Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my sincere gratitude for Colonel Georgette Goonan's 24 years of service to the U.S. Army and the people of Fountain, Colorado.

Before residing in Fountain, Colonel Goonan earned her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine Degree from Iowa State in 1980. She then served in numerous assignments around the globe, including Veterinary Officer, Roving Sands Mission, in Fort Bliss, Texas; Veterinary Food Service Officer, Operation New Horizons, in Belize; Veterinarian in Fort Carson, Colorado; Veterinary Training Officer 993rd Medical Detachment in Denver, Colorado; and Veterinary Officer in Panama. Her most recent active duty assignment was as Commander of the 993rd Medical Detachment in Afghanistan between December 2008 and January 2010. Her Army Reserve assignments include Veterinary Surgical Team Officer in Kuwait supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom and the current Team Chief for the 7305th Medical Training Support Battalion in Sacramento, California.

Colonel Goonan is a graduate of the Army Medical Department (AMEDD) Officer Basic Course; AMEDD Augmentation Course; Captain Career Course, Intermediate Level Education Course; Defense Support of Civilian Authorities Course; Pre-Command Course; Sanitation Audit Cert Course; and Commanders Safety Course.

During her distinguished career, Colonel Goonan has received numerous decorations including the National Defense Service Medal with Bronze Star, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal; Army Achievement Medal; Army Commendation Medal with 2nd Oak Leaf Cluster; Meritorious Service Medal; Army Reserve Components Achievement Medal with 2nd Oak Leaf Cluster; and Unit Meritorious Service Medal.

Colonel Goonan has made sizeable civilian contributions to her community in Colorado as well, as both owner of Rocky Mountain Veterinary Service in Fountain and as a Supervisor on the El Paso County Conservation District. As she retires from the U.S. Army, I would like to offer my sincere appreciation for her commitment to defending our country and the invaluable contributions she has made to Colorado.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of my constituents and veterans who are alarmed at recent reports of preventable deaths, manipulated records, and secret waiting lists within the VA health care system. These allegations span the country and have recently arisen in Colorado at the Fort Collins VA clinic. If these allegations are found to be true, the responsible individuals must be held accountable. It is unacceptable for individuals who have presided over negligence and mismanagement to go unscathed.

Astonishingly, past instances of similar failures have not only seen responsible individuals remain employed by the VA, but they have even been rewarded for their leadership failures in the form of bonuses and positive performance reviews. This only promotes the continuation of poor management, negligence, and possible preventable deaths.

This bill would help ensure that these trends do not continue by giving the Secretary of the VA the authority to remove or transfer senior executives of the VA. I ask for support of this bill.

Mr. Chairman, religious freedom and defending freedom should not be mutually exclusive. America was founded on religious liberty, and it is part of what makes our country so great. The men and women in uniform who have volunteered to keep our country safe and to protect our Constitution should not see their own liberties violated.

My amendment ensures that all servicemembers--no matter their religion or rank or leadership--are afforded their constitutional right to free exercise of religion.

One of the driving factors behind recent violations of religious freedom in the military is simply bad rules. My amendment requires the Pentagon to rewrite their rules on free exercise of religion, both for the whole Department of Defense, and particularly for the Air Force.

I would like to thank Chairman McKeon for supporting this amendment, as well as Mr. Forbes and Mr. Fleming, who are cosponsors.

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

Mr. Chairman, my amendment is very simple. The United States should not be spending money to disarm ourselves--to dramatically cut our strategic nuclear deterrent under the New START Treaty--if the other party to the treaty is not trustworthy.

At the moment, the Russian Federation is clearly not trustworthy.

Let me remind us all of Russia's current record on observing treaties and agreements.

In 1994, Russia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States signed the Budapest Memorandum. This agreement included a commitment to ``respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.'' But this agreement did not keep Putin from invading Ukrainian territory.

Strike one.

In January, The New York Times revealed that the Russian Federation was cheating on another treaty--the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF Treaty. According to the story, our State Department has been raising the INF cheating issue with the Russians for about a year now, with no response.

Strike two.

In 2007, President Putin announced that he was suspending Russian participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, or CFE. This came after years of Russian violations of the CFE Treaty.

Strike three.

Is the Russian government trustworthy?

The answer is clearly no.

The question for us tonight under my amendment is whether it makes sense for us to spend money on reducing our nuclear deterrent when the other party to the New START Treaty is not trustworthy. If you trust Vladimir Putin and the Russian government, vote against this amendment. But if you, like me, don't want to put our national security in the hands of a serial treaty violator, please vote for this amendment.

