Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise to discuss concerns with S. 47, legislation we will soon be voting on in the House of Representatives.

Madam Speaker, S. 47 has some positive things in it. The legislation provides for expanded recreational opportunities, expanded opportunities to hunt and fish on our public lands, and a lot of things that I very much support.

Madam Speaker, the bill has some pretty profound flaws, one of which being process. This is a 700-page bill--a 700-page bill--that has been held at the desk. It has not gone through the regular committee process.

This isn't some small bill that folks have been exposed to. This is 700 pages of text, and it has not gone through the regular legislative process and, in fact, is being put up under suspension of the rules, where we are not even being provided the opportunity to offer amendments or to represent our constituents, other than just voting ``yes'' or ``no.''

Madam Speaker, I want to throw out some statistics on what this bill does and the implications. It provides 1.3 million acres of land being designated as wilderness areas--1.3 million acres; 694 acres of recreation and conservation areas; 370,000 acres of mineral withdrawals; national monument designations of 2,500 acres; 621 miles of wild and scenic rivers; 2,600 miles added to the national trail system; and 42,000 acres added to our national parks.

Now, Madam Speaker, I used to teach outdoor wilderness courses. I have spent hundreds, maybe even thousands of nights of my life in the outdoors, sleeping out in the wilderness areas, national parks, and national forests and others. I love these areas. I enjoy them.

I am not saying that these things shouldn't happen. I am saying that we need to have the ability to go through regular order, just like the Senate did this week when they had the ability to offer amendments to this bill. We are not being afforded that same opportunity.

Madam Speaker, my biggest problem or concern with this legislation is this: The bill permanently reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which, I will say it again: I support the acquisition of lands, the protection of lands, so we can enjoy the ecological productivity and enjoy time in the great outdoors. However, the bill does not address the fact that we have a $17 billion backlog in national park maintenance--$17 billion. So we are acquiring more land without a plan for addressing the existing backlog maintenance issues that actually prohibit or prevent people from enjoying some of these same lands that are being acquired.

We are talking about the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and $9 billion in funds over the next 10 years being deposited into a Treasury receipt account to acquire more land. Guess where this money is coming from, Madam Speaker. A hundred percent of these funds is coming from the State that I represent and the other five States that produce offshore energy. Every penny of it is coming from the State of Louisiana, which produces perhaps over 80 percent of all the offshore energy of this Nation in Federal waters. It is paying for this fund.

At the same time, we have lost 2,000 square miles--2,000 square miles--of our coast. Guess how much of this bill addresses the problem there? With 2,000 square miles of our coast disappearing, the ecological productivity being lost, the increased vulnerability to the people that I represent, zero, nothing. This bill diverts money for conservation and for protection in other States in other areas and does nothing for my home State of Louisiana, yet it is coming from our revenues that we are producing in our offshore.

This is a flawed process. This is a flawed bill. We need to go through regular order.

I really can't even believe that this is happening. Here we have dozens of hearings on climate change and other things, and the very State that is the canary in the coal mine, the State that is experiencing the worst ecological challenges or losses as a result of sea rise and other challenges, is being completely ignored.

Where are the climate change advocates right now? Where are you?

I strongly urge opposition to this bill. We need to go back through regular order, consider the largest conservation and the largest natural resources bill that we have had since I have been in the Congress, and send it through regular order again.

I urge opposition to this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, years ago, they created something called the internet. If you are not familiar with it, I would urge you to go to your local library, go to the card catalog system to get the right Dewey decimal number, go find a book, and read up on it, because apparently many in our Federal Government haven't realized that this has been created.

As was noted a little while ago, in 1974, there was an act called the Privacy Act that was passed--1974. Since that time, we have had companies like Apple and Amazon and Microsoft and many others that have proliferated and are now worth billions and billions of dollars, some of the largest companies in the world.

Mr. Speaker, this is similar to us having to mail in a form to get an ambulance to come to our house.

