Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 382.

(By unanimous consent, Mr. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York was allowed to speak out of order.)

Moment of Silence Honoring Servicemembers Killed in Mississippi

Mr. Speaker, I was absent from votes today on account of traveling with the Vice President on official business to Louisiana. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on Roll Call No. 274, ``yea'' on Roll Call No. 275, ``yea'' on Roll Call No. 276, ``yea'' on Roll Call No. 277, and ``yea'' on Roll Call No. 278.

Mr. Speaker, I was absent from votes today on account of traveling with the Vice President on official business to Louisiana. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall No. 279, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 280, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 281, and ``yea'' on rollcall No. 282.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today with much admiration and respect for Commander Jo-Ann Burdian of the United States Coast Guard.

Commander Burdian's tenure in the House of Representatives as a congressional liaison for the United States Coast Guard is coming to an end. She is on her second tour of duty, 3 years each, for a total of 6 years. During her tenure in the House of Representatives, we have seen unprecedented growth and change in the mission of the United States Coast Guard. It has become somewhat of a Swiss Army knife of an agency, of a command, covering everything from oil spills to homeland security, 9/11, alien interdiction, drug interdiction, defense missions, maritime security, and many other important missions around the world.

Commander Burdian has fostered incredible relationships with Members, staff, and oversight committees and done a fantastic job for both sides of the aisle, including assisting in the passage of two major Coast Guard authorization bills, three appropriations bills, full funding of the Offshore Patrol Cutter, the Fast Response Cutter, the National Security Cutter, and helping to secure $150 million in the FY17 budget to progress polar icebreaker capabilities for the United States.

Commander Burdian's hard work and efforts for the House of Representatives were rewarded with her appointment to chief of response for Sector Puget Sound. I want to commend her and her family for incredible service to the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Buck) for his efforts and leadership on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today because I think it is really important that we talk about law enforcement; we talk about what their role is. These are the peacekeepers. The men and women right here on Capitol Hill, the Capitol Police, they are the ones who prevent chaos, that allow for order to stand here in the Capitol complex.

In the State of Louisiana, in my hometown of Baton Rouge, back on July 17, we had an extraordinary event. We had five of our law enforcement officers who were responding to a shooter with a long gun; clearly, someone that was dressed and armed in a way to not be helpful to the community. While the rest of us were running away from that shooter, these five men were running toward him.

As a result of that, Deputy Brad Garafola lost his life, and his wife, Tonja, is right now a widow.

Matthew Gerald lost his life, and Dechia, his wife, is now a widow. Dechia found out 2 weeks after his death that she was pregnant, and he has never seen that baby. That baby doesn't have a father today.

We had Montrell Jackson, another Baton Rouge police officer, who lost his life, and his wife, Trenisha, is now a widow.

We had Bruce Simmons who got shot, and while he did survive, he is still struggling with recovery, and he and his wife, Pam, continue to go through that from the July 17 shooting from last year.

Nick Tullier was also involved in that shooting, and I have been wearing my ``Pray for Nick'' band now for months. Nick Tullier continues to be in the hospital even today.

This bill allows for the protection of our officers. It clearly distinguishes that these are the peacekeepers, these are the people who are putting their lives on the line to make sure that we have order, no longer chaos.

Mr. Speaker, this is an important piece of legislation, and I urge everyone to support this unanimously.

Mr. Speaker, I did not ultimately support this legislation, however, there is much contained within the bill's almost 1700 pages of statutory text in addition to the explanatory statement that will advance the safety, security and economy of our great nation.

The bill includes $551.1 billion in base defense discretionary funding and $76.99 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO)/ Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) defense funding. The total FY2017 defense funding is $598.5 billion, $25.7 billion over FY16 levels, and includes $21 billion in new funding requested by the Administration. These funds provide for our national defense, pay our troops, and provide the resources and equipment our military needs to restore readiness, and protect our national security. I support these amounts to ensure American troops have what they need as we continue to engage threats to our national and homeland security around the world. Mr. Speaker, this bill also takes the first of many steps toward additional border security improvements by providing $1.5 billion for critical funding for infrastructure, innovative technology, and agents at the border.

Other key provisions that I support include putting appropriate parameters in place for the Environmental Protection Agency; and providing $50 million in additional current-year funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs to improve opioid and substance abuse prevention and treatment for veterans.

