Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 3811. I feel strongly that the public and private sector should establish clear rules to protect Americans' personally identifiable information and an obligation to notify them promptly of any security or privacy breaches. The bill establishes a 48 hour notification requirement for any breaches of personally identifiable information from the Affordable Care Act Marketplaces. I would like to see an even shorter notice period, perhaps within 24 hours. However, whatever standard we use should apply to other government information systems. Moreover, we should take a comprehensive approach that also considers standards to protect consumers from involuntary disclosures of sensitive information from systems in the private sector. For example, private health insurance companies, which store large amounts personal health information, should also be subject to privacy and notification requirements. The recent incidents such as the massive data breaches at Target and Neiman Marcus illustrate the need for standards to be applied across the internet.

This bill's failure to protect consumers from the wide array of potential security lapses reveals it for what it is--simply another politically motivated attack on the Affordable Care Act. The obvious goal is to scare people away from using the internet-based Marketplaces to sign up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The truth is there have been no successful attacks on the site, it is continually being monitored, and stringent protocols exist should a breach occur. Moreover, because the Affordable Care Act prohibits insurance companies from discriminating against individuals with pre-existing health conditions, the website does not collect or store detailed health personal health information. This hastily drafted legislation also contains other flaws. Specifically, it lacks important exceptions for law enforcement requirements, which could threaten ongoing investigations.

Mr. Speaker, today's bill is not a policy solution; it's a scare tactic. There is no doubt that we must strengthen security features of all systems that contain American's personally identifiable information. I urge my Republican colleagues to work with Democrats on crafting serious, workable legislation to ensure the security of sensitive information on the internet.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2279, which would needlessly complicate efforts to clean up our most dangerous Superfund sites by letting polluters off the hook for cleanup costs and creating conflict and confusion between state and federal law.

One in four Americans lives within three miles of a hazardous waste site, frequently in vulnerable communities. These sites endanger human health, increasing risk for cancer, birth defects, acute poisoning, and injury from fire or explosion. They are also blights in communities-- vacant lots and underutilized land that that impede economic development.

Our nations' Superfund law, passed in 1980, gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to compel polluters to pay to repair the damage they caused, either by cleaning up themselves or by reimbursing the federal government for its cleanup efforts. The cleanup process requires assessing and ranking sites to prioritize the most hazardous areas, and working with states and private parties to remediate the land.

Today's bill would undermine the requirement that high-polluting industries obtain insurance or post bonds to ensure that areas would be cleaned up if they become Superfund sites, reducing the incentive to limit contamination and sticking taxpayers with the bill if cleanup is necessary. It would prohibit the EPA from enforcing financial responsibility requirements in any state that sets its own rules, even if those rules are inadequate to protect taxpayers. It also confuses federal and state responsibilities on cleanup sites, subjecting federal employees to fines or imprisonment if they fail to comply with state orders even when they conflict with federal law. This confusion will only lead to increased litigation, delay, and wasted resources.

Superfund sites are dangerous threats to public health and economic progress in our most vulnerable communities, and we should be working to make the cleanup process as seamless and efficient as possible. This legislation would hinder that effort, and I urge a no vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Gabriella Miller, a brave little girl who was taken from the world much too soon. I know Gabriella's parents are here in the House gallery and I want to express to them how sorry I am for their loss. Gabriella was a real fighter, not only for herself but for the thousands of other children across the country who are battling cancer. I'm pleased to join my colleague, Michael McCaul, in co-chairing the Congressional Childhood Cancer Caucus in the House. Over the years, I've had the privilege of meeting hundreds of young people like Gabriella and families like the Millers. I've heard their heartbreak and frustration, and share their commitment to finding a cure for this devastating disease. The National Institutes of Health play a critical role in this effort--conducting basic research toward finding cures, supporting clinical trials, and developing treatments for childhood cancer and other pediatric illnesses. I firmly believe that as a nation we should be investing more in pediatric research but the bill on the floor won't do that.

Today's bill purports to increase pediatric research by $13 million per year by terminating public financing for political conventions. Assuming last year's 5 percent sequester at NIH was spread evenly across their programs, then pediatric research would have been cut by roughly $182 million in 2013. The bill's $13 million would return less than 10 percent of the funding to pediatric research that was lost to sequester last year. On top of that, the bill doesn't actually appropriate any funding, but instead authorizes appropriations, which does not guarantee that these funds will be available.

