Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I would just say that Ralph Hall is an amazing man. I served with him on the Energy and Commerce Committee a lot of years. I had the luxury of sitting next to him. We have a lot of great stories, that is for sure.

I can remember when he came back to the Science Committee, and we said that we had yet another Texan. He said, ``When I'm done, you'll wish that you had another 10 or 12.''

Thank you, Mr. Rush. I will try to be brief.

I do want to put a statement in the Record from Mr. Camp who was here a little while ago and wanted to speak.

I just want to say, Mr. Dingell, Mr. Chairman is what we still call him. I have known him since 1977 when I came here as a staffer, and I have got to say that he treated me just as well as a staffer, which was great, as he has as a colleague and now, for me, as chairman of the committee.

We are the best of friends. We really are. There have been a lot of different issues that we have worked on, and he took me under his wing a lot of years ago, and we discovered too that, for me, it is better to have Dingell on our side than to be on a different side, but when he is on the other side, he is certainly a powerful adversary.

Our delegation in Michigan is pretty close. We are involved in so many different issues, jobs and the economy, particularly the auto sector is one of the things where John Dingell has really led and cared about.

As we know, he is the longest-serving Member of Congress ever in the history of this institution. He is cared about so well.

I can remember bringing over Congressional Records from years past and, as Joe Barton said, he served with some 2,500 Members here, actually going through the vote Journal on some of the big issues of the day, the Voting Rights Act and others, and actually talking about some of the Members and what they said on that particular day.

He was a fair chairman, always went by the rules, had a command of the issues, a brilliant staff, and their loyalty still exists today. Of course, the light of his life, the lovely Deborah, a great person who we know is going to be taking his place, serving those 700,000 people from southeast Michigan in the next Congress.

If you look back at his life, he has served his country from the first day through today, a World War II vet, something that he has always been so, so proud of, chairman of the most powerful committee here in the House.

In addition to all that, he has been a friend, a father, a husband, and a colleague whose word has always been his bond and who has defined the very utmost of what we would like this place to be. He is a great American.

Thank you, John Dingell.

Mr. Chair, America is on the verge of becoming an energy superpower. Not only do we possess more energy than any other country, but we are capable of using that energy to accomplish great things.

Perhaps most important of all to manufacturing states like Michigan, we can use our energy advantage to reverse the gradual decline in American manufacturing that has been going on for decades and create a real resurgence in the years ahead. The Promoting New Manufacturing Act will help us achieve that goal and continues our efforts to build the Architecture of Abundance.

The U.S. has all the ingredients to strengthen our domestic manufacturing dominance. We have the affordable energy supply to run our factories, especially our growing abundance of natural gas. We have private investors willing to invest billions of dollars on new projects in America. We have a workforce that is second to none but many of whom need jobs. And we have the technical knowledge to build manufacturing facilities that are the cleanest and most efficient in the world. All we need is a regulatory process that will allow it to happen.

We all know about Keystone XL, which despite our best efforts, is still caught up in red tape. I wish I could say that bureaucratic nightmare is an isolated incident, but sadly, it isn't. Potential future manufacturing facilities face a similar regulatory maze that can delay projects for years on end or stop them outright.

We want to be a world leader in manufacturing, not in red tape. I am glad the President identified the potential of new American manufacturing in his State of the Union address, and acknowledged that there is red tape that needs to be cleared away. Passage of H.R. 4795 will help make this goal a reality.

The Promoting New Manufacturing Act is a good starting point. We know changes to National Ambient Air Quality Standards are on the horizon, which will ultimately have an impact on how much of this manufacturing renaissance we can actually get permitted into existence. This bill takes some very sensible steps toward a more transparent and timely process for air permits under EPA's New Source Review program. It increases transparency by making more information publicly available on these permit applications, and gives the states and permit applicants the critical information they need to ensure that when it comes to air quality standards, future implementation rules and guidance documents are developed, proposed, and finalized in a timely manner.

