Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as a part of H.R. 3288, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010. The entity to receive funding is the Deane Center for the Performing Arts, P.O. Box 102, Wellsboro, PA 16901, in the amount of $100,000. Funding will be used for construction and renovation of the Deane Center for the Performing Arts.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as a part of H.R. 3288, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010. The entity to receive funding is the Centre Area Transportation Authority, 2081 West Whitehall Road, State College, PA 16801, in the amount of $300,000. Funding will be used for compressed natural gas powered articulated transit buses.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as a part of H.R. 3293, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010. The entity to receive funding is the Warren County Planning Commission, Warren County Courthouse, 204 Fourth Avenue, Warren, PA 16365, in the amount of $350,000. Funding will be used to assist the construction of a building to provide health care services to residents in Warren County.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as a part of H.R.3293, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010. The entity to receive funding is the Mount Nittany Medical Center, 1800 East Park Avenue, State College, PA 16803, in the amount of $150,000. Funding will be used to support the expansion of its East Wing.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as a part of H.R. 3293, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010. The entity to receive funding is the DuBois Regional Medical Center, 100 Hospital Avenue, P.O. Box 447, DuBois, PA 15801, in the amount of $100,000. Funding will be used for the purchase of a Digital C-Arm.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as a part of H.R.3293, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010. The entity to receive funding is the Central Pennsylvania Institute of Science and Technology, 540 North Harrison Road, Pleasant Gap, PA 16823, in the amount of $250,000. Funding will be used for energy related workforce training.

Mr. Speaker, on a daily basis we make our own choices. From decisions as simple as paper or plastic, diet or regular, decaffeinated or high-test to ones as profound as Republican or Democrat and temple or church as the place we choose to worship. We come from a Nation of freedom that has allowed us to make choices in our lives. But if Democrats have their way, government bureaucrats will soon choose our health care. There is a television advertisement about a woman whose doctor told her to go get her affairs in order because she had cancer and less than 6 months to live. She then chose to go to a different provider, and several years later, she is still alive and healthy.

Under the Democratic proposal, an unelected official in Washington will be making health decisions for individuals and families across this Nation. Patient choice will be a thing of the past unless you are wealthy enough to go outside the system. When competition dies, so does quality.

Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons this Nation has the best health care in the world is competition and compassion. Let's choose not to lose that quality and to continue to be able to go to the physician who can best serve our needs.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the issue of job loss at rural hospitals if the current health proposal were to become law. The Democrats' public plan assumes reimbursement rates based on Medicare.

In the July letter from the Blue Dog Coalition to Speaker Pelosi, the coalition reported that Medicare reimbursement pays, on average, 20-30 percent lower than private plans. Actual costs are made up through private insurance reimbursement, which will be gone if the Democratic plan plays out. This will have a severe negative impact on rural hospitals, and it will leave us asking: Where are the jobs?

Many providers suffer financial losses as a result of treating Medicare patients. The lower rates make it more difficult for rural providers, who serve higher percentages of elderly and low-income patients. A new public plan with rates similar to Medicare's will create a financial result that will be unsustainable for even the Nation's most efficient, high-quality providers. The result is a loss of good jobs in rural America.

During this time of economic downturn, we need to be focused on the retention of existing jobs and on encouraging and not discouraging our rural hospitals.

I thank my good friend from Utah (Mr. Bishop) for coordinating this event tonight. I'm very proud to represent Pennsylvania's Fifth District and am very proud be a part of the Western Caucus. We have a lot of wonderful natural resources that, frankly, help to make, Mr. Speaker, make this country strong, and I believe as a part of our promising future if we use them and use them wisely.

Federal policies that lead to job losses is a very personal one for me and many of my constituents in Pennsylvania's Fifth Congressional District. My district is home to Pennsylvania's only national forest, the Allegheny, or the ANF as we often refer to it--513,000 acres.

The ANF is as special as the district that I represent and has a long history as an economic and a tourism center for the region. Nearby, in Titusville, Pennsylvania, Colonel Edwin Drake founded the world's very first commercial oil well in 1859. The energy industry has been the economic engine in that region in my district ever since. Now this includes the ANF.

