Floor Statements

To my good friend, Mr. Smith, thank you. Thank you for managing this.

The last handful of Congressmen that have come up to the mic have been medical doctors. I get to stand here behind the microphone and share a slightly different story. This is that one very special time of year I get to stand here and say ``thank you'' to a woman named Mary Lynn Sheridan, at the time who was named Mary Lynn Gephart.

She was a 17-year-old who found out she was pregnant, and she was in the car on the way, at that time in southern California, on her way to, apparently, Tijuana. And she broke down crying and kept crying more and kept hyperventilating. The two girlfriends she was with were so terrified she was getting sick in the car, they turned around and took her back home. Heaven forbid, she told her mother she was pregnant.

I was born a few months later at Holy Family Unwed Mother's Home in downtown L.A. The amazing thing is--picture this: You're in your thirties. You come into work one day. You turn on your computer, and there's an email saying, Hi, David, you have no idea who I am, but your sister gave me information. Here's your birth mother.

What do you do? How about if she's never told her family, told her two daughters that I'm out there?

And I send a really carefully worded note after having a family meeting, and I had one of the most amazing experiences you could imagine. Imagine a couple of weeks later, you get a phone call, and it's this little voice saying, I've prayed for you every single day of your life. Every March 3, I go to mass and I light candles for you. Are you okay? Are you happy? Have you had a good life?

All I could tell her through all the tears was, Look, I'm incredibly lucky. I was adopted by an amazing family. I've gotten to live a great life. I'm here in Congress, which, actually, in many ways, may have disappointed her.

But the reason I stand here and tell the story is I've had this amazing relationship, having now met my birth father, having spent holidays with my family that has raised me and my birth family. I have a picture in my office with all these kids and all these people where all of our families--even my little sister, who has met her birth family, because my siblings are all adopted, and we get everyone together and go to Disneyland.

I've noticed there is an amazing change out there where the little kids come up to you and say, Okay, my mom is your sister, but your sister is not my mom's sister. The little kids get it. I think with this I get to come here behind the microphone and say, Thank you. Thank you for giving me the chance to be alive. Thank you for giving me the chance to engage in this battle that we have here in Congress of trying to do good things for our country. Thank you, Mary Lynn Sheridan.

My mother would send my birth mother pictures of me as a baby. So

when I would go to Walnut, California, and go see my birth mother, down the hallway would be all these pictures of me as a little kid. My birth mother has developed a very aggressive type of Alzheimer's, and something amazing has happened in her mind. She can describe all those photos. In her mind now, I grew up with my two younger sisters there in Walnut, California. In her mind, I've been with her this whole time. And that heartbreak she used to describe to me for all those years wondering what had happened to me is gone.

Thank you, God, and thank you to Mary Lynn for giving me a chance to be here today. Thank you.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure and esteem that I congratulate Captain Craig Doyle on his promotion in the Navy Reserve to the lead position in the Global Logistical Support Center. As noted in recent congratulations, this movement in position is a highly contested declaration of the Navy's `Total Force' concept. This testament to Capt. Doyle's ability is only the most recent recognition.

Capt. Doyle is no stranger to valor and success, having notably served in the U.S. Navy, including a deployment to Iraq, and Yokosuka, Japan, along with a special assignment to Macdill Air Force Base, Special Operations Command.

Capt. Doyle is a long time resident of Arizona with a family as dedicated to the United States as he is, graciously supporting his service in the Navy. It is with much enthusiasm that I congratulate Captain Craig Doyle on this great achievement, and Captain Weidner from the Navy Cargo Handling Battalion 14 on his incoming role.

How many of us have heard of a little town called Tombstone? It's popped up in movies, American folklore. Guess what? The Forest Service seems hell-bent on ending its existence. This town is older than my State. Its water rights are older than my State. Yet the Forest Service is restricting the town from 87 percent of its water supply because there's Forest Service land around Tombstone.

This picture isn't a picture of a bunch of cowboys out having fun. They're not allowed to take a little Bobcat up the mountainside to get the springs to fix their water, so you have to go up by hand up a mountainside to remove the boulders.

Is there an adult in the Forest Service who has a lick of sense?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.

This is one of those moments of wondering where you begin with some of the absurdity that we hear. I think this might be one. I skipped the last set of comments because they had nothing to do with this amendment.

The agreement is already there to spend the $45 million to do the high-temperature NOX incineration. As this is way outside of my expertise, that's my understanding. The EPA is coming back and pushing and pushing and pushing to spend $1.1 billion for an almost statistically insignificant improvement.

What you're really observing here is the classic case that we see over and over on this sort of issue of an environmental political feeder up against reality. The math isn't reality.