I hope that we can all agree that the current regulatory process leaves room for improvement. I urge my colleagues to support our pending manufacturing renaissance and to support this constructive legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5728) to amend the Communications Act of 1934 and title 17, United States Code, to extend expiring provisions relating to the retransmission of signals of television broadcast stations, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous materials on the bill into the Record.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to offer yet another outstanding example of bipartisanship and thoughtful policymaking from the Energy and Commerce Committee.

The STELA Reauthorization Act is an important piece of legislation that ensures that millions of satellite TV subscribers continue to receive broadcast TV programming from their chosen satellite provider.

We have reached across party lines and across the two houses of Congress to craft a compromise for this must-pass legislation that will improve the video marketplace for TV viewers across the country.

In addition to reauthorizing the distant signals offered by satellite providers, we were able to include targeted reforms that in fact will enhance the video marketplace and allow consumers to access the programming that they want when they want it.

These reforms are prime examples of the kinds of deregulatory changes that we are looking at as we work to replace the 80-year-old Communications Act. They are going to spur investment in communications networks, promote competition, and, yes, create needed American jobs.

For example, the bill eliminates the costly CableCARD integration ban that has increased the cost of cable-leased set-top boxes and makes them less energy efficient. Ultimately, this is a double whammy for consumers because, after being forced to pay for an unnecessary and antiquated technology, consumers then have to pay a penalty in the form of higher electric bills.

Although we eliminated the whole mandate in our original bill that we passed through our committee, we worked with our Senate colleagues and agreed to sunset the provision in 1 year.

This will provide time for the FCC to hold a working group on successor solutions to CableCARD without unduly delaying the benefits to consumers who choose to lease equipment from their cable provider.

The bill also evens the playing field for all video providers. It seeks regulatory parity for cable and satellite providers when it comes to protecting broadcast signals during Nielsen sweeps. It also provides satellite operators and broadcasters with the opportunity to modify local markets, like cable operators already have the ability to do.

We hope that in our updated Communications Act that we can find additional ways to eliminate regulatory differences that no longer serve a meaningful, technical purpose or that distort business and consumer incentives.

The bill provides other positive, bipartisan reforms, and it is our intent that as we update the Communications Act in the coming Congress that it continue along that very same path. That being said, the matter before us is the reauthorization of these provisions for the millions of satellite viewer subscribers that depend on them. The clock is ticking, and the bill will ensure when folks flip on their TVs, yes, their favorite show will be available when they want to watch it.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to vote for the bill as this Congress is quickly drawing to a close.

I particularly want to thank Subcommittee on Communications and Technology Chair Greg Walden, Ranking Members Henry Waxman and Anna Eshoo, and Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, as well as our respective staffs for their bipartisan and hard work on this very important legislation. I also want to thank our Senate colleagues Jay Rockefeller and John Thune for their willingness to work with us to find common ground.

I am proud of our committee's record of bipartisan results. As we work toward the Communications Act update next year to modernize our Nation's communication laws for the innovation era, continued cooperation will be critical to that success. Without this bill, without this reauthorization being moved forward, satellite viewers-- millions of Americans--will have those sets turned off. It is important that we reauthorize this bill, and I am pleased to do so in a very bipartisan way.

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

Mr. Speaker, may I ask how much time remains?

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), the distinguished chairman of the Telecommunications Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), the Republican whip and a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. Speaker, at this point I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta), the vice chair of the subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Marino), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, in the summer of 2011, I stood on the House floor in support of legislation to expedite approval of the landmark Keystone XL pipeline. We passed that bill by a strong bipartisan vote of 279 to 147. But despite the overwhelming support, the White House issued a veto threat, declaring the bill was unnecessary given that the administration was committed to reaching a decision on the project by the end of the year.

Fast forward to today, and it's deja vu all over again. More than three years after we passed that initial bill, we still don't have a decision from the president on this critical jobs project despite widespread support from Democrats and Republicans, laborers, and job creators.