For 86 years, the forest has successfully operated for multiuse purposes. These uses include recreation tourism as well as timber harvesting, oil, and natural gas production. Frankly, before this forest was formed 86 years ago, it was an oil and gas field.

Since oil and gas has been the economic engine in the region for over 60 years, when the ANF was created, the Federal Government only purchased the surface rights. This was done intentionally by the Federal Government in order to leave the mineral rights, meaning the rights to oil and gas and minerals, in private hands. And for some 85- plus years there's been a positive working relationship between the Federal Government, who owns the surface rights, and the private and oil gas developers, who own the mineral rights.

However, this longstanding and beneficial relationship recently has been ruptured. Last fall, the Forest Service was sued by three environmental groups: Sierra Club, the Allegheny Defense Project, and the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics. The Sierra Club is based in the Speaker's home district in San Francisco, California. The Allegheny Defense Fund is based somewhere in Oregon. And the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics--well, they won't identify themselves. We don't know.

These groups are attempting to apply the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, to the permitting processes, which effectively will shut down energy production in the forests.

Let me be clear, oil and gas production is the major economic force in the region, and has been since that first oil well was drilled 150 years ago.

Penn State University performed a study and concluded that for every 100 direct oil and gas sector jobs in northwestern Pennsylvania, 23 industry support jobs are created, with an additional 40 ancillary jobs in the retail and residential sectors. Want a true economic stimulus that leads us to energy independence? Let's support that industry. Again, I can't emphasize enough how important these jobs are to our region and the local economy.

As a direct result of the lawsuit, the forest service indefinitely suspended the permitting process for all new oil and gas leases in January of this year. To make matters worse, the Forest Service released a settlement this past April that sides entirely with the environmental groups.

This settlement was reached behind closed doors and was reached with no industry input. There was no judge, no court that told them to do this. Applying NEPA was a decision made by the Forest Service and did not even take into account the people that it would hurt directly and the most. No court told them to do this, which means that it was a policy change that occurred within the National Forest Service.

Now, while these environmental groups would like everyone to think that oil and gas production in the ANF goes unregulated, it's rigorously regulated by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. And they do a great job. They always have.

Today, I, along with Mr. Bishop and 18 other members of the Congressional Western Caucus, sent a letter on this topic to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The Secretary, unlike some Members of Congress and environmental groups, knows that the Forest Service is a part of the Agriculture Department, not the Interior Department.

The bottom line is that Congress and the President have this year alone spent about a trillion dollars in the name of job creation. Yet, some within the administration are also actively trying to make policy changes like this that kill good-paying jobs which have existed for 86 years.

Not too long ago, I was in Bradford, Pennsylvania, on a Sunday morning, and I picked out a small church to worship in. And at the end of the service I had a young mom come up to me. She had three little kids in tow. They weren't very big. The oldest maybe was four years old.

And she came up to me and she said, You're Mr. Thompson. She said, I want to thank you for what you're trying to

do to stand up for the right things of making sure that we have the rights to access to subsurface rights. You see, her husband makes his living working on oil wells. At that point, he was struggling to find a job and struggling to be able to support his family because of a policy change by this administration which attacks the subsurface private property rights. And that's not right.

I've talked with businesses that have been in the business, have lived their entire life for generations in the Allegheny National Forest, that own subsurface rights and have every right for 86 years to access oil, natural gas, and minerals that they own. And, because of that arbitrary policy change by this administration, that's been shut down. And these folks who have been in business for just generations are no longer able to support themselves.

This type of attack, this type of policy by this administration on private property owners, it impacts timber workers, it impacts drillers, excavation companies, businesses, schools, townships, and families. Frankly, they're all suffering. And they're suffering because of the arbitrary and devastating policies of this administration on private-property-right owners.

I thank the gentleman from Utah and I yield back.