As was noted by some of the previous speakers, in many cases, people contact us because of emergency situations. We have had family members contact us when their loved ones were stuck overseas in emergency situations. We have had people contact us because there was water filling up their home and they needed emergency services at the time. Under the Privacy Act of 1974 that was written 45 years ago, we were unable to help them, as Mr. Meadows noted, unless they sent us a signed privacy release form.

I remember distinctly, in August of 2016, when we had a record flood in my home State of Louisiana, talking to constituents who were on their cellphones saying that their homes had 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 feet of water and asking for help with FEMA, the Small Business Administration, and other government services, and myself or other folks on our team having to tell them: You bet, we want to help you. All you need to do is go to your computer, go to this website, click the link, print it out.

You can imagine the response from people: I would love to be able to go to my computer right now. I would love to be able to find it, if it wasn't under 4 feet of water right now.

Incredibly frustrating.

Mr. Speaker, the government today has a customer service approval rating of 70 percent--70 percent is the customer service approval rating. While that was sufficient to get me through high school, that is not okay for the Federal Government. It is entirely inappropriate.

This bill simply updates the Federal Government to put it online with how we file our taxes, how we handle our banking, insurance, and virtually everything else we do, ensuring that when people contact us, we can use those same technologies to protect privacy, that we can ensure the right people are asking for the right approvals, and we can quickly, within minutes, begin providing them services through their own Federal Government.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy) for persevering and continuing to work with us on this. I want to thank my friends, Mr. Meadows from North Carolina and Ms. Hill from California. Thank you all very much for doing this.

This is bipartisan. This is common sense. It should have been done decades ago.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Jennifer Bollinger, Eric Fins, all the OGR staff and others who helped get this bill done, and I am looking forward to passage.

I urge full support.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 831, and I thank my friend, the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline) for carrying the ball on this one.

Madam Speaker, our scenic byways, the national program, has a few mottos. One of them is: No two experiences are the same. Another one is: Exploring the heart and soul of America.

Madam Speaker, some of the top or most visited tourist destinations in the United States are areas like Central Park and other areas of Manhattan. You have Las Vegas, our own Union Station, Disneyland, Disney World, and the Golden Gate Bridge.

But some of the real experiences in America are in some of these more scenic areas, and we have such extraordinary treasures in our country. There is much more to America.

By reopening the scenic byways designations, we are giving access to, we are bringing attention to some of these great places, some of these great experiences in helping to highlight those and bring tourists to those areas.

In my home State of Louisiana, we have two right now. Number one, we have the Louisiana Great River Road, a scenic byway which goes along the length of the Mississippi River, through my hometown of Baton Rouge; and, also, the Wetlands Cultural Byway that goes through our wetland areas in south Louisiana's Sportsman's Paradise.

Madam Speaker, it really is just incredible. Years ago, the Department of Tourism in Louisiana came up with a motto saying, ``the Atchafalaya Basin, America's Foreign Country,'' and I really think that applies to much of south Louisiana, which is home and where I represent. It is such a unique place in terms of the food, the culture, the people. We need to bring more attention to some of these treasures that America has.

I thank, again, my friend from Rhode Island, for carrying the ball on this.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis).

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

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, since 1980, we have had about 220

disasters that have caused over $1 billion in damages. In fact, when you add all that money up, we have spent about $1.5 trillion in disaster recovery, nearly all of that being emergency spending, adding to our deficit.

Now, the thing that we do here in the Federal Government to help bring an offense to the table, to help address resiliency, is largely the mission of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: projects for flood protection, for water management, for ecosystem restoration that can help improve the resiliency of our communities, hurricane protection in my home State of Louisiana.

Yet we have a $100 billion backlog in Corps of Engineer projects across the United States. This Congress provides between $1 billion and $2 billion a year in construction.

Madam Chair, you can do the math. You have $100 billion in authorized projects. You get $1 billion to $2 billion a year in construction, you will finish that backlog approximately never. You are not going to finish it.

And so what we did in the Disaster Recovery and Reform Act in October, that was signed into law in October and passed through this body three times, is we did a provision that says that FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funds can be used to build a Corps of Engineers' project if your State, if your community determines that is the highest priority.

