Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding me the time.

My colleague just commented on the Bush administration's rewrite of the Stream Buffer Zone rule that took 5 years. He qualified that as a ``midnight rewrite.'' My goodness, that was a really long night. It took 5 years to do it.

Today, I rise in strong support of legislation that I've sponsored to stop the administration's job-destroying war on coal. This legislation is in direct response to the President's ongoing rewrite of the Stream Buffer Zone rule, a rule that, according to the administration's own estimates, would cost at least 7,000 direct jobs and potentially tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs.

Mere days after assuming office, President Obama set out to rewrite this rule that will cost tens of thousands of jobs, cut coal production by up to 50 percent in America, and cause electricity rates to skyrocket even higher than the President has already pushed them.

As we all know, the average utility bill for the middle class has risen over $300 a year because of this President's radical environmental policies. The last thing the middle class needs is their utility bills to go even higher. However, if the story ended there, it would be bad enough, but it doesn't end there. It actually gets much worse.

The President's administration has deliberately tried to hide the truth about the cost of this rule to the American public. In fact, a Presidential appointee asked the contractors working on the rule to lie about the job loss numbers so the administration could convince the American public that this rule was good public policy. Thankfully, the contractors were men and women of character and would not lie for the administration. The President's administration then fired those contractors.

The Natural Resources Committee has subpoenaed the administration for documents and audio recordings relating to the rule. Not surprisingly, as we have seen many times before, the President has failed to live up to his campaign promise of leading the most open and transparent government ever, because he has not allowed the administration to turn over the documents that we've asked for because he knows they will hurt his reelection prospects.

This legislation is not about a sloppy and unethical rules process. This legislation is about saving tens of thousands of jobs for hardworking Americans, and it's about providing reliable and affordable energy resources for hardworking taxpayers and businesses all across America.

Throughout the country, hardworking coal miners and utility plant workers are losing their jobs because of this President's radical environmental policies. Just this week, hundreds of coal miners were told they would lose their jobs because of the President's anticoal stance. Just today, a utility company announced that they would close a coal-fired power plant and hundreds more workers would lose their jobs. These job losses are in addition to the thousands of Ohioans in eastern and southeastern Ohio that have lost their jobs because of the President's radical policies.

This legislation will bring a stop to the administration's war on coal by not only stopping the job-destroying rewrite of the Stream Buffer Zone rule, but it also contains four bipartisan bills that have already been passed through the House.

I urge all of my colleagues to support this job-saving legislation.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for yielding.

You know, it absolutely amazes me that our colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle can honestly, and with a straight face, stand up and say that this Republican-led House has not put forth jobs bills. There have been 40 jobs bills sent to the Senate from this House already. This is another jobs bill that is prepared to be sent to the Senate.

I want to also remind my colleague that the Stream Buffer Zone rule that we're talking about here today, it took 5 years to put that rule in place. The administration went after that rule with a vengeance, without even seeing what the rule would do in terms of providing the protections that they're so adamantly arguing about right now.

Instead, they used an environmental lawsuit to go after the coal industry and to undermine job creators all across America, and it's driving up America's energy prices. It's irresponsible. It's wrong. This amendment is only meant to distract the public from the job- killing policies of this administration.

The gentleman from Massachusetts knows all too well that SMCRA was not written nor intended to deal with health issues. The gentleman's amendment would change the stated goal and reason for SMCRA completely and would duplicate laws and mandates that are already in the Federal code.

The other side of the aisle also seems to think that they are the only Members of this body that are concerned about public health and the environment. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I grew up on a two-wheel wagon rut mule farm, and I know the importance of having a clean and vibrant environment. I also have kids and grandkids, and I want to ensure that our generation leaves them with an environment healthier than the one our generation inherited; however, this legislation today is about balancing job creation and economic prosperity with sensible environmental regulations. This amendment does neither of those things, and I urge all of my colleagues to defeat this amendment.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for yielding me the balance of the time.

It is mindboggling to sit here and listen to this. I've got to remind us again that we are talking about an administration that before they even came into office said they were going to bankrupt the coal industry. That's one promise that they have kept. It's an administration whose Vice President said in 2007 that coal is more dangerous than high fructose corn syrup and terrorists. That's the kind of reasoning that we are getting out of this administration.