I rise in support of H. Res. 507, a resolution supporting the goals of National Dairy Month, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, for the past 70 years, we have celebrated the month of June as National Dairy Month. While there have been some years during this time where dairymen have had cause for celebration, I think we would be hard pressed this year to find a dairyman who is in much of a mood for celebration.

As dairy prices started to rise in 2007, reaching record levels by June of last year, prices started to decline this past September and October, ultimately reaching a devastatingly low price by February. While there has been some slight rebounding in prices, dairymen across the country are still suffering from extremely low prices received in the marketplace and from extremely high prices for inputs, such as feed and fuel. In fact, while the average uniform price in the Northeast Federal milk marketing order for June of 2009 is $11.93 per hundredweight of milk, the USDA estimates that it costs dairymen in my home State of Pennsylvania $27.15 per hundredweight of milk just to produce it.

Mr. Speaker, I recognize that the adoption of this resolution is a bit late this year, but as we honor National Dairy Month for the 70th consecutive year, I ask all of my colleagues to consider the actions we take here in this Capitol Building and how these actions reflect on the small family farming businesses around the country.

Farmers do their best in keeping us well fed and in keeping us clothed and in keeping us housed, and we can, at the very least, consider the financial burdens that we place on these men and women when we contemplate legislation that would dramatically increase their costs of production.

I want to thank my good friend from Georgia for the hearing that he held last week and for the two hearings that we are going to conduct on behalf of the dairy industry. I really appreciate that. I know the dairy farmers of Pennsylvania's Fifth Congressional District appreciate that as well, and I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Resolution 270, which recognizes the collaborative efforts of hunters, sportsmen's associations, meat processors, State meat inspectors, and hunger relief organizations to establish Hunters for the Hungry programs across the United States. Such programs have brought hundreds of thousands of pounds for venison to homeless shelters, soup kitchens and food banks.

Since 1991, Pennsylvania's Hunters Sharing the Harvest program has provided hundreds of thousands of meals to needy Pennsylvanians. Last year, the program coordinated the delivery of nearly 200,000 meals that included venison.

Americans are generous people, and many individuals work through private organizations to donate food to help needy families. Given our economic climate, more and more people are turning to soup kitchens and food banks for food assistance, and that is where programs like Hunters for the Hungry make a valuable contribution and difference.

Great strides are being made to provide nutritious, high-quality venison to those experiencing hunger in our communities. I commend the generosity of America's hunters and all who participate in the Hunters for the Hungry program. The contributions of these individuals are a step in the right direction in the fight against hunger, and I urge my colleagues to support House Resolution 270.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I recognize my good friend from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) for such time as he may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to Dr. Broun.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to thank my colleagues for certainly supporting this legislation. It truly fulfills the spirit that builds and makes America great, where neighbors assist neighbors.

I don't believe I have any additional speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Concurrent Resolution 164 and yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, House Concurrent Resolution 164 recognizes the 40th anniversary of the Food and Nutrition Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The mission of the Food and Nutrition Service is to provide children and low-income families better access to food and a more healthful diet through its food assistance programs and comprehensive nutrition education efforts.

FNS administers the most important Federal nutrition programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program; the School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs; the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, known as the WIC program; the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which provides various commodities to our Nation's food banks; as well as other child and adult care food programs.

FNS is better able to serve our Nation's hungry because of the bounty of America's farmers and ranchers. FNS is able to use surplus commodities in their various feeding programs, thus ensuring those in need receive foods produced by the American farmer and rancher.

Many people do not realize that funding for domestic food assistance programs represents two-thirds of the USDA's budget. For fiscal year 2009, the enacted omnibus appropriations measure included $76.2 billion for the programs administered by FNS. With the economy continuing to struggle, FNS has seen a record enrollment of

33.8 million food stamp participants. Clearly, the Food and Nutrition Service, in working cooperatively with the States, has a large and important role in serving those in need.

And again, I want to recognize the 40th anniversary of USDA's Food and Nutrition Service and ask my colleagues to support this resolution.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of Senate Concurrent Resolution 30, commending the Bureau of Labor Statistics on its 125th anniversary.