I used to chair the Indian Affairs Committee at my State legislature. I've spent more time on Native American lands in Arizona than I bet anyone in this body. The fact of the matter is if the EPA gets their way here, it's going to bust a number of the water compacts and a bunch of our agreements with those Indian communities.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today with the Honorable Jeff Denham to congratulate and honor Robert E. Rucker, Jr., on his promotion to Battalion Chief for the City of Scottsdale Fire Department.

Following in his grandfather's footsteps, Bobby Rucker, Jr., pursued a career in fire service. In 1988, he started his career with the Rural Metro Corporation. He attended the academy of 88-01, receiving the award for Outstanding Cadet Firefighter as selected by Fellow Cadets. His training was immediately followed with a trip to Yellowstone to participate in one of the largest forest fires in American history. Robert served as a PT instructor for 92-01 and 97-02 academies, as well as a Reserve Coordinator for 3 years. During his 17 years with Rural/ Metro, he served as a Firefighter, Lieutenant, and Captain before being hired by the City of Scottsdale in 2005.

Prior to his promotion to Battalion Chief, he worked as a Captain on engine 602 in downtown Scottsdale. He was temporarily reassigned as a Recruit Training Officer for Academy 08-01 and again recently for Academy 12-01. Robert has been an active member on the deployment team, safety team, EMS team, facilities team, and training team.

Battalion Chief Rucker was a recipient of the 2009 City Manager's Award of Excellence in recognition of the Police/Fire group ability to Collaborate as a Team and was nominated in 2007 for Fire Captain of the Year at the Firefighter's Choice Awards. In addition, he has received commendations for the 1988 Yellowstone Fire and the 1995 Rio Fire.

Bobby's formal education consists of an Associate of Applied Science Degree in Fire Science from Scottsdale Community College and a Bachelor of Applied Science in Emergency Services Administration, Magna Cum Laude from Northern Arizona University.

During his career, Bobby has always had the loving support of his wife Toni, son Trevor, daughter Morgan, his father, Bob Rucker, Sr., and step-mother Micki, his mother, Cathy Hoff and her husband Bob, his sister Sharon Rucker, and step-brother Brian Hoff.

Mr. Speaker, please join us in honoring and commending the outstanding contributions made to fire safety by Battalion Chief Bob E. Rucker, Jr., and hereby wish him continued success in his career.

Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chairman, my amendment hopefully is deemed to be somewhat simple, as this piece of legislation moves forward, trying to make sure that definition of cost from the regulatory environment, is properly, shall we say, a proper box is built for it. So the amendment in many ways is very simple.

The costs to organizations, a business, a business concern--as rules are being promulgated, that business is spending money to get into compliance. Those costs should also be calculated and put into the cost to the economy calculation.

Secondly, as the calculations are being built, it should also--the calculations should take a look at what it did to the revenues of organizations, because those revenues are what are used to hire people, to grow, to expand the economy and, actually, ultimately, expand the tax base.

So the amendment's very simple. It basically says, as the calculations are being made for cost of regulations, okay, let's actually add them up in a fashion where we actually acquire the real cost.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Reclaiming my time, Madam Chairman, and I appreciate the gentleman from Maryland's comments. But he hit one part there, and that is you do believe that the costs to industry, to business, to job creators should be calculated. It's just the debate here is how they should be weighted and how ultimately, I assume, how they should be documented.

All I'm trying to accomplish here with this amendment is a couple of very simple mechanics, those costs that go into the preparatory to be in compliance with the newly promulgated rule should be calculated, and that the calculation of the cost in the net revenues, gross revenues, to a job-creating industry should also be part of that calculation.

And part of this was the bill is--I obviously fully support it, but I thought actually creating a little tighter definition of many of the types of costs that happen in a regulatory environment. I mean, obviously we will have a separation on the view of does it stymie regulation.

I'm from the view that I truly believe one of the great hindrances to economic growth, to job growth in this country is the substantial growth of our regulatory environment.

Okay, if we're going to run legislation that says regulations that exceed a certain cost, you know, are held till employment reaches a certain level, why not make sure we're calculating those appropriately?

Madam Chairman, with that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

And to my friend from California, she has always been a passionate and very articulate in the battle for resources for the regulators.

But I'm going to stand here in opposition to this amendment for a couple of very simple reasons. One, this is already the job they're supposed to be doing with the money they have, this cost-benefit analysis. And we can talk about that further.