We should not be spending money implementing the New START Treaty, which reduces our nuclear forces, unless and until Russia makes it clear that they are a responsible actor and will abide by the agreements they make.

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

Mr. Chairman, I want to respond to my colleague by saying there is a flaw in the New START Treaty, in my opinion, in that it originally called for reductions in U.S. nuclear forces and allowed Russia to increase its nuclear forces.

So that right there I think is a problem. But when you have serial violations by the Russian Federation invading Ukraine, in violation of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, the INF Treaty, and the CFE Treaty, they are not a reliable partner in these treaties.

And so to reduce our forces, how can that be in our interest when the other party to the treaty is not someone who is performing on these other treaties? There could be questions on whether they are even fully complying with the New START Treaty.

Mr. Chairman, I will enter into the Record an article from The New York Times dated January 29 of this year detailing some of their violations of the INF Treaty.

[From the New York Times, Jan. 29, 2014]

U.S. Says Russia Tested Missile, Despite Treaty

(By Michael R. Gordon)

Washington.--The United States informed its NATO allies

this month that Russia had tested a new ground-launched

cruise missile, raising concerns about Moscow's compliance

with a landmark arms control accord.

American officials believe Russia began conducting flight

tests of the missile as early as 2008. Such tests are

prohibited by the treaty banning medium-range missiles that

was signed in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail S.

Gorbachev, the Soviet leader at the time, and that has long

been viewed as one of the bedrock accords that brought an end

to the Cold War.

Beginning in May, Rose Gottemoeller, the State Department's

senior arms control official, has repeatedly raised the

missile tests with Russian officials, who have responded that

they investigated the matter and consider the case to be

closed. But Obama administration officials are not yet ready

to formally declare the tests of the missile, which has not

been deployed, to be a violation of the 1987 treaty.

With President Obama pledging to seek deeper cuts in

nuclear arms, the State Department has been trying to find a

way to resolve the compliance issue, preserve the treaty and

keep the door open to future arms control accords.

``The United States never hesitates to raise treaty

compliance concerns with Russia, and this issue is no

exception,'' Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman,

said. ``There's an ongoing review process, and we wouldn't

want to speculate or prejudge the outcome.''

Other officials, who asked not to be identified because

they were discussing internal deliberations, said there was

no question the missile tests ran counter to the treaty and

the administration had already shown considerable patience

with the Russians. And some members of Congress, who have

been briefed on the tests on a classified basis for well over

a year, have been pressing the White House for a firmer

response.

A public dispute over the tests could prove to be a major

new irritant in the already difficult relationship between

the United States and Russia. In recent months, that

relationship has been strained by differences over how to end

the fighting in Syria; the temporary asylum granted to Edward

J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor;

and, most recently, the turmoil in Ukraine.

The treaty banning the testing, production and possession

of medium-range missiles has long been regarded as a major

step toward curbing the American and Russian arms race. ``The

importance of this treaty transcends numbers,'' Mr. Reagan

said during the treaty signing, adding that it underscored

the value of ``greater openness in military programs and

forces.''

But after President Vladimir V. Putin rose to power and the

Russian military began to re-evaluate its strategy, the

Kremlin developed second thoughts about the accord. During

the administration of President George W. Bush, Sergei B.

Ivanov, the Russian defense minister, proposed that the two

sides drop the treaty.

Though the Cold War was over, he argued that Russia still

faced threats from nations on its periphery, including China

and potentially Pakistan. But the Bush administration was

reluctant to terminate a treaty that NATO nations regarded as

a cornerstone of arms control and whose abrogation would have

enabled the Russians to increase missile forces directed at

the United States' allies in Asia.

Since Mr. Obama has been in office, the Russians have

insisted they want to keep the agreement. But in the view of

American analysts, Russia has also mounted a determined

effort to strengthen its nuclear abilities to compensate for

the weakness of its conventional, nonnuclear forces.

At the same time, in his State of the Union address last

year, Mr. Obama vowed to ``seek further reductions in our

nuclear arsenals,'' a goal American officials at one point

hoped might form part of Mr. Obama's legacy.

But administration officials and experts outside government

say Congress is highly unlikely to approve an agreement

mandating more cuts unless the question of Russian compliance

with the medium-range treaty is resolved.

``If the Russian government has made a considered decision

to field a prohibited system,'' Franklin C. Miller, a former

defense official at the White House and the Pentagon, said,

``then it is the strongest indication to date that they are

not interested in pursuing any arms control, at least through

the remainder of President Obama's term.''

It took years for American intelligence to gather

information on Russia's new missile system, but by the end of

2011, officials say it was clear that there was a compliance

concern.

There have been repeated rumors over the last year that

Russia may have violated some of the provisions of the 1987

treaty. But the nature of that violation has not previously

been disclosed, and some news reports have focused on the

wrong system: a new two-stage missile called the RS-26. The

Russians have flight-tested it at medium range, according to

intelligence assessments, and the prevailing view among

Western officials is that it is intended to help fill the gap

in Russia's medium-range missile capabilities that resulted

from the 1987 treaty. The

treaty defines medium-range missiles as ground-launched

ballistic or cruise missiles capable of flying 300 to 3,400

miles.

But because Russia has conducted a small number of tests of

the RS-26 at intercontinental range, it technically qualifies

as a long-range system and will be counted under the treaty

known as New Start, which was negotiated by the Obama

administration. So it is generally considered by Western

officials to be a circumvention, but not a violation, of the

1987 treaty

One member of Congress who was said to have raised concerns

that the suspected arms control violation might endanger

future arms control efforts was John Kerry. As a senator and

chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he received a

classified briefing on the matter in November 2012 that dealt

with compliance concerns, according to a report in The Daily

Beast.

As secretary of state, Mr. Kerry has not raised concerns

over the cruise missile tests with his Russian counterpart,

Sergey V. Lavrov, but he has emphasized the importance of

complying with arms accords, a State Department official

said.

Republican lawmakers, however, have urged the

administration to be more aggressive.

``Briefings provided by your administration have agreed

with our assessment that Russian actions are serious and

troubling, but have failed to offer any assurance of any

concrete action to address these Russian actions,''

Representative Howard McKeon, Republican of California and

chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Representative

Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican who leads the

Intelligence Committee, said in an April letter to Mr. Obama.

And Senator Jim Risch, Republican of Idaho, and 16 other

Republican senators recently proposed legislation that would

require the White House to report to Congress on what

intelligence the United States has shared with NATO allies on

suspected violations of the 1987 treaty.

Republican members of the Senate Foreign Relations

Committee have also cited the issue in holding up Ms.

Gottemoeller's confirmation as under secretary of state for

arms control and international security.

It was against this backdrop that the so-called deputies

committee, an interagency panel led by Antony Blinken, Mr.

Obama's deputy national security adviser, decided that Ms.

Gottemoeller should inform NATO's 28 members about the

compliance issue.

On Jan. 17, Ms. Gottemoeller discussed the missile tests in

a closed-door meeting of NATO's Arms Control, Disarmament and

Non-Proliferation Committee that she led in Brussels.

The Obama administration, she said, had not given up on

diplomacy. There are precedents for working out disputes over

arms control complaints, and Ms. Gottemoeller said American

officials would continue to engage the Russians to try to

resolve the controversy.

But even with the best of intentions, establishing what the

Russians are doing may not be easy. The elaborate network of

verification provisions created under the medium-range

missile treaty is no longer in effect, since all the missiles

that were believed to be covered by the agreement were long

thought to have been destroyed by May 1991.

At this point I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop), my colleague.

Mr. Chairman, how much time is remaining?

Mr. Chairman, I can't see how it would be in our interest to keep complying with a treaty when the other party to that treaty is not in compliance with so many other things it is supposed to be doing.

This amendment merely calls for a halt in the spending until such time as they come into compliance with all of these other treaties.

We are talking about reducing our nuclear forces. That is a guarantee against the main and only existential threat against the United States: a devastating nuclear attack, God forbid. But why in the world would we want to give up further nuclear forces when the party that is supposed to be working with us on this is not reliable?

I do not understand that. I would ask adoption of this amendment.

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

Mr. Chair, I thank the subcommittee chairman for yielding, and I do want to applaud my friend and colleague from California for her desire to fund nonproliferation.

That is a worthy goal that we all agree with, but right now, NNSA is going to be spending in the bill that we are debating $1.6 billion for that worthy goal, and to allow the Department of Defense to go in that direction also would dilute the money that they need so badly for readiness and training, paying our men and women in uniform, providing them the food and weapons that they need.

So for that reason, I, too, oppose this amendment and ask for a ``no'' vote.

Nuclear nonproliferation efforts simply don't need more money, and if you don't believe me, believe General Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. At our March 16 hearing, he said, in response to a question of my colleague from California, Ms. Sanchez:

I speak in this regard on behalf of the Joint Chiefs

because, of course, we have discussed and debated this among

ourselves, and I think we have allocated an appropriate and

adequate amount of money into nonproliferation in our budget.

