Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 612 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of the Louisiana Business & Technology Center (LBTC), located on Louisiana State University's South Campus in Louisiana's Sixth Congressional District. It is indeed a great honor and privilege to join with the LBTC in commemorating and celebrating 25 years of dedicated service to the business community in the State of Louisiana.

Over the past 25 years, the LBTC has partnered with small businesses and entrepreneurs to help them reach their goals of longevity and self- sufficiency. Under the leadership of Executive Director Charles D'Agostino and his team, the LBTC has created over 10,000 jobs and helped start up companies raise $172 million in loans and equity investments. Additionally, the LBTC has been instrumental in providing Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant assistance to over 2,500 companies amounting to $77 million in awards. Finally, the Center has enlisted the support of LSU's student body in creating a Student Incubator which has spawned 28 full time businesses with 97 jobs and has raised over $3 million in capital since 2010.

Based upon the LBTC's long record of accomplishment and achievement, they have obtained the reputation of being known as one of the best entrepreneurial launchpads in the State. On behalf of the residents of Louisiana's Sixth Congressional District, I congratulate the Louisiana Business and Technology Center on the tremendous contribution it has had in fostering and developing small businesses which are a vital component to our Nation's economy.

Mr. Speaker, for the last 30 years, I have worked in a hospital for the uninsured. What I have learned is that unless you trust the families, unless you give power to the patient, you truly cannot make good medical decisions.

This is an email I got from someone who is my age--mid-50s. She says that we just got a letter from our health care provider, we had a major medical with a $10,000 deductible. We have lost that. We were told the insurance was not acceptable as written, so now our new policy has a $7,000 deductible and it cost us $10,000 more a year.

The deductible goes down by $3,000, their premium up by $10,000. This is not power to the family or to the patient. This is Washington saying, thou shalt spend thy money in the way that we direct you to spend it.

Frankly, I don't know if we can reconstruct the private insurance market. It may have been decimated by the Affordable Care Act. The last chance probably was the Enzi resolution on the Senate side in which it was pointed out that as many as 80 percent of Americans will lose their individual policy, but every Democrat voted against that Enzi resolution.

There is hope. It is the Keep Your Health Plan Act, which allows the policies to be resold, to occasionally be tweaked and, by the way, to be sold to others, preserving, if you will, the power of big numbers, which is key to the insurance industry.

Now, the other option, the President and the others on the Senate side, don't allow these policies to be sold to others. And so without allowing that, of course they are eventually going to be actuarially unsound and collapse. It is a sleight of hand which is disingenuous in terms of its intent. We give power to the patients. We must trust families. We should pass the Keep Your Health Plan Act and allow families to make their own decisions.

Mr. Chairman, I would first like to stress that the Morganza to the Gulf project is of immense importance to Louisiana's coastal restoration and protection efforts. It protects both fragile wetlands from hurricane surge and also is environmentally sound.

The Corps estimates it will prevent an estimated $1 billion in flood- related damages annually and protect over 53,000 structures. The Corps supports this project. Their own analysis indicates it will provide over $300 million in annual economic benefit.

It has been under study for the last two decades, was previously authorized in 2000 and 2007; and as Mr. Scalise notes, recently a completed Chief's Report was filed which stated the project is economically justified, environmentally sound and acceptable, and of sound engineering.

That said, there is this problem with the late filing of the Chief's Report. We do need this project authorized, and I ask that the legislation be passed and that it go to conference, where Mr. Scalise, Mr. Vitter, and I can all work with the chairman on this.

I ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania to please hold these hearings and to review all projects that have received a Chief's Report.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to repeat what my colleague from Florida said. My Democratic colleagues have suggested that if the House only passes the clean Senate CR, we can move on with business. I will point out if the Senate will only consider the House CR, we can also move on.

But the problem is that there's two provisions. One provision takes away a sweetheart deal that only Members of Congress and their staff get. Secondly, since the President delayed the mandate on employers to provide insurance for a year, we would similarly delay the mandate on the employee to have that insurance.

