaking process when selecting applications for funding under the TIGER grant program.

We cannot have DOT have a process which is suspected to be political and not merit-based when there are Federal tax dollars at stake and when communities in Louisiana and elsewhere with meritorious projects are having theirs not considered when those with less merit are receiving prioritization. That is wrong. It is not what we should be pushing. Again, I push this amendment to bring transparency and accountability to the awarding of TIGER grants.

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

Offered By: Mr. Cassidy

Amendment No. 23: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Mr. Speaker, I submit the following Proclamation:

In celebration and appreciation of seersucker manufacturers and admirers around the country, I extend a Happy Seersucker Day. With a rich history dating back to 1909, seersucker clothing is a unique American fashion. The original seersucker suit was designed by Joseph Haspel at his Broad Street facility in New Orleans and has been enjoyed since by many Americans. The lightweight cotton fabric with its signature ``pucker'' has provided comfortable fashion ware during the hot summer months. As Mr. Haspel said, ``hot is hot, no matter what you do for a living'', seersucker clothing is now enjoyed by Americans across the country in all walks of life. In the late 1990s, Seersucker Day was established to honor this unique American fashion. I wish to restart this tradition by designating Wednesday, June 11th as National Seersucker Day. I encourage everyone to wear seersucker to commemorate this iconic American clothing.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this 9th day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand fourteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-eighth.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, the intent of my amendment is to provide greater accountability over the use and allocation of administrative costs associated with the funds authorized in this bill. It is important we attempt to maximize the ability of the dollar to reach the classroom.

The amendment simply requires that, within 3 years after the enactment of H.R. 10, the Government Accountability Office would provide a report on whether the amount of funding for State administrative costs is appropriate.

If the funds are determined inappropriate, GAO must provide a recommendation on what an appropriate level of funding would be.

My amendment is budget neutral, with no additional reporting requirements. It is simple and straightforward, ensuring that the millions of taxpayer dollars will go to classrooms, not caught up in bureaucracy.

We all know how easy it is for administrative costs in the public sector to balloon. This amendment helps to prevent this from happening.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, on rollcall No. 139, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Virginia, Representative Randy Forbes, be taken off of H.R. 1239, the Accessing Medicare Therapies Act.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3370.

First let me say this affects almost all Americans. On this map, you can see, if there is a color, there is a chance that you are affected, and Chairman Hensarling pointed out that Dallas is a hot spot of red.

That is a place where the woman he referred to will benefit because of this reform, and I will say that all Americans will because it is our job, in Congress, to protect the American citizen from agencies implementing laws in ways which are not sustainable.

The flood maps that FEMA has been using have questionable actuarial calculations, and there have been unrealistic rate increases.

The bill before us today, which I worked closely in developing with the gentleman from New York (Mr. Grimm) and others, to strike the right balance, takes into consideration both fiscal solvency and consumer affordability.

First, the bill is paid for. It is paid for, and the funds will go into the NFIP reserve fund, so in the future, there will be money in the till, should there be another disaster.

Secondly, I will say that, if we don't do this, the National Flood Insurance Program will enter into a death spiral. CBO estimates that for every 10 percent increase in premiums, 1.4 percent of the subscribers drop off. If people are getting 2,000 percent premium increases, they will all drop off, which puts it into a death spiral.

I would say this is actually the fiscally responsible thing that puts the program on a glide path to actuarial soundness and, in the meantime, benefits Americans across the way.

A broad coalition of Republicans, Democrats, and Realtors have worked hard on this. I would like to thank Neil Bradley in Leader Cantor's office; from my staff, Chris Gillott; and Richard Hoffman in Representative Grimm's office, for a lot of tremendous work.

Mr. Speaker, I kind of keep asking myself why we would not want to provide transparency.

If the Federal Government is going to impose a massive bureaucratic regime involving the American people, why should we not at least require them to be accountable for the success or failure of that regime?

The Exchange Information Disclosure Act requires accountability and transparency, which has been, frankly, elusive from the administration on these issues. And, indeed, before committees and before Americans there has been a tendency to give information which is misleading.

For example, enrollment numbers are calculated by the numbers who sign up for coverage, not those who actually pay for their first month's premium. In reality, unless you pay for that first month's premium, you are not enrolled. Coverage does not become effective until these are paid; and history shows many will sign up who will never actually enroll.

