Floor Statements

Offered By: Mrs. Lummis

Amendment No. 194: Page 266, strike line 12 and insert ``on

February 27, 2008 (73 Fed. Reg. 10514 et seq.) without''.

Offered By: Mrs. Lummis

Amendment No. 195: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mrs. Lummis

Amendment No. 254: Page 170, line 22, after the dollar

amount, insert ``(reduced by $1)''.

Page 183, line 13, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $1)''.

Mr. Chair, on rollcall No. 23 I was absent because I was having a root canal.

Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 24, because I was having a root canal, had I been present, I would nave voted ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this resolution. I rise to add the voice of the people of Wyoming to the chorus of united Americans reaching out in prayer to the victims in Arizona and to the families of those whose lives were stolen from them.

On January 6, Representative Gabrielle Giffords took to the floor of this House and eloquently read to us the First Amendment of our Constitution. She gave her own strong emphasis to the phrase that grants Americans the right to peaceably assemble. Two days later, she and her constituents have had their God-given rights violently taken from them.

In the midst of our national grief, the desire to make sense of the senseless is profound. We err if we attempt to rationalize what is wholly irrational and to understand what cannot be understood. The Apostle Paul writes, ``Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror.''

Instead, let us all stand with the gentlelady from Arizona in her time of trial and in defense of the Constitution which she is striving to uphold. Let us stand with our 9-year-old daughters who are fostering a budding interest in our representative democracy. Let us stand with our 76- and 79-year-old mothers and fathers who seek only to forge a relationship with their elected representatives and to impart a wisdom that comes with long life as a citizen of this country. And let us stand with our servant leaders of all ages and parties and to spend every day in a passionate effort to better a great Nation and a beautiful ideal.

We do them honor if we continue, not with idle speculation, but with a renewed commitment to exercise the rights of liberty and freedom. We begin the long road to healing by fervently praying for peace in our world, peace in our country, and peace in our hearts.

God bless the victims of Saturday's violence and their families. God bless America. And now may the peace of God which surpasses all human understanding and all human misunderstanding be with us all.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the University of Wyoming Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2010.

This year's inductees include Norwegian skiers Steinar Hybertsen and Staale Engen, who was also recognized for his accomplishments in track and field along with Karen Sanford Gall of Casper, Wyoming.

Cowboy wrestler Jerry Frude of Laramie is inducted alongside football players Bob Jacobs of Bozeman, Montana, and Chuck Lamson of Ames, Iowa.

And rounding out this year's class is the 1966 Pokes football team that won the Western Athletic Conference title, then finished with a 10-1 record by beating Florida State 28-20 in the Sun Bowl.

I extend my congratulations to all the student-athletes voted into the University of Wyoming Hall of Fame Class of 2010 on their outstanding accomplishments and their inspiration to Wyoming's community of fans.

Powder River Let'r Buck and Go Pokes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to urge my colleagues to support my proposal to halt the unchecked growth of the Federal Government.

In selling the $1.1 trillion stimulus package to the American people, the President promised that it would keep unemployment under 8 percent. The results of this expensive experiment are in. It failed. We have lost millions of private-sector jobs, and unemployment is hovering just under 10 percent. But the Federal workforce, fueled by the stimulus and other massive spending bills, has grown by 188,000 employees--or 15 percent--and it's only going to get worse. The Obama administration is on track to hire 230,000 new employees by next year.

As we approach the full implementation of ObamaCare in 2014, our government will have to staff a vast new health care bureaucracy. This could include thousands of new IRS employees to enforce the health care mandate on individuals and businesses.

My bill, the Federal Workforce Reduction Act, would halt the sprawl of government and get us back to pre-Obama government employment levels. My bill would not force any civil servant out of their job, and it would exempt the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs. But all other agencies could only hire one new civilian employee for every two that retire or otherwise end their service.

Our President and his agency heads would have to control their appetite for government expansion. They would make due with fewer resources--just like the individuals, families, and small business owners who have had to make sacrifices and cut back to deal with the recession.

By attrition the government would shrink back to pre-Obama levels and save taxpayers $35 billion over 10 years. But most importantly, my bill would help reverse a dangerous trend in which the private sector shrinks and the government sector expands. Growing the government does nothing to help our small businesses--the engines of job creation.

Taxing to give people less money and the government more money to expand does not help the economy. Yet the Big Government chameleon-- debt-financed stimulus, cap and tax, ObamaCare, tax increases coming this January--continues to roam the halls of Congress, threatening to choke off the entrepreneurial spirit that built this country.

Important decisions that should be made by individuals, families, their doctors, or our small businesses are being relocated to Washington to be made by unresponsive bureaucrats. The policies of the Democratic leadership are fostering a culture of dependency on Big Government. They are marching us towards European-style social democracy.

But there is another way. Vote for this provision, cut spending and government employment back to pre-stimulus levels. Stop the big march of government.

Mr. Chairman, Americans want the spill cleaned up, BP to pay for it, jobs to be restored, and the Federal Government to do a better job of inspecting for worker safety and environmental safety. To my colleagues in the majority party, we agree. Take ``yes'' for an answer.

But what does this bill do? It raises taxes, it removes the BLM land managers from doing land management and over the objection of the Director of the Bureau of Land Management. Only Congress would view this bill as a response to what Americans want.

No wonder Congress has an approval rating of 11 percent. This is nuts, Mr. Chairman. This is nuts.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3967 renews the authority to spend appropriations for the Great Blacks in Wax Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. A legislative hearing was held on this bill, but, unfortunately, the National Park Service did not provide us with any information about this program or the necessity to fund it. What we did learn is that this program will be funded and overseen through the Department of Justice, leaving us with even more questions, not the least of which is why this bill went through a public lands committee.