Mr. Speaker, today's bill isn't a sincere effort to increase funding for pediatric research and it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Since the Republican majority took office in 2011, they've racked up a dismal record on NIH, having cut its budget by total of $4.2 billion or 13 percent when adjusted for inflation. If Republicans are really serious about pediatric research, and in fact want to put kids first, then they should work with us to replace the sequester with a balanced budget package.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of final passage of the FY2014 National Defense Authorization Act. I commend Chairman McKeon, Chairman Levin, Ranking Member Smith, and Ranking Member Inhofe for crafting a bipartisan bill that both strengthens the security of our nation and provides for vital programs that benefit our men and women in uniform and their civilian colleagues.

While not perfect, today's compromise legislation makes many key improvements over the Defense Authorization bill that the House voted on earlier this year. I am particularly encouraged that the final agreement we voted on today includes $80.7 billion in funding for overseas contingency operations (OCO), which is in line with the Pentagon's request. This is an important change from the $85.8 billion that was included in the House-passed authorization in June. Today's bill provides sufficient funds to fully meet the President's FY 2014 request for the war in Afghanistan while ensuring that the overseas contingency operations account will not become a slush fund for unrequested defense spending.

The final agreement also eases restrictions on the ability of DoD to transfer Guantanamo detainees and takes an important step in addressing our indefinite detention policy there. In particular, I am pleased that this bill drops a provision that would have barred the use of funds to transfer prisoners to Yemen and authorizes the Pentagon to transfer detainees to other foreign countries under certain conditions. More needs to be done when addressing our indefinite detention policy, but provisions such as these represent significant progress.

I am also encouraged by the changes this bill makes with regards to how the military responds to sexual assault cases. It adopts Senate language to bar individuals from joining the military if they have been convicted of a sex-related offense; it imposes a minimum sentence of dishonorable discharge or dismissal on those found guilty; and it prohibits commanders from dismissing a court martial finding or reducing the offense level of guilty findings.

Finally, the compromise bill does make some progress on allowing the Department of Defense to execute the New START Treaty. Specifically, it allows DoD to begin planning and preparation for implementing the force structure to meet the required limits of the New START Treaty. However, it still goes too far in limiting the President's ability to fully implement the treaty and set the country's nuclear policy.

I am also disappointed that this legislation authorizes the establishment of a missile defense site on the East Coast that the Pentagon continues to say is unnecessary. This provision disregards the advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and seeks to tie the President's hands in determining military requirements in other parts of the world. This bill also contains provisions which ignore DoD recommendations and continues to fund unrequested weapons systems and military aircraft, including the M1A2 Abrams tank, the C-130 AMP, and the UH-72A Light Utility Helicopter.

Despite these reservations, this compromise legislation is a marked improvement over the bill the House passed earlier this year. It contains many important provisions that will strengthen our national security while also providing for our troops and their families.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Innovation Act (H.R. 3309). While this legislation is not perfect, it represents an important step in our efforts to prevent patent assertion entities (PAE), commonly referred to as patent trolls, from extracting unfair and exorbitant settlements from innocent businesses through the threat of frivolous and expensive patent litigation.

This legislation ensures that when alleging infringement in a lawsuit, a party must at least identify what patents and claims are being infringed upon, and provide specificity as to how they are being infringed. This will provide more clarity and integrity to patent infringement claims, shining a light on the disingenuous claims from patent trolls.

Additionally, this legislation will help to protect the small businesses that have been accused of patent infringement for purchasing ubiquitous products and who are clearly not involved in the alleged infringement in a patent lawsuit. H.R. 3309 will allow for the action against the downstream customers to be stayed as the manufacturer of the product litigates the lawsuit. This is done so those with the knowledge of the production process, and not the innocent consumer, can argue the case--and it is only allowed if the customer agrees to be bound by the final judgment of the court.