The American people are affected by this. They are paying for it. We are their employees, so to speak. They pay our salary. They have a right to know, and the only way to know is to see the results.

I keep on smiling in kind of an angry sort of way when I think about those folks who came to testify about the Web site.

Two weeks before it was to open, we were told that it was ready and that there were no problems. I specifically asked if the Spanish- language Web site was ready. Oh, yes, there's no problem. We can just stand it up.

In truth, none of that was true. The only way we learned it was not true was when the numbers came out, it was clear that folks were not enrolling. So everything we had been told was exposed as a lie, and yet we would not have known had we not seen those enrollment figures.

Compliance should not be difficult. Insurance companies know on a daily basis how many people have clicked on, how many people have signed up, how many checks they receive. Insurance companies know this on a daily basis. Certainly, Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government can tell the American people these results on a weekly basis.

The Exchange Information Disclosure Act is a commonsense piece of legislation that all my colleagues who champion transparency and accountability should support. All it does is ensure full disclosure of the most important data points needed to determine what is really going on with the President's health care law's implementation.

It is vitally important for the public, and it is vitally important for us as we attempt to do the American people's will in our oversight of the program.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the reform the Biggert-Waters Act. Let's first point out that the flood insurance program was reformed under Biggert-Waters with the goal to make it both affordable and accessible. It did indeed make flood insurance accessible, but it is being implemented in such a way as to make it unaffordable.

Now, the question is: Is this, as some people called it, a bailout for vacation homes for the rich people?

Is it going to improve the solvency of the program?

Yet, somehow do we have to see how these reforms play out before we reform once more?

Let's address each of these. This will do absolutely nothing for the solvency of the National Flood Insurance Program. Indeed, it is guaranteed to make it insolvent.

FEMA estimates that for every 10 percent increase in a premium, you have a 1 percent decrease in the number of people purchasing that policy. Do the math. Somebody whose policy is now $700, if it rises to $7,000, they have a basically 100 percent chance of dropping their policy.

When that happens, FEMA still has to cover their fixed costs. Those fixed costs are concentrated under fewer and fewer subscribers to the insurance policy, which means that even more people get to the point where they can no longer afford this policy, which means, that, again, that fixed cost is concentrated further. You have entered the death spiral of a program, so the National Flood Insurance Program dies. That will happen, under the assumptions used by CBO for these estimates.

Now, some would say, wait a second. FEMA actually had some good reforms to work with. That is true, but they are not really implementing them.

FEMA is doing their few flood maps with what is called a no levee analysis. If the Army Corps of Engineers has not certified a flood control structure, FEMA pretends it is not there.

Now, Lafourche Parish in south Louisiana has a levee they built themselves, and they have pictures; on the one side they have floodwaters, and on the other side they have dry land with flowers. Those levees clearly work, but because they are not Army Corps of Engineers certified, Lafourche Parish gets no credit.

Jefferson Parish, a suburb of New Orleans, has big pumps to help reduce floodwaters, and yet FEMA does not include the efficacy of these in their flood maps.

This no levee analysis was not supposed to be part of Biggert-Waters, but that is how the program is being implemented.

Now, is this a bailout for rich people? The people in Louisiana who will benefit from reforming our current process, which is to say suffer under Biggert-Waters, as currently crafted, are working people. They work in the refineries that provide the gasoline for the rest of the Nation. Their homes are $120,000 to $220,000. These are not rich people insuring vacation homes. These are folks in their primary residences-- in many cases, homes that have never flooded but, in many cases, homes that would suffer under this program.

And that leads me to the harm to the economy that will occur. The uncertainty of the cost of flood insurance is freezing real estate markets. Homebuilders have no market for the homes that they wish to build. There is a cratering of the bank lending. Indeed, there are reports of people taking their keys into the bank, dropping those keys on a desk, unable to afford the flood insurance, therefore unable to keep their mortgage so walking away from the home that they are attempting to purchase.

The impact upon the rest of the country? Most of the refined gasoline in the rest of the country is refined on the gulf coast, Louisiana, and in Texas. Those workers cannot afford to keep the homes that allow them to work in these refineries. There is an economic impact both locally in the State but it, indeed, goes nationwide. Flood insurance should be accessible. It should be affordable. Biggert-Waters needs to be further reformed in order to allow both.