Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, you have heard numerous speakers talk about the bureaucracy that happens in the aftermath of a disaster, and we had legislation by Ranking Member Sam Graves trying to help to cut through that bureaucracy and not have our own Federal Government revictimize our disaster victims, who are citizens of this country.

In the aftermath of a disaster--which, being from south Louisiana, we experience, unfortunately, way too frequently--we have FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, that comes in; we have the Small Business Administration that comes in; we have the Department of Housing and Urban Development; we have the Department of Agriculture; and others that all offer different types of emergency aid or programs.

Madam Speaker, apparently, it appears that many of these agencies aren't aware that there has been this invention called the internet that connects everybody. Instead of coming in and forcing these disaster victims, who potentially have lost everything that they own, to come in and stop by numerous locations and fill out the same paperwork over and over again, they should come in and apply commonsense solutions that we have seen in the private sector for decades now, simply coming in, providing information once, being more efficient, truly providing service to these disaster victims, instead of revictimizing them.

I want to thank the gentlewoman from Puerto Rico, my friend, for her leadership on this effort. I know, being from Puerto Rico and victimized by Hurricanes Irma, Maria, and others, this is an extraordinary issue for her constituents. I really do appreciate Congressman DeFazio, Ranking Member Sam Graves, and others who have partnered with her on this legislation, allowing it to go through. I urge adoption of this legislation.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to thank Mr. Stauber from Minnesota for introducing this legislation and working together with Congressman DeSaulnier from California.

As Ms. Norton, the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia, noted, in 2017, at San Francisco International Airport, a NOTAM had been issued, a notice to airmen, which is usually sent to notify pilots about changes in airspace or construction conditions or changes of conditions at airports.

One was issued that indicated that a runway was under construction and an alternative runway was open. They had an Air Canada flight that came in while four occupied planes were on the taxiway, and there was a near miss where this Air Canada flight nearly landed on a taxiway that they mistook for the alternative runway. It would have caused widespread death in the event that those five planes ultimately would have collided.

The National Transportation Safety Board, as noted, did find that the lack of comprehension, or possibly even reviewing this NOTAM, was a primary cause.

This legislation creates a task force to look at better ways of informing, of connecting with pilots, to make sure that they have accurate information and that they actually read or are aware of these changing conditions which could, as in the 2017 incident, be the difference between life and death.

Again, I want to thank Chairman DeFazio. I want to thank Ranking Member Sam Graves. I want to thank Mr. Stauber, the author of this bill, with his partner, Congressman DeSaulnier from California.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber).

Madam Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Guest).

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

Madam Speaker, in closing, I want to say that the United States has the safest aviation system in the world, and air travel is the safest way to travel.

This bipartisan legislation by Congressmen Stauber and DeSaulnier ensures that we maintain that level of safety for air passengers in the future. I think it is a great bipartisan piece of legislation. I appreciate those two gentlemen working on this together. I urge adoption of the legislation.

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

Madam Speaker, the back up at the useless security screening onto the House floor was backed up preventing me from making the vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 104.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``Yea'' on rollcall No. 59.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Arkansas for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, we have listened to our friends on the other side of the aisle talk about their desire for protecting wilderness areas and our natural resources, and I want to commend them for that. I agree with them, we need to do a better job doing that.

As we have had an opportunity to talk in the past, Mr. Speaker, in a previous life I taught mountaineering courses, I led climbing trips, I led mountain biking trips, kayaking, and was a river guide. I spent more time out in these very areas that they are talking about than every single one of them sitting there combined. It is what I did. It is how I lived for years.

And, Mr. Speaker, listening to this talk, I see an extraordinary disconnect, and let me be very clear. I have heard people saying that this is going to promote economic development and promote recreational opportunity. Mr. Speaker, that is not true. It is not fact.

As a matter of fact, what happens under this legislation in these designations is that those very recreational opportunities that create economic activity are actually eliminated. They are prohibited under this act.

You cannot do things like mountain biking. I will say, they finally came back and made some adjustments on wilderness areas where you can leave descending devices--thank you--but you can't do these things.

So how in the world are you going to make more money and have more economic activity?

Are they going to offer unicorn rides?

You can't do that. This doesn't work. It doesn't make sense. We are not following the regular process you do to evaluate wilderness areas.

What happened last Congress--we have a new Member of Congress who represents three-quarters of this area and she wasn't given an opportunity to be consulted. Amendments to allow local governments and maybe the citizens were rejected. Let them make a decision here.