I do, however, continue to have reservations with several provisions in this bill. Primarily, I oppose the provision that allows in some cases for the shifting of court and legal fees from the prevailing parties. I believe this provision has the potential to discourage legitimate patent infringement lawsuits by inventors and owners of intellectual property that may not be deep pocketed. I am also worried about the precedent that this reform could set with respect to protecting access to the courts for all Americans. I voted for the substitute amendment proposed by Ranking Member Conyers

and Congressman Watt, which I believe strikes a more equitable balance than this legislation and which did not contain any fee shifting provisions. I look forward to continuing to work with our colleagues in the Senate to produce an ultimate agreement that stops patent trolls and continues to protect the pursuit of legitimate patent infringement claims.

I thank my friend, Ms. Slaughter.

Mr. Speaker, I do believe that the budget agreement that was reached was a small but positive step forward, and I plan to talk about that a little later today; but what I want to talk about right now is the abuse of process that has taken place in the last 8 hours and the changing of the terms of that agreement.

During that agreement, the Democrats from the House and others put forward a proposal that said, as we deal with the budget issues, we should also deal with what we call the doc fix, making sure that doctors are fully reimbursed to help Medicare patients, but that we should also help folks who are about to lose their unemployment compensation. That is what we said, and we put it on paper and offered it. We said, if we do a doc fix for 3 months, we should do a UI extension for 3 months, and if we do a doc fix for a year, we should deal with the UI issue for a year; but that was not part of the budget negotiation even though we wanted it to be.

Chairman Ryan acknowledged that yesterday as did Senator Murray. They said we wouldn't deal with either of those two issues--the doc fix or the UI--as part of the budget agreement but that we would deal with them outside of that agreement. Yet the ink was barely dry, Mr. Speaker, on that agreement before the House Republicans and the Speaker of the House put forward a rule that injected the doc fix, which we support, into the budget agreement, so it is all going to be one whole thing.

They did that to take care of a real issue of the doc fix, but what did they leave out?

They left out an extension of unemployment insurance for 1.3 million Americans who are going to lose that important support 3 days after Christmas. They left that out of that last-minute procedure.

Now, as Mr. Levin said, he and I went to the Rules Committee last night and said, All right. If we are going to fix the SGR issue, let's deal with the unemployment compensation issue, and we presented an amendment. I have it in my hand--3 months. We said we would pay for it, and we paid for it, Mr. Woodall, in a way that has been agreed to on a bipartisan basis, which is in the ag bill negotiations, in the farm bill negotiations. We have already agreed on a bipartisan and on a bicameral basis to get rid of these excessive direct payments-- subsidies--that go to agribusiness. We had agreed on that already. As of now, we have agreed on it. Let's use $6 billion of that savings to make sure that 1.3 million Americans aren't left out in the cold.

So I would say to my friend Mr. Woodall: If you want to make this a bipartisan agreement, all you have to do is vote for it; and if you want to vote for it, you have got to give this House an opportunity to vote for it. Yet, while we are going to get a chance to vote on the doc fix and on the budget agreement, the Rules Committee and the Speaker of the House have told the American people you won't allow a vote to help 1.3 million Americans who are going to be left out in the cold. It is not just them and their struggling families, but the Congressional Budget Office that tells us that their surrounding communities are going to be hurt, too.

Why?

They won't be able to make the rent payments. They won't be able to go out to the local stores around Christmastime and the holiday season to buy gifts. That hurts local merchants, small businesses. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office tells us that we will have 200,000 fewer of those jobs--private sector jobs--as a result of not extending unemployment insurance.

So, Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely unconscionable and shameful, after we have reached an agreement in which we had wanted to include a fixed SGR and UI in the agreement but it was decided not to, that we would have this last-minute thing parachuted on and would leave the 1.3 million Americans out in the cold. That is shameful. You should allow a vote, and if you vote against the previous question, we will have a chance to do our job and vote on that.

Will the gentleman yield on that?

I thank my friend, Mr. Woodall, for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I would just point out--and I think the gentleman knows this--we have not seen a single proposal from our Republican colleagues to extend unemployment insurance because there is a philosophical difference and a majority of the Republican colleagues don't think we should extend unemployment compensation for 1.3 million Americans. We have not seen a proposal. We paid for this proposal in a way that has bipartisan support.

I will just say the question is whether we should be able to vote on it. My colleague and friends can vote against it, but I think the American people deserve a vote on this.

Will the gentleman yield for 30 seconds on that?