My colleague was quick to try and hold a math class here. Let's talk about a different set of numbers.

Let's talk about the 7,000 direct jobs that are going to be cut--that are going to be lost--if this rule goes forward. Let's talk about the thousands of indirect jobs that are going to be lost as a result of this rule going forward. Let's talk about the 50 percent reduction in coal production across America when America is still dependent upon coal for the very energy that it needs to fuel the manufacturing that America does. Let's talk about those numbers if we want to talk about what it's going to do to America if this rule goes forward.

Let's talk about the thousands of people who are going to be hurt when their families don't have jobs to go to. Let's talk about the checkbooks at the end of the month that don't balance because of increased, skyrocketing utility rates, and now Mom and Dad can't pay the bills, and they can't go buy a new pair of tennis shoes because they've got an electricity bill that's going off the charts.

When we talk about something that's going to hurt the middle class, this rule is what will hurt the middle class. It's irresponsible. This amendment does nothing to move America forward. I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to sponsor the Veterans Fiduciary Reform and Noble Service Act. This important legislation will transform the VA's fiduciary program to better serve the needs of our most vulnerable veterans and their hardworking fiduciaries; but most importantly, it will protect veterans in the program from falling victim to deceitful and criminal fiduciaries.

Since our February hearing, hardly a week has gone by where the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee has not been contacted about a fiduciary issue. Many of these issues have involved honest and hardworking fiduciaries who are caught in the rigid bureaucratic trap that is the VA's fiduciary program. This bill will go a long way toward making that unyielding bureaucracy more responsive to the needs of the veterans that it is supposed to serve.

We have heard many complaints about the requirement for fiduciaries to obtain a bond. While proper in some settings, it is inappropriate when it causes unnecessary hardship, such as a mother caring for her veteran son. This bill will require the VA to consider whether a bond is necessary and if it will adversely affect the fiduciary and the veterans he or she serves.

The Veterans Fiduciary Program and Noble Service Act will also direct VA's Under Secretaries for Health and Benefits to coordinate their efforts to ensure that fiduciaries caring for their loved ones are not overly burdened by redundant requirements.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, this bill aims to simplify annual reporting requirements. Currently, the VA does not have to review a fiduciary's annual accounting, and when it does, it places an onerous burden on those fiduciaries who are serving out of love, not for monetary gain. This bill will implement a straightforward annual accounting requirement and gives the VA the opportunity to audit fiduciaries whose accounting is suspect.

I'd like to thank my colleagues on the committee on both sides of the aisle for their work in this bipartisan effort.

Mr. Speaker, take a look at this. Take a look at the regulatory red tape that's strangling America's small businesses, our job creators. Every time I travel up and down the Ohio River, businesses, both large and small, tell me that new regulations and the threat of more are keeping them from hiring and expanding.

Unemployment has been above 8 percent for the past 41 months, and America's job creators are speaking loud and clear that they want certainty. They want to grow and expand. And as a small business owner myself, I know firsthand the destructive burden of excessive regulation.

Today this House will take an important step toward freeing America's job creators from these excessive regulations. The Red Tape Reduction and Small Business Job Creation Act puts a stop to President Obama's unchecked power to issue costly and job-killing regulations on a whim. I encourage my colleagues to stand with me in supporting this legislation that will empower job creators to put America back to work.

Madam Speaker, we've long known that President Obama's takeover of our health care is bad medicine. And now that the Supreme Court has determined that it's one of the largest tax increases in American history, we've confirmed that it's bad policy.

As I travel up and down the Ohio River, I hear repeatedly that this disastrous law must be repealed and replaced with commonsense, patient- centered solutions that will grow our economy.

Today, the House will vote, once again, to repeal this law because it's full of broken promises covered up in empty political rhetoric.

President Obama promised us that this law would lower health care costs, but now we know it will cost more than double what was expected, almost $2 trillion.

We were promised that the law would create jobs, but 40 percent of American businesses tell a different story.

And finally, we were promised that we'd be able to keep our doctors, but a recent survey says that 83 percent of doctors have considered quitting over the law.

Free market and patient-centered solutions are not only good policies, but they are also the correct medicines for health care reform, not President Obama's Big Government takeover.