Mr. Speaker, why were those ideas rejected?

I had an amendment that simply said that we should allow best practices in wildfire management. That was prohibited. We have had seven million acres of this very area burned and we are prohibiting the best practices in wildfire management.

Mr. Speaker, I want to know what they are going to tell their constituents and other people's constituents when these areas burn because of their irresponsible activities.

Mr. Speaker, I urge rejection of this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman, Mr. Johnson, for yielding and for organizing this.

Madam Speaker, I sat here and listened to all of these people talk about Luke Letlow, and I don't know who they are talking about.

Luke was a redneck. There is this iconic picture of Luke where he is wearing this hat, and it says: ``Start Fire.'' The only thing that comes to mind is this is parent material, right?

Luke was a good ol' boy, and I know, in many instances, that term is associated with negativity. That is not Luke. Luke was a force for good, and he did that before the Navy even coined that term.

I have known him for 15, 20 years. We staffed together up here in Congress. We worked together in the Governor's office in Louisiana. Luke was always a workhorse, always, not a show horse.

Madam Speaker, Luke was a public servant. He wasn't a politician. He had a heart for the public. He had a heart for fixing things, and he was good at it. Luke brought folks together, and he got things done.

There wasn't a prejudiced or discriminatory bone in his body. Everybody was a friend. Everybody Luke met, he looked you in the eye, he gave you that little grin, which was a little bit cockeyed, and he truly wanted to know you.

He truly wanted to get to know people, to find out what you were about. He loved finding out about the background or history of people, their ancestry, their relatives, where they were from, what they did, what they cared about.

Madam Speaker, the people in the Fifth District of Louisiana saw that as well. There are 24 parishes that comprise the Fifth District, and Luke won 23 of those, 23 of them in the election. This district, his predecessor used to brag, and Luke serving as the chief of staff to Congressman Ralph Abraham used to brag, has more acres of row crops than any other district in Congress. This wasn't an urban area. This wasn't New York City or even New Orleans. This was a rural area. Madam Speaker, these were the people that Luke had a heart for.

I have never in my life been as excited as I was to have a colleague like Luke. Years and years ago, I told him, I said: ``Luke, look, if Doc, if Ralph Abraham, ever steps down, you have to run. You have to do it.''

There are a lot of people up here that are good. Luke would have been great.

Madam Speaker, you look at this place, you watch the network TV, the news, and you wonder why in the world anyone would want to come to do this. You have really got to question people's sanity, looking at how dysfunctional, how partisan, how divisive this place is.

One of the previous speakers hit it on the head when they said Luke is exactly what we need. He is exactly what we need here. I will say it again: Luke is a workhorse, not a show horse. He brings people together. He doesn't care about your race, your ethnicity. He doesn't care about your political party. What he cares about is doing things right.

Luke's dream was to find a good life partner, and knowing him when he was a little younger, I think many of us thought that was a pretty lofty goal for Luke. But, man, he nailed it. He did. Julia, his partner, his life partner, his spouse, his wife, is just amazing, and Luke was just so excited, so giddy, about that relationship.

Luke's dream was to be a good son, and he is. He is a great son. He is a great brother.

Before I leave you all with the wrong impression, I should have clarified that his dad actually started the volunteer fire department in Start, S-t-a-r-t, where he was from. I didn't mean to suggest that he was a pyro. He was a good son.

Luke's dream was to be a Member of Congress, and he did that, too. He won the election. His dream was to be a good father to Jeremiah and the apple of his eye, Jacqueline. He loves them, absolutely loves them.

And his dream was to be a good Christian. Look, all of us are sinners, but Luke was a difference-maker.

He didn't run for Congress for the name recognition, for the ego, or for the popularity. He did this, he ran, to represent the underrepresented, to stand up for these small communities, like Start, Louisiana, and the people of these small communities so they would have a voice, so they would be represented.

I will never in my life forget when we were at the burial, following the hearse to the burial ceremony, seeing that hearse driving and the water tower of Start right there in the background, and this just ominous sky. All I could think about is Luke doing what was right and wanting to be here because he really cared. He did. It was so genuine.

Madam Speaker, people often talk about term limits, and term limits make a lot of sense. There are some people that should be term-limited after they have been in Congress for about 2 months, and there are some people that should be term-limited after 40 years. Luke was one of those people who should be here forever because you couldn't change his genuine heart and care for the people and doing what is right.