I thank my friend, Ms. Slaughter.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is right. As I said at the outset of my comments, I support the bipartisan agreement. I think it is a small step forward. But the gentleman knows we will be debating that issue later this afternoon.

Right now we are debating the rule of the House. That rule parachuted in a doc-fix for 3 months, which we support, but our Republican colleagues denied this House and the American people an opportunity to vote to extend UI in that rule. That is what we are debating right now, Mr. Woodall, and you know that.

The way that rule was structured was to deny the people of this country a vote to help 1.3 million Americans, and that is shameful.

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

I would like to start by commending my friend and colleague, Chairman Ryan, for working on this bipartisan agreement. I also want to congratulate our Senate colleague, Senator Patty Murray, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, for her efforts to get this done, along with many of our colleagues.

This agreement is far from perfect. It is not the budget agreement I or many of my colleagues would have written, but I do believe that, on balance, at the margin, it represents a small but positive step forward.

Mr. Speaker, I would not have been able to say that as recently as this past Monday and early Tuesday, but as a result of changes made, I think this is a positive step forward; and I want to commend my fellow conferees on the House side--Mr. Clyburn and Mrs. Lowey--as well as the efforts of Leader Pelosi, to make the changes necessary.

As a result of those changes, this is an agreement that many of our colleagues can now support, and that is for many reasons; but most of all, it results in a situation in which we will avoid the very deep and harmful cuts from the sequester, which, if this Congress does not act, will automatically take effect a few weeks from now. Those very deep and unproductive across-the-board cuts will create an unnecessary drag on the economy at a time when economic growth is building but still not nearly where it is. It will have a negative impact on job growth, and it will eat away at important national priorities and investments.

As a result of this agreement, in fiscal year 2014, we will be able to invest $25 billion more in vital national areas than we were in fiscal year 2013. Of those $25 billion investments, $22.5 billion will be in important areas of domestic investment: in areas of education, in areas of important scientific research like medical research at the National Institutes of Health. It will also provide, as Chairman Ryan has said, some certainty, which is very important at this point in time; and without this agreement, you would be guaranteed additional furloughs of Federal employees in the coming year, so I think it is a positive step forward.

I do, Mr. Speaker, want to express my extreme disappointment in one area. In the agreement, itself, as Chairman Ryan has acknowledged and as Senator Murray has recognized, we decided not to include what we call the doc fix and decided we would not include the unemployment insurance compensation extension. Many of us argued that we should include both of those in this agreement. In fact, House Democrats proposed an agreement along those lines. We believe that, if we are going to do the doc fix, which we think is important--making sure that doctors who provide services to Medicare patients are fully compensated--we should also make sure that individuals who are on long- term unemployment will not be left out in the cold 3 days after Christmas. It was decided that those elements would not be in the agreement, itself.

Yet, last night, at the 11th hour, the House Republican majority decided to insert the doc fix within this agreement. We support that doc fix, but we are very troubled that we have not even been allowed a vote to extend unemployment compensation.

The reality, Mr. Speaker, is, even without that, if we leave here without this agreement, we are not going to get the extension of unemployment insurance because the Speaker won't allow us to have a vote on that, so the only thing we would accomplish by defeating this budget agreement would be to go home with a lot of uncertainty and with the sequester guaranteed to hit in January. That is not a good result. This agreement is a better result. I will talk a little bit later about what we believe we should be doing in this Congress.

As the chairman said, this agreement doesn't match his vision nor does it match ours. We put forward a proposal that would focus a lot more on job creation, to try and invest more in our national infrastructure--in our roads and in our bridges and in our broadband-- so that we can put people back to work right now and accomplish important national priorities. We believe we should be focusing on early education, investing more in our future so we have job growth not only now from additional investments but so we ensure greater job growth in the future. There are other things that we think were important and part of this agreement which are not in here but that we will continue to fight for in the days ahead.

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

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Maryland (Ms. Edwards), my colleague and friend on the Transportation Committee.

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

I think this agreement is an acknowledgement--at least a majority on both sides, certainly on the Democratic side, a strong majority--that the sequester is a dumb and unproductive way to cut spending or to reduce the deficit.

