Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I am astounded that you can use the words ``torture'' and ``waterboarding'' as though you were not on the committee of jurisdiction knowing about it as an ex-officio at the time it is to have occurred. I am shocked that this is going to be all about a procedure or procedures that in fact the Speaker of the House had the ability to know about and condoned for years. I am shocked that the Speaker of the House would speak about David Petraeus, when in fact David Petraeus has said publicly and privately: ``You know, on the battlefield of Iraq, I can kill the enemy, but I can't listen to him if he calls America.''

This today should be about what we haven't done. We haven't taken up the Senate's FISA bill. We haven't dealt with the fact that we are in danger every day, and as a member of the intelligence community, I know just how damaging the absence of action has been.

This bill has become a partisan bill, and wrongly so. I call on my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to fix it and move on, rather than complaining about something that the Speaker is well aware of.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on behalf of my bill H.R. 29. the Santa Margarita Conjunctive Use Project. I would like to thank Chairmen Nick Rahall and Ike Skelton for quickly moving this bill through their respective committees. This is now the third Congress in which this bill has passed the house, and I hope the Senate will act just as quickly.

The Santa Margarita Conjunctive Use Project is very important to U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton and the city of Fallbrook. In 1966 the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California entered a stipulated judgment in U.S. v. Fallbrook P.U.D. directing the Department of the Interior to provide a ``physical solution'' to the 60/40 allocation of the Santa Margarita River. Since then, previous legislative efforts to authorize a project carrying out the Federal judge's mandate have not been successful despite past support of Members of the California Congressional delegation. Finally, through a long process of negotiation between the Marine Corps and the city, this conjunctive use project was agreed upon. This design was deemed to fully implement the court's directive at far less than half the cost of previous proposals with no environmental degradation.

Furthermore, passage of this authorization for the conjunctive use project is essential to giving Camp Pendleton access to the San Diego Aqueduct. Since its completion, the aqueduct has provided ample access to Southern California's regional water supply system for nearly all of San Diego County, except for Camp Pendleton. A key benefit of H.R. 29 will be the construction of a water system physically connecting Camp Pendleton to the San Diego Aqueduct, thereby making it possible to use imported water as needed, including emergency mobilization in time of conflict.

The conference report for the Fiscal Year 2003 Omnibus Appropriations Act directed the Bureau of Reclamation, under the Santa Margarita River feasibility authorization, to ``. . . perform the studies needed to address current and future municipal, domestic, military, environmental, and other water uses from the Santa Margarita River.'' Funding for Reclamation's feasibility study of the Santa Margarita Conjunctive Use Project has been provided in each subsequent fiscal year up to the present, and its work is more than 90 percent complete. When signed into law, this project will be funded by the Department of Navy and Department of the Interior. This project is essential to ensure that Camp Pendleton has a larger water supply to meet the current and future needs of the base.

This project has been vetted by multiple committees over a number of years and found to be of the utmost importance to the Marines at Camp Pendleton, while also benefiting the city of Fallbrook. It will provide for enhanced recharge and recovery from the underground basin on Camp Pendleton to provide a constant water supply for the base, along with a safe, reliable, drought-and earthquake-proof water supply for more than 35,000 families.

Again, I thank my colleagues for working with me and my constituents to move H.R. 29 through the legislative process.

Madam Speaker, 1 minute is just the right amount of time to deal with an issue that is as simple as this: we cannot allow our enemies abroad to have secrets, and we must maintain the secret of how we discover, uncover, reveal, and react to their attempts to hide their activities, including the attempt to kill Americans. That's what this is all about. That's what we are looking for within the next 15 days. I am supportive of this bill because I want to make sure that we cover these two points.

It is not enough to simply attack your enemy when he attacks you. We clearly have to know what he intends to do, including when he communicates with his operatives in America from overseas; and we very clearly need to not let our enemies, through discovery in more than 40 lawsuits leveled against all of our communications companies, uncover what they may or may not have done.

I want to make sure that we understand: it is not just what communications companies may have done. We do not want our enemies to know what they may not have done.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the ``Performance Rights Act,'' which was introduced today. This legislation, long in the making, has the simple goal of requiring that those who generate revenue from the use of music, pay for the use of music.

Terrestrial broadcasters have a strong and meaningful relationship with the American public. There are few of us who do not have wonderful memories that are accompanied by music played over a radio, and fewer still who have not tuned in to hear news, traffic or emergency information. The American radio tradition is akin to apple pie or baseball. It is part of the American consciousness, and, with the help of HD radio, will remain so.

Even so, the past few decades have seen huge changes in how people consume music. Terrestrial radio once dominated new music awareness. This fact meant that if a consumer wanted to buy a song, they were likely to hear it on the radio first. Radio therefore had a dramatic promotional impact on music sales. However, even at the outset of mass music broadcasting in the United States, when Congress exempted terrestrial radio from paying artists a royalty, terrestrial radio was making money off of artists' work and paying nothing for it.