Right now, under Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Funds, there is a prohibition--and this is largely boilerplate language--that prohibits these funds from being used for a Corps of Engineers' project.

What this amendment does is it simply removes that if a State, if your community determines that that is the highest priority, addressing resiliency, telling your community that it is okay to build back here because we are going to make it safer, we are going to reduce the risk, prevent you from having future disaster, future damages.

Madam Chair, right now, sitting in the gallery is a group of students from Ed White High School in my home State of Louisiana. They have a project in their community that has been in the study phase since 1992, and the Corps of Engineers has spent $80 million studying it. That is ridiculous. It has caused billions of dollars in flood damages in this area. This project has not moved forward.

We have got to make sure that we are advancing these projects as quickly as we can, improving the resilience of our communities. So this amendment, again, makes the CDBG-DR funds eligible if your State, if your community determines that is the highest and best value, the best investments of the funds.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I appreciate the gentleman's question, and certainly there is no intention under the provision as written to appropriate or provide more funds than are authorized under the existing act or allocated to that State or county or parish or what have you.

In addition, obviously, there would be no intention under the provision to spend more money than the project is actually authorized for because you couldn't build a project more than once.

I hope that was responsive to the gentleman's question.

Madam Chair, the chairman brings up a good point in that is the authorized amount the full authorized amount that the Federal law for a Corps of Engineers project provides? For example, if Congress authorized a flood protection project for $100 million, could they possibly get more than $100 million? The answer to that question is no.

The second question to attempt to clarify would be, if a community is allocated $50 million through the CDBG-DR program, would it be possible for them to spend more than $50 million on the project? Once again, to the chairman's question, the answer would be no. This would not intend to obligate or in any way spend more money that is allocated to them under CDBG-DR or under the authorized project in Federal law.

Yes. Absolutely. That is the intention that we would not exceed the authorized amount of the project authorized by the Corps or by FEMA. As I indicated, we couldn't build a project more than once, so whatever that authorized level is in existing Federal law, that would apply.

Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina and thank the Rules Committee for making this in order.

Madam Chair, I urge adoption, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition, but I don't intend to oppose the amendment.

Madam Chair, I want to thank my colleague from Louisiana (Mr. Richmond) and the chairman from North Carolina for their help in getting these amendments put together, both the last one and this one.

As my good friend from Louisiana indicated, this is the result of lessons learned, unfortunately, from countless disasters in our home State.

What this does is it assures conformity between this appropriations bill and law, as indicated, the Disaster Recovery Reform Act that was signed into law in October, to ensure--and let me be clear, Madam Chair. That bill passed the House of Representatives three times, the last time by voice vote; and I think the second to last time it passed with maybe 12 opposing votes in this entire body, but not because of this provision. None of those opposing votes had anything to do with this provision.

What it does is it simply says, in the aftermath of a disaster, if you applied for a loan, that doesn't make you ineligible for grants that anyone else can apply for. We shouldn't penalize people for leaning forward, being proactive, and seeking loans, and then tell them later they can't be eligible for a grant. The alternative is they stay in a FEMA-supplied hotel room, incurring taxpayers more cost, and it delays recovery.

So what Mr. Richmond's provision does is it ensures conformity to the changes in law that occurred in October in this appropriations bill, the duplication of benefits as applied in a consistent manner. I want to thank him for his continued leadership on this issue and working together.

Madam Chair, I urge adoption of the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the career of Ascension Parish Sheriff Jeff Wiley.

Sheriff Wiley joined the Marine Corps in 1970. He became a sheriff's deputy in 1974. He served in patrol, then detective, and then went on to the school board, where he served as director of student services from 1980 to 1988.

He came back to the sheriff's office and ultimately was elected sheriff in 1996, reelected for five terms. His career, perhaps, is marked best by some of the recognition: the recognition of Outstanding Man of Gonzales, the Outstanding Educator, the Louisiana Justice Hall of Fame, and the president of Louisiana Sheriffs' Association.

He also spent much time creating programs for kids: the Junior Deputy Program, substance abuse programs, D.A.R.E. program, and a narcotics unit.