So, Madam Speaker, I want to thank, again, my friend from Louisiana for organizing this. It was absolutely well deserved. Filling the void Ralph Abraham's retirement created was a big void, but, certainly, Luke was absolutely up for that task. He was going to do an amazing job.

To Julia, to Jeremiah, to Jacqueline: Luke is looking down at us from heaven right now probably playing Xbox or PlayStation, and he is looking over this place. He is looking over this family. What Louisiana lost was heaven's gain.

God bless you, brother.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to complete the vote series on July 12 as I needed to return to my district to support preparations ahead of Tropical Storm Barry. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall No. 468, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 469, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 470, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 471, ``yea'' on rollcall No. 472, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 473, and ``yea'' on rollcall No. 474.

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

Mr. Chair, this amendment is pretty simple. Section 117 in division C of the base text of the bill prevents the Department of the Interior from carrying out a NEPA review, a National Environmental Policy Act review, for the planning of offshore energy production.

Mr. Chair, we just heard a few amendments back, debate about the importance of science, the importance of data. Let's be clear what this provision does. This provision prevents the Federal Government from opening up the plan for an environmental review, from subjecting it to public feedback. It prevents data and information to make informed decisions.

Mr. Chair, there is a process under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act where you go do an offshore plan. It is a pretty clear process. If folks have a problem with that, amend the law. Amend the law, don't use the appropriations process to prevent the public from getting access to information and access to data so the Federal Government can make an informed decision.

This is flawed text of the amendment. Our amendment simply helps to address it, to allow for an open, public process so we can make the right, informed decision with the right science and the right data, as my friends were recently speaking about.

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

Mr. Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Abraham).

Mr. Chair, let me run through a few points here to see if I can clarify a number of the remarks.

The base text of the bill actually prevents the Department of the Interior from carrying out the steps that are required.

Think about the concept of what was said, Mr. Chair. It was said that they want the Department of the Interior to follow the law. Well, what would they be doing otherwise?

The provision in the bill, section 117, prevents them from carrying out pre-leasing activities. This text prevents them from being able to follow the law.

I am baffled by this, and I am happy to have a much longer discussion on how an offshore plan and leasing program is put together.

What the base text of the bill does is it tries to force the Obama- era plan from ever being changed. The base text prevents the process that is in the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act from being allowed to go forward.

Mr. Chair, what is really important to talk about here, when you go back to look at what energy policies and different administrative policies have done, do you know that back during the Obama administration in 2011, one half of this Nation's trade deficit was attributable to us bringing in energy from other sources, bringing them in from foreign countries, empowering their economies, creating jobs in their countries?

I am an American. I represent people here. I am trying to help make sure that we have a healthy economy and that we have affordable energy.

Mr. Chair, folks are going to try and say, oh, this affects emissions and climate change. Our gas, which is replacing the dirtier Russian natural gas, is actually reducing global climate emissions, which is part of our strategy that has resulted in the United States having greater emissions reduction than any other country in the world.

It is really fun to go out and talk about all these things, but we have to keep this based in facts and statistics. This amendment makes sense. It simply does allow the Department of the Interior to follow the law, making sure we maximize our resources.

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

Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar).

Mr. Chairman, I yield an additional 20 seconds to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. Chairman, let's break this apart a little bit. So my friend from South Carolina has proposed this amendment because he wants to protect the environment.

Well, let's look at what happens when you do this.

My friend sat in the House Committee on Natural Resources where we had experts, not people standing here behind the microphone, but real experts who came to the Congress, who testified before us, and who said: We have looked at this issue when you stop producing energy domestically. We have looked at it. And what happens when you stop producing it domestically? You import it. You import it from foreign countries.

All right. So, one, you are not stopping the production of energy. You are just doing it in another country, and you are paying them and creating jobs there.

Number two, when you do this, you still have to actually ship the energy. It doesn't just pop up in the socket. You have to ship the energy.

Look at the studies. Look at the reports. You have a greater chance of threatening your global environment, threatening the coast of South Carolina by transporting it by ship.

Look at the statistics. It is safer to do exploration and production activities, to put it in a pipe in the United States.

Mr. Chairman, my friend was there and heard the witnesses talk about this. It is important that we make sure that we are doing things that don't just feel good, but things that will actually achieve the goal of protecting our environment in the United States. This amendment is flawed.

Now, look. The other thing, Mr. Chairman, I think is important is what this prohibits is it prohibits us from actually doing a resource assessment. Maybe there is an assessment and it is determined that it doesn't make sense to produce energy there. Well, let's make an informed decision.

Last thing, Mr. Chairman, is about ecological productivity. Off the coast of Louisiana, where we reproduce somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of all of the offshore energy, the conventional energy in the United States in Federal waters, we have the second most productive fisheries in the Nation, only behind Alaska, another State that does offshore energy production. We have multiple times more fisheries than my friend's home State of South Carolina.

So the whole ecological productivity argument is just not supported by the facts. If you support the environment, if you support ecological productivity, if you support American jobs, you oppose this amendment. If you support Russian gas, if you support Vladimir Putin, if you support a dirtier environment, I urge you to vote in support of this amendment.

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

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

Madam Chair, I appreciate the opportunity to bring up this amendment today.

This amendment is pretty simple. In division E, section 106 has a provision that says that no funds in this act or any other act may be used to carry out any activities that would include transferring or effectively modifying the mission of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. I understand that it is pretty clear plain language, section 106, division E.

The problem is this: If the performance of the agency were stellar, I would understand that, and perhaps we would try and protect it, but let me throw out a few statistics painting a picture of what it is that we are dealing with.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, today, has a $100 billion backlog in authorized projects--$100 billion. These projects are projects like sustaining communities, resilience projects, flood protection, ecological restoration, deepening navigation channels.

Let me tell a little about the performance of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Madam Chair.

You can look at ports in other countries. They have been able to facilitate the Post-Panamax, the larger vessels.

In the United States, we are years or decades behind where we should be, putting our ports at a disadvantage, resulting in our consumers paying higher prices for those goods that are being shipped.

In regards to ecological restoration in my home State of Louisiana, we lost 2,000 square miles of our coastal wetlands, had billions of dollars in restoration projects authorized, and none of them are moving forward--not even starting, in most cases.

We have hurricane and flood protection projects. I don't have to remind anyone here. Hurricanes Irma, Maria, Michael, Florence; North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands. These places were pounded. People died because of the lack of resilience, the lack of these projects being carried out.

Lastly, Madam Chair, my home State of Louisiana, going back to 2005, I heard a little while ago somebody talking about Hurricane Katrina. What people don't realize or don't understand, the project that was designed to stop that flooding, that devastation, the loss of 1,200 to 1,500 of my brothers, sisters, friends, relatives, neighbors, fellow Louisianians, that project was authorized, dates back to the 1970s, and it wasn't finished. It wasn't finished in 2005.

I am not asking to move the cord. I am asking to look at how to improve, how to modify this. Let's look at a better result to where we are not spending as we have in recent years, $1.7 trillion responding to countless disasters across this country that have cost our Nation over $1 billion a pop.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairwoman, I just heard comments from folks saying that Congress needs to step in. The Transportation Committee should look at this and act, and perhaps propose reorganization legislation or studies, and other things. And I hate to bring this up, but Congress did just that.

Let me say it again. Congress did just that. Section 1102 of the Water Resources Development Act of 2018, which you both supported, included language which actually says that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and the Corps of Engineers should enter into an agreement to look at more efficient delivery of Corps of Engineers' projects.

This amendment doesn't move the Corps of Engineers out. What it does is, it says, clearly, there is a problem. And if the problem is Congress and the funding, then that is what the study will determine. Let them go. Let them do the analysis, just like we did on a bipartisan basis.

Congresswoman Esty and I offered the amendment. It was unanimously accepted. It passed in this House twice, and it is law today. That is all I am asking for. I am baffled that folks are afraid of information, perhaps better ideas, on how to deliver these projects.

I understand that people have their perception of where the problems are. Madam Chairwoman, if I bring anything to this Chamber, I have spent more time working on Corps of Engineers projects than anybody else and, in fact, I am going to go so far as to say than everybody else in this Chamber combined.

I would be happy to throw the stats out. This is what I used to do. I used to work with the Corps of Engineers on a daily basis doing billions and billions of dollars' worth of projects.

This is a flawed process. We routinely were able to build projects that the Corps of Engineers designed for one-half to one-third the cost. Madam Chairwoman, what that does is, it allows it to build double or triple the amount of projects for the same cost.

If we need to get this backlog broken then, certainly, that is an efficiency that we can bring to the table. Why are people afraid of information? This status quo is not working. I shudder to think about what everyone is going to do and say next time we have a catastrophic disaster in an area where there is a Corps of Engineers project that sat there for decades.

This is a flawed process. The status quo has failed. I urge adoption of the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from Alabama for yielding. I want to thank him for bringing this amendment up.

Mr. Chairman, it is really important to make sure we understand what we are talking about here. The Paris accord was engaged in for the purpose of benefiting the global environment, for benefiting the global environment and for reducing emissions, yet what has happened under the agreement with the pledges that the nations have made is that the United States, over the last several years, has actually reduced our emissions by nearly a billion tons. China has actually increased theirs by 4 billion tons.

This agreement is so disparate it doesn't make sense. The President was right to withdraw.

But to distinguish, we can stay focused on the targets, the pledges, but we should not codify, memorialize, agree, or in anyway comply with this disparate approach where China can continue polluting the environment.

Mr. Chairman, this is similar to a scenario where I get together with a group of friends and I say, hey, we are going to have a savings club, and we are all going to get together, and I am going put money into it, and they are going come and take money out. That is not a savings club. That is what is happening.

This is not benefiting the environment. The United States should not participate, codify, or support this scenario where China is out there more than increasing by the emissions reductions that the United States is achieving.

We have had the greatest emissions reductions in the world, greater than the next 11 countries combined, and we have done it without this agreement.

I urge adoption of the amendment.

Madam Speaker, President Trump visited our home state and I missed two important votes.

Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 203; and YEA on Roll Call No. 204.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend Sheriff Jason Ard for winning the Destination Zero Officer Traffic Safety Award. Talking about change is easy, as this body well knows. Making change happen is a different thing altogether. Sheriff Ard earned this recognition by taking decisive action to solve a real problem affecting the performance of his deputies. In January 2017, Sheriff Ard was advised that Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office had a `bad driving' problem and that his deputies were spending too much on vehicle maintenance and repairs, having at-fault accidents, and dealing with crash injuries and even lawsuit settlements. So he stepped in and initiated change. First, he identified those among his deputies with safe driving records and rewarded them with an extra week off. He also installed GPS devices on all Sheriff's office vehicles and required all deputies to complete the NADA pursuit driving class--some of his drivers ended up becoming trainers. The result? An immediate 28 percent reduction in at fault crashes, a 62 percent reduction in damage costs, a 25 percent reduction in lawsuits, and an 87 percent reduction in lawsuit settlement payments. Sheriff Ard's leadership and decisive action serve as a model for law enforcement teams across the country that may be facing the same issues. I thank him for his service to our community and to the State of Louisiana--and for setting the example.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the distinguished leader for his statement.

I, too, wish this were a bipartisan bill. I do. I wish it were a bipartisan bill. Unfortunately, as the ranking member of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, I found out about this from the press, not from the chairman of the committee. I found out from the press about this bill. That is not how you pursue bipartisan legislation. If there were a true attempt and a true desire to do bipartisan legislation, certainly this would have been handled differently.

Let me be clear, Mr. Chairman, I fully agree that the climate is changing. I agree that humans are contributing to that change. I agree that there is something that we need to do about this, and we need to be aggressive.

As we heard from scientists just yesterday in the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, they have confirmed to us that the United States can eliminate all emissions, and we are still going to see warming. We are not going to see changes in the temperature if we eliminate all of our emissions.

Mr. Chairman, China, right now, is the top emitter. They are emitting 80 percent more than the United States. As a matter of fact, Greenpeace found last year they are actually increasing their emissions. Here we are, the United States, for about the last 20 years, the largest absolute reduction in emissions of any country in the world.

The Paris accord is fundamentally flawed. It is not the solution. We can eliminate all of our emissions, Mr. Chairman, and you are going to have countries like China that are allowed, under the Paris accords, to come in and more than replace all of our emissions

reductions. That doesn't make sense, and it is not fair. This coming from a country that has already stolen trillions of dollars in intellectual property and cost this country millions of jobs.

Let me say it again: Climate change is real, and we need to take action.

This agreement is fundamentally flawed. It benefits China.

Of course other countries agree. It is on the back of the United States, the nation that spends more money on climate change science and more money on climate change technology than any other country in the world.

Mr. Chairman, this bill is fundamentally flawed. This whole agreement is fundamentally flawed. China has an entirely different metric to measure their emissions reduction than the United States, and they don't even have to reduce a single degree of emissions until after 2030.

Mr. Chairman, this is a flawed bill, and I urge rejection.

Mr. Speaker, years ago, the administration, working through an international group, had helped to negotiate and put together an agreement on climate change known as the Kyoto Protocol. That protocol was resoundingly rejected by the United States Senate.

It actually had provisions in it that indicated that should the United States in the future end up entering into some sort of climate agreement or any type of agreement, that there would have to be some type of a consent by the United States Senate; that this would have to be presented before the United States Senate.

We don't have a unilateral government. We don't have a dictatorship. We have scenario whereby we have a Congress, we have a President, and we work together. In this case what has happened is, under the Obama administration, these Paris accords were agreed to unilaterally, meaning they were never submitted to the Congress. They were never submitted to the United States Senate for approval.

Mr. Speaker, that is why the American people have their Representatives. Their Representative is their Senator, and that is how their voice is heard on agreements like this.

Yet, we had a President that unilaterally agreed to the Paris accords and did not submit it to the United States Senate. So now we have a President that is saying: Well, this was unilaterally agreed to. I am unilaterally withdrawing.

We have a bill this week, H.R. 9, that attempts to prevent the President from withdrawing from this. So I want to stick with procedure here for just a minute, Mr. Speaker.

We unilaterally entered into an agreement that we don't believe should have been entered into unilaterally. We think it should have been presented to the United States Senate. It was not.

Now the President is saying, I am withdrawing. And now this bill is trying to prevent that. So, on the one hand they think that a President should be able to unilaterally act, and in another scenario, the withdrawal that President Trump has proposed, you have folks saying with H.R. 9 that, no, no, you can't do that. You can't have both. One or the other, take your pick.

Now, let's actually get into the contents of the agreement. The Paris accords set targets on emissions reductions for the United States. All right, so they try and set emissions reductions.

Mr. Speaker, under this agreement, we could eliminate all emissions from the United States, all greenhouse gases. We can eliminate all of them, and China can come in and they can emit 10 times what we were emitting before we cut. Under this agreement that is totally legal. It doesn't make sense.

To add insult to injury, China can go years and years increasing emissions; not reducing, increasing. I want to remind you, we live in a global environment. As much as we like to think we are the only country in the world, we are not. It is a global environment. If you care about the whole environment for the entire globe, you have got to look holistically.

You can't come to the United States and say: Okay, you have to cut emissions. Yet, in China, they can double, triple, they can go tenfold increasing their emissions, twentyfold increasing their emissions, and that is all legal under this agreement. That is inappropriate. If we care about the global environment, let's care about the global environment.

Now, to add insult to injury, the agreement also establishes an entirely different metric for developing countries like China than it does for the United States.

Now, think about this, if we are in the Olympics; we are running a race, and you win the race. But then somebody comes, and they say: No, no we are giving this Chinese runner a 20-second deduction. That is not fair. And that is what has happened here.

They have an entirely different metric that they are measured by. Why? If we live in a global environment, if we care about overall reducing emissions, why are we giving different standards, different measurements? That is inappropriate. This entire agreement is flawed.

Now, some of you may be sitting there thinking: Well, wait a minute. I care about the environment. I care about emissions reduction.

Let me read you a statement that was included in the International Energy Agency's Global Energy & CO2 Status Report.

Here is the statement: ``Emissions in the United States remain around their 1990 levels, 14 percent and 800 metric tons of CO2 below their peak in 2000.''

Now, here is the kicker. Listen to this statement. ``This is the largest absolute decline among all countries since 2000.''

I am going to say that again. ``This is the largest absolute decline among all countries since 2000.''

Let me translate that, Mr. Speaker. What that means is that the United States, over the last, nearly 20 years, has reduced emissions greater than every other country.

So, we are actually operating without a requirement, just with an incentive. We are operating on already reducing emissions. We are already transitioning to an all-of-the-above energy strategy which includes solar, which includes wind, which includes geothermal, which includes hydro, and nuclear, and natural gas, and coal, and oil, and other things, all of the above, whichever makes the most sense.

We had a hearing today in the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis and it was fascinating listening to people

talking about the impact of these energy policies on the poor.

Well, Mr. Speaker, the home State where I am from, south Louisiana, we have the lowest electricity rates in the United States, the lowest. The States that have the highest are the ones that are forcing things that are perverting or distorting markets. Those are the States that have the highest electricity rates. That disproportionately affects the poor.

We were citing today an analysis by the Manhattan Institute. In that analysis, they looked at if you invested $1 million and you could invest it in solar, you could invest it in wind, or you could invest it in natural gas and shale--I see my friend here from North Dakota that represents much of the shale production in the United States--you would get a sixfold increase in the amount of energy produced by investing it in shale.

I remind you, Mr. Speaker, transitioning to natural gas results in a significant reduction in emissions as compared to other sources. It is part of our existing infrastructure. It is part of a transition plan. And not to say that we don't ever transition or continue migrating to renewable sources; it is all of the above.

Don't say all of the above, as President Obama and others did, but then carry out policies that prevent you or drive up the cost of these other energy sources. It doesn't make sense and that is what disproportionately affects the poor.

Mr. Speaker, we have other Members here from the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, and I appreciate them being here. I am looking forward to engaging with them on bringing reality, bringing practicality to this discussion today.

But I want to say in summary: number one, procedurally, the Paris accords were flawed. Practically speaking, the targets that were established disproportionately affect the United States, and it establishes a different measuring stick, a different standard for us than it does for China and other countries.

I remind you, Mr. Speaker, China, the country that is here under the auspices of a developing Nation, this is the country that is spending billions and billions of dollars around the world on projects in other countries to improve their national security, their defense, contrary, in many cases, to the United States and our allies. This is a developing country. This is inappropriate.

And I will say one last thing in closing. We are the country that over nearly the last 20 years has had the greatest reduction in emissions and we have done it by incentivizing, not by coming in and distorting markets and putting perverse policies in place.

H.R. 9 is a flawed approach that is going to have a disproportionate impact on the poor. It is going to simply squeeze a balloon in the middle and make it pop out on the sides where you have more emissions resulting in China and other countries. Because companies will leave the United States, jobs will leave the United States if we address this inappropriately, and they will go to other countries where they will be less energy efficient. They will release greater emissions into our global environment. That is not a win.

Mr. Speaker, I urge rejection of H.R. 9. I urge support of involving the United States Senate, the United States Congress in these discussions and negotiations, and to develop a true all-of-the-above energy strategy that incorporates things like incentives, thinks about our infrastructure network and other important components of ultimately achieving this objective, which we all share, which is giving a better planet to future generations.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia, Congressman Buddy Carter, that, similar to me, represents a coastal district.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia for his comments.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Armstrong), who is another member of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Dakota for his comments.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from West Virginia (Mrs. Miller), who represents a lot of the victims of bad energy policy or energy policy that is not thought out.

Mr. Speaker, might I inquire how much time is remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I will now close.

Mr. Speaker, it has been fascinating serving on the House Natural Resources Committee, where we have talked about efforts to stop pipelines from being built under the auspices of this is protecting our environment.

Mr. Speaker, study after study has shown that, when you stop pipelines, it doesn't stop the utilization of oil and gas. What it does is it puts that on barges, on trains, and on trucks--less safe means of transportation. The safest thing you can do is put energy in a pipeline. If you care about the environment, that is what you should do.

Mr. Speaker, we had a hearing recently in the Natural Resources Committee where we had a career Department of the Interior official. We talked to him and asked him: What happens when you try and stop the supply of energy? Does that reduce the demand for oil and gas?

Do you know what the response was? This person has served in at least the Clinton administration, all of these different Republican and Democratic administrations. He said: No. As a matter of fact, we have researched this extensively. What it does is it causes us to import more energy.

Mr. Speaker, I remind you of some of the top nations we would import from: Venezuela, Middle Eastern countries, and Nigeria. We are giving them billions of dollars.

To put it in perspective on how much this is, Mr. Speaker, in 2011, 58 percent of our Nation's trade deficit was attributable to our importing energy.

Mr. Speaker, I want to be clear. I am going to reiterate what my friend from Georgia said.

I have children. I care about the environment. I taught outdoor education classes for years, and I care about the environment.

I care about the environment. I know that facts can be pesky little things, but we have to introduce more science and data into these decisions to make sure that we are making informed, deliberate decisions that result in a better global environment, not simply coming in and squeezing the United States to the benefit of China where they end up releasing greater emissions into our global environment.

That is a flawed strategy. It is what this bill, H.R. 9, would do. I urge, once again, rejection of this flawed approach.

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