Mr. Chairman, today I rise in strong support of H.R. 4480, the Domestic Energy and Jobs Act. This important legislation begins to put in place a true all-of-the-above energy plan, a type of plan that has been missing since this President came into office in 2009.

This legislation will expand oil, gas, and renewable energy development on Federal lands to help increase the supply of energy and lower energy prices for consumers. It will also give relief to drivers who are paying high prices at the pump every month due to very costly EPA regulations that are scheduled to go into place.

This legislation also contains a bill that I introduced, the BLM Live Internet Auctions Act. This section of the bill is supported by my friends on the

opposite side of the aisle here and even the administration. The BLM Live Internet Auctions Act will bring the BLM Lease Auction program into the 21st century by allowing BLM to conduct online leases just like the private sector has been doing for over 10 years.

We hear a lot about an all-of-the-above energy policy. The President even talked about an all-of-the-above energy policy in the State of the Union. I'm convinced that what the President means by an all-of-the- above energy policy is anything all and above the ground, because it seems like he doesn't want us going after our own natural resources.

If we had an energy policy that said, Look, we're going to draw a line in the sand, and over the next 10 years we're going to become energy independent and secure in America, we're going to go after the trillions of barrels of oil that we already own, we're going to harvest the vast volumes of natural gas and oil that we own, we're going to continue to mine and harvest coal and use it environmentally soundly, we're even going to expand our nuclear footprint because it's the safest and most reliable form of energy on the planet, and, yeah, we'll even look at wind and solar and find out where those renewable energy sources fit into an overall scheme, but we're not going to sit on the sidelines any longer and be beholden to foreign countries for our energy, if we had that kind of vision backed with regulatory reform that said to the regulatory agencies like the EPA and the Department of the Interior, Starting today, you become partners in progress with America's industries and businesses--if you've a got a national security or public health or public safety reason for saying ``no,'' then say ``no.'' But don't let ``no'' be the final answer.

I think the American people have an expectation that their elected officials and the bureaucracies that are sent here to manage the American system are partners in progress, not barriers to progress.

I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 4480, the Domestic Energy and Jobs Act. I certainly do, and I urge them to, as well.

Mr. Chairman, today I rise in support of the Amodei amendment that would ensure that the Secretary of the Interior does not combine the two agencies with competing missions into the same agency.

Late last year, the Secretary of the Interior tried to merge the Office of

Surface Mining into the Bureau of Land Management. After spending months of time and valuable taxpayer dollars to look at the issue and holding multiple public meetings, the Secretary of the Interior realized two things: First, he realized that he didn't have the power to merge the two agencies; and secondly, he realized it was simply a bad idea. Now there are reports that the Secretary is looking at taking portions of Bureau of Land Management and moving them under the purview of the Office of Surface Mining.

The two facts that I just mentioned still hold true today. The Secretary doesn't have the power without it first being authorized by Congress, and the two agencies have competing missions. It simply doesn't make sense to combine the two agencies.

During a markup at Natural Resources earlier this year, I offered an amendment similar to this that stopped the Secretary of the Interior from combining the two agencies, and it passed on a voice vote. I would hope that this amendment passes in a similar fashion.

I am all for streamlining overlapping government functions and cutting wasteful government spending. However, in this case there are no overlapping functions or wasteful spending. For that reason, I urge all of my colleagues to support this amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong opposition to the Burgess-Markey amendment.

Put simply, if this amendment passes, our national security is at risk. The appropriation that this amendment seeks to strike is vital to ensure that America has a domestic source of uranium enrichment. According to U.S. law and nonproliferation treaties that the United States is signatory to, we must have a domestic source of uranium. International agreements prevent us from purchasing enriched uranium from foreign-owned companies for military purposes.

If the Burgess-Markey amendment passes, the U.S. would no longer have a domestic source of enrichment and would instead be reliant on a foreign-owned company that has many red flags in its past for uranium enrichment.

This amendment is a rerun of a similar attempt by Mr. Markey and our colleague from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce) during the debate of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act a few weeks ago to strip the authorizing language for this uranium research, development, and demonstration program. That amendment failed by an overwhelming vote of 121 300. Nothing--I repeat, nothing--has changed in the last few weeks since that vote and today.