President Obama famously proclaimed in January 2013 that he would do ``whatever it takes'' to create jobs and 2014 was renamed the president's so-called ``Year of Action.'' But when the chips are down, President Obama is incapable of saying ``yes'' to a project that would create tens of thousands of American jobs and advance our energy security. But despite the president's excuses, we haven't given up on finding a bipartisan solution.

We have now voted a total of eight times in the House to move this landmark project forward. And now we are standing up for jobs and energy once again. We are going to keep fighting for Keystone until we get the job done.

There is now no question that Keystone is in America's best interest. Keystone has been exhaustively studied more than any other pipeline in our nation's history and the facts are clear. Keystone will deliver nearly a million barrels of safe and secure North American oil, and President Obama's own State Department has confirmed that it will support over 42,000 jobs without significantly increasing emissions. It's also expected to be one of the safest pipelines ever built, adhering to the new pipeline standards we passed into law with additional safety requirements.

Hopefully, this ninth vote is the charm, and the Senate and President will finally agree, that after six years, it's time to finally say yes to energy and yes to jobs.

Mr. Speaker, earlier this year, I joined my Energy and Commerce Committee colleague Diana DeGette of Colorado in launching a bipartisan initiative called 21st Century Cures, which is taking the first-ever comprehensive look at the cures process here in the United States--from discovery to development to delivery. Our goal is to help bring lifesaving treatments, devices, and therapies to patients faster and ensure our nation's laboratories and manufacturers remain global leaders in medical innovation.

Our initiative has fostered a nationwide dialogue, bringing together the brightest minds in the field of public health. One of Michigan's health leaders has been a part of that conversation from the very beginning, taking part in our first Cures roundtable on May 6: Dr. James O. Woolliscroft, MD, dean of the University of Michigan Medical School.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with some of the nation's top health researchers about the cutting-edge work being done in their laboratories at the University of Michigan. The scientific discoveries being made there are truly incredible and will ultimately help save untold American lives. The work being done within the University of Michigan Health System and at the U-M Medical School in particular is in no small part thanks to the visionary leadership of Dr. Woolliscroft.

Dr. Woolliscroft was recently recognized by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) with its highest honor: the Abraham Flexner Award for Distinguished Service to Medical Education.

Dr. Woolliscroft has been a national leader in medical education for more than three decades, since joining the U-M medical faculty in 1980. He has served the school in several capacities until becoming dean in 2007, with a focus on transforming the curriculum to train our next generation of medical leaders.

In the words of one of his AAMC nominators, Dr. Woolliscroft ``has been consistently ahead of his time and often prophetic about the trends in medical education.'' He was among the first to advocate moving the paradigm of medical education from the acquisition of knowledge to performance-based metrics. Likewise, Dr. Woolliscroft was among the first to champion medical student training in community settings. Through his tireless efforts, these have become the new standards in medical education. And like all great teachers, Dr. Woolliscroft not only imparts knowledge, but inspires others through his passion for educating.

The discoveries being made in the life sciences astound and amaze, opening up opportunities for therapies, treatments, and care never before possible. Thanks to the leadership of individuals like Dr. Woolliscroft, the United States will continue to lead the world in providing the highest level of patient care and medical training.

Mr. Speaker, it is not often in life that you get a second chance, but, today, we are here to offer the Senate a second chance, a second chance to stand up and say ``yes''--``yes'' to these American energy solutions that, indeed, will help create jobs and lower costs for American families.

Several of the bills included in today's package were advanced through our committee, Energy and Commerce, and many were bipartisan from the very start. It includes a solution to finally build the Keystone pipeline 6 years after the application went forward.

Here we are 6 years later from when the application was first submitted. We still don't have a pipeline, and folks are still out of work. It shouldn't take 6 years to approve a pipeline, and the President's continued political delays are simply unacceptable. That is why we are taking action to ensure that this does not happen again. We have got a solution today to bring certainty to the approval process for cross-border energy projects so that we don't have to endure another Keystone-like delay in the future.

As part of the Architecture of Abundance, we are also going to need to build more interstate natural gas pipelines. Last winter, millions of customers throughout the country suffered high heating bills, along with the cold temperatures, due to inadequate infrastructure. Today, we are voting on a solution to get those much-needed pipelines in the ground safely and quickly so that we can start delivering relief from those high energy bills.