That being said, I am concerned that extending Federal spending at this time may not be appropriate until we can better understand how this program will be administered and what has been done in the last 6 years since it was originally authorized.

Finally, while I have no doubt that the Great Blacks in Wax Museum is a positive influence in the City of Baltimore, it is unclear why it is necessary to involve the Federal Government in the wax museum industry. This may be yet another highly illustrative example of why we are buried by overwhelming Federal debt.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, this bill authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to study the suitability and feasibility of designating the Colonel Charles Young Home in Xenia, Ohio, as a unit of the National Park Service. The bill also directs the Secretary to consider other initiatives for protection of the home and interpretation of the life and accomplishments of Colonel Young.

Colonel Young was the third African American to graduate from West Point and had a distinguished career in the U.S. Army from 1884 to 1922, including command of troops in the Spanish-American War. Colonel Young is also the first black to serve, in effect, as the superintendent of a national park, because he commanded the Army unit assigned to protect Sequoia National Park and General Grant National Park. Colonel Young served our country with great distinction, and I hope this study will help us find appropriate ways to honor his life.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, this bill authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to study the suitability and feasibility of designating sites on Rota as a unit of the National Park System. With now almost 400 parks, our far- flung National Park System is already vast and, under this bill, will be extended further to include the island of Rota in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Rota's caves and prehistoric relics should be appropriately preserved and its limestone forests and sites commemorating the Japanese occupation properly managed. But it is a mistake to assume that designation as a national park is the only way or is always the best way to manage places that require special administration.

Although our good intentions adding to the park system are unlimited, our ability to pay for every conceivable new park is limited. And our ability to manage the upkeep of our existing parks is obviously in doubt. So I feel compelled to raise a note of caution about this and certain other bills that add to the already very long list of new park ideas awaiting evaluation by the National Park Service.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Austria).

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

H.R. 4438 has both fiscal and policy problems. The stated purpose of this bill is to expand the park by an additional 151 acres. The reasons for the expansion are vague, but the CBO cost estimate is fairly precise, $4 million. Add to this another $350,000 that will be spent by the National Park Service to determine whether it wants even more property.

The current level of Federal spending is too high to rubber-stamp the flood of plans to expand our government's property holdings. Our parks are important assets, but I question the wisdom of going further into debt to continually expand Park Service holdings while our existing parks face a $9 billion backlog in maintenance and upkeep.

I am pleased that the Resources Committee did include one Republican amendment to prohibit takings by condemnation. However, under this bill, property owners who have not consented to being included within the expanded boundaries of this park may find themselves fending off the unwanted attention of Federal officials pursuing their land. This can be an overwhelming burden and not one with which we should yoke the American people.

I am also concerned that national parks are increasingly being used by litigation-prone environmental activists and by some in the National Park Service to control activities outside the congressionally determined boundaries of each park.

De facto buffer zones have been used to interfere with energy projects that are planned near and even far from national parks.

To restrain this particular abuse, Republicans offered amendments in the Resources Committee to prevent the park designation from being misused to prohibit construction and maintenance of power generating facilities, whether coal-fired, wind or solar. With some people opposed to almost any new power facility, and others opposed only to those near their backyards, this has been an escalating problem. The National Park Service has participated in killing or delaying affordable and renewable energy projects from coast to coast. Unfortunately, Committee Democrats rejected these commonsense amendments on nearly party-line votes, and those protections are not in this bill today.

Unfortunately, we are considering this bill under suspension of the rules and we are being denied the opportunity to offer amendments to salvage this flawed legislation. I urge my colleagues to exercise some fiscal restraint here today, support property rights, and oppose this bill.

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

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, between 1942 and 1945, Heart Mountain was one of 10 confinement facilities for Japanese Americans run by Franklin Roosevelt's War Relocation authority. At its peak, the camp confined nearly 11,000 people, most of whom were United States citizens.

This bill would authorize the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a Special Resource Study to determine the suitability and feasibility of designating the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in the State of Wyoming as a unit of the National Park System.

The park, if created, would be on Bureau of Land Management land and on land owned by the Wyoming Heart Mountain Foundation.

Former United States Senator Alan Simpson and former Congressman and Secretary of Commerce and Transportation, Norman Mineta, met each other as boys when the future Secretary Mineta was interned at Heart Mountain and future Senator Simpson was growing up in Park County.

Both now serve on the board of the Wyoming Heart Mountain Foundation. Under their leadership, the foundation is currently building an interpretive center that is scheduled to open next year. If the park is created, the Wyoming Heart Mountain Foundation has indicated its willingness to donate its land to the Park Service. No additional acquisition of private land is contemplated. Creation of this park has strong local support in Park County, Wyoming. And as the author of the bill, I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for it.

Mr. Speaker, though the gentlelady from Guam raises an excellent point about the fact that I have questioned the propriety during these tough economic times of purchasing land in the previous bill, H.R. 4686, that is a proposal for the National Park Service to purchase land, and authorizing $4 million to do so, whereas the Heart Mountain proposal is to donate the land if the National Park Service chooses to accept it and recommend it as a unit of the National Park Service. That is the difference in the bills, Mr. Speaker.

I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4773 would allow the Savannah Bar Pilots Association to continue leasing a facility at Fort Pulaski National Monument, as they have done since the 1940s. The National Park Service supports this legislation, and we are pleased that this is one piece of legislation that will not place additional burdens on American taxpayers.

I urge my colleagues to support the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.