What this agreement does is prevent that full sequester from taking place over the next 2 years. We believe that we should address and substitute the remaining sequester through a balanced approach of additional targeted cuts. But, Mr. Speaker, we also think we should close some of these special interest tax loopholes that benefit nobody except certain narrow interests that sometimes have undue sway here in the Congress.

But as my colleague said, we have different approaches, and our Republican colleagues have refused to close a single one of those special tax breaks or preferences for the purpose either of reducing the sequester or reducing the deficit. So we have different approaches. We wouldn't have chosen the offsets that are in here to pay for the sequester replacement. They are the result of a negotiation. As I said earlier, I believe on balance this is an important step forward.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), one of the people who was very important in this process, my good friend and colleague from New York, the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee and one of the conferees.

I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlelady.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), a good friend and colleague, one of the conferees who worked with us to move this agreement to a place where it was supported by many of us on the Democratic side, the assistant Democratic leader.

I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal), a terrific member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison), my friend.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time remains.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis), a great member of the Armed Services Committee.

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

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

I want to emphasize a point that we both made, which is that if we had our druthers, we would have approached this issue differently.

I do want to say with respect to some of the offsets, there are many of us who would have preferred to see the closures of many special interest tax breaks as part of the offsets in this legislation. We hope that as we go forward, we would agree that that is also a kind of wasteful spending in the Tax Code. If you give a special interest in this country some tax preference not enjoyed by others, you are simply raising the burden on everybody else. It is simply a form of spending through the Tax Code.

Mr. Speaker, as we address these issues going forward, whether it is replacing the sequester or reducing the deficit, as part of a balanced approach, we think we should take those into account as well.

We also proposed, as part of this measure, applying some of the excessive subsidies that we give to agribusinesses as part of the offsets, and our colleagues rejected those.

As has been said, this is a product of compromise, but I do want to let people know that it has been our preference to close some of those special interest tax breaks and use some of those excessive agriculture subsidies as offsets here rather than some of the provisions that are before us.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), our distinguished whip and somebody who has been working very hard on these budget issues and working with us also to make sure that this is done in as fair and equitable a manner as possible. He has worked with us very closely to make sure that Federal employees do not take a disproportionate share of the burden. And as a result of those efforts, current Federal employees will not be asked to bear additional burdens after having already borne so much of the burden.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman another minute.

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

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), a great member of the Judiciary Committee.

Is the gentleman prepared to close?

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

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Hoyer is right. This agreement does not address the comprehensive issues that we need to address. We need to address those in a balanced way, and that means working on both additional, smart, targeted spending cuts, but also closing special interest tax breaks.

But what this agreement does do is make sure that, in the next several weeks, we do not move to a full sequester, very deep across- the-board cuts, which will hurt the economy. Instead, it provides more room to invest in vital areas like education and research. That is a positive note. That is a positive bipartisan note.

I do want to say, Mr. Speaker, however, and this is not as a result of anything the chairman of the Budget Committee does, there is also a sour note in leaving here without having addressed the unemployment insurance.

This agreement didn't include the doc-fix, and it didn't include unemployment insurance. We should be dealing with both those issues together. We are only dealing with one of them now.

So I hope, as we go forward, we will address those issues; and we should not leave town until we address the unemployment issue.

But let's, at the same time, take this small positive step forward.

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

I want to thank my friend, Mr. Fattah; my friend, Ms. Fudge; and the entire CBC for organizing this time to honor the life of Nelson Mandela.

Nelson Mandela was a man who stood up so bravely to injustice. The power of his beautiful example inspired people around the world, stirred our hearts and stirred our conscience.

It was Nelson Mandela and the injustice of apartheid that first moved me to political activism. At the time, I was a student at Swarthmore College in the State of Pennsylvania. I joined the Swarthmore Antiapartheid Committee to urge and petition Swarthmore College to divest from South Africa. Young people at colleges around the country were moved to action.

I watched there as members of the Congressional Black Caucus here in the United States Congress worked to make sure that the United States stood up to the meaning that is in our founding creed that all people will be created equal. They were people like Congressman Gray and others, and Members who are members today of the CBC that are standing up.

And then, in 1985, I had the privilege of going to work as one of the foreign policy advisers to a great Maryland Senator by the name of Mac Mathias, who served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and was one of the sponsors of the legislation to impose economic sanctions against South Africa because of the evil of apartheid.