Mr. Speaker, the bill also and importantly provides $57.7 billion for our nation's infrastructure, provides funding consistent with authorized levels in the FAST Act, which I was involved in crafting, and $948 million in additional disaster relief for the Emergency Relief Program and Community Development Block Grant disaster recovery assistance. Importantly, the bill includes $15 million that I requested for the state and local law enforcement agencies through the Bureau of Justice Assistance. These agencies experienced so many challenges over the last several months. These challenges include a police-involved shooting on July 5, 2016 and subsequent violent protests, the ambush and murder of Baton Rouge City Police and East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff Deputies on July 17, 2016 and a 1000-year flood event in mid- August of the same year. Five of our officers were shot in the ambush and the flood resulted in the loss of an estimated 100 police vehicles, critical law enforcement equipment, weapons and personal and family losses for many of our peacekeepers.

Mr. Speaker, ultimately I could not vote for this bill despite the numerous provisions I support because appropriating over a trillion dollars in thousands of pages of new text over a few days does not afford the degree of transparency and consideration that I believe we should have. Further, the bill represents a lost opportunity to deliver on the commitment towards the recovery needs of tens of thousands of flood victims in my district and state of Louisiana. As I mentioned, there are provisions that can help, like providing some assistance through Community Development Block Grants--of which Louisiana victims will receive a small. Yet this funding varies wildly from the assessed needs of both HUD and the state. This is wholly inadequate given the scale of the flood event that struck Louisiana last August. That is why I offered four amendments to the bill that would have increased the total amount of Community Development Block Grants available to disaster impacted areas by $750 million, made $100 million available for Army Corps projects like the Comite River Diversion Canal to reduce the risk of future flood events, and provide much needed relief for our local school districts as they seek to rebuild and reopen 8 months after the flood. These amendments were not ultimately adopted, but I will continue to fight and advocate for these priorities and more as we work on a FY2018 funding bill.

Mr. Speaker, I feel strongly about the federal government's need to balance the budget, eliminate deficits and pay on the national debt. There is this misconception that under-funding CDBG-DR recovery assistance saves money. The reality is that we requested a fraction of the per capita assistance afforded to the victims of Hurricane Sandy and this calculation excludes the tens of billions of recovery funding provided in other federal programs. We have no desire to be greedy, but Americans need to know that when a catastrophic event occurs their government will be there--that we have their back. We have already seen many leave our community, bankruptcies, homes foreclosed, flood victims selling their homes for a fraction of the pre-flood value and many still living in tents, travel trailers, gutted homes and other inappropriate conditions. Rather than tailoring an appropriate response for this extraordinary flood, our own government's bureaucracy at the state and federal level are contributing to the pain rather than easing it. We can and should do better.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I want to commend the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis) and the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Bustos) for coming together to work in a bipartisan manner to address a problem that affects not just Illinois, but affects, I think, all 50 States. It is an issue where we have watched FEMA, in many cases, make decisions that appear to be arbitrary in terms of declaring a disaster in some areas, not in others.

What this legislation does, very simply, is it requires that FEMA take into consideration the true localized impacts of a disaster. And in line with what the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis) noted earlier, we did an amendment in the committee that also looked at, or required, FEMA to consider multiple impacts in an area.

I am from south Louisiana. In the last several months, we have had police shootings, we have had one of the most costly floods in U.S. history, we have had tornadoes, and we have had another flood in north Louisiana. In fact, there were two floods, as I recall. One of them was a 500-year flood, and the second was a 1,000-year flood. It makes me question how old I am sometimes.

But what this does is it requires that FEMA look at localized impacts, and that they take into consideration the cumulative impacts of various disasters and incidents in an area. FEMA is not there and the Federal Government is not there to take care of every problem and every disaster that States and municipalities have.

But in many cases that we have seen historically, they have missed opportunities. I think we have seen incredible burdens borne by local governments, and they have had disasters that far exceeded their capabilities.

I want to, again, commend the gentleman and gentlewoman from Illinois for offering this commonsense legislation, and I urge all Members to support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the subcommittee chairman and ranking member for their assistance, and I also want to thank our lead cosponsor, Mr. Sires of New Jersey.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation is an unfortunate situation, that Congress actually has to step in. I want to give you a little bit of background.

In August of last year, we had once again what was known as the fourth most costly flood disaster in U.S. history. We had areas of south Louisiana that actually experienced over 32 inches of rain within about a 36-hour period. By comparison, the average American, as I recall, receives somewhere between 26 and 28 inches of rain in a year, and we received that in approximately 36 hours--an extraordinary rainfall event.

As you can imagine, in a 1,000-year flood event, you had thousands and thousands of people that were flooded, people living well outside of the floodplain. So, yes, there were thousands of people that were seeking assistance, trying to do everything from buy clothes to buy food, essential needs.