We are also working to prevent energy prices from spiking even further with solutions to stop EPA's destructive new rules on powerplants and other energy-related rules that will lead only to higher prices and, yes, to fewer jobs. Everyone is affected by energy cost increases, but they also hurt the Nation's poor and the most vulnerable.

One of the easiest and most effective ways to save consumers money is through energy efficiency, which is why we are also advancing solutions that encourage the development and use of new efficient and renewable technologies--very important.

Finally, we have a solution to not only create energy jobs here at home but also to help our allies across the world by giving them access to our abundant natural gas supply. Just this morning, a few hours ago, we heard from the Ukrainian President about the urgent need for the U.S. to act and help weaken Russia's threat to the region. Every one of us was on his feet.

He said this:

You support a Nation, meaning the United States, that has

chosen freedom. In Ukraine, you don't have to build a

democracy; it already exists. You need to defend it.

That is what our LNG export bill does.

Many of America's energy solutions that we are voting on today are part of the package that received, yes, strong bipartisan support in the House, but Senate Leader Reid has failed to bring any of them to the floor for a vote.

Creating jobs and keeping energy affordable is a subject that should rise above partisanship. Today, we are giving the Senate yet another shot to try to put politics aside and American families first. We welcome the Senate to join us as we say ``yes'' to American jobs and ``yes'' to American energy.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Gun Lake Trust Land Reaffirmation Act, a bipartisan bill that will preserve 1,000 jobs in Michigan's 6th district. I would like to thank Chairman Doc Hastings for allowing this piece of legislation to move forward through the Natural Resources Committee.

This bill is really quite simple. It merely reaffirms the U.S. Department of Interior's action of taking this land into trust for the Gun Lake Tribe and prevents any future frivolous legal action on this matter.

On these lands, the Tribe opened a gaming and entertainment facility that has created over 1,000 jobs. For a small community, really for any community, 1,000 new jobs is an incredible feat. The local government and schools also benefit from the facility's revenues. This is quite the advantage in a time when municipalities are slashing services due to deficits. Reaffirmation of this land into trust has the utmost support of our local law enforcement, elected officials, and business leaders.

The Gun Lake Trust Land Reaffirmation Act is a good thing for the folks in my district and it is just the right thing to do. I urge you to help pass legislation that will allow jobs to flourish and provide resources for our schools and communities.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a much beloved member of our community and a well-respected journalist, Lou Mumford, on the occasion of his retirement from the South Bend Tribune newspaper.

For the past 43 years, Lou has reported the news as it unfolded in Greater Michiana. He is an excellent writer with a trusted, familiar voice, gentle humor, and a strong sense of integrity. He was a true journalist's journalist, exemplifying the newspaper industry's gold standard.

During his many decades at work, Lou has seen it all, both good and bad. From covering everything from the high school football team to the courthouse; providing eyewitness accounts to presidential visits; to reporting on the grand national scene and sharing the stories of individuals living right within our community.

When Lou was covering local politics or breaking news out of Washington, you always knew what to expect. His questions were fair, unbiased, and intuitive. You were never going to get a free pass, but you would always be treated with the utmost courtesy and respect. It is impossible to not develop a deep professional respect and admiration for a man of Lou's character. And despite our unbridgeable differences--he roots for the White Sox and I am a dyed-in-the-wool Cubs fan--I am grateful for the warm personal rapport we developed over the years.

Lou has a knack for reading the political field--the history, personalities, issues, and all their nuances--because he understands people and what makes them tick. He also empathizes and brings the reader along with him on an emotional journey. This is where Lou showed his true strengths.

His columns shared the lives of ordinary folks in our own community, touching upon the full range of human emotions. His stories about everyday lives could warm the heart, bring a smile to our face, or a tear to our eye.

Sometimes both in the same story. They reminded us all of what is really important in life--our own experiences, family, friends, and community.