In our current economic climate, there is a lot of discussion about economic data, what the data means for our recovery, and more importantly, how many of our fellow citizens are going back to work.

What is not talked about is the government agency that is responsible for gathering this data. For 125 years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, BLS, has been charged with collecting and examining information related to our economic health. According to the BLS mission statement, the agency is the principal factfinding body for the Federal Government.

A survey of any economic analysis demonstrates that this information is widely used by academics, Federal and State governments, private companies, and news reporters. The agency has more than 2,000 economists in its headquarters and eight regional offices, gathering unemployment data, wage data, safety and health statistics, and a whole host of information to provide us with a clear picture of the state of the economy across this country. Congress relies on the statistics produced by the Bureau for a variety of programs and for guiding a myriad of policy decisions.

The Bureau examines payroll data and various demographics so that we have detailed information about employment by hours, by industry, and geographic areas. BLS also provides a snapshot of employee benefit plans or labor productivity.

When your children ask if they will ever use anything they learn in school in real life, you can point to the economists and statisticians at BLS as an example of putting math and science to work. When your children complain about how much time that they spend in school, you can tell them, according to the American Time Use Survey developed by BLS, 9 percent of the population is engaged in educational activities daily. I doubt if it brings them any comfort, though. That 9 percent spends, on average, 4.5 hours in class and 2.4 hours engaged in homework.

I rise today to commend the staff of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for 125 years of dedicated service and urge the passage of S. Con. Res. 30, commending their service to the Nation. I ask my colleagues to support this resolution.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise).

I yield 1 additional minute to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Mr. Speaker, I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

I yield as much time as he may consume to Dr. Broun of Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, I don't have any additional speakers, so I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Concurrent Resolution 123, recognizing the historic and national significance of the many contributions of John William Heisman to the sport of football.

John William Heisman was one of the single most influential individuals in the sport of football, the most watched sport in the United States. John Heisman was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on October 23, 1869. He began his football career at Titusville High School. He was introduced to football through the Titusville Rockets and continued at Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania, where he received his law degree in 1892.

He served as the head coach for a total of eight university football teams, including 16 years at Georgia Tech and 3 years at the University of Pennsylvania. He coached Georgia Tech in the most one-sided football game ever played--with a final score of 222-0--and led them in a 33- game winning streak. Of the 271 games John Heisman coached, in only 68 of those games did the opponents finish the game with a win. He retired in 1927 and passed away in 1936.

John Heisman's influence on football is undeniable but the history of football itself began before John Heisman's birth. American football was started sometime in the mid-19th century and was a divergence from the game of rugby. College students in the late 19th century took the lead in turning the evolving game of football into an organized support. In 1920 the American Professional Football Association was formed and 2 years later became the National Football League. The game of football has continued to evolve from that time to today with the influence of various coaches, rule makers and organization heads.

John William Heisman's influence on the game of football helped to make the game what it is today. His inventions include the four-quarter game, the ``hike,'' the center snap and the forward pass. In addition, he created many innovative plays that led to some of the basic formations used in today's games.

John William Heisman was a nationally recognized collegiate coach and an influential innovator. In the time before and after his death, his accomplishments were recognized by many nationwide. John Heisman had several articles published in magazines such as ``American Liberty'' and was the football editor of the ``Sporting Goods Journal.'' He served as the director of the Downtown Athletic Club in Manhattan, and in 1935 helped to create the award that would later be renamed the ``Heisman Memorial Trophy.''

John Heisman's accomplishments and contributions to the sport of football are many in number. His ideas and coaching helped to create the game that has become so imbedded in the culture of our Nation. I ask my colleagues to support this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield back my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as a part of H.R. 3183, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010. The entity to receive funding is Clarion County Commissioners, 421 Main Street, Clarion, PA 16214, in the amount of $100,000. Funding will be used to provide a major water source, recreation, aquatic, avian, ecological, and environmental education endeavors with the inclusion of a major water supply source (1.3 million gallons/day). Enhancements to the Clarion County Commerce Center (KOZ Zone) would be afforded a water supply for industrial growth in the western section of the county.