As time went on and records lost market share to 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs, and now MP3s, and terrestrial radio lost market share to cable radio, internet radio and satellite radio, consumer dependence upon terrestrial radio gradually decreased. Terrestrial radio no longer serves the same promotional role for music sales that it once did, but terrestrial radio is still exempt from paying a royalty to artists. Additionally, the other music platforms do pay for the right to broadcast music.

The ``Performance Rights Act'' encourages parity in music broadcasting by requiring terrestrial broadcasters to pay for the music they use. Stations that gross over $1,250,000 will negotiate with artists to pay a fair royalty. ``Small'' stations, those grossing under that amount, can opt to pay a flat rate of $5,000. Public broadcasters can elect to pay a flat rate of $1,000. Talk radio that only uses music incidentally is exempt from paying as are religious services. All together, approximately 77 percent of all radio will have to pay artists virtually nothing to use music. This bill is not the boogeyman that detractors will make it out to be.

However, this bill is, I believe, unfinished. The songs that individuals consume via terrestrial, satellite, cable, and internet radio contain the same notes and the same voices regardless of which platform does the broadcasting. Yet they pay different rates, sometimes vastly different rates. We need to look further into these disparities, and I look forward to working with Chairman Howard Berman and others on correcting any inconsistencies in current law.

The arguments that supported exempting terrestrial radio from paying a performance right have been eroded by the passage of time and technological innovation. We all yearn for the nostalgia of yesteryear and American terrestrial radio is a big part of that, but our recollections of the past do not support injustices into the future. Radio has changed. Terrestrial radio should pay for the right to use the music from which it benefits.

Mr. Speaker, as we on a bipartisan basis support this resolution, I would yield to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry) such time as he may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from the First Congressional District of Nebraska (Mr. Forten- berry).

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

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in bipartisan support of this resolution with my colleague from the District of Columbia in honoring the first responders and citizens who were lost and who dealt with this extreme storm in such a valiant way.

All of us know the beauty of Mount St. Helens. All of us know the beauty of the region, but few of us outside the region can understand the strength of the storm that flooded whole communities, battered trees, roadways, and destroyed power for entire communities and left at least eight dead. In the aftermath, as the waters recede, we in Congress join with the people of Oregon and Washington in banding together to rebuild their community and their tattered region. But more importantly, we thank the first responders who, as appropriately people sought cover and safety, went out to deal with the effects of this storm at risk of life and limb.

I yield back the balance of my time and urge support for this important resolution.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Con. Res. 254, which recognizes and celebrates the 100th anniversary of Oklahoma statehood.

Mr. Speaker, Oklahoma is a State that takes energy production so seriously that it has oil wells on the grounds of the Governor's mansion. It is a State people were so anxious to move into that they jumped the gun in claiming homesteads and entered sooner. That is where the nickname comes from, the Sooner State.

Mr. Speaker, at a time in which energy independence is talked about but not achieved, in which States like our own, California, are major energy producers but less than half of the oil that it consumes, Oklahoma continues to aggressively find the resources that lie beneath it and to make it available for us.

Additionally, throughout its heartache, Oklahoma has given us Gene Autry. I won't skip over Brad Pitt. It has given us music. It has given us both country and a number of other great venues. But, most of all, it gave us J.C. Watts, the longest winning streak in history in college football, and they are proud of it. And, last but not least, it gave us Will Rogers.

So as we look at Oklahoma, a State that takes oil seriously, that in fact was rushed into because it was such a great place, I also join with my colleagues in supporting this resolution recognizing that, after 100 years, Oklahoma is still a meaningful and important part of this great Nation.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support of this resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I join with my colleague from the District of Columbia in supporting the naming of this post office after Lance Corporal Dennis Veater. He was a dedicated marine who enlisted in 2004 upon his high school graduation and entered the Marine Corps Reserve at age 17, following in the footsteps of his marine sergeant major father. Lance Corporal Veater wanted to serve his country, and he wanted to make a difference.

On March 9, 2007, just 2 weeks before his scheduled return to the United States, Lance Corporal Veater was mortally injured while conducting combat operations in Anbar province, Iraq.

He leaves behind his fiancee, whom he planned to marry upon his return, and his 14-month-old son, Dominick.

Lance Corporal Veater did not die in vain. Today Anbar province is safer because of the work he and the other marines did there. I join with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle in thinking it is very important to remember this man and the work he did for his family back home.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield for such time as he may consume to the gentleman who now seeks to fill the shoes left by the passing of our colleague and friend, Mr. Gillmor, Mr. Bob Latta.

(Mr. LATTA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I join with my colleague in urging support for this bill. I traveled extensively with Paul Gillmor. He was a close friend of Henry Hyde and loved to be an advocate for a better understanding not just of the State of Ohio, but of our Nation abroad. It is very befitting that we do this and do it in a timely fashion. I move support for the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge passage of S. 2174, to designate the U.S. Post Office at 175 South Monroe Street in Tiffin, Ohio, as the ``Paul E. Gillmor Post Office Building.''

Mr. Speaker, I doubt I've ever had an easier sell when it comes to convincing my colleagues to support legislation.

As was noted repeatedly on this floor when Paul died on Sept. 5 at his home in Arlington, he was a man we all liked, even those of us on the other side of the political aisle.

A small-town banker, a businessman, a Vietnam War vet, a former Judge Advocate General, a husband and father of five, he was known to all of us as a man who worked hard for and cared deeply about his constituents, who spent most of his life in service to his country and who, just 12 days before his death, was touring flood-ravaged areas of his beloved Ohio and trying to see how he could help.

He was a moderate, an effective legislator and, most importantly and most memorably, a

gentleman with all the best that word represents.

I urge my colleagues to bestow this one last honor on our friend from the Buckeye State.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge passage of H. Res. 816, congratulating the Colorado Rockies for winning the National League Championship and participating in the World Series.

Mr. Speaker, to go to the World Series is to be special. To win it is a 50-50 chance. So I think it is appropriate when we look at a team that had won 21 of 22 games, defeating the Philadelphia Phillies in the Division Series and the Arizona Diamondbacks for the National League Championship to claim their spot in the World Series that, in fact, we in Congress take a few moments before our colleagues, many of them arriving back from their districts, to add this to what we will celebrate for America tonight, because nothing is greater to celebrate for America than its pastime of baseball, particularly at a time when we are cleaning up baseball.

So with that, there's no asterisk behind this resolution, and I urge its support.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I served with Congressman Dan Miller. He, unlike most Members of Congress, came here, said he would stay for a period of time, as the Founding Fathers thought, and return to his life at home.

He was elected from the 13th District of Florida in 1992, and after 10 years, five terms, retired in 2003. He did so not to seek higher office, not for any reason except that he felt that he came here for a period of time, served for the time he'd promised, and went back. He has, in fact, returned to his life and appropriately has resettled in southwest Florida at the University of South Florida.

I look forward to seeing him up here again some day. I look forward to his continued process of participating here in helping those of us in Congress.

It is unusual for a Member of Congress to come, stay for a period of time, and not return to lobbying, not seek higher office, but in fact to go back to being the citizen that he can be and to give to his community and to be available should we need him.

Mr. Speaker, I join with my colleagues and the Government Reform Committee that unanimously voted this out in urging the passage of the Dan Miller Post Office.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I rise in support of the naming of this post office the Dock M. Brown Post Office Building. Dock Brown was a dedicated public servant, a member of the community, and a shining example as a local leader.

A veteran of the Korean war, Mr. Brown served his community as an educator and a politician. During a more than 30-year tenure as a teacher and principal at Halifax County, North Carolina, he also served on the community health board, chaired the county election board and served 19 years on the mental health board. Truly, this was a community leader and appropriate for naming of a post office in his hometown.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield such time as she may consume to the gentlelady, Mrs. Emerson, who, in her own right, is recognized as a leader in service to the hungry and unfortunate.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support and join with my colleagues in supporting and sponsoring the gentlelady from Missouri's bill, H.R. 4220, the Federal Food Donation Act of 2007.

As Mrs. Emerson said so well, the effort to aid nonprofit organizations to serve the hungry will be advanced by this bill and its amendment to the Federal acquisition regulations and to encourage Federal agencies and contractors to donate excessive foods to food pantries, food shelters, and homes for the homeless.

This bill also seeks to protect agencies and contractors from civil or criminal liabilities associated with these types of donations. It is sad but true in this country that often good deeds go punished as a result of the advent of those who would profit by suing over the good deeds of others. This bill tries to balance those two to encourage the good deeds of others and to shelter them from the type of adverse behavior that might cause people to throw away food rather than give it to the poor.

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 3179, the Local Preparedness Acquisition Act. Mr. Towns and the entire Committee on Oversight and Government Reform recognized that the GSA schedule is more than just a list of things that can be bought at a given price. It is, in fact, the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

GSA goes to great lengths to ensure that products are appropriate for purchase and that they are a good value. Leveraging that capability and the Federal money already spent to allow States and local governments to participate in this acquisition serves two good purposes. It increases the value of seeking a GSA schedule, and in fact, it saves money and overhead for State and local agencies.

I join with my colleague from the District of Columbia and Mr. Towns in asking for the swift passage of this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Missouri, and I join with him in urging the passage of this important commemorative piece of legislation recognizing, as the gentleman said, the ``Biggest Little Town in Texas,'' on its 100th anniversary.

Certainly Robstown, Texas, located in north central Nueces County, which was established in 1906 by a real estate developer from Iowa, says a great deal about the development of Texas and of the Texas- Mexican railroad connection from the Port of Laredo to the Port of Corpus Christi and along State Highway 44. The sustainability of the small town both before, during and after the Industrial Revolution, throughout a period of development in Texas, took it from a State that was rural in every sense to a State today that is both filled with high-tech and with world headquarters.

Mr. Speaker, I join with my colleagues in urging quick support and ratification of this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield back.