It was Senator Mathias, Senator Kennedy, and Senator Lugar, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, working in the Senate along with the CBC in the House of Representatives and others who said the United States cannot stand by while the evil of apartheid is in place. We must answer the call of Nelson Mandela.

Certainly, my proudest moment as a staff member to Senator Mathias on those days on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was, first, when the United States Congress passed that legislation and then on a bipartisan basis overrode the veto of then-President Reagan, showing how the democratic process in this country would work to stand up for justice.

As we confront issues here at home and around the world, we would do well by remembering the example of Nelson Mandela as we confront other issues of justice and peaceful reconciliation.

Mr. Speaker, today's legislation would amend the Investment Advisors Act of 1940 to generally exempt private equity fund investment advisors from its registration and reporting requirements, subject to certain conditions.

Proponents of this legislation argue that private equity funds were not the source of systemic risk during the most recent financial crisis and therefore that their investment advisors should not be subject to registration and reporting requirements under current law. While private equity funds can play an important role in capital formation, and I would agree that private equity funds were not the principal source of systemic risk during the last financial crisis, that does not mean it would be impossible for private equity firms to become a source of systemic risk at some point in the future.

Moreover, as Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White has pointed out, registration and reporting requirements are not used solely for systemic risk prevention. Just as importantly, they are also used for investor protection. In that regard, it is worth noting that the SEC has brought enforcement actions against unscrupulous private equity funds involving unlawful pay to play schemes, insider trading, conflicts of interest, valuation issues and misappropriation of assets. This investor protection function will become even more important once the SEC finalizes implementation of a provision in the recently enacted Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act permitting the general solicitation and advertising of private equity funds and private securities.

For these reasons, I will be opposing this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to salute Barry Kevin Sullivan on the occasion of his retirement as the Director of the Democratic Cloakroom after over 30 years of service to the House of Representatives and to our nation.

Barry came by his love for public service naturally. A native of South Boston, his father Leo served in the Massachusetts State Legislature and also as Boston Police Commissioner. After earning a degree in political science from Boston State College, Barry spent a few years on Beacon Hill before arriving in Washington in 1980 where he was mentored by two giants of this institution: Former Speaker Tip O'Neill and former Congressman Joe Moakley. Barry quickly became the heart and soul of the Democratic Cloakroom. Members of Congress count on him to be first to know what is happening on the floor, and he has a well-deserved reputation as the consummate professional.

While we will always miss Barry, I wish him and his wife Barbara the very best as they leave D.C. and get to enjoy some well-deserved family time on the Cape they love so much.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R. 1965, a bill that would unnecessarily and irresponsibly give away public lands to Big Oil, even as U.S. oil production is at a 24-year high and the oil industry receives billions of dollars in tax breaks per year.

H.R. 1965 would remove the safeguards that protect taxpayers and public lands by requiring the Interior Department to grant leases on 25 percent of the land requested by oil companies every year and imposing strict deadlines on application review, automatically approving leases after just 60 days even if safety and environmental reviews are not yet complete. It would also enact barriers to public review--if a community wanted to challenge a leasing decision, it would have to pay a $5,000 fee to be heard. If a case took more than 60 days to adjudicate, it would be automatically denied.

Mr. Chairman, under this Administration, domestic oil production has increased by 35 percent on Western public and Indian lands. Oil and gas companies are currently only developing about a third of the public lands they already lease. This bill, which would prioritize energy production over hunting, fishing, grazing, conservation, and every other use of public lands, will not reduce energy prices or increase energy security. It would simply cede control of natural resources held in public trust to already-profitable big oil companies. I urge a no vote.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2728, which would prevent the federal government from ever implementing a uniform baseline level of safety and environmental protection in hydraulic fracturing operations across the country.

Today's bill would preempt a rulemaking process that is not yet completed and require the federal government to defer to state regulations of fracking on public lands, no matter what those regulations may be. Moreover, because the bill forbids the Department of the Interior from exercising oversight over ``any component of' the fracking process, it could prevent application of basic protections under a variety of existing environmental laws.