But perhaps his most important accomplishment is evolving this rural sheriff's office to a modern law enforcement agency in one of the fastest growing parishes in the State of Louisiana.

With five decades of service, he has maintained the immaturity of a teenager. I am proud to call him a friend. I want to honor his service to our State and our Nation, and I commend his daughters, Sara and Erin, and recognize the 40 years of marriage to his wife, Linda.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 488.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to quickly say that I also regret that we are in a situation where we have to once again do a temporary extension, but it is important that we do not let this program lapse.

Whether it is Hurricane Florence, Hurricane Michael, Hurricane Harvey, Irma, Maria, or many other disasters we have had, Mr. Speaker, we have flood victims that are trying to rebuild their homes, that are trying to get their lives back in order, and to not have a flood insurance program that gives them the confidence and security that they can reinvest back in their homes and businesses is a dangerous thing for us to do, especially right now during this Christmas season.

Mr. Speaker, I also want to say, at a 50,000-foot level, we have been myopically focused on flood insurance and only flood insurance policy.

Thinking about the fiscal irresponsibility of continuing to allow this program to run the debt that it has, while completely ignoring the fact, Mr. Speaker, that we have spent $1.5 trillion on 220 disasters since 1980, ignoring the fact that thousands and thousands of lives have been lost as a result of our lack of bringing an offense to the table and actually bringing resilient projects to the table, and just focusing solely on flood insurance, which is a reactive policy, it is fiscally irresponsible.

We need to bring an offense and a defense to the table. This program needs fundamental reform, but we cannot do it just by cutting checks to people every time there is a disaster. We have got to bring the resiliency measures to the table as part of a package deal here.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 1520) to expand recreational fishing opportunities through enhanced marine fishery conservation and management, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, back in April of last year, in April of 2017, we introduced legislation known as the Modern Fish Act, the Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act. A few months later, in July, on July 10, the Senate introduced a companion measure.

Mr. Speaker, the House bill has 24 bipartisan cosponsors and, on July 11, the House passed this bill, the House version, H.R. 2023, as part of H.R. 200, the overall Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation Act Reauthorization.

Mr. Speaker, Magnuson-Stevens was first authorized in 1976, very important legislation that largely at the time was designed to manage commercial fishing out in Federal waters across the United States.

Over time, we have seen extraordinary changes in fishing, both in commercial fishing, in technology and demand on species, changes in technology and science and our ability to better manage these species; and, importantly, Mr. Speaker, changes in the demand from recreational fishers. People like you and I, myself and our kids, we enjoy going out and fishing.

Magnuson-Stevens was designed largely to manage the commercial side, and it largely lacked the important balance or consideration of the millions and millions of fishers, of anglers, that go out and enjoy it just as families, and this bill helps to fix that.

The Modern Fish Act will recognize in Federal law for the first time that recreational fishing and commercial fishing are fundamentally different activities and, therefore, should be managed differently to fit the characteristics of each sector.

Mr. Speaker, while recreational fishing is an experience-based activity, commercial fishing is designed for profit. It is a for-profit activity, it is a business activity.

We have seen significant evolution in the way that the States manage State waters, recreational and commercial fishing in State waters. And let's keep in mind, there is nothing that distinguishes State waters and Federal waters. When you get outside the seaward boundaries of States, generally 3 miles in most States, it is indistinguishable. The species go back and forth, but the management styles have fundamentally changed.

In my home State of Louisiana, our recreational fishers have determined that they are going to impose a fee on themselves to improve the collection of data to improve the science to better inform our fishery management decisions. The Federal Government has the opportunity to do the same thing and, in some cases, to better involve States to ensure the complementary nature of fisheries management in the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic, the Pacific, Alaska, and in other areas.

This bill will allow the Regional Fishery Management Councils to manage recreational fisheries more successfully based on public access, without hard quotas, or TACs. Ultimately, these changes will help to avoid sudden closures and drastically changing fishing regulations that have been plaguing many Federally managed fisheries.