The great journalist Bob Schieffer once remarked that ``journalism is a great way to do public service, to have an impact on your community.'' While the dawn of each day unveiled new stories on the pages of the South Bend Tribune, one thing remained constant through the years, and that was the steady voice of Lou Mumford. Our community is grateful for Lou's dedicated years of service to our community. We wish him all the best in his retirement, and do hope his story telling will continue.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Employee Health Care Protection Act, a bipartisan bill authored by our committee, particularly by Dr. Bill Cassidy as the prime sponsor, to protect the health care choices for literally millions of American workers.

Last fall, we learned the harsh reality that the President's oft- repeated promise that if you liked your health care plan you could keep it--you have heard that here today--was simply not true. Many were shocked to learn that their individual policies were being canceled because of the President's health care law. They didn't like that at all.

Sadly, the wave of canceled plans under the President's broken promise has not ended. The very backbone of America's health care system, employer-sponsored coverage, provides health care security to about 170 million American workers and family members. The President's health care law now threatens the health care plans of many of America's middle class workers who rely on employer-sponsored coverage. Many with employer-sponsored coverage will face the same plan cancelations that millions of Americans received with their individual policies last fall.

This legislation provides a thoughtful solution and relief from the President's broken promises. The bill before us simply allows America's small businesses and workers to choose from health care plans that were in effect in 2013. The bill would also allow other small businesses and workers to choose from more affordable group health care plans available before the President's health care law.

America's workers and families know their health care needs better than do Members of Congress or officials at the Department of HHS. This bill empowers Americans with more choices, the same choices that they were promised. If Americans like their health care plans, they should be able to keep them--period, end of story.

I am also pleased that, this week, the nonpartisan CBO confirmed that this bill would lower the deficit by more than $1 billion, provide more health plan options with lower premiums, and, yes, raise wages for American workers.

We have all heard firsthand of the struggles facing middle class American families because of the health care law. Tom Harmon, from my district, and the trusted workers at American Waste--in a little town called Union, Michigan--are seeing their health care premiums more than double. Sadly, their deductibles are much higher to boot, forcing them to deal with higher health care costs. Rather than make life easier, Washington, through this President's health care law, has, in fact, made life more expensive for Tom and the working families of American Waste in southwest Michigan.

In conclusion, I am proud to say that this bill, H.R. 3522, is a bill dedicated to helping workers across the country who are struggling with the costs and consequences of the President's health care law. I would urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support Dr. Cassidy's bill. America's workers deserve the chance to pick the health care plans that best suit their needs, not lose them.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this very important bipartisan legislation to indeed help protect the public health. H.R. 4250, the Sunscreen Innovation Act, is just that.

The growing rate of skin cancer in the U.S., including melanoma, is indeed alarming. According to the American Cancer Society, more Americans are diagnosed with skin cancer every year than breast, prostate, lung, and colon cancer combined, and in 2015, this year, one in every 50 of our constituents is going to be diagnosed with melanoma. We have got to take every step that we can to combat this public health crisis.

Sadly, advancements in sunscreen have failed to keep pace with the increased awareness of the harm overexposure to the Sun can cause. The FDA has not approved a new nonprescription sunscreen ingredient for nearly 20 years, despite the fact that several applications have been pending at the agency for products that have been used safely and effectively in Europe and other parts of the world.

The review process that these products have to go through at the FDA is, quite simply, broken. It needs to be fixed, and that is what this legislation does.

I particularly want to commend the work that my good friend from the great State of Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and Mr. Whitfield and members of our entire committee, as this bill passed with unanimous support as we moved through the process. We wanted to come up with a solution to allow the FDA to fix the problem, and that is what this bill does.

The Sunscreen Innovation Act is going to address the current backlog of applications pending at the FDA, as well as establish a predictable and transparent review process for new applications, incorporating meaningful input from experts and the public.

The bill also establishes the number of timeframes for decisionmaking at the FDA and remove administrative hurdles identified by the FDA to the sunscreen approval process. More importantly, it is going to allow Americans to benefit from these products sooner, while ensuring that they are indeed safe and effective.