So simply put, our senior military officials agree that the nonproliferation budget is already sufficient, and therefore, this amendment is unnecessary.

This is the fourth year in a row we have debated it, and I would just ask that we stop the debate on this amendment and vote ``no.''

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

Mr. Chairman, when our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and Defense civilians deploy overseas, the Department of Defense enters into agreements with the host nation to prohibit the taxation of the assistance provided by U.S. companies to support their missions.

We have entered into such agreements with Afghanistan, but in the last 6 years, the Afghan Government has chosen to ignore these agreements. It has levied more than $1 billion in illegal taxes against our U.S. businesses which are supporting our warfighters.

Last year we took action to withhold assistance funding in response to this illegal taxation, yet the Afghan Government continues to submit tax bills to our companies. If the firms refuse to pay, Afghan officials threaten to deny them permits and visas, to arrest company workers, and to prohibit them from moving mission essential equipment into and throughout the country. Though our committee has now increased the amount of funding to be withheld, I propose this amendment to hopefully end this wrong practice altogether.

This amendment would require two important steps forward: first the Secretary of Defense would take a full account of illegal taxes levied by the Afghan Government against American companies; second, the Secretary will establish a plan for the Afghan Government to reimburse the illegally levied taxes.

In short, no U.S. company should be threatened or financially punished for supporting our troops and Department of Defense civilians in Afghanistan. This amendment strikes at the root of the problem, and I urge its adoption.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, in response, and I appreciate the gentleman's comments, the bookkeeping trouble that this would involve is first put on the Afghan Government in an attempt to save the trouble to our own Department of Defense folks.

On your second point, I don't believe U.S. taxpayer dollars would be at risk because this would only be money withheld that would otherwise go to the Afghan Government and is committed for that purpose is my understanding.

So you raise good questions, but I think both of those objections are satisfied by this amendment.

At this point, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from California, Representative McKeon, the chairman of the full committee.

Mr. Chairman, how much time is left on our side of the issue?

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, to summarize, these are legitimate questions that the ranking member has raised. I appreciate his comments, and there are valid issues in that it is not a clean or perfect situation. But the trouble is a billion dollars is a lot of money to our defense contractors, and to not try to address it would do a really big disservice to them. So I think it is worth tackling the difficulty that might be entailed in getting the paperwork done properly because the goal is worth doing. A billion dollars is a lot of money. Some of these companies might be big contractors; some of them might be small contractors.

So I would urge the adoption of this amendment, and Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, most Americans do not realize that 28 percent of the land across our great country is owned by the Federal Government. In the 11 most western States, the Federal Government owns a staggering 47 percent of all land.

In my State of Colorado, the Federal Government owns 36 percent of the land. Over one-third of all land in Colorado is owned and operated here, out of Washington, D.C.

The management of these lands is often controversial, particularly when the Federal Government owns such a significant portion of the land of a State or of a locality. There are often situations where there are competing and conflicting uses of this publicly-owned land.

This Federal ownership of public land is administered through a variety of Federal agencies and bureaus, making things potentially even more difficult for States and localities.

This public land serves many functions, including, in some cases, as a prime training ground for the U.S. military. In Colorado, for example, the new Combat Aviation Brigade at Fort Carson flies their helicopters up into the mountains around Colorado Springs for training.

To practice high altitude landings in rugged terrain, which is a crucial skill for combat in countries like Afghanistan, the Army must get permission from the various parts of the Federal Government that own the land.

Over the last few years, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management and other agencies have reduced the number of landing sites that are permissible. In the latest permit, they told the Army that Congress has not made national security a priority for public lands.

Unfortunately, this is not just isolated to Colorado. Across the country, military bases are continually fighting with other government agencies to maintain their access to public lands.

Today, my amendment will help set the record straight. National security should be the top priority for our government, and that most certainly includes the ownership of public land--land owned and operated by the Federal Government. We should apply the rule of common sense.

Unless there is an obvious reason not to, public land should, of course, be

available so that men and women in uniform can receive realistic, effective training that will save lives in combat. As we stand here tonight, we must remember that the first job of the Federal Government is to protect our Nation.

I urge support for my amendment, resolving that national security should be a top priority for public lands.

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

Mr. Chairman, I just don't want it to happen again that the Forest Service or any other bureaucracy can tell the men and women who are training to protect our country that they can't train and that Congress has never even addressed this situation.

I at least want to have a resolution on record expressing the sense of Congress that national defense is a priority. That is the way our Constitution is written. I think this makes all kinds of sense, and I would urge its adoption.

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

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining?

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, I would just say that there are balancing interests and that there are competing interests that should be, many times, debated and weighed. That is, actually, what the Army at Fort Carson does.

They have entered into the permitting agreements with the Forest Service and with the Bureau of Land Management, agreeing with the concerns raised by those two bureaucracies, so they have worked together in a cooperative fashion.

What I am addressing, though, is when the Forest Service comes out and says that Congress has never addressed this issue. I think that that is wrong. Now is the time to set the record straight, and this amendment does set the record straight.

We are expressing that national security is a priority. That is what the Constitution says, and that is what we are stating right here. I ask for an ``aye'' vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise for the purpose of engaging in a colloquy with the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Chairman, I believe we can all agree that honoring our Nation's veterans is of vital importance. They sacrifice so much for us and ask for so little in return. One thing that means so much to so many veterans in the Fifth Congressional District of Colorado is the establishment of a Southern Colorado National VA Cemetery.

Would the chairman agree that it is critical to provide dignified final resting places for our heroes and that it is important to conveniently locate them near large veterans populations?

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

I thank the chairman for his words of agreement. Given the advanced stage of the project and the amount of work that has already taken place on the Southern Colorado National VA Cemetery, including land being purchased in southeast Colorado Springs and master planning due to start in mere months, would the chairman also agree that it is vital that we work together to ensure that construction is fully funded in the appropriations process for upcoming fiscal years?

I yield to the gentleman.

Well, I thank the chairman, and I look forward to working with him. I appreciate the hard work he does for our military and for our veterans, including this particular important project. I pledge to work with him on these and other matters as we seek to honor our Nation's veterans.

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

Mr. Speaker, last week, we learned something shocking and appalling. The Iranian Government wants to appoint a terrorist as their Ambassador to the United Nations, a man who participated in the 1979 terrorist attack on our Embassy in Tehran. This is unconscionable and unacceptable.

Last week, Senator Ted Cruz and I introduced legislation to fix this problem. This bill gives the President the authority he needs to deny this individual a visa. Senator Cruz pushed the bill through the Senate unanimously on Monday.

I have been working with House leadership this week to quickly move this bill forward here in the House so that we do not have an Iranian terrorist walking the streets of New York City and having diplomatic immunity. I am proud to report that we just passed this bill unanimously.

I thank my colleagues and House leadership for passing the Cruz- Lamborn legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for his leadership in getting this time tonight so that we can talk about this important issue.

Mr. Speaker, last week, we learned something shocking and appalling. The Iranian government wants to appoint a terrorist as their Ambassador to the United Nations. A man who assisted in the 1979 terrorist attack on our embassy in Tehran. A man who helped hold American diplomats hostage for 444 days. This is a man that the supposedly moderate new government in Iran wants to represent Iran on American soil in New York City. This is unconscionable and this is unacceptable. It is time for all of us to speak up with one loud and unified voice against this injustice.

Amazingly, at this moment, the President of the United States does not have the legal authority to keep this man off of our shores. The President can deny visas to diplomats if they have been caught spying on ourselves or our allies, but he can't keep someone out of our country if they are a terrorist. They can be admitted as a diplomat and get a visa.

Last week, Senator Ted Cruz and I introduced legislation to fix this problem. Our bill would give the President the authority he needs to do the right thing and to deny this man a visa. Senator Cruz received strong support from Democrats in the Senate like Senator Chuck Schumer of New York. The bill passed the Senate unanimously last night 100-0. How many issues pass the Senate 100-0?

I am working here in the House to quickly move this bill forward so that we don't have an Iranian terrorist walking the streets of Manhattan with diplomatic immunity.

It is mind-boggling, but if Osama bin Laden himself had been named an Ambassador to the United Nations by somebody, the President would not have had the legal authority to deny him a visa. We have got to fix it. That is why this legislation is before us. The Cruz-Lamborn legislation would give the President the ability to do the right thing and to deny this Iranian terrorist a visa.

Time heals some wounds, but time should not cause amnesia. Letting this man into the country with all the pomp and circumstance of diplomatic immunity would cause pain to those who are hostages. It would jeopardize the safety and security of this Nation.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and for House leadership to move it quickly to passage as soon as possible.

I want to thank the gentleman from Texas once again for taking leadership and bringing this issue to the attention of the American people through this time here on the floor tonight.

I want to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his leadership on this and many other issues, and I thank him for putting this time together.

Whenever anyone says it is a do-nothing Congress, they are only half right. It is actually a do-nothing Senate.

In this Congress, the House has passed and sent over to the Senate 311 total bills, and we have talked about the 220 jobs-related bill. There are 311 total bills.

In stark contrast, the Senate has sent to the House only 67 bills. The Senate produces just about one-third of what the House does--one- third of the work, Mr. Speaker.

I am not saying that passing bills in and of itself is an unalloyed good. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, is a primary example of that, but it is one way to measure how hard you are working.

From the House Natural Resources Committee I sit on, we have passed six bills opening up American energy that would create over 1 million new jobs, lower gasoline and electricity prices, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and help lower our national debt by generating over $1 billion in new revenue. These bills are now stalled in the Senate.

The U.S. Senate has turned into a productivity graveyard. President Obama has signed only 24 Senate bills into law during this Congress. In contrast, 91 bills from the House have been signed by the President into law. These are total bills of all different subjects.

Senate Democrats' sole concern seems to be protecting themselves from taking recorded votes that might anger their liberal donors or their voters. They do this by closing off debate, eliminating amendments, and writing their bills in secret, shutting out Republican voices and input.

This broken and dysfunctional Democrat Senate has produced many disasters for the American people and not just ObamaCare. They also passed the trillion dollar so-called Stimulus Act, refused for 4 years to pass a budget, and allowed the President to balloon the national debt in five short years from $10 trillion to $17 trillion.

Don't let the President or Harry Reid fool you with false narratives that those rascally Republicans are holding up the Nation's business. This is just another gimmick to shift the blame away from where it really lies.

Our country deserves better. Bills that would grow our economy and put millions of our friends and neighbors back to work should never die in the depths of the Democrat Senate. It is critical for every single American to let Senate Democrats know that they are sick and tired of the do-nothing Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the creation of United States Air Force Academy on 1 April 1954, and offer remarks to honor this youngest of our nation's service academies. Birthed in the minds of visionary post Army Air Corps leaders and the Eisenhower Administration, the Air Force Academy has become the most forward looking military institution and premiere Aerospace Military Academy imaginable during the second half of the 20th Century. Residing in the bedrock of the Colorado Rocky Mountains the United States Air Force Academy has fueled the heart, mind, and winning spirit of the U.S. Air Force by providing leaders who flew higher than its inspiring surrounding peaks.

Since its inception the U.S. Air Force Academy has produced over forty-six thousand young men and women officers and superior senior leaders across the span of six decades. These leaders provided the backbone of our Aerospace warriors, including the first Air Force ace from the Vietnam War, Captain Steve Ritchie and the first USAFA graduate to be given the Medal of Honor, Captain Lance Sijan. Since that era one hundred and eighty one graduates have given their lives in defense of our Nation. The lifeblood of the USAF leadership has flowed from the Academy over the decades, with contributions of 598 General officers and five Air Force Chiefs of Staff. As the premier academy to explore the final frontier of space the Academy has produced 38 Astronaut Graduates and continues to produce numerous strategic leaders in the military space arena.

The Air Force Academy has a longstanding tradition of producing both highly qualified and committed military officers combined with superbly educated college graduates from its halls of academic excellence. Over the years the Academy produced 37 Rhodes Scholars and the institution continues to be highly ranked in national college reviews such as Forbes and US News and World Report over more than three decades. Over the years the institution has scored in the top 100 of American colleges in numerous ranking publications. In college athletics USAFA competes in 17 NCAA sports conferences and continually performs extremely well in its various divisions. The Air Force Academy has won the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy on the gridiron 18 times, far surpassing the other Service Academies and brining national publicity to this Colorado institution.

Since its inception the United States Air Force Academy has continually trained, educated, and inspired young men and women to become leaders of character with the motivation to serve as Air Force career officers. It continues into its sixth decade of institutional defense contributions to the Nation by providing a unique blend of academic curriculum, military training, and leadership and physical development. This institution has become a historical wellspring of Air Force military leadership which will continue to develop future generations to defend our precious United States of America. Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to recognize our USAFA landmark as it contributes to the security of our democracy from its position anchored in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Colorado Springs artist and businesswoman Marian Busey on the occasion of her 102nd birthday.

For a century, since the age of 2, Mrs. Busey has been an artist. As a co-founder of Arati Artists Gallery in Old Colorado City, Mrs. Busey has helped ensure that art in the Fifth Congressional District will live on for centuries to come. It can be argued that Mrs. Busey helped start the vibrant arts scene that now exists in Old Colorado City and the Westside by taking a chance on opening the Arati Gallery back in 1977.

Mrs. Busey has been quoted as saying that she enjoys watercolor painting because, ``once you put the brush on the canvas, you're done quickly, you can't complicate the painting.'' I know I speak on behalf of the Fifth Congressional District when I wish Mrs. Busey a very happy birthday and many more years of complication-free painting.

I thank the chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2824, the Preventing Government Waste and Protecting Coal Mining Jobs in America Act. This critical piece of legislation, which was introduced by Representative Bill Johnson and myself, is designed to save taxpayer dollars and protect American jobs by putting the Office of Surface Mining on a responsible path forward for managing and regulating coal mining in America.

So far, the Obama administration has spent nearly 10 million taxpayer dollars rewriting a coal production rule and the 2008 Stream Buffer Zone Rule, but the 2008 rule was never fully implemented. The administration is conducting this rewrite without ever providing justification for the need for a new rule.

The $10 million does not include the money spent on attorneys fees and costly litigation or the internal costs borne by the agency. Even more critically, it does not include the costs to the families of the thousands of workers who have been displaced or seen work delayed by the regulatory inaction of the Department.

The legislation before us today is very simple. It would cripple the Obama administration's war on coal by ending their unnecessary rewrite and it would require the Office of Surface Mining to implement the 2008 Stream Buffer Zone Rule. This rule was developed over 5 years through an open, public, multimillion-dollar process and requires consultation on endangered species where necessary.

Under this legislation, H.R. 2824, once all the plans have been approved, the effects of the new regulations will be analyzed for a period of 5 years. On completion of this analysis, the Office of Surface Mining is required to report back to us on the effectiveness of the rule, impact on energy production, and to identify and justify anything that should be addressed through a new rulemaking process.

If the Obama administration had followed this process from the beginning, taxpayers would have 9 million more dollars, thousands of unemployed Americans would likely have jobs, and we would be far along in the process of understanding the impacts and environmental benefits of the 2008 rulemaking. Unfortunately, this administration's first act was to discard the rule and plunge head first into a failed, wasteful, and never-ending rulemaking process.

This legislation will stop the massive ongoing waste, saving the taxpayers money. It will stop the administration from continuing with a reckless rulemaking process and imposing a needless regulation that will directly cost thousands of hardworking American jobs and cause significant American economic harm.

This bill will also provide regulatory certainty for an important domestic industry--an industry that not only provides great family-wage jobs with good benefits, but also provides affordable energy for the American people and the Nation's manufacturing base.

I urge my colleagues to support this critical legislation.

I thank the full committee chairman.

Mr. Chairman, my colleagues on the other side seem to continue living in the past. This bill isn't about the Bush administration. This bill is about the rampant failure of the Obama administration and its inability to craft a reasonable rule on coal mining. They have spent 5 years and nearly $10 million on this rewrite. And for what? What have they produced? Absolutely nothing. Their waste-ridden, failed effort is apparently nothing more than a sham facade over a real agenda--to kill coal mining.

You don't have to take my word for it. This is a direct quote from an inspector general investigator's interview with a current DOI contractor working on the rule, Emily Medine. She said the rule appears to be ``an effort to kill coal mining.''

Also, the Department has continued to insist on falsifying the baseline to reduce the stated impacts of their rulemaking. As you can see from the interview with the current contractor, over here, OSM continues to insist that companies use the more restrictive but never implemented 2008 rule as a baseline in an effort to hide the real economic impacts of whatever rule they want to come up with. Again, don't take my word for it. Right here, OSM's own contractor says that by using the more restrictive 2008 rule, they will show fewer job losses.

That is our choice today: a rule fine-tuned over 5 years with a clear process for future rulemaking and certainty for jobs and affordable energy, which we have now, or, if we follow this path, a continued waste of taxpayer dollars to pursue an agenda to kill coal mining.

I choose jobs and affordable energy for American families. Please support H.R. 2824.

I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) and also the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Hartzler) for putting this time together tonight.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties as they take a stand for religious freedom against the unconstitutional coercive ObamaCare HHS mandate.

All Americans, including family businessowners, should have the freedom to live and work according to their religious values without fear of the government punishing them for doing so.

This issue of religious liberty is not limited to these two employers. Many family-owned small businesses and nonprofits across this country have expressed grave concern about this mandate from the Obama administration. It forces them to violate their deeply-held religious beliefs or face crippling penalties.

In my home State of Colorado, Hercules Industries, founded in 1962 by William Newland, a family-owned heating, ventilation, and cooling manufacturer with locations all over Colorado, including Colorado Springs, has been forced into this legal dilemma as well.

As devout Catholics, the Newland family has always worked to run their companies in a way that reflects their sincerely-held religious convictions. This is why, when the Obama administration issued this mandate to force them to violate those beliefs and provide coverage of potentially life-terminating drugs and devices, they had to file a lawsuit to protect their religious freedoms.

Hercules Industries already provides generous health insurance for their employees through a self-insured group plan. With 265 full-time employees throughout its various locations, Hercules could be facing over $9 million in government fines each year.

This comes if they refuse to violate their deeply-held religious convictions and if they don't comply with the Obama mandate to provide drugs to their employees that the Newland family believes can end human life.

What an unbearable choice the Obama administration has burdened them with. Not only is the HHS mandate an attack on religious liberty, it also puts into jeopardy jobs and health care of millions of Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I support businesses like Hercules Industries, Hobby Lobby. And Conestoga Wood Specialties because of their principled stand against this oppressive mandate. Religious freedom is a foundational component of American greatness. It is of utmost importance that we do everything we can to defend it.

I look forward to the Supreme Court's decision, and I hope and I pray that this will be a positive precedent for future religious freedom cases.

Mr. Speaker, I thank both of the gentlemen for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, we just need to adopt H.R. 2824 and the rule supporting it. This is a good piece of legislation.

Unfortunately, this administration is waging what appears to many of us to be a war on coal. The stream buffer zone rule that has been proposed by OSM, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation, is a very troubling rule. It would have adverse effects on all kinds of coal mining way beyond what the stated intention is.

The stated intention is to protect the quality of streams in the Appalachian area, but this rule goes way beyond that. This would have the effect of closing down much of the coal mining in that part of the country. So it is overkill. It is way beyond what is necessary.

The whole rulemaking process, Mr. Speaker, is flawed. We had a very good rewrite of the rules that was done in the last administration. That went through millions of dollars of effort, many years of rulemaking, taking comments, and the end result was a very satisfactory rewrite of the older rule. Yet, without even letting that fully take effect, this administration is throwing that rule out and wanting to go to an overly stringent and unrealistic rule. Let's go back to the last rule that was done through the proper procedures.

So H.R. 2824 is a good piece of legislation. I commend Representative Johnson for carrying this piece of legislation. We have looked at this in detail in our full committee and in the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, and this is a much better approach. So I urge the full House to adopt H.R. 2824 and the rule.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4152, which provides loan guarantees for Ukraine. I am deeply concerned about the crisis in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin is clearly the aggressor, but the United States and our European allies have not done enough to support freedom, self determination, and human rights in Ukraine. When America does not provide strong and reliable leadership, bad things are more likely to happen.

Unfortunately, President Obama's foreign policy of leading from behind is a failure. Even the liberal Washington Post this week said that, ``President Obama's foreign policy is based on fantasy.''

We in Congress must do all we can to restore missing American leadership on foreign policy, and that starts with Ukraine.

The people of Ukraine should not be pawns in Vladimir Putin's hands. We must stand with our European and our other allies and do all we can to support freedom, self determination, and human rights in Ukraine. I ask my colleagues to support H.R. 4152.

Well, I thank my friend and colleague, the gentlelady from Missouri, for her leadership on this issue and for putting this time together. This is an important topic.

Mr. Speaker, I hear from Coloradans every day who are struggling just to make ends meet. Unemployment remains high, and Americans are striving to provide necessities for their families. Prices at the pump have doubled since President Obama took office. According to the Energy Information Administration, they are on a trajectory to rise even higher.

Sadly, as American families and small businesses continue to suffer from these high energy prices, the Obama administration's response has been to impose job-killing and expensive rules through the Environmental Protection Agency. These expenses are passed on to American consumers. These policies, such as attempting to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in the Clean Air Act, only end up hurting consumers.

As the chairman of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources and a proponent for business-focused regulations, I have been vocal against many of these harmful regulations. The EPA's continued power grab ends up taking legislative authority out of the hands of those who are sent here in Washington to represent the American people and puts it in the hands of unelected bureaucrats carrying out the agenda and policies of the White House.

I have cosponsored numerous bills to repeal many of these regulations piece by piece to ensure Americans that they would have affordable energy. Coloradans and the rest of the country should not have to choose between heating their homes and feeding their families. I remain committed to seeing what I can do to stop this bureaucrat overreach.

Just for one example, and my friend and colleague alluded to this, the EPA wants to force American coal-fired power plants to use carbon capture and storage technology that does not even exist. Since it doesn't exist, this is an impossible mandate to obey.

The EPA is basing its regulations on wishful thinking, not sound science. They need to be brought under control. The ability of working Americans to pay their bills hangs in the balance.

I thank the gentlelady for putting this important time together.