If she is relying upon her employer to provide the policy, what is she to do if he is given a break on not providing that policy?

We can quickly reopen the government. The House Republicans have voted a budget which would completely fund the government, but it has those provisions which Senator Reid will not even negotiate over. He will not come together to discuss these two things.

So, as a favor to both our country and the American taxpayer, I ask Senator Reid to address it.

First, let's put in perspective exactly what is before the House for overall government funding.

House Republicans have put forward a bill that would fund the government. We had two amendments, which are opposed. One would end the special deal that only Senators and Members of the House of Representatives get as regards ObamaCare exchanges. The other would treat employees of the employers whose mandate has been postponed the same. So if an employer's mandate to purchase insurance for employees has been postponed, the obligation of the employee to purchase is also.

It's on these two amendments that these folks object, Mr. Speaker. One, they want to preserve the special deal for Members of Congress; and, two, they don't want workers to have the same deal as does the employer.

Now that said, this brings us to this. If we can't fund the government because we have to preserve a special deal for Members of the Senate and of Congress, then at least we can mitigate its harmful effects.

My gosh, a hurricane bearing down on your coastline is the ultimate in a harmful effect. I don't think we should hold hostage protection for those in harm's way so that Congress can preserve a special deal that only accrues to Members of Congress, speaking of cynicism. We cannot sacrifice the security of those on the gulf coast.

I call upon the Senate to call on a vote both on these special amendments, but if not that, at least on funding of FEMA. In so doing, we can do something really good for those who do rely upon the Federal Government not all the time but in times of need.

And also, if we can vote on those two special amendments, we can do something good for the taxpayers who really, despite all the effort to obfuscate, are beginning to understand that our budget agreement is being held up by the need to preserve a special deal for Senators and Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, I have good news for my colleagues from the Democratic side of the aisle. We can reopen the government.

Let's make clear what the House has done: we have sent a continuing resolution to the Senate which funds the government and has two amendments which are found so objectionable. It does away with a special sweetheart deal the President created that only benefits Senators and Congressmen and Congresswomen. And for those folks who are getting their insurance from their employer, the President postponed the mandate on their employer, so we postponed the mandate on the employee. That's all we have to do.

Now if you'll want that special deal so much, we understand. But if you speak about people going hungry, keep in mind, it's only your affection for that special deal that keeps them from being fed. If you really cared about those people, you would give up your special deal.

Now it may be that Senator Reid so loves it, he can do nothing about it. That said, let's negotiate.

The Constitution says that if the two Chambers disagree, you go to conference committee. At the end of the day, if you give up your special deal, people are fed. Why do you want that special deal so much?

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on the bill, H.R. 1582.

Mr. Chairman, I cannot understand why somebody would object to this. The bill is about transparency, and this amplifies that transparency. EPA can impose rules which cost tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars on the U.S. economy. Those expenses translate into jobs lost.

Having access to the underlying information, and the estimates of cost and benefits, is critical to know why that is. And as my colleague said, there is no reason to have to reveal information about individuals. And let me just point to the medical literature. In the medical literature, there is a push that when the Federal Government funds research, that that underlying data is made subject, is made available to the general public. When the FDA reviews drugs, FDA will look at underlying data. So why would we require it for medications, which obviously affect many people, but not for the EPA. Having methodology which is transparent is absolutely essential in modern scientific literature. I don't see why there is an objection to it unless the hope is that EPA can satisfy an ideological bent without having to justify it.

This amendment will provide more transparency for EPA's billion- dollar rules. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the amendment and ``yes'' on the underlying bill. The American people cannot afford to have jobs shipped overseas or have their economy otherwise wrecked. More rationality, transparency, and accountability must be brought to the EPA and its rulemaking process.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve a point of order against the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my point of order, and I claim the time in opposition to the motion.

Mr. Speaker, this bill doesn't cripple anything. Laws that are currently on the books stay on the books. The problem is that the EPA uses bad science. I say that not as a Republican. I say that as quoting other scientists.

For example, a gentleman who is a former member of the Harvard School of Public Health testified: ``EPA's statistical approach is fraught with numerous assumptions and uncertainties.'' A physician from the Colorado School of Public Health said that the way that EPA uses statistics ``is also highly misleading to policymakers.''

I will make the point. You cannot be pro-family unless you are pro- environment, and you cannot be pro-environment unless you are pro- family, but you can't be either unless you first have a strong and healthy economy. Now, the Energy Consumers Relief Act simply puts a check on the billion-dollar energy rules that may hurt American families and cost American jobs.

If you support transparency and good government, you should support this bill. If you support protecting American families and consumers from higher energy costs, you should support H.R. 1582. If you support having the prosperity needed for families and for environmental health protections, you should support H.R. 1582. If you are pro-jobs, pro- economic growth and anti-poverty, you should support H.R. 1582.

I urge you to vote ``no'' on this motion to recommit. I urge you to support the Energy Consumers Relief Act.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I want to thank Chairman Upton, Chairman Whitfield, and their staff for their hard work in preparing this important legislation and bringing it to the House floor, which, by the way, passed the committee with bipartisan support.

Currently, millions of Americans are unemployed or underemployed, millions more have left the labor force entirely, and our economy continues to struggle to recover.

This is particularly true among blue collar workers, blue collar workers who have traditionally been employed in mining, manufacturing, and construction. Those three are related because the mining, the bringing of resources from underneath the ground, fuels literally energy-intensive manufacturing enterprises, which will then go on to make steel, use the steel to construct pipelines, or first make steel pipes, then to construct pipelines. It is an energy-intensive economy that brings good jobs with good benefits to blue collar workers. I have no clue why folks on the other side of the aisle are so hostile to our blue collar workers.

While we have all these millions unemployed, the EPA has been advancing an expansive regulatory assault on the production and distribution of affordable and reliable energy.

Now, by the way, current regulations don't change. That does not roll back anything. This is only about prospective regulations. So if there is a concern about the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act, those regulations as they have currently been enforced remain the same. It is just that numerous new regulations have created uncertainty, contributing to an unprecedented number of announced power plant shutdowns, destroying blue collar jobs, increasing energy costs on manufacturers, and raising concern regarding electrical grid reliability.

Although the EPA attributes large public health benefits to billion- dollar regulations, their scientific analysis has been sharply criticized, with one public health expert saying their method of analysis is misleading to public policymakers.

Another, the National Academy of Science, on a formaldehyde rule saying that the conclusions are not justified by the methodology or the research that was presented.

We are using faulty research to justify the destruction of blue collar jobs. I don't know why anybody wouldn't want to be for this, but some are not.

There are concerns that the EPA ignores a significant public health cost associated with energy prices and result in job losses. I'm a doc. I know that when someone loses their job with good benefits and goes on something like Medicaid their health suffers.

There is a researcher, Dr. Till von Wachter, currently an associate professor of economics at UCLA, who testified that job losses can lead to significant reductions in life expectancy of 1 to 1.5 years. This isn't just a parent, the worker; it's their children as well. It is so well documented, and yet folks are just cavalier and casual about the job losses that EPA regulation brings about. When energy becomes expensive or unreliable, public health is threatened, as that research shows.

All we are asking for here is accountability and transparency to determine the full impact of EPA's major energy-related regulations-- the impact it will have on jobs, energy prices, and our Nation's economy. If the benefit outweighs the cost, the rule goes forward; but if the cost greatly outweighs the benefit, then let's just stick up for the blue collar worker, her family, let's just stick up for them so maybe they don't have to go on government dependency.

By the way, it is not unprecedented. OMB has previously put a hold on EPA rules, and EPA has the right to put a hold on Army Corps of Engineer rulings. Commonly, agencies are accountable to one another. All we ask is that the EPA will be accountable to the Department of Energy, but, if you will, to the American people.

This rule requires that if the energy rules are appropriately reviewed by the Secretary of Energy, consulting with the other relevant agencies to determine whether the proposed rules will cause significant adverse effects to the economy if this review takes place and it does not outweigh the benefits, then the rule is put on hold. By so doing, the legislation ensures energy cost and economic and job impacts are given appropriate consideration.

It is important to note, again, nothing in the legislation prevents consideration of both cost and benefits in the proposed rule; and an independent and thorough review by Federal departments with expertise in energy and economic analysis is merely a check, merely a call, for EPA to be transparent, which they have not been in the past.

The bill will protect consumers from higher energy prices by providing additional oversight of EPA's most expensive rules that regulate the production, supply, distribution, or use of energy. Most importantly, it protects blue collar jobs from construction by an overzealous bureaucrat who just decides because they have something that they want to do and they don't wish to be transparent about it, it is okay to destroy blue collar jobs.

I urge all Members to support H.R. 1582, the Energy Consumers Relief Act of 2013.

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

First, let's be clear, this is not just for Louisiana. This $2 million will be available nationwide.

And that said, I rise in support of this amendment. Budgets are about establishing priorities and then making wise use of scarce resources. We know with these scarce resources, $1 million in a planning grant, which later on will be funded to greater dollars, can actually save billions in hurricane repair.

So, if I may say, there is lots of money right now in the Corps. The fact is the Corps has even a larger backlog, and these projects are not $2 million to complete. It takes $500,000 to begin the NEPA process or the sampling of the soil or something like that. So small amounts of dollars at the beginning can initiate a process that comes to fruition with an authorization later on.

This is a national issue. Let me just speak just about Louisiana, because you could equally speak about your home State.

The gasoline that is sold in Philadelphia is produced in St. Charles Parish. If a hurricane knocks out that petrochemical plant, gasoline prices rise by 20 cents a gallon in the Northeast.

Now, you could say something similar in Ohio and Mr. Garamendi in California and others elsewhere. So we're not saying initiate a process which completely funds. We're saying give seed money so that community in California, Ohio, or Louisiana can begin the process where later on we can make a decision regarding greater funding.

We can, as Mr. Richmond said, either spend a little bit now and potentially save billions in the future or, on our budget priorities, we can say we're going to be penny-wise but pound-foolish.

I urge passage of the amendment. I thank my colleague for introducing it.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, in 2006 Congress passed the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, or GOMESA. This legislation for the first time allowed States to share in revenues generated from offshore drilling. GOMESA provided 37.5 percent of revenue to the Gulf States, to begin in the year 2017, but arbitrarily placed a $500 million cap on the collectively shared revenue.

Conversely, the Mineral Leasing Act requires the Federal Government to allocate 50 percent of the energy revenue generated on Federal lands to interior States in which the revenue is generated without an annual cap.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment is straightforward. It simply moves offshore royalty sharing more in line with the benefit onshore interior States experience by moving the GOMESA cap from $500 million to $1 billion. This would begin 10 years from now. It's almost $1 billion, just short of $1 billion.

My amendment does not impact onshore producing States. If your State is receiving revenue sharing from onshore, my amendment does nothing to change that. It just moves Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama a little bit closer to parity. You can look at this graph right here, and you can see that this graph shows that interior States are receiving 50 percent with no dollar cap. Gulf States, less a percentage and with a cap. And all other States have the same percent with no cap.

The House has previously passed a similar version of this amendment twice: once in the PIONEER Act and second on the Domestic Energy and Jobs Act, both last year, overwhelmingly with bipartisan support. In fact, the House laid the groundwork for this with the landmark passage of the Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act of 2006. This was the first offshore revenue-sharing bill to pass a congressional Chamber, and it did not include an arbitrary cap.

So I ask my colleagues, if you're worried about rising energy prices, I'd recommend a ``yes'' vote on this amendment. Thirty percent of the Nation's energy comes off the gulf coast. If you're interested in treating Gulf Coast States equally, the way we treat onshore drilling in Federal lands for inland States, I also recommend a ``yes.'' And if you're interested in the environment, let me just make the case here that by the Louisiana Constitution, 100 percent of the Federal tax revenue that comes from this will go to coastal restoration. That is important to us because every place you see red is a place where we will lose in Louisiana land over the next 50 years. And where you see red, I see families. I see families and businesses which will no longer exist unless we do something proactively to restore those lands.

I yield to the gentleman.

I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I reserve the balance of my time.

This is what is broken. This is our coastline, which is melting away. This is what increases our risk. We've lost a land mass equal to Rhode Island in Louisiana.

Now, the money that is received, our share will go to this, but it is not adequate to rebuild this coastline. And the other thing which is broken is--

Because we channeled the Mississippi in order to create navigational services for the rest of the inland nation. And so as you channel that Mississippi, the wetlands lost the nourishing sediment that comes to them.

Yes, we do have onshore and offshore drilling, absolutely.

If we want to speak about lucrative revenue, all I ask is to have the same deal that every other State has. No, I don't even ask for the same deal that every other State has, because every other State, if they're interior, gets 50 percent of the revenue.

Other coastal States, for example, California, have no cap on the amount

of royalty sharing that they may have with the Federal Government. It is only in the gulf coast that there is a cap.

Now, if you want to have the same deal for our State that other States have, I would love to have the 50 percent that Wyoming has.

Well, if you decide to cut off your economic nose to spite your face, I can't help that.

If I may say, I admire your verbal sleight-of-hand because never in the past has royalty sharing been considered earmarks. But if now we're going to start considering royalty sharing earmarks, heck, let's go back and look at every State. But that is, again, a verbal sleight-of-hand. That is not under the definition of an earmark, and I think the gentleman knows that.

Assuming that the gentleman continues to yield to me, I would say, in that case, we need to go back to every State which has a better royalty sharing arrangement with the Federal Government than we and ask to reconsider that.

We're not even asking to have the 50 percent on the inland or the no cap on the other coastal States. We're just asking that you raise the cap and keep our revenue sharing royalty percent at the same lower level than it is on the inland. Now, I don't know why we're being singled out when those other States do so well.

So, when I spoke to someone from Wyoming today, she goes, Oh, you're only getting 37.5? Wyoming gets 48 percent.

I yield to the gentleman.

How much time do I have left?

I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise).

Mr. Chairman, I'll just close by saying--and I'm not sure I understand the logic of my friend on the other side of the aisle--apparently, this is going to increase our Federal revenue by $1.5 billion. But more importantly, it generates dollars for the State of Louisiana to preserve these, the homes of these families. This allows revenue that has been from our Outer Continental Shelf to come back to preserve this coastline, these families, and these businesses to remain in existence. And that's what this is really about, equity, increased revenue for the Federal Government, and families in Louisiana being able to preserve their existence.

I urge support for our amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment simply stipulates that no later than 60 days after the enactment of H.R. 2231, the Secretary of the Interior shall issue rules to provide clarity, certainty, and stability to the revenue streams we just discussed that were created by GOMESA of 2006.

This Federal law allows the State to use this money for the restoration of coastal areas and the mitigation of damage to natural resources. However, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, formerly MMS, has yet to issue the necessary rules and regulations.

In 2009, a letter signed by the Governors of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas asked for these rules to be published and recommendations incorporated. It's now 2013, over 6 years since Congress passed in 2006, and the rules have still not been published. The lack of clarity in this phase 2 implementation of GOMESA impedes the ability of Gulf States and eligible coastal political subdivisions to conduct and achieve the planning efforts needed to maximize coastal protection.

It's long overdue for these rules to be published. The amendment is simple. It just directs it to do so. I move for approval of the amendment.

I yield to the gentleman.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I oppose this amendment.

We advocates for American farmers know that we need free world markets. The proponents of this amendment ignore that other countries, such as Brazil, subsidize their sugar industry as much as $3 billion per year.

This amendment unilaterally disarms our economy. By doing so it threatens 142,000 farming jobs and potentially places the U.S. consumer at the mercy of market manipulation by foreign governments. At stake is our food security, 142,000 jobs, and the American consumer.

By eliminating this program, which operates at zero cost to the American taxpayer, we hamstring the ability of our farmers to provide food security for our people.

I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment.

Thank you, Congressman Fortenberry.

Mr. Speaker, a couple of things. First, I associate myself with the remarks made by my colleagues. I think that there is a concern regarding our religious freedoms here in the United States.

But for just a moment, I want to draw the attention of those watching and the Speaker to an issue of Pastor Saeed Abedini. He is an American, originally from Iran, who is now incarcerated for 8 years--this is his sentence in Iran--for crimes, as they defined it, that happened 13 years ago. This is a question of religious freedom which involves an American citizen who happens now to be abroad.

Pastor Abedini is 33 years old, was born in Iran, and there converted from Islam to Christianity. Here, that would not be a big deal because we have religious freedom. Theoretically, so does Iran.

In his early twenties, he helped start house churches. It was legal to do so. At some point, he moved to the United States and married his wife, who I gather her family also is originally from Iran. They have two children and they live in Idaho.

He went back to Iran to work on a nonsectarian orphanage. He was arrested by the state police and incarcerated, at first they said for activities disruptive to the state. Now they apparently are attributing it to his work in house churches around the year 2000. But he has been incarcerated in prison and is tortured. He's been taken to the hospital on a couple of occasions. The physician recommended that he be admitted to a hospital. The Iranian Government will not allow it. He went to seek medical care on another occasion. The nurse refused to touch him saying that because he was a Christian, or if he had been Baha'i, either, she would not touch him.

So here we have a fellow, an American, who is being imprisoned for activities which happened 13 years ago in a country which is a signatory to the UN Declaration of Human Rights in which someone may have religious freedom.

Now, it is upon we, as Americans, if you're a person of faith, to pray for the Abedini family. If you're a person not necessarily of faith but just believe in human rights, this is something which should be incredibly important to you. If you're just a person who has compassion for a 33-year-old man whose wife and two children are here alone as he is being imprisoned and tortured for no other crime than attempting to start an orphanage for children who might not have another option, even that would offend someone who is of no faith whatsoever.

So what can we as Americans do? One, we have to draw attention to it. We have a resolution that has been submitted that calls upon the U.S. State Department to intervene on his behalf--and, in fairness, the State Department has attempted to do so in the past, but there is some feeling they could do more--and for the Iranian Government to free him.

So one, we have this resolution before Members of Congress. If you're watching this, ask your Member of Congress to sign on to this resolution. It has bipartisan support now.

Number two, contact our State Department and ask them to redouble their efforts to free Pastor Abedini.

Number three, include him and his family in your prayers. We can only imagine if our loved ones were abroad, in prison, being tortured, without access to health care, and what that would mean for both wife, children, and also parents.

Lastly, join us all in admiration for a man in his commitment to the people

whom he loves, who was willing to risk something that he knew might be a possibility as he was living out his faith, caring for those, treating those as he would have them treat him but, as an impulse of his faith, going to those who were otherwise without care.

So thank you for allowing me to speak on behalf of Pastor Abedini, and I thank you for having this discussion of religious freedom here tonight.

The United States has historically been a beacon of human rights to the rest of the world, and so it is no accident that a fellow comes to the United States seeking religious freedom.

I think the undertone of what others here have spoken is the sense that some of our commitment to religious freedom is under siege by forces of secularism. Now, you can be secular if you wish; but nonetheless, the First Amendment says that the right to practice religion shall not be infringed upon. So with all of these kinds of trimming at the margins, at the edges, of someone's ability to practice her faith or his faith, one, it affects us, but, two, it also affects our standing in the rest of the world in our ability to advocate for those who do not have the same freedom as we.

If others see our example as substituting religious freedom for something which is less so, how much less will our beacon be dimmed? That will have tragedy, not only for us, but also for them.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 212 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''