We have had great success in our Energy and Commerce Committee this Congress, with over a dozen public health bills that have already been signed into law, obviously all bipartisan, and I am confident that this commonsense bill which received, again, unanimous support at our committee will soon be part of our strong record of results.

In fact, I am told that this is the 61st bill that our committee has reported

out that will be approved on the House floor. That is a pretty good record of achievement.

This one really, like the others, has a real impact on all of our constituents. It gives the FDA the rightful tools, so that we can get to the bottom of the problem which impacts one in 50 Americans.

So, again, I want to compliment Mr. Dingell, Mr. Whitfield, Mr. Pallone, Mr. Waxman, and others for helping deliver this bill to the House floor, and I look forward to a strong vote--hopefully voice--in a few minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon in support of yet another very important health bill advanced by our Energy and Commerce Committee, H.R. 594, the Paul D. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Community Assistance, Research and Education Amendments of 2014, or the MD CARE Act. The bill again demonstrates the continued bipartisan achievements of our committee, and particularly of the Health Subcommittee which has a proven track record of getting solutions put into law that have a profound, positive effect on Americans all across the country.

Muscular dystrophy, it is a complex group of diseases that affects the mobility and life expectancy of so many Americans. Current treatments can alleviate symptoms of the muscular dystrophies like Duchenne and slow muscle deterioration, but there is no treatment to reverse it. It is very sad. Even with the progress made by researchers, obviously a lot of work remains.

This legislation is going to help us find the answers to these diseases. The bill ensures the continuation of critical research at the NIH and updates language in the Public Health Service Act to reflect the latest scientific advances. In addition, the Muscular Dystrophy Coordinating Committee of HHS is going to be strengthened to accelerate the understanding of the impact of muscular dystrophy on patients; and, more importantly, it is going to work to find ways to expedite the approval of emerging therapies that will hopefully some day lead to a cure.

I want to particularly thank Dr. Burgess and Eliot Engel for their leadership on this bill, and also Chairman Pitts and Ranking Members Waxman and Pallone.

I have to say that this is now the 62nd bill that our committee will have passed out of full committee that will pass on the House floor. We have than more a dozen bipartisan committee bills, public health bills that have already been signed into law. We hope this will be one of those as we advance this bill, as well as the Sunscreen Innovation Act, which we just passed a few minutes ago.

I know that this Congress can be remembered as the public health Congress, and I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation which passed by a voice vote unanimously in our committee. It sends a strong signal

to those individuals and their families impacted by muscular dystrophy that Congress--yes, we are--is committed to finding a cure. We will find the resources to do this. This legislation is yet another step, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, the STELA Reauthorization Act is a very important piece of must-pass legislation that ensures that millions of satellite TV subscribers continue to receive broadcast TV programming from their chosen satellite provider.

The bill represents the best of what our committee does--work together to produce a bipartisan bill that does indeed strengthen our economy and streamline our laws for the innovation age.

In addition to extending the laws that permit satellite providers to bring broadcast signals to hard-to-reach customers, the bill also makes targeted reforms to our Nation's woefully outdated communications laws.

As our committee prepares for an updated Communications Act, these reforms are small examples of some of the deregulatory changes that we can make to spur investment and communications networks and promote competition.

The bill eliminates the costly cableCARD integration ban that has increased the cost of cable-leased set-top boxes and made them less energy efficient, evens the playing field for cable and satellite providers when it comes to protecting broadcast signals during Nielsen sweeps, brings fairness to retransmission consent negotiations by barring broadcast stations from jointly negotiating with programing distributors, and ensures that broadcasters who have had their business models upended by recent FCC actions indeed have adequate time to make the changes necessary to comply with the new rules.

This bill is good policy, and we hope that the Senate will take quick action to enact this must-pass law for the millions depending on satellite television.

I want to particularly thank Subcommittee on Communications and Technology Chairman Walden from Oregon, Ranking Members Henry Waxman and Anna Eshoo, and our respective staffs for their bipartisan work from the start on this very important legislation.