We assisted thousands of constituents trying to get information and answers from FEMA, but the way that

the process worked is that you had to call an 800 number. If someone answered, they would log on a computer system and update the constituent on what their status is: if they received the application, if additional information was needed, if they were approved or denied.

I, myself, on many occasions called the 800 number just to see how long it would take to get through. In some cases no one would answer. In other cases, the questions couldn't be answered.

It is a very simple situation here, Mr. Speaker. This bill simply requires that FEMA establish an online database that citizens of this country can access directly. I can go right now and I can look at hotel reservations; I can look at airline reservations, train reservations. You can do virtually anything online. You can pay your utility bills. You can call an Uber. But with FEMA, they had thousands of employees that were there to answer phones to simply log on to the system.

There is no need for that step to be there. It is more efficient to get people direct access. I would rather see those FEMA employees helping us recover.

So I will say it again. I am disappointed that this takes an act of Congress. This is common sense, and you are seeing this type of innovation and utilization of technology happen all across the marketplace. Unfortunately, Congress has to intervene here, albeit in a bipartisan way, to make sure that Americans are getting the service that they deserve and to make sure that our taxpayer dollars are being used in an efficient way.

Once again, I want to thank the subcommittee chairman, Mr. Barletta, Ranking Member Johnson, and I want to especially thank the lead cosponsor on this legislation, Mr. Sires of New Jersey, who I know has gone through extraordinary challenges in New Jersey with the 2012 Hurricane Sandy impacts on his State.

Mr. Speaker, I have been standing here listening to this debate. Let's go back and think about this for just a minute.

Right now, in the United States, the cost of regulation in our Nation is approximately $2 trillion; $2 trillion is the cost that our Nation spends every year just complying with regulations. In fact, that distills down to the average household spending around $15,000 just to comply with regulations.

Now, let me be clear. Regulations are important. We have got to have regulations to make sure we protect our environment, we protect the health and safety of our citizens. That is critical.

What this bill does is it simply provides for transparency so we can understand the basis of regulations. That is all this does: make sure that we can understand the science that regulations were based upon.

During a public comment process, we should have the ability to scrutinize that science to understand the basis. Because, Mr. Speaker, if you begin hiding the basis for decisions, then you have government, in many cases, acting without providing for transparency, without being able to be held accountable. That is dangerous to have people making decisions based upon secret information.

That is dangerous for our economy, and it is going to further challenge the ability of Americans to keep their budgets balanced. It is already $15,000 per household. How many thousands does it have to be before we need to say: Stop. This is unreasonable?

Mr. Speaker, you look right now at the trade deficit of this country; you look at the cost of goods and products in other nations. In many cases, we are losing the trade war because our regulatory environment here, our tax environment here, is simply not competitive.

What happens in a scenario where you release the science you provide for transparency, you allow for better solutions. You allow for more efficient regulations, for better ways to achieve those objectives to improve our environment and protect our environment, to improve and protect the safety and health of workers and American citizens.

This bill is in America's interest. It is in the public interest. To listen to people stand here and talk about hiding and shielding science and making up red herrings about privacy and other things, that is absolutely contrary to this country's interests. It is contrary to the public's interest.

This bill should be passed. I am shocked that there is opposition to it, and we should pass this with unanimous support.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 162.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 172.

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the sponsor and the cosponsors of this bill, Congressman DeFazio, Congressman Kilmer, Congressman Huffman, and many others that are supporting this legislation.

This is important in that it promotes regional management. Today, this pertains to the Dungeness crab, a species that is largely native to the West Coast. In this case, what this legislation does is provide for regional management. It provides for an opportunity for the States of Washington, Oregon, and California to manage this species.

The States are closer to the ground. They have closer, more intimate relationships with their fishers, and they can ensure that what is being done is in the best interests of those folks, the best interests of the public that they are closer to, and the best interests of the recreational and commercial fishers that fish this species.

I think it is fantastic. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, I think this exact model should be expanded. I think this exact model should be replicated not just in Washington, Oregon, and California; it should be replicated elsewhere, similar to how it is replicated for the Atlantic striped bass on the East Coast and the salmon in Alaska. This should be replicated to allow for States to be able to work together for regional management strategies to manage the species and to allow for more intimate, better public input to make sure that you have the appropriate balance between recreational and commercial fishers.

I, again, want to commend the sponsor of this bill, Ms. Herrera Beutler, and all the cosponsors. This is exactly what we need to be doing. We need to be expanding upon this model around the coastal States of this country.

I urge adoption of this bill, I urge aggressive passage of this bill, and I urge the Senate to pass it as well.

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

Mr. Chairman, since 2008, approximately 3,300 regulations have been issued on an annual basis. I will say that again. Since 2008, approximately 3,300 regulations have been issued on an annual basis. The cost of compliance with those regulations is estimated to be somewhere around $981 million, and if you add up the costs of compliance of all regulations, it is approximately double that. According to various studies that are out there, since 2008, the costs of complying with Federal regulations has doubled.

Mr. Chairman, this isn't about some huge megacorporation that is worth billions of dollars and is a multinational company. This impacts individuals. This impacts families. As a matter of fact, a study done by the Competitive Enterprise Institute estimates that approximately $15,000 per year is how much the average American family spends just to comply with Federal regulations.

Major regulations are regulations that are estimated to cost in excess of $100 million. Under our amendment, what we do is simply require that, every 5 years, the Federal agency that has promulgated-- that has finalized--a regulation go back and check how much it is actually costing to comply with the regulation.

Here is why it is important, Mr. Chairman.

If you go back to a regulation that was proposed by the Department of the Interior within the last year and a half that has to do with well control in offshore energy production, the Department of the Interior estimated that the cost of complying with that regulation was going to be, approximately, $883 million over 10 years. However, a private analysis that was done estimated that that figure was approximately one-tenth of the true cost of compliance over the first decade--one- tenth.

There is nothing that holds the Federal agencies accountable. They can lowball numbers. They can stay below the threshold of a major action and not ever have to be held accountable to the additional analysis that is required for major regulatory actions. This, simply, makes agencies go back on major regulations to re-quantify--reassess-- the costs of compliance to make sure that their numbers are accurate, that they understand the costs of compliance,

and the impact on the average American family.

Lastly, Mr. Chairman, I am from the State of Louisiana. A study that was done by the Mercatus Center found that the State of Louisiana is the most federally regulated State in the United States. As a matter of fact, so regulated that we are regulated 74 percent more than the average State--74 percent more. That has a significant impact on jobs, on our economy.

The cosponsor of this amendment--the gentleman from Texas with whom I worked very closely, Mr. Chairman--says his State of Texas is burdened by an additional 30 percent of regulations above the national average. It is inappropriate; it penalizes our economy; it sends jobs overseas; and, most importantly, it penalizes American families.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Chairman, again, I thank the gentleman from Texas, with whom I worked closely in developing this amendment, which was legislation we introduced last year and which had dozens of bipartisan cosponsors.

In summary, this is an Article I issue. This ensures that when an agency tells Congress, they tell the American public that when the regulation is going to cost a certain amount to comply with, they are held accountable to that. This is about accountability. This is about transparency.

My friend from Georgia mentioned that this was ``busywork.'' Mr. Chairman, I want you to think about that for a minute.

This applies to major rules that are estimated to cost in excess of $100 million to comply with, and they find it offensive that we ask them to look back one time every 5 years for rules that cost American families over $100 million to comply with every single year?

I am offended by that, and I am sure that millions and millions of American families are offended by that as well.

It is all summarized by this, Mr. Chairman: since 2009, for the first time in recorded history, we have had a net loss in small businesses in the United States. Regulations are hidden taxes that impact our businesses, that impact our employment opportunities, and that drive jobs to other countries.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my soon-to- be-friend from New Jersey for bringing up the oil spill issue.

In my home State of Louisiana, we actually have hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil that are unaccounted for as a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. We have tens of miles of shoreline that remain oiled as a result of an oil spill that happened over 4 years ago, and this administration is doing absolutely nothing to hold the responsible parties accountable for removing that oil.

To hide behind some of these issues, such as the threat of oil spills, is absolutely absurd when at the same time they are not doing anything to protect the environment and hold responsible parties accountable.

Secondly, there is nothing that this pipeline project is going to do to further threaten the environment. In fact, it is going to make it worse if we don't build it because the oil will be transported by barge, by rail, and other less safe means of transportation.

We saw recently where the EPA released a letter contrary to what the State Department's EIS found, stating that this was going to cause a greater impact to climate change. Whatever the reality is, this pipeline does nothing to address consumption of oil. It does nothing to increase consumption. It is an absurd approach.

And lastly, Madam Speaker, I will just say that this President for years has embraced an all-of-the-above energy strategy, all-of-the-above. This pipeline fits that criteria--it is all of the above. Perhaps I misunderstood and they were talking geographically above. It is coming from Canada. It fits that one too.

Madam Speaker, this project needs to move forward. It has been delayed far

too long. All it is going to do by not building this project is cause us to rely upon Venezuela and other non-allies for energy to power this Nation's economy.