But also, as you work through the amendment, I have great concern for the law of unintended consequences, and that is, in a weird way, subsidizing and incentivizing bad cost-benefit analysis. In the amendment, it basically says, if you end up in litigation over your cost-benefit analysis, there should be an appropriation, an unspecified amount of money that the appropriators should send you for that litigation. So if you do a really bad job in your cost-benefit analysis and you get sued, you actually get more money that is supposed to be appropriated to you.

The sort of constant thing I focus on a lot is that law of unintended consequences of, does it actually create an incentive to draw down more cash for the agency, for the litigation? And the way you get to the litigation is the quality of the work that was done in the cost-benefit analysis.

So there are two primary issues: A, this is what the agencies are supposed to be doing; and B, in the design of the amendment, I actually have a concern that ultimately, it may incentivize the very thing we're trying to stop.

And with that, Madam Chairwoman, I reserve the balance of my time.

My two arguments still stand. But there is one other point. And I actually have a little bit of information here.

According to the inspector general of the CFTC, the commission regularly employs a ``stripped down'' type of cost-benefit analysis that has ``proved perilous for financial market regulators.'' In the past, they've used a stripped-down methodology.

So in many ways, what we're doing here in the overall legislation is saying, here's the box, you are supposed to be doing this, it's already part of your budget. And as I spoke earlier, in the design of the amendment, I have a fear of the unintended consequences that you are almost incentivizing; that when the litigation happens, the agency actually ends up getting more money.

And with that, Madam Chairwoman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

To my friend from New York, this is sometimes one of those amusing moments you get where we're both referring to the same litigation as part of our arguments against my side and for her amendment and somewhat making the point that, in that proxy rule litigation, demonstrating that the SEC actually didn't do the proper job. And actually, that's what the court stood up and told them.

One of the reasons--and maybe this is just the classic fundamental different view of what the Agency should be doing to ultimately protect investors and the economy and working towards capital formation--is you would think the Chairman of the SEC, instead of moving this to the bottom of the ranking, it would be at the very, very top. You would think, actually, in many ways you'd want to rewrite this amendment, at least from my view, flip it, saying one of the very first things the Chairman of the SEC does is come in and say, Hey, we did an appropriate, detailed cost-benefit analysis for this new rule and regulation, and here's the impact it has on the economy; here's the impact it has on job creation.

If we stand here repeatedly and say how much we care about jobs and economic growth, I would think that would be the order you would want to be pursuing. In many ways, this amendment--actually, not in many ways, it's what the amendment does--it actually does just the reverse. It lowers that to the bottom of that ranking.

With that, Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairwoman, just one quick comment I'll throw in there.

I'm part of the belief system that one of the great burdens right now in economic growth and to sort of that next generation of what's the next world of jobs that will be coming into our economy--how are we going to form the capital, how are we going to see what our future looks like--is actually, in many ways, what we're debating here. I do believe the massive growth in the regulatory environment over the last couple of years is stymying that next generation.

There is one point I also want to make. Think of the last decade. I'm doing this somewhat from memory, but I think a decade ago the SEC's budget was about $300 million. Today, I believe it's $1.35 billion. So it's up $1.05 billion in 10 years, to give you some sense of how much massive increase has been moved into the regulatory body.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I come to this with a somewhat unique view, because I was actually there 19 years ago as the majority whip in the Arizona State House when this was originally being negotiated. I sat in the room hour after hour after hour for months with many of these Native American communities and these very discussions about what would happen in this type of scenario and assurances that were given to those of us who were in the legislature who were having to make the decision that this would never happen.

And I've listened to a little bit of this testimony, even from my good friend here from California, and the facts don't line up. First off, in the gaming agreements, in the compacts, there's the language about the distance from the base aboriginal territories and how far things could move away from that. This is outside that. The jobs numbers are an absolute fantasy for the construction. And I think Mr. Franks actually went over that in his discussion earlier.

But why do I stand here so passionately supporting Trent's bill? If this happens, it's going to destroy the nature of my State because, understand, the compacts go kaboom, the cascade begins. And this isn't just for Arizona. It will be all over the country. I promise you, in a few years you will wake up and my State will be a statewide gaming State. And then when this becomes precedent, understand, all your States are now in play.

This is more than just us having a dispute with the Tohono O'odhams. That isn't what this is about. This is about keeping the promises that were made for many of us who were embattled in building these compacts years ago.

Let's have everyone keep their promise, and let's keep the deal we made.

Oh, yes. I think they have multiple casinos.

There's another fact that bounced up here, Mr. Speaker. There's actually, I think, one, two, three, four, five casinos in the urban area by, I think, three different Native American communities. This isn't about defending one tribe versus another. This is about there's 21 tribes in Arizona and the agreements that have been put together. Heaven forbid what you're going to do to these communities, particularly the rural ones that get some of the sharing, if we blow up the compacts through my State.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

This is one of the moments where you get to stand up behind the microphone, and being from Arizona, embrace the irony.