I am proud of this product. As we work toward the Comm Act update to modernize our Nation's communications law for the innovation era, continued cooperation will be very critical to our success. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, this bill, the Travel Promotion, Enhancement, and Modernization Act of 2014--yes, it is a very important bill that is going to increase jobs and boost the economy by promoting the U.S. as a world-class travel destination.

The bill reauthorizes Brand USA and increases program accountability and transparency, thanks in large part to the amendments and the regular process that we went through in committee.

In 2013, Brand USA generated an additional 1.1 million visitors to the U.S. and, as the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry) said, $3.4 billion in additional spending at U.S. businesses.

This increase in spending triggered the creation of more than 53,000 American jobs and $2.2 billion in payroll, so Brand USA delivers all those benefits to the U.S. economy at no cost to the American taxpayers--no cost.

Earlier this month in my district, I held a roundtable to discuss the benefits of tourism and how this program contributes to southwest Michigan's economy.

We had local legislators. We had chambers of commerce. We had tourism organizations. We had State officials. It was noted that in my district, in southwest Michigan, we had nearly $1 billion in spending in 2012, supporting over 9,300 jobs and $200 million in payroll annually just for tourists. There was $1 billion spent in southwest Michigan by tourists.

It was also noted that the reauthorization of this bill was their number one priority. It expires next year, and one of the commitments that I made was to see if we could move it in an expeditious manner to give the Senate a little time, so that it doesn't get caught up later on and we can just get it off our plate, knowing in fact that it was bipartisan from the get-go.

I applaud particularly the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), who is going to speak a little bit later, and his colleague from Vermont (Mr. Welch), who are both very good members on our committee, for their working together and their leadership to spearhead this bipartisan bill.

I was glad to see it pass on a recorded vote that was unanimous in subcommittee and in full committee as well, and I appreciate the leadership of the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) as we work through this bill and to really get it to the floor as quickly as we can.

These are jobs. This is not a cost to the American taxpayer. It ought to be something that we can pass on a pretty good vote this afternoon.

Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chairman, I just want to say, it is my understanding the gentleman is going to withdraw the amendment, so we are not going to have to insist on the point of order.

I just want to assure both my friends from Texas that this is an issue that this body needs to deal with. We just had two votes in the last hour that were a pretty good indication that this body supports long-term storage of high-level nuclear waste.

It is an issue that we have seen linger in this Congress now, well, for the last number of decades. It needs to be resolved. I am one that believes, as you do, I think--I know--that the authorizing committee needs to deal with this forthwith; and I want to give the assurance to you and all of our colleagues that, as the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, I want to continue to work on this issue on a bipartisan basis.

For me, I have got two nuclear plants in my district. Both facilities, in fact, have run out of room in their pools. They are going to be storing it on-site.

We have got a number of sites around the country that are closed at this point, and they are needing to send their high-level nuclear waste to one safe place. That is what the Yucca Mountain bill did that we passed, that President Reagan signed into law back in the eighties.

There is a lot of discussion, particularly on the Senate side, on an interim storage site. I know that some States like Texas would very much like to participate in such a program. My concern with that approach is this, that I don't want to see that move without a permanent, full-time site like Yucca be left in the ditch, that, in fact, we might see, ultimately, the two combined.

That is not an approach that we are going to deal with on this appropriation bill but, rather, an authorization bill that certainly I would like to see happen. I know that the chairman of that subcommittee, Mr. Shimkus, is on board with, very much, the same thoughts. I would like to think that in the next Congress, when we have got some new faces perhaps on both sides of the House and the Senate, that we will be able to move a bipartisan bill to, in fact, deal with both long-term and short-term in terms of interim, and I look forward to being a party to try and get those two groups together.

So I would ask the two gentlemen from Texas, particularly you, Mr. Barton, if you would withdraw the amendment knowing that we will, in fact, deal with this on another day, not today.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I look forward to working with you on both of those accounts and move it to regular order through the authorization process. Certainly that is an issue that I want to see our committee deal with in the next Congress for sure.