Mr. Chairman, some of my colleagues are claiming that the RD&D program is some type of congressional earmark, but this is simply not true. The President of the United States requested the authorization and funding for the RD&D program in his budget request because the President has determined it is necessary for our national security.

Now, I may still be a freshman, but I know enough that, in order to be a congressional earmark, a Member of Congress would need to make the request for the program. That didn't happen.

Furthermore, in the NDAA legislation, Chairman McKeon added a provision to ensure that taxpayers are protected by requiring any company that participates in the RD&D program to put up their intellectual property rights as collateral. The IP rights are worth billions of dollars and far outweigh any amount of money that the Federal Government might put towards this program.

So to call this an earmark or a bailout is just simply not true.

The sponsors of this amendment have also tried to confuse Members by saying that we can satisfy our national security needs by down-blending existing uranium. While we may be able to do this in the near term, this argument is shortsighted at best.

What happens when the government runs out of inventory to down-blend and we no longer have a domestic capability to enrich uranium? The other side doesn't seem to have a good response for that question because they know the answer, and the answer is that we need to go forward with the RD&D program to ensure we have a domestic source in the future.

It seems some would rather ignore the long-term national security implications of having a domestic source of uranium enrichment. The fact is, if this amendment passes, our nuclear national security could be at risk.

Mr. Chairman, I will once again remind my colleagues that this amendment attempts to achieve the same goal that the failed Pearce- Markey amendment did a few weeks ago, and we already know that amendment failed by a very wide margin. I urge my colleagues to defeat this amendment to ensure that our national nuclear security is not outsourced to a foreign-owned company.

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

I need to point out this is not an earmark. It has already been determined that this is not an earmark. This is a question of whether or not the United States of America is going to maintain its superiority as the world leader and protect our ability to provide for our nuclear security.

The company in New Mexico, URENCO, is not an American-owned company. My colleague from Colorado has already made the comments very clearly. From the National Nuclear Security Administration, from the State Department, write on down the line, we are required to purchase these types of uranium-enriched products from a domestic, indigenous source. That's what this bill is about.

I would be the first one to agree that everything that we're doing in this session of Congress has to do with trying to grow our economy and create jobs. This is one area where national security is concerned where I believe it takes preeminence.

With that, I urge us to defeat this amendment.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4970, the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act.

Domestic violence is an all-too-common reality, occurring most everywhere here in the United States, and one that deeply impacts all involved. In Ohio alone, there were reportedly 70,717 calls in 2010 for domestic violence incidents. While not all of these resulted in criminal charges, it is vitally important that law enforcement have the knowledge and resources necessary to appropriately respond and investigate domestic violence calls. It is also crucial that all victims of domestic violence have access to the help they need to get out of a harmful situation and overcome not only physical abuse but the emotional scars that deeply impact the lives of victims.

I am confident that H.R. 4970 would play an integral role in alleviating domestic violence in our communities by providing more than $680 million for funding per year to help prevent domestic violence and protect victims of abuse. This legislation would also increase resources for sexual assault investigations, prosecutions, and victim services, in addition to strengthening penalties for abusers. Importantly, this legislation also seeks to promote awareness for the prevention of violence by funding State prevention education programs and enhancements for campus programs.

As a son, a husband, a brother to two sisters, a father of two grown women, and a grandfather of four little girls, I understand the importance of preventing domestic violence against women and also ensuring that all women have the necessary resources and protection should they ever be in need.

The number of occurrences of domestic violence, physical violence, and stalking within the United States is

staggering and simply unacceptable. It is my hope that this reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act will have an immediate impact on reducing domestic violence and improving services for its victims.

Mr. Speaker, growing up on that two-wheel wagon rut mule farm, I learned firsthand the critical role that America's farmers and ranchers play in our economy. And on the 150th anniversary of the United States Department of Agriculture, we are reminded that the average farmer in the United States feeds more than 150 people worldwide, creating countless jobs along the way.

Just think about where your bowl of cereal, your toast, and your pancakes came from this morning. The grain was planted, raised, harvested and sold, then bought, produced, marketed, and sold to you for your morning meal. Think about all those jobs that originated from one planted seed.

As the world's second largest producer and the largest exporter of agricultural products, a robust agriculture industry is critical to America's economic success. Today, I honor and thank America's farmers and ranchers who feed the world while putting America to work. And I commend the USDA on its anniversary for helping them do so.

Mr. Speaker, for almost 40 months, unemployment has been at or above 8 percent. That's too high for too long.

Right now, over 88 million people are not even considered in the workforce. These are people who have given up on searching for a job. It's time to restore economic freedom to America and put Americans back to work. This will happen when Washington stops being an obstacle to job creation through its overtaxing, overspending, overregulating practices, and starts promoting an economic environment where our job creators can do what they do best: create jobs.

Americans are ready to go to work. Just this past week, I sponsored a job fair in East Liverpool, Ohio, where hundreds of Ohioans showed up for a chance to enter the workforce. In fact, many job seekers actually left the job fair with renewed self-confidence, hope in the fact that they had a job to go to the next day, and a belief that the American Dream still might exist for them. We need to see more of this, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 8 o'clock and 18 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, April 17, 2012, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, today, House Republicans will stand up to business as usual in Washington and vote for a budget that will help our economy grow, guarantee the promise of Medicare for everyone, and put forth a true all-of-the-above energy strategy in America.

Now, compare this to President Obama's budget, one filled with more of his failed tax-and-spend policies, one in which he called for over $45 billion in new taxes on energy production. With prices surging at the pump--more than doubling since President Obama took office--it's unconscionable that he would want to further burden America's small businesses and families who are already struggling.

America sits on top of the largest amount of total recoverable energy resources in the world, including oil, natural gas, and coal. That's 1.3 trillion barrels of oil equivalent. Just imagine if we developed them as part of a real all-of-the-above strategy. Job creation would surge, gas prices would fall, and America would be one step closer to energy independence.

Madam Speaker, President Obama's job-killing EPA is at it again. Last year, the EPA proposed a rule on manganese alloy production that would close down the last two manganese alloy production facilities in America, costing over 500 direct American jobs and thousands of indirect jobs. One of the facilities is in my hometown of Marietta, Ohio.

These manganese alloys are vital raw components to the steel industry and are used in a wide variety of industries, including defense and the automotive industry, just to name two.

The proposed EPA rule would require scientifically unproven and costly process controls to be installed on the two facilities, and the EPA has ignored the warnings that if the proposed rule is finalized it will not be economically feasible for these plants to continue to operate.

Furthermore, if this rule is finalized, American steel companies will be forced to import this vital raw material from China or other foreign sources.

Today I will begin work with my House colleagues to ensure the EPA does not go forward with this job-killing rule.

Madam Speaker, it's worse than we thought. President Obama and his activist Interior Department are threatening an estimated 100,000 direct and indirect coal jobs, according to a new study. This is from the administration's proposed rewrite of the stream buffer zone rule that would cut coal production in half. Instead of developing one of America's most abundant resources, the Obama administration chooses to attack the coal industry and the jobs that go with it and would rather put the American taxpayer on the hook for failed companies like Solyndra.

This is unacceptable. We need solutions and real growth to create jobs through energy development, because the President's current policies continue to hurt America and are making our economy worse. House Republicans have a plan to stop President Obama's attack on coal. It's part of the plan for America's job creators that's being

blocked by President Obama and Senate Democrats. This failure of leadership is irresponsible, and it needs to stop.

Mr. Speaker, here's the sign at a gas station at the corner of Pike Street and I 77 in Marietta, Ohio: $3.69 for a gallon of unleaded regular. It's one example of surging gas prices across southeastern Ohio.

When President Obama took office, the price for a gallon of gas was $1.86. It has now doubled, and some estimate that it will be around 5 bucks by this summer. This is just one indicator that President Obama's energy policies have failed America and are continuing to make our economy worse.

He says that he wants an all-of-the-above approach to energy, but his actions do the exact opposite. In fact, President Obama cut oil production on Federal lands by 11 percent last year and he blocked the Keystone XL pipeline.

We can't afford President Obama's destructive energy policies anymore. Not only will increased energy production lower the price at the gas pump, but it will create much-needed jobs right now. Hardworking Americans need both, not more of the same from President Obama.