Think of this. This Federal Government sues my State for actually enforcing the Federal immigration law. But yet in this particular case, in this amendment, as my friend here was just pointing out, we hand money to communities that are walking away from enforcing the very law. Does anyone see the irony of: You sue us for doing it, but yet we reward municipalities for becoming a sanctuary city and not living up to their obligations.

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

Mr. Chairman, this is one of those sort of occasions I'm going to refer to this almost as the law of unintended consequences.

About 6 months ago, I was visiting one of my favorite places in life, a Starbucks in Scottsdale, and a gentleman walks up to me, just bouncing off the walls, and apparently it wasn't from a bunch of espressos. He had just been given a $447,000 fine for his tiny little business that made custom shower heads, made specialty shower heads, because apparently the water restrictor ring inside was too easy to pry out.

Now, I need to disclose something here, in all honesty. I've actually changed the shower heads in my house. And guess what the first thing I've always done is. I take a screwdriver and stick it in there and pull that little water-restricting ring out of there because I have this bad habit; I actually like to get wet when I shower. I know it's a novel concept, but it's something I like to do.

But think of this: the Department of Energy is out there enforcing, and here's the standards they live by. If it takes more or less than 8 pounds of pressure to remove the water restrictor after they take apart the shower head, they come and fine you.

But the creepy part of this story is they demanded a list of everyone who had purchased one of these shower heads. So now the Department of Energy is putting together the database of the people that bought shower heads that the water-restricting O ring inside is too easy to remove.

Have we lost our minds?

I'm not thrilled coming to the floor and doing a limitation amendment on something like this, but this is the type of thing the American people are absolutely livid about. And this actually affects our daily lives.

With that, Madam Chairwoman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairwoman, may I inquire as to my time?

This is actually an interesting debate from an economic standpoint.

Being from the desert, where we actually really, really care about our water supply, we've learned something. I'm one of those people who lives in a house with rock landscaping and low water this and low water landscaping, but I do like to get wet in my shower, as we've already stated. If you want to deal with water usage, basic economics says you do it through the pricing mechanism, not through trying to manage my life with a bunch of laws.

Madam Chairwoman, I stand in front of you and hope this amendment passes because, in many ways, I think this is a great example of what drives the American voters, the American people mad in that we try to micromanage every aspect of their lives, and we turn huge numbers of them functionally into criminals. I would love to do an honest survey through this body of how many people have done any remodeling or who have put up a new showerhead and who have not monkeyed with that flow restrictor that's inside that showerhead.

Ultimately, I appreciate that in 1992 this somehow passed through this body. Maybe it was meant to help, and maybe it was meant to have all sorts of good purposes, but this is not the rational methodology with which to promote that type of water conservation. Then when you turn the Department of Energy into a police force that actually now sets standards of--if I can exceed 8 pounds of force, then all of a sudden it's perfectly legal, but if it's under 8 pounds of force in removing the water restrictor, then I get a $447,000 fine, as my constituent received here.

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

Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate Lieutenant Colonel David Carroll for his twenty-five years of honorable service to our country and the United States Air Force.

Our community is proud of all our men and women in uniform and it is always a great experience to see so many of them thrive and succeed in service to their country.

I join the United States Air Force and wish Lt. Col. Carroll all the best in his retirement.

Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I yield to the chairman, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

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

Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chairman, I think you, and probably all of us in the body are noticing a theme here on many of these limitation amendments. Being someone that comes from Arizona, there's a reason we've been actually applauding many of these amendments.

We feel, as a State--and now I'm realizing many other States have the same issue--we're at battle with our own Justice Department. How many times has Arizona now been sued by this Justice Department? This became one of those occasions where we understand Texas and other States are now being sued by the Justice Department because of voter ID laws.

I'm tired of this, and I think the American people are tired of there being this battle between the Federal Government suing our States and costing the residents, the citizens of these States, these litigation costs.

How do you stand up and create limitation? This became our opportunity to tell the Justice Department, No, go after bad guys and stop suing our State. If there is a bad act requiring an ID to vote in a State, fine. You still have private rights of action.

I had a staffer in the back telling me this story. I hope I don't screw this up too much. But apparently a couple of weeks ago, there was a young man who walked into a polling place and was able to get General Holder's--our Attorney General's--ballot by just saying, Hi, I'm Eric Holder. I'm here to vote.