The State of Louisiana is one of the most productive ecosystems in the North American Continent. We have nearly 90 percent of the freshwater inputs in the Gulf of Mexico coming through our State. We have one of the top commercial fishing industries in the Nation--in fact, the largest in the continental United States--and we produce more shrimp, blue crabs, oysters, crayfish, and other species than anywhere else in this Nation.

It is important to also keep in mind that we are one of the top recreational fishing destinations. We are a place where many people like to come to fish: redfish, speckled trout, red snapper, Amberjack, cobia, and many, many other species. We have got to have that balance. This bill moves in the right direction to ensure that we do have a balance.

Lastly, Mr. Speaker, let me just say this. The regulations, the laws, that manage our roads, we have a very different structure on how 18 wheelers, how trucks are managed, versus cars; we have different rules on how civilians versus military engage; we also have a different tax code for businesses and individuals. This bill simply does the same thing: it recognizes that there is a difference between commercial fishing and recreational fishing.

Especially in our home, in the Gulf of Mexico, it recognizes that there is extraordinary participation on the recreational side of fishers, of just the general public, going out there and enjoying that experiential activity to go out there and go catch fish in the Gulf of Mexico. We must ensure that we have better science, that we have better decisions in the Gulf of Mexico, and that we have better balance on how these fisheries are managed.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I reiterate that this is bipartisan legislation. I thank my friend from Arizona for the cooperation in ensuring that we get text that everyone agrees is a step in the right direction in improving that balance in the management of commercial and recreational fisheries, in ensuring that we have the best science informing our decisions and that our resource managers have access to that information and are allowed to use it. I thank the 24 bipartisan cosponsors from States like Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, and many other coastal States in the United States that worked with us on this to ensure that we move in the right direction. And I thank the dean of the House and the king in the North, Congressman Don Young, for all of the work that he has done for decades in progressing Federal fisheries management policy.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Bill Ball, Dustin Davidson, and the many staff who helped to work on this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to come speak in support of this legislation.

I think this is important legislation to ensure that our territories can share in the revenues from offshore energy production. I believe the States and I believe the territories should share in that revenue production.

Mr. Speaker, I think there is an important discussion for us to be having here. Yes, as the gentleman from Arizona noted, this will be contributing to our Nation's energy production, which is a good thing. It is generating a revenue stream based on market forces, which is a good thing, and it does, Mr. Speaker, return a portion of the revenues back to the territories or the adjacent host's entity of this energy production, and it invests dollars in conservation.

Now, to contrast, Mr. Speaker, the majority of the energy in the United States is derived from oil and gas. That is how the majority of this Nation's economy is powered.

There are a handful of States that provide that energy. For example, as this bill pertains only to offshore in Federal waters, in the offshore you have the State of Alaska represented by our dean. You have the States of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana--my home State--Texas, and, Mr. Speaker, the State of California. Those are all States that produce offshore energy.

You have a lot of States that are producing onshore energy with the shale revolution in Texas, in the Dakotas, in Pennsylvania, in Ohio, in Louisiana and other areas. We are producing onshore production as well. Once again, this is fueling our Nation's economy, and all 50 States are benefiting from this.

But, Mr. Speaker, going back to the offshore, we provided about $200 billion from energy production in the offshore to the United States Treasury. With this bill, on the first dollar of energy produced in the Federal offshore from wind energy in the territories, a portion of it is going to be shared with the territory and going to be shared for conservation activities. Yet the disparity, or the opposite, happens for onshore.

For onshore energy, what they do is they take the initial dollars and they put it toward conservation, land conservation in other States--not where this energy is produced, but in other States.

The gentleman from Arizona even noted that there are impacts from offshore energy production. I agree with him; there are impacts. Most of them have been historic impacts.

But for us to take this revenue stream and put it toward other States and not where this energy is produced, when you are talking about $200 billion, Mr. Speaker, that is wrong. That is why we have introduced

I yield to the gentleman.

I couldn't have said it better myself, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, with that, I will again say I support this legislation. I think the policy concept of revenue sharing from energy production is a solid one, but we have got to make sure that we don't have conflicting policies when we talk about fossil fuels versus alternative energy streams.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot of talk about this program. We have heard a lot about affordability, folks talking about being fiscally conservative and making sure that this program is financially solvent, hearing numbers like $20 billion in debt.

Mr. Speaker, let me give you another number: $1.5 trillion. $1.5 trillion, that is the amount of money we have spent on just 120 disasters since 1980, billion-dollar-plus disasters.

If we are fiscally conservative, then we need to address the $1.5 trillion, not focus on this small component of disasters.

How do you do that? You do that by making your communities more resilient.

The Congressional Budget Office, FEMA, Corps of Engineers, and many other organizations have come out and said that the way that you do this is by being proactive and making investments in community resiliency, in ecosystem resiliency. That is what you do.

If we are fiscal conservatives, if we are concerned about solvency and the debt, why are we just focused on this one small program?

Mr. Speaker, here is the reality: Under the proposals that have been put forth, it charges people for things they have no responsibility over. That is called a tax. That is a tax.

The people in my home State of Louisiana are at the bottom of one of the largest watersheds in the world. More water is being sent to us because of development in the Upper Mississippi River Basin. Because of the Federal Government's actions on our coast, we have lost 2,000 square miles of our coast.

You are going to charge these people higher premiums because of what people above us are doing in other States and because of what our own Federal Government did to us with the river? That is not a premium. That is a tax. You are charging people for things they have no control over.

We have structures and homes that have been in these places for 300 years, and you are suddenly going to charge them unaffordable rates?

This program does need reforms. It absolutely needs reforms. Those reforms should include, as the chairman has stated, buyouts for repetitive-flood-loss properties--absolutely--because that is the fiscally appropriate, fiscally conservative thing to do. Not to mention, no one wants their house to be flooded over and over again.

We have to make reforms, but this is not the right approach.

Let me be clear: I don't like a 7-day extension either. I don't. We need to do a year extension where we can sit down and talk about the right reforms to put us on the right trajectory to sustainably manage this program and, importantly, in the face of changing disasters and rising seas, so that we can prepare our Nation for the future.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the 30 year anniversary of LSU's Pennington Biomedical Research Center. Founders C.B. ``Doc'' and Mrs. Pennington donated to the university in hopes of building ``the biggest and best nutrition research center in the country.'' Their vision has largely been accomplished. As the center has grown, they've become a premiere scientific research institution--highly sought after to publish medical research on chronic disease prevention and to host national medical symposiums. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) selected Pennington Biomedical for several medical studies such as diet risk factors for heart disease, the effects of diets on blood pressure, and diabetes prevention. Over the past 30 years, there have been 212,123 scientific citations from over 5,000 Pennington Biomedical publications. Their work has improved the quality of life for millions of people worldwide. I'm proud to represent this premiere research facility, housed at one of Louisiana's finest schools. Well done, Pennington Biomedical Research Facility, on an incredible 30 years of excellence and discovery.

Mr. Speaker, I first want to thank the chairman, the ranking member, and their staff for their perseverance on this legislation. This is really an amazing accomplishment that I think is going to transform how we plan for, how we prepare for, and how we respond to and recover from disasters.

Mr. Speaker, we spent more than $1.5 trillion responding to 220 disasters that have cost our Nation more than $1 billion each since 1980. We have this process in the Federal Government where we spend billions after a disaster rather than spending millions on the front- end actually preparing and making our communities more resilient. This bill begins to change that.

There are a number of very important lessons learned, commonsense provisions in this legislation. I want to highlight the duplication of benefits, section 1210, of this legislation that reverses this crazy Federal policy whereby it was incentivizing people to wait, to slow down recovery, while costing FEMA more dollars in temporary housing, eliminating this process whereby loans and grants were viewed as being duplicative.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, we have Hurricane Florence bearing down on our Nation now. The Carolinas and Georgia are inevitably going to have disaster, destruction, and damages. What happens in the aftermath, as folks begin looking at it, they ask the question: What could we have done differently?

This bill, together with other legislation, is exactly what needs to be done. This begins the process of addressing this ridiculous backlog of $100 billion in projects that we need to move forward on, that we need to construct, and bringing efficiencies to the table, like allowing for States and local governments to advance these projects on their own, taking advantage of their capabilities of greater cost efficiencies, of streamlined permitting processes, and other efficiencies that they are capable of doing.

This bill brings all sorts of solutions to the table, including, Mr. Speaker, looking at whether the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should even be within the Department of Defense.

When I call Secretary Mattis and talk to him about Russia, China, North Korea, Syria, and Iran, should I introduce a wetlands permit in that conversation?

I don't think I should. It is not compatible with the agency. So we are looking at where this mission can be a top priority, can be properly housed, and where we can accomplish these projects much faster than we are doing today.

Mr. Speaker, this bill also has some important things for us back home, including recognizing the hundreds of millions of dollars in work that our State has done to restore our eroding coastline and the ecological productivity that goes along with it; looking at carrying out a pilot dredge program, whereby we can issue dredging contracts over years over multiple channels, rather than doing one channel at a time, where we can benefit from economies of scale and, again, greater efficiency with taxpayer dollars; and, importantly, Mr. Speaker, ensuring that the old river control structure is not managed by a static 70-30 split that was determined decades ago, using updated science so we benefit navigation, the environment, and other important priorities.

I want to thank Chairman Shuster, Congressman DeFazio, Congresswoman Napolitano, Congressman Sanford, Congressman Rouzer, and all those involved for their hard work on this. I urge its adoption.

Mr. Speaker, my flight was delayed due to weather. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 366, and YEA on Roll Call No. 367.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, this discussion needs to have a reset. It needs to have a reset because I keep hearing people sit here talking about repetitive floods and how there is a certain set of these flood victims who are costing this program all sorts of problems and money.

Mr. Speaker, do you really believe people want to be flooded? Do you think people want to have everything they own underwater and have to throw it all out?

Anybody who believes that has obviously never stepped foot in a flooded home, never spoken to a flood victim.

Do you really think people intentionally want to build their home in a place that is going to flood so all their family heirlooms are flooded and lost? That whole concept is irrational.

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that all of us want this program to be solvent. We all want to have a solution. We all want to have reforms. The things that are being pushed aren't the reforms that are going to result in solvency. The reforms that are being pushed are strictly a defense. You don't go out on the field and just play defense.

We need to lean forward. We need to integrate some of our efforts on mitigation, some of our Corps of Engineers levee projects, some of our hazard mitigation grant program funds through FEMA, look where we can protect areas and where that is the most cost-effective solution, and not tell everyone: You are out of your house, or we are going to charge you unaffordable rates.

Mr. Speaker, think about this for just a minute. I represent the State of Louisiana. We drain from Montana to two Canadian provinces to New York. All that water comes and drains down through our State. It is one of the largest watersheds in the world. More water is coming to us now.

So, yes, we are more vulnerable. But the people who live in these homes and businesses are innocent. Folks are trying to charge them more for something they have no control over. That is not American. That is not okay.

We are in hurricane season right now, Mr. Speaker. We are in hurricane season, where we need to provide people certainty. Let's be crystal clear on what this bill is and what it is not. A ``yes'' vote provides people certainty during hurricane season. It provides certainty to Realtors, homeowners, and homebuilders. A ``no'' vote kills the National Flood Insurance Program and leaves people with complete uncertainty and in limbo.

I want to thank the gentleman from New Jersey for proposing this bill and for bringing it up, because this is so important. We have had 220 disasters, each costing more than $1 billion since 1980. In total, we spent approximately $1.5 trillion responding to these disasters.

Mr. Speaker, there are similar programs that exist. Right now, there is Price-Anderson for nuclear power plants and TRIA for terrorism risk insurance, where the government provides a safety net. I agree that we nee to reform these programs, but we need to do it in a way that does not penalize the innocent. Until we get to that point, we need to do an extension to provide certainty and to ensure we make it through hurricane season, and we have a rational debate.