States vary widely in their efforts to manage the expanded use of hydraulic fracturing and the federal government has a responsibility to provide a minimum baseline of oversight to protect our public lands, public safety, and public health. H.R. 2728 would block any proposed standards and impede existing law, and I urge a no vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 1900, which would place new, arbitrary deadlines on the pipeline permitting process at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and related agencies.

H.R. 1900 attempts to solve a problem that simply doesn't exist. The Government Accountability Office has given FERC's permitting process good marks, saying that it is predictable and consistent for applicants. Under this bill, FERC would have a year to consider any project, no matter how many miles it may cover or how complex it may be. Other agencies, like the Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Fish and Wildlife Service, would have to issue decisions on licenses or permits related to the project within 90 days of FERC's issuance of its final environmental document, even if the project applicant does not actually apply for a permit or submit the required information within that time frame. If the agency failed to meet this deadline, the permit or license would be ``deemed approved'' and FERC would be permitted to overrule any conditions the agency requests.

By needlessly short-circuiting the review process, this bill jeopardizes the environment and public health. While we all support timely review, we should provide adequate time for analysis of complex projects. A one-size-fits-all process with arbitrary deadlines prevents federal agencies from doing their job to protect taxpayers and communities. I urge a no vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2655, the misleadingly-named ``Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act.'' This legislation would amend Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to reinstate a previous, failed version of the rule that was in place from 1983-1993.

Rule 11 allows for the imposition of sanctions on the plaintiff in a civil case if it is determined that a claim lacks sufficient evidence. Currently, Rule 11 allows judges to exercise discretion in determining when to impose these sanctions. This bill, H.R. 2655, mirrors the policy from 1983-1993, when Rule 11 was amended to mandate that sanctions be automatically applied regardless of the specific circumstance of a Rule 11 violation. This policy erodes judicial discretion by forcing judges to apply sanctions in every instance of a violation regardless of the merits. The effect of this change was--and would be under H.R. 2655--disastrous for our judicial system and victims alike. For this reason, the Judicial Conference, the American Bar Association, and the American Association for Justice all strongly oppose this legislation.

As the Judicial Conference Chairs wrote to Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. in July, from 1983-1993, the ``. . . mandatory sanctions provision quickly became a tool of abuse in civil litigation. Seeking to use mandatory sanctions to their advantage, aggressive lawyers filed motions for Rule 11 sanctions in response to virtually every filing in a civil case. Much time and money was spent in Rule 11 battles that had everything to do with strategic gamesmanship and little to do with underlying claims.'' The Judicial Conference also points out that the 1993 rule changes that corrected this misguided policy ``. . . followed years of examination and were made on the Judicial Conference's strong recommendation, with the Supreme Court's approval, and after congressional review.''

Unfortunately, we are wasting precious legislative days in this Congress re-litigating this already-solved issue. All empirical evidence from the 1983-1993 existence of the mandatory sanctions points to increased litigation costs and a distraction from the administering of justice.

I urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 2655.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to H.R. 982, the misleadingly-named ``FACT Act.'' When the Congress should be considering important legislation to replace the sequester, address our budget deficits in a balanced way, and reform our broken immigration system, we are instead using our scarce legislative time to consider this cynical, counterproductive bill that specifically targets victims suffering from diseases caused by asbestos exposure.

Under the cloak of ``transparency and accountability,'' this legislation would needlessly force asbestos trusts to release personal claim information about victims. It would also allow asbestos defendants to demand unlimited and irrelevant information from asbestos trusts--at any point in a proceeding. The cynical intent of this provision is to burden the asbestos trusts with so many requests for information (from deep-pocketed, corporate defendants) that they will have to spend time and resources fulfilling those information requests, thus delaying trust recoveries by victims. This is especially concerning considering mesothelioma usually kills its victims within 4 to 18 months of diagnosis.

Finally, the allegations of fraud within the trust process are simply untrue. The error rate in the asbestos trust process has been shown to be less than one-half of one percent. Any examples of fraud found are rare and isolated incidents, and are aptly addressed by state courts. Simply put, this legislation is nothing but a legislative handout to the corporations that have (and continue to) subject workers to unsafe working conditions. The one-sided nature of this bill was further exposed when its supporters defeated an amendment that would have required the corporate defendants to disclose information about the location of their disease-causing asbestos products.

I urge my colleagues to vote against H.R. 982.