Does anyone understand how absurdly ironic this is, when considering you can't go in and visit the Attorney General in his office without a photo ID? I can't go visit him in his office, but I can walk in and get his ballot?

If you believe in the sanctity of the voting box, if you want the American people to believe in your election and be willing to accept when there are changes of power, which happens all the time, you've got to also have that faith, the faith that those elections were clean and proper, but also that those who were supposed to vote were the ones who were allowed to vote. Madam Chairman, that's why I stand here and offer this amendment.

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

Offered By: Mr. Schweikert

Amendment No. 52: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

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

Madam Chairman, this is one of those moments in Congress where I swear we are almost talking about completely different things and the reality that I live in. I am blessed to represent Scottsdale, Arizona, one of the resort centers of the country. Come visit us. It's a wonderful place.

About a month and a half ago, I went and visited one of the resorts right down the street from where I grew up. They have seven pools, when you count the Jacuzzis. And I am walking through the resort with the manager, who I've known since high school, and he is just looking at me with these huge eyes saying, Have they lost their minds?

The first thing he points out to me is they've had a portable lift for a decade, and no one's ever asked for it. The second point he made--and he was emphatic on this--20 years ago, because of their tort liability, the insurance on their pools, they got rid of all of their diving boards. And now we're going to demand that they build fixed structures up against a Jacuzzi? I can't wait to see who is going to be standing there monitoring the beer drinking and not climbing on top of those and leaping into the Jacuzzi, using it as a swimming pool diving board.

Is anyone familiar with the concept of ``attractive nuisance''? Those who oppose the amendment, are you going to also step up and say, Well, we're going to provide you tort liability when someone jumps off and ends up in horrible shape? Because 20 years ago, we made a point to remove these types of hazards from the sides of pools and Jacuzzis.

But the third thing--and he was just livid on the point, saying, I have seven pools in my resort. We're barely making it today, and you're telling me that I am going to grind through my concrete, grind through my cool decking, grind through my patios to put power extension, build fixed lifts near every pool and Jacuzzi when no one's even asked for the portable one for 10 years?

What's wonderful about the amendment, if you actually read it and move away from some of the rhetoric, is it makes it very clear that this is about building permanent structures next to those pools and Jacuzzis. If they're going to mandate a portable with the other caveats, okay, fine. Live with that. We already have lots of experience with that. And that way you avoid the attractive nuisance near every pool--not the cost, not the tearing up, not the everything else that goes along with this.

At some point, our love and respect and wanting to help our brothers and sisters, particularly those that have mobility issues, we're there for them. We love them. We want to help. But we also have to have some bit of rationality. Let's actually step up and deal with this rationally, because I fear that the law of unintended consequences is going to be that some of my resorts are going to close down those Jacuzzis, close down those pools for access from anyone when there was a pragmatic solution, which is embracing the portable lifts. That was from every call I have made, up and down through Scottsdale. And if you have been there, you know we have resorts everywhere. I have not had a single manager of a resort call me back and say, Yes, we even use our portable one.

Absolutely.

Reclaiming my time, yes, we actually had a whole meeting in my office with them and actually had the whole discussion about both the attractive hazard of what happens when, you know, because of this, we create the next paralyzed American, and they looked at me with their eyes and said, You know, we hadn't thought about that. And as long as that resort has that portable one, we get our need taken care of. There is that pragmatic reality.

No. No. We sat down and had a wonderful conversation. I believe they left understanding how impractical what was happening here, also how there is a much more pragmatic, much more cost- effective, and a much safer solution for the community.

I met with actual people from Scottsdale with mobility issues. So I actually met with real constituents that are real people, not some organization.

Madam Chairwoman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I will try to speak somewhat quickly.

Being from the State of Arizona and having been a legislator in Arizona, having been a County Treasurer from Arizona, and now often find myself in forums having to explain, or trying to at least in some way figure out how to explain, why my Federal Government, why my Justice Department is suing my State.

And if you think about what we saw last year when we had the employer sanctions lawsuits, the Supreme Court ruled in our favor. We were at the Supreme Court standing out there a couple of weeks ago, suing our State again.

But one of the explanations of why does a State like Arizona stand up and have to do these types of laws, understand what you've done to my county, what you've done to my State in education, incarceration, and health care.

If we were having the debate right now of how the Federal Government was going to step up and do its job and reimburse the citizens of Arizona for what was a Federal cost but their failure, maybe we wouldn't be standing here supporting the gentlewoman's amendment. But I don't see that happening in this body.

So, in that case, let Arizona, let States stand up and defend themselves by, in our case, enforcing the actual Federal law.

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

Offered By: Mr. Schweikert

Amendment No. 43: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following: