Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

One thing you can always count on in Washington is whenever we pass any legislation, it's always going to be in the name of the children, or the seniors or Mama or puppies or clean air or all things small and beautiful. In fact, the Speaker of the House the other day used the word ``children'' in her speech 44 different times, because politicians are always altruistic with other people's money.

Now, the SCHIP program was designed to help the working poor, not to help people who make $82,000 a year, who might not be rich, but they are certainly not poor. It is designed for American children. It wasn't designed for illegal aliens and yet the Democrats have thrown out the citizenship test. That's the last thing we need is more benefits for illegal aliens.

And then there will be 780,000 adults on this program. This is the children's health care program. While the Democrats will tell you, well, that's only 30 percent, it should be 100 percent children.

The President is right in vetoing this sham.

Madam Speaker. I rise today in recognition of the retirement of Vernon Martin, the Executive Director of the Coastal Georgia Regional Development Center. Vernon has been a valuable partner in my efforts to represent the First District of Georgia and a great friend.

Over the many years that we have known each other, he has been wonderful to work with and always kept the safety, security, and well- being of the community in the forefront of his thoughts. Vernon has dedicated 38 years of service to Coastal Georgia Regional Development Center, where he was instrumental in the economic development of the region. The service area for his office has undergone tremendous change in the past four decades. Coastal Georgia needed leadership and hard work to transition from the slow growth rates that characterized prior eras to the booming growth that the region is now experiencing. Vernon and his staff at the RDC have provided steady guidance and support to the communities they serve, helping them prepare for the future and adapt to change.

Vernon's list of accomplishments over the years is a long one. He was active in the creation of Coastal Emergency Management Plan to insure the safety of Georgia's costal communities during hurricanes, established the Nation's first and largest rural revolving loan fund, helped to create one of the Nation's first regional rural tourism program and was involved in coordinating off-base impact planning for two major military installation expansions. In 2004, Vernon was awarded the Walter Scheiber Leadership Award for his support to the Association and for his outstanding leadership and innovation as a regional council executive director.

Although he will be missed at the Regional Development Center, we are all glad to know that he will still serve in an advisory capacity and help transition to a new Executive Director. I'm sure Vernon is counting the days until he can fully enjoy the beautiful Georgia weather on his beloved motorcycle. I wish him the best of luck in his retirement.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding the time, and I want to talk a little bit about my own background.

I was in the insurance business for 13 years, worked strictly on commission. I was a broker, which meant I worked for the buyer, helping them find the best quality insurance in the insurance marketplace. I also represent the entire coast of the State of Georgia. I've been involved in flood insurance and wind storm insurance and fire insurance a great deal of my adult life. So I'm very familiar with this. In fact, I'm the only CPCU in Congress, which means Charter Property and Casualty Underwriter. That's a professional designation. I know this stuff is my point.

Now, what you have with the insurance business is you have two types of profits, one they make from underwriting. They don't want to insure a building if they know it's going to burn down because they won't make an underwrite profit. Fair game. They do everything they can to make sure the building does not burn down.

They also make a second kind of profit called investment profit. When they get the cash flow from premiums from underwriting, they invest it and they make a lot of money in that. But generally speaking, insurance companies are risk averse. They don't want to insure wind if you're on the coast. They don't want to insure flood if you're in a flood zone. It makes sense from a business standpoint.

But as they will gladly cede this to the Federal Government, then what happens is exactly what Mr. McHenry said: you have the private sector pulls out of it. They don't put in their ingenuity to it.

Now my friend Mr. Taylor, and I know having represented coastal areas, it is possible that there are a lot of buildings and homes that have been constructed that probably shouldn't be there or probably shouldn't use the construction standards that they should, I know as I go over the entire district of Georgia on the coast that people in Idaho and Iowa and Maine are subsidizing the flood policies for my homeowners out there.

It's hard to say this is politically unpopular, but it is the truth. I just want to say that the insurance companies need to own up to their social responsibility. They don't need to take a walk on this.

The Federal Government is already supplying health care, retirement benefits, transportation benefits, food, drugs, even school uniforms and babysitting. Yes, there are programs for that. I don't believe the Federal Government needs to get into the wind storm pool in a major way. We need to let the private sector continue to provide this service, and we need to look ourselves in the eye and say maybe not all these buildings should be built.

I urge a ``no'' vote on this.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

If they want to make a profit from it, then we should not let them take a walk from it. They will figure out a way to do it.

Keep in mind, we did not even have a flood program until recent times. The underwriter will take care of it.

Let me say this, we were not in the Federal flood insurance program until recent times.

Case in point, I used to sell flood insurance; but when the Federal Government grew into it, the private sector withdrew from the market.

Let me say this, I would love to continue this dialogue and that's why we wanted some amendments so that we could try to work out some of these differences.

But in your great State, in Massachusetts, in Boston or in Savannah, Georgia, historically very old communities, there weren't Federal programs that did the underwriting. These were all built by the private sector.

What I'm saying is if you just step back and let the market do its place, the market will continue to work wonders as it did for hundreds of years in the United States of America until the Federal Government let them start taking a walk by providing products that competed with the private sector.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Because as I understand it, Trent Lott lost a family home that was like 100 years old or something in Mississippi. There was no Federal insurance program of any nature when that house was built, which is my point for Boston and for Savannah, Georgia. All of those old buildings never had any Federal insurance programs: fire, flood or windstorm or anything else.

And what I'm saying is I agree with you. They are not pleasant to work with, and I understand and I want to commend the gentleman for his great work on this. But the reality is, if the Federal Government steps in, the private sector will move out.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding and I thank my friend from Massachusetts for generously yielding time, and I want to speak about the manager's amendment. Now that I have done that, I want to talk about Public Law 15.

Public Law 15, or the McCarran-Ferguson Act, says that the States will be in charge of insurance, not the Federal Government.

Therefore, when a company comes into a State or tries to leave a State, the State insurance commissioner actually has the opportunity to twist an arm and say, if you are going to come into my State, you have to write a certain amount of coastal property, a certain mix of teenage drivers, a certain mix of elderly people for health care or whatever. State insurance commissioners by Public Law 15, the McCarran-Ferguson Act, are very powerful in the insurance business.

So I want to say that is where my philosophy comes from is that I do strongly believe that the States can twist arms and get a lot more done.

But I just want to say that Federal flood fund insurance companies did not start until 1968; yet, we have historic properties all over the coast of America because the private sector was there. And, again, having sold flood insurance through a private insurance company, I know that it is possible. And I don't know if the gentleman needs some time. I will be happy to yield, because it is your amendment.

Reclaiming the time. I do believe that you have set a great message, and Mr. Taylor is a tireless advocate for coastal property. But at the same time, I do think that the McCarran-Ferguson Act gives the State insurance commissioners a pretty big hammer here which they ought to be using on the head of certain insurance company executives.

Mr. Chairman, maybe somebody in the majority party could clarify something for me. Does this apply to the wind coverage? Does the gentleman, author of the legislation, know? Does this apply to the wind storm coverage? Does this amendment apply to wind storm?

Does it apply to the wind storm policy? And here's why I'm asking: as I understand it, we're talking about a multi-peril policy that would have flood and wind. And a mortgagee, or a bank, the lender is going to require you to carry flood insurance. Therefore, you go out in the market, well, it won't be the market. You go to Uncle Sugar, I mean Uncle Sam, and you say, I want to get this policy and you're going to get the flood care, but they're also going to sell you the wind storm as part of it.

So is it your intent for people who are in this floodplain area to also get a discount on their wind storm coverage?

Well, if the gentleman will let me ask, and I'll yield back to you, but where in your policy does it say they won't get the discount on the wind coverage? Because I understand what you're doing on the flood. But it appears that wind is going to be in this package. I don't see how we divide it out.

But am I correct that when my lender requires me to carry the flood insurance, then I'm also going to FEMA for the wind storm insurance?

Would they have to be in the amendment?

Mr. Cardoza said it was silent on it, which it sounds like. From what you just read, that's correct. Wouldn't it have to proactively exclude the discount for wind? I'm just asking.

Maybe if Mr. Frank could finish that sentence.

But in a multi-peril policy, you're only getting one premium.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to say I'm confused here. This is opening up the floodgates for coastal development. Whom are we fooling here? As a matter of fact, I just understood that U.S. PIRG and a lot of pro-environmental groups are opposing this. It puts me on an odd side of things. But whom are we kidding? This is all about coastal development. And don't say, when you're knocking over the marshland, don't touch that sand dune. If you're serious about sand dunes, if you're serious about the wetlands, if you're serious about the environment, the fragile coastal environment, you will oppose this bill. This is the best thing in the world for developers. In fact, I'm a little bit surprised that developers aren't knocking down the doors and saying to fiscal conservatives who are opposing the bill for that, what are you doing? This is the best thing.

The great State of Florida, where I have vacationed and so many other people do, we all love the State of Florida and its natural environment. But, goodness gracious, Carl Hiaasen wrote the book ``Strip Tease.'' I mean, there's book after book about overdevelopment in Florida.

That is all this whole bill does is allow continued overdevelopment in the coastal area of Florida and other environmental areas. So to have a fig leaf here to say, well, don't worry, FEMA is going to worry about that sand dune and those sea oats in the coastal area, that's a very mixed signal.

Let me yield to my friend from Massachusetts, who I am sure has some great wisdom for this confused guy.

Mr. Chairman, I reclaim my time.

I want to say to Mr. Frank, do you not agree with me that this is the greatest development bill there is?

Let me restate. Right now it is a fact homeowners and lenders are having trouble getting flood insurance and windstorm insurance in the areas where there are lots of floods and lots of windstorms, coastal areas. This allows them to get it at an economic price that is a lot lower than the private sector because it's a government subsidy. Therefore, America, being great entrepreneurs, this is a very pro-growth, pro-development amendment. I cannot understand how you would not agree with that.

I yield to the gentleman.

Let me reclaim my time just to bite on that piece of the apple.

Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, let me say this. We just passed an amendment for people who have to buy insurance. They don't have to buy insurance. They can move. If they are living in areas that are susceptible to flood, this is still a free America. They can move on. So we are encouraging them to move into flood areas and windstorm areas that are critical environmental areas.

Yes.

Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, just to emphasize this point. This creates a stable predictability in the insurance premium by the homeowner and developer. Therefore, it makes it easier to develop in a coastal area.

Listen, I understand what you are doing, but I just think this fig leaf of an amendment saying let's protect the environment is a little bit silly because the entire point of the bill disregards the environment.

I want to say to my friend, I actually think that you're feeling around the right part of the woods on this stuff. This is actually an important amendment; but I, like the gentlewoman from West Virginia, really doubt FEMA's expertise in solving this problem. And I hope that during the legislative process of this you can maybe shore up the language to say that they ought to have somebody with a lot better scientific and organizational mind than they would be in this. I mean, I keep thinking FEMA-Katrina, not a good idea to let them study anything. In fact, there are a whole slew of amendments here that probably won't be speaking of, but it gives FEMA instructions and directions to do this and that. I don't have the faith in FEMA which your side apparently does. I think this is like asking the post office to do an efficiency study; it's just not a good idea.

But I do believe that you should put in there something about rising tides because you don't have anything about tidal levels. In the State of Georgia, we have a 7-foot tide, Florida has about a 1- or 2-foot tide. That stuff all makes a difference.

I want to say to my friend, again, I support what you're after; I think this is a serious amendment. But when you say this information is out there, FEMA can get it, it was also well known that people were in the Superdome, but FEMA had trouble figuring that out and what to do about it. So just keep in mind who you're giving this authority to. But I do want to say to the gentleman, I understand what you're after, and I think it's important.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

I am opposed to the amendment because I am opposed to the bill.

One of the great things about Congress, I say to people, is it is the ultimate place for those of us with attention deficit disorder, because we have the privilege on a day-to-day basis to go from health care, to war, to weapons systems. Which airplane is better, the C-5 or the C-17? To go to farm issues. How about the cotton program? Is it good? Well, should we model it after the peanut program?

Then education: college, primary, private school. Should there be prayer? Should we lower the student-teacher ratio? Indeed, the President of the United States, President Clinton, stood in this Chamber once and called for school uniforms. We were experts on that for the day.

Tax policy: Who should get tax breaks and who should not? Trade policies: Which countries are going to be the best to trade with us? Immigration.

The list goes on and on and on. But, unfortunately, our expertise does not continue with the demand and the issues.

And here we are talking about popcorn. I would say to my friend from California that 99.9 percent of the Members here have never been in a popcorn factory. I listened to my friend, Mr. Miller. He knows a lot about this. I am impressed that he knows mixing rooms and building walls and so forth, but I would say most of us do not.

That is why we have agencies and commissions like OSHA set up, because they fill in the blanks where we cannot be experts. They have scientists who go in and make rulemaking policies in a balanced way, nonpolitical and nonemotional. It is scientific. They go in there and say, before we go out and set a bunch of standards on the private sector, let's make sure that we have the experts doing the decisionmaking.

And yet here we are, the nanny-state of Congress. Nurse Ratched once more knows best, completely oblivious to the fact that one of the largest manufacturers of microwave popcorn just recently said they would eliminate this product from their bands, and another manufacturer did the same thing. And even OSHA on September 24 said they will move forward with various measures to address the hazards of the workplace.

I think it is interesting that we have set up OSHA to help us, and yet we have decided now that we know popcorn and we know best.

But I would say to my friend from California, your expertise is not matched by 99 percent of us. I would say Ms. Woolsey, being a great Member who does her homework, and Mr. Wilson and the staffers who are here, you all are popcorn experts in Congress, and that's it. There are no other popcorn experts in Congress.

I think we do have some experts on trade and on taxes and on military things, but even they have to rely on agencies and organizations to give them better information. Yet we are leapfrogging over this information. I don't know if it is political or what, but we seem to be in a big rush to forget the standards that should be set by the proper agency.

Later, we will have the opportunity to vote on the Wilson alternative that would give OSHA time to set a standard that would be, after a NIOSH study, based on solid scientific evidence. It seems to me that is a more reasonable and balanced approach to solving this problem. And we are not even convinced. The data doesn't even say this problem is as big and as urgent as those who are advocating this bill are.

So I recommend a ``no'' vote on this amendment, even though I know it is technical in nature. But I think we should ultimately vote on the Wilson amendment in support of it, and then I think we should pass the bill. But if the Wilson amendment does not pass, we should vote this bill down. Because Congress is not an expert on this and we should know our limitations and we should let the proper agencies with the scientists and the experts make the rulemaking on something so micro- technical as micro-popcorn.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I rise to oppose this bill.

As much as anything, I want to say the children's health care bill, you would think would get a little more dignity in the process around here. This is a 299-page bill which we received, ``we,'' minority Republicans, received at 6 p.m. last night, or maybe even later than that. That doesn't give you a lot of time to work on a bill and have any kind of bipartisan deliberations.

Plus, there is no motion to recommit. Now I know that is inside-the- Beltway stuff, but this is important if you are talking children's health care.

What I do know is that in the bill, adults are still allowed to be covered by it. Adults can push poor children out of the way because States are going to politically favor them and let them have the opportunity to be insured.

I know there is a massive tax increase. I know there is very little sympathy for smokers these days, but it is still a tax increase on the backs of the smokers. And in order to get enough money to pay for this, it would require 22 million new smokers in the United States of America.

Now, maybe the Democrat Party is planning to pass out cigarettes at the schools and say to the kids: Hey, look, start smoking so you can finance your own insurance company. And you'll probably be needing it, by the way, wink-wink. But in the meantime, the government gets to grow. The bureaucracy gets to grow. The nanny-state, more like the Nurse Ratchet states, continues to grow at the expense of children. I urge a ``no'' vote on this.

Mr. Speaker, 60 years ago President Harry Truman, through the National Security Act of 1947, created the United States Air Force and ended a 40-year association with the U.S. Army. This move signaled the dawning of a new age and placed airpower in its proper place as a vital element of our Nation's defense.

Airpower had proven its worth to President Truman and many others over those 40 years. From Military Air Balloon success in World War I, to Billy Mitchell's airpower demonstration off Virginia's coast, to the Doolittle Raids and the devastating bombing raids in World War II, airpower allowed our military commanders to fight for and defend our Nation as never before.

Creating a separate Air Force allowed our brave service men and women to fully concentrate on honing the skills and pushing the ever- expanding envelope of airpower.

In Georgia today, we have Air National Guard and/or Air Force Reserve units at Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Robins Air Force Base, Savannah, Macon and Brunswick as well as active-duty units at Moody Air Force Base.

And whether it is C-130s from the 165th Airlift Wing or men and women from the 117th Air Control Squadron which just won the 2007 Outstanding Air Control Squadron award from the National Guard Association of the United States, each of Georgia's units and the outstanding men and women who serve in them contribute around the world fighting the Global War on Terrorism. They also provide a formidable force in the face of disaster here at home, as was seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when rescue helicopters from Moody teamed up with other Air Force rescue units to save more than 4,300 people from the disastrous and deadly storm.

Dobbins, Robins and Moody can all trace their beginnings to the Army and the 1940-1941 timeframe when the War Department was making preparations in case the United States went to war--which came to fruition on December 7, 1941 when the Japanese declared War on the United States and attacked Pearl Harbor.

Dobbins began as Rickenbacker Field, but was re-named in 1950 in honor of Captain Charles M. Dobbins of Marietta, whose airplane was shot down during the war near Sicily.

Robins is named after Brigadier General Augustine Warner Robins, one of the Army Air Corps' first General Staff Officers. The Warner Robins Air Logistic Center which preceded the base is also named after the General.

Moody is named after MAJ George Putnam Moody, an early Air Force pioneer killed in May 1941 while serving with the Beech Aircraft Company in Wichita, Kan. At the time of his death, the major was working on the inspection board for AT-10 transitional trainers which were later sent to Moody.

While each base has a rich history, Moody began a new chapter in its history just recently when the 23rd Fighter Group relocated to Moody and began flying A-10 missions in the skies over Valdosta.

The 23rd Fighter Group also known as the ``Flying Tigers'' was formed under the command of General Claire Chennault and was part of his China Air Task Force, taking over the mission of the disbanded American volunteer group ``Flying Tigers.'' Several of the original Flying Tigers flew with the 23rd Fighter Group in the China-Burma-India Theater, passing on their knowledge and experience.

Like Mitchell before him, Chennault was another early pioneer and controversial figure who made today's Air Force possible. He argued vehemently for the fighter plane in the 1930s--a time when the rise of the bomber aircraft had consumed the Air Corps experts and were the focus for their tactics.

In fact, it was his continued belief and passionate advocacy for the fighter that led to his isolation at the famed Air Tactical School and eventually drove him to become an advisor in China and the rest as we say is history.

Today we mark the Air Force's 60th birthday in order to reflect on its heroes of the past, and more importantly, to recognize the courage and sacrifice our airmen and their families make each and every day for our freedom. Quite simply, I salute you.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the right to object.

Mr. Chairman, I am sure that Mr. Nadler is concerned equally with Mr. Fossella, but I wanted to make sure that Mr. Fossella wasn't being cut out of the colloquy. So the reason why I reserved the right to object is I just wanted a better explanation from the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry. Is the unanimous consent request in order under the closed rule?

Mr. Chairman, further parliamentary inquiry. In other words, out of the 15 minutes of general debate, that is where the time would come from?

Further parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.

I don't have a way to say this directly to my friend from Connecticut, but I will be glad to yield 1 minute of our time to Mr. Fossella and that way we can bring this to 2 minutes, but I don't know how to get there unless I ask a question like this.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Fossella).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moran).

And I want to say, we will certainly work with the gentleman from Kansas. I know you are an advocate on this.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

On this subject, the gentleman from Alabama and the gentlewoman from Connecticut and I have spoken about the fires we have had in south Georgia and the fires we have had in north Florida and Mr. Boyd's district to the tune of 580,000 acres. We have talked during the committee discussions about the possibility of obtaining some emergency conservation reserve program money for the private landowners

who lost approximately $45 million, and then also the State fire departments and the municipalities that spent about $45 million fighting these fires. And I wanted to ask the gentlewoman if we were still on one accord working on our drought/fire situation as we have discussed with Mr. Cramer earlier.

I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

I do, but they're not here quite yet.

Mr. Chairman, let me yield myself 1 minute, and maybe somebody will percolate and maybe they won't.

I wanted to make a comment. Mr. Hensarling had noticed that the earmarks were down. I think this is a good thing. I think that our job is going to have to be to make sure the earmarks stay down as this thing goes through the process, but I also think we need to be concerned about what can happen that will add costs to this bill.

It's interesting we just had a bill that had about 50 people vote against it. It was a popular bill that created a number of new programs, and I was thinking that so often on appropriation bill there's always a standard 100 to 150 people who vote ``no,'' and yet here was an authorizing bill, suddenly it's okay to spend money on an authorizing bill because it doesn't count. But on an appropriation bill, those same people who voted ``yes'' an hour ago will be voting ``no'' on the appropriation bill, except for Mr. Hensarling, who's pretty consistent on everything.

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

Mr. Chairman, I think I have one more in the wing. So let me again enlighten you with some of my wisdom, if I may yield myself 1 minute.

One of the amendments that we have been working on in this bill is the insistence that those who sell or contract to the Federal Government use Social Security verification. There's a program called the Basic Pilot Program, and we have that amendment in the bill.

I think it's important people realize that the idea is that if you're doing business with the Federal Government you should be in compliance with the law of the land, which is to have legal employees; and what this does is requires those vendors and sales corporations and contractors and subcontractors to show that they are in compliance by having Social Security verification.

I'm excited about this amendment. I think it's very important. President Clinton actually did the same thing February 13, 1996, by executive order; and I am hoping that if there's some problems with this amendment that as this bill moves through the process we may need to tinker with it a little bit but that we can keep the gist of it.

Mr. Chairman, we have no more speakers around, and I yield back my time.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield my time to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Rogers).

I thank the gentlewoman for the time.

I want to say this is a major policy change. That is why we are here debating it. It is unfortunate we don't have a full Chamber. But the reason that I offer this amendment is because I think we should have the floor engaged on it, and we will have that opportunity tonight.

Number two, people are doing this. There are 1 to 3 million people who are buying Canadian drugs and drugs from other countries right now. If we are interested in safety, we will find a way to make this safe. This is a country that just invented the iFone, the iPod, the navigation system, and all this stuff. We can figure out how to make these drugs safe.

Finally, as Ms. Kaptur said, these are certified drugs made in the United States in most cases.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman I yield myself 45 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, we are at a time right now when people are paying $3.10 for gas, $3.30 a gas. Gas is on the rise, and our options are limited. We are importing 60 percent of our oil.

It is ironic that on an Ag policy where 2 percent of the population is feeding all 100 percent, if we were importing 50 percent of our food, it would be a national security crisis, and yet oil, which is just as important, we are importing 60 percent of it.

During this time when we are in desperate need for alternative energy options, we should not increase the price of making cellulosic ethanol. And yet in the Ag bill, there was a clause that says if you are building an ethanol plant, you have to have prevailing wages, which drives up the cost of the plant and, therefore, drives up the cost of ethanol.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/4\ minutes.

I wanted to say what we are talking about here is if a business goes and gets a loan, then the government, because it is a government loan, turns around then and basically dictates what they have to pay, and what they have to pay is a higher wage than it is in most communities. Otherwise, the Democrats would not be putting it in here. If this was about free enterprise, this clause would not be in the farm bill.

And my biggest gripe is that it is making energy costs go up because it is making the construction of alternative energy facilities higher. As Mr. King says, it is about a 20 percent bump in the cost of construction of a cellulosic ethanol plant. That's why I think it is a concern.

Who is going to pay for this? The consumers at the pump. And, in the meantime, there might be fewer alternatives.

In Georgia right now my good friend, Mr. Scott, knows we have three ethanol plants on the books, another two coming, and potentially 70 to 80 that will be built in the next 2 to 3 years. Now those are not all cellulosic ethanol plants, but why should we increase the cost of those?

I am excited about this because it does represent a new avenue in alternative fuels, and I don't think we should make anything increase the cost of that.

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

I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank the gentleman from Ohio for yielding.

I want to say that I support this for two reasons. Number one, this bill will be vetoed by the President should it make it through the United States Senate, which is doubtful to begin with, but that's nothing we can control over here. But we know the President has sent out a veto message that the spending level is too high.

We have debated this in committee before. I offered a similar amendment that failed. But I think we need to be realistic. The bill that we're spending tonight is not realistic.

Number two, I want to point out something. This is actually not a 5.5 percent cut because it's not an $18 billion bill. It's really a $90 billion bill. However, because of what I would call negligence on the part of the House, practiced by Republicans and Democrats over the years, we have decided to put about three-quarters of this bill on automatic spending. We call it mandatory. Now, nothing is mandatory when you make the laws. Nothing is mandatory. So it's kind of lazy. It's just sort of ``spend as is.''

And my friend from Connecticut has said that the gentleman from Ohio's amendment would actually take the nutrition and food programs away from children, yet most of them fall into this red category, which isn't even touched by his amendment.

His amendment is actually very conservative. It only affects about the $18 billion portion of this bill. And again, that's not where most of these food programs are, these critical programs. Now, I'm a believer that we should be debating both the red and the yellow portions of this bill and look at it realistically because this is a $90 billion bill, and the 5.5 percent only affects $18 billion.

And with that, I want to say that's why I think that it is important for us to always look into the authorizing side of a spending bill and the discretionary side.

I do support the amendment. And we have had this amendment, a similar amendment, in committee already. My friends on the committee have known my position on this.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank the chairman pro tempore of the Rules Committee for an open rule on this. I think it is important, and we appreciate that.

I certainly thank the chairman of the committee, Ms. DeLauro, for her hard work on it, and I have had a lot of input on it. We've had a lot of good debate on this bill. So it is my intention to support it, but I do have some concerns about the rules which I will address later, but I wanted to go over the bill a little bit.

First of all, I wanted to get Members a little bit focused on the Ag overall picture. Number one, the whole bill is about $100 billion. We're actually debating $18 billion. There's another $79 billion in what we call around here mandatory spending, which is not mandatory, by the way. It is just that we don't want to go back to the bottom line and start all over again. That's what the farm bill's going to do or whatever, but I just wanted to point out, it's real important that the ag programs are actually about one-third of the entire bill, that there's a lot of nonagriculture, nondirect farm programs.

That's important because the rural community comes under such criticism that, well, why is the farm bill so big when less than 2 percent of our population are farmers? Well, the reason is, of course they feed 100 percent of us and we all eat their product, which is food. I wanted to point that out and then show you this mandatory versus discretionary portion of the bill.

The red portion we don't really debate; we don't control in the Appropriations Committee. That's what they do in the Ag Committee, and I don't think they did a very good job this particular year in all the parts of it because they didn't delve into some of this stuff.

The discretionary portion, again, is $18 billion. It's above last year's, and it's about a 3.6 percent increase over last year, or 5.9 percent. Because of that, it's going to be a veto target by the President. The Republican Party says the spending level is too high, and I think that we have to know that we can't pass this by a veto- proof majority, and so perhaps if we went back to the drawing board here it would be good.

The second point I want to make ties directly into this debate that's going on on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Now, this agriculture bill, should we pass it tonight or tomorrow, will go to the Senate, and it will sit, and unlike wine, it doesn't get better over time. It just sits, and what's going to happen, more and more people will delve in and more and more special interests will, and it will pile up with the rest of the appropriation bills.

It's a little bit silly. In fact, we're maybe like the little lab rats going round and round in a circle in hopes of getting somewhere when we know doggone good and well all that's going to happen in the Senate is this thing is going to sit. And yet, because of that, because of our urgency to pass Agriculture, we're going to ignore the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. And it doesn't make sense not to just stop a minute or an hour and get that done and then come back to Agriculture because it is not going to move.

There's some concerns also that I wanted to bring out when it comes to the Food and Nutrition Service. Now, my friend Mr. McGovern has worked very hard on hunger, and he has a sincere passion for that, which is important. But the charge that we have underfunded hunger in the past years under Republican control is really not accurate at all.

Here is the spending chart on food and nutrition programs since 2001, and as you can see, it goes up in a linear manner, and now under the Democrat rule it goes up about the same. There's not some huge deficit in hunger. In fact, I would say to you quite clearly, we spent more time talking about obesity than we did hunger, and I'm not saying hunger's not something that we all have a lot of concern about, but let's make no mistake. The spending on nutrition and food has gone up steadily under Republican control, as it has under Democrat control.

I want to say also, I don't think increasing food stamps participation is an achievement that the U.S. Congress should be patting itself on the back. We should move to getting people independent, not more dependent on government largess. We need to work with people to get them independent. And so often our poverty brokers in this world have a perverse incentive to make sure people don't become independent, and I think we need to be mindful of that on any government program.

The Chair has pointed out what we're doing on renewable energy, and that is something that we think the Ag can and should lead on with ethanol and biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol. We've taken great strides in this bill, and I am confident that we are going to have some great progress and great bragging rights on that.

One other issue that we're going to get into later is this overgrab on the horse regulation that, if this bill passes in its current form, you will not be able to export your horse or import a horse. That's not the business of the Federal Government, at least not in a constitutional sense. I believe that a horse is private property and that you should have the right to sell your horse to folks in Canada and Mexico, if you so choose, or take it to a horse show over there. We will debate that later, and I thank the gentleman and I thank the Chair.

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

I want to, first of all, start off by complimenting the Chair of the committee. We have had a number of hearings this year. We've had a lot of great oversight opportunities. I look forward to more. We've thoroughly reviewed this bill, and there's many things that we found agreement on. There are some things that we're going to have debate on today and things that we'll continue to debate as the bill goes through the process, but I want to commend Ms. DeLauro for a bill well put together. Also, I want to thank her staff, Martha Foley, Leslie Barrack, Diem-Lihn Jones, Adrienne Simmonson, Kelly Wade and Brian Ronholm, and thank them for everything that they've done. And on our side, Martin Delgado, Dave Gibbons. You'll note, on the Democrat side, I pronounced the Republican side with equal ineptitude as I do the Democrats. Jamie Swafford, Meg Gilley, Merritt Myers, Emily Watson, Heather McNatt, Elizabeth Davis and Jason Lawrence and Scott Stevens. We have a lot of folks who've helped. One of my friends on the floor said, Well, how many people does this take? And I said, Well, you know this is almost a $100 billion bill, so we all have to get involved in it.

I also wanted to say something about Ray LaHood. Mr. LaHood is a great committee member. He's going to be leaving Congress at the end of this term and made that announcement this week, and I thought I'd be remiss if we didn't say something about Mr. LaHood. He is a great appropriator. He's a guy who had early on worked with the Hershey Retreat to bring more bipartisan civility to the floor. He was instrumental when I was Chair of the Leg branch subcommittee of getting the staff gym started. Indeed, I don't know if we would have it without him and all of his hard work.

And also, when we were in majority, he stood and sat where you are, Mr. Chairman, many times guiding this House through hot debates and emotional issues, and we're all going to miss Mr. LaHood.

I want to start off on the bill a little bit because so many people think of agriculture as just farming. And yet, if we look at the breakdown of this bill and we see this large blue part, the actual money in this bill, the majority of it goes to domestic food assistance programs. And it's appropriate that it is in the ag bill because so much of what

we're talking about is national security, as seen through our food policy, but direct farming programs are in this more purplish area, and it's about 35 percent of the bill. We also have money for conservation, rural development for the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, and foreign food assistance. But I think it's important for people to realize that this is not just a bill that affects the rural areas.

I also want to point out that much of this bill our committee doesn't have the control over that we would like to. In fact, if you look at this bill, we have an expression here in Washington called ``mandatory and discretionary spending.'' Discretionary spending is spending that Congress itself can effect on an appropriate bill. Mandatory spending is what authorizing committees do. This would have been done through the farm bill, for example.

Now, I don't like the term ``mandatory.'' I think it should be called automatic spending, maybe even lazy spending, maybe even unchallenged spending, since we debate it once every 5 years and then lock it up in a farm bill. I think that the mandatory portion of this budget, since it is almost 80 percent of the budget, should be opened up and debated. I think there's a lot of things in there that need more scrutiny. Indeed, of the $18 billion in the discretionary spending area, we have been scrutinized and we've had a good look at it.

I want to make a couple of points. Number one, the bill at its current level will be vetoed. We do not have a veto-proof majority. This bill will pass today, but not by a veto-proof. The President has made it clear that at a 5.9 percent increase over last year, he will veto it. I think it's important for us to realize this since this is a bipartisan body. This is not a veiled threat. The President has the votes to sustain the veto, and so that's what's going to happen. I think we would be better served getting together and bringing down the numbers on this bill.

The second thing that I wanted to point out is there are a lot of issues that we're faced with in this House this week. One of them is the government health care program that's being pushed on the States and taking away a lot of their discretion. Another one is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. These bills are being pushed aside for this bill, and while I have a lot of passion for this bill, being an aggie myself, the reality is, this bill will leave the Chamber and it will sit over with the Senate. The Senate Appropriations Committee, for all intents and purposes, is defunct. We've been working hard. We've been working long in the House to pass our appropriation bills on time, and I commend Mr. Obey and the Democrat leadership to make sure that we get the bills over there.

And yet, the reality is the Senate is going to sit on this bill, cram it into another bill, stuff it into a shoe box called an omnibus bill, and I think that's the wrong way to approach things. And at the same time, we're going to have other things that slide.

Another thing I wanted to do is set the record straight on some of the nutrition programs, because we've had and heard from a number of people on the Rules Committee earlier today that this restores funding for important and critical child nutrition programs. And you would think that under Republican control, that the bill did not give any money for food and nutrition programs. And yet, if you look at this chart, Mr. Chairman, going back from 2001 on up to 2008, you can see there's simply a linear progression in nutrition funding that has taken place under Republicans mostly, and now under Democrats. But there's no huge dip. There's no great spike now that the Democrats are in charge. And it's important to set the record straight on that.

In fact, I'm one, call me old fashioned, who doesn't think it's great to have lots and lots of people dependent on government programs. I think we should work to get people more independent, and I don't think that increasing these programs blindly makes sense. For example, the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, I don't follow the math on that. Last year the casework estimate was 490,000 people. The actual number to participate was 463,000. And yet this year, even though the projection's 464,000, the budget increase is $42 million for it, and I don't follow that logic at all. If the number of participants is going down, why is the spending going up? And the President actually had zeroed that out. Why did he do that? Does the President not care about hungry people? No, it's because they are eligible for food stamps. There's another program for them. Why have two bureaucracies doing basically the same thing, especially since you have electronic benefit transfer cards which are very simple to do, and those were some that this committee led in.

The other thing that I wanted to point out on the subject of nutrition and hunger is it's interesting that we debated obesity a lot more than we have debated hunger. I think that's probably a good thing, but I think, on the other hand, it shows that there hasn't been this horrible hunger crisis under Republican rule.

Another point I want to say about this bill, the farm service agencies, right now farm service agencies, there are 58 of them that have no staff. The Chair and I have agreed that these should be closed down. I think that's a step in the right direction; 139 of them have one employee and 338 have two employees and 515 have three employees.

Now, I've heard it said about the VA that you can close down any veterans clinic you want in America as long as it's not located in a congressional district. Well, I guess the same is true with military bases, and it's true with FSA offices and other offices. We talk about wanting to balance the budget, but when it comes home to our own district, we all backpedal and say, no, we don't want anything closed.

These decisions aren't easy, but we have to be leaders on this and not shirk our responsibility. I think this committee kind of worked through it, and I'm hoping that we're going to continue to work through it as the bill moves through the process.

Renewable energy. There's so much right now in the rural areas from the subject of ethanol, biodiesel, cellulosic ethanol and other economies that we can go out and capitalize in and help bring alternative fuel to America.

In my home State of Georgia, there are about five or six ethanol plants. There are 121 of them nationally, but Georgia has on the drawing table right now to build another 80 ethanol plants just in our one State. That would put Georgia on the national leaders level. I am excited about that. Because if Georgia can do that, then certainly other States should be doing that; and I am glad that this bill puts a lot of investment into renewable energy.

On broadband and distance learning, I think we all have a commitment to that. Two things that the Chair and I have agreed on that are very important is, one, we don't want the government programs to be competing with the private sector. If the private sector is already there, why put a government program out there? And, number two, for the retired stockbroker who has bought his mountain house on the top of the beautiful mountains in Colorado, why should we care if his laptop is hooked up or not? I don't think we have to waste taxpayer money so that he can check his stock quotes while he is in retirement.

I also want to talk a little bit about a horse amendment that we have, some language in the bill that prohibits people who own horses from taking these horses across international lines. If you own a horse in America and this bill passes with the language that is in it, you will not be allowed to take that horse to Mexico or Canada for any purpose.

Now, I understand that there are those who don't want horses to be slaughtered. Most of them are people who have never owned horses, who don't understand horse owners or who are intimidated by special interest groups in Washington. But the reality is sometimes you have to put a horse down, and since we have a problem with that in America, as outlawed by this Congress or the previous Congress, then this bill does give some flexibility to those people. But, in trying to close that loophole, what the committee did is they said now you can't take your horse out of the country and you can't bring one in. It is a ridiculous part of the language, and I am going to move to strike it.

Another issue that I have some concerns about is drug reimportation. I think drug reimportation is a major policy shift, and I believe that we should have a vote on that.

I commend the Chair in reducing the number of earmarks. The earmarks last year in the bill were about 4\1/2\ percent. We are starting out at about a 2 percent level. I think that is a great reduction not just in the dollar amount but in the number of earmarks.

And one other area that I was disappointed in that I want to point out is risk-based inspection. This is where USDA inspectors go to food- processing plants and, rather than dwell on all of them equally over time, they focus on the ones who are the bad actors, the ones who have the older equipment and the shoddy practices. They put more time there. It is a common business decision, and yet we are interfering with the USDA's right to do that. It is called ``risk-based inspection.'' I think it is very important to a good, clean, healthy food supply, and we have stopped RBI. I think that is a mistake.

But, overall, there is a lot that's good in the bill. I look forward to the debate.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, let me just say that I think we kind of know where we are heading on various amendments. I look forward to that amendment.

And, again, I have enjoyed working with you and the staff. You have a semi-good bill.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

If the Chair seeks to accept the amendment, then that ends the debate; correct?

The debate is over then; correct?

Offered By: Mr. Kingston

Amendment No. 15: Strike section 726.

Offered By: Mr. Kingston

Amendment No. 16: Strike section 738.

Offered By: Mr. Kingston

Amendment No. 17: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Kingston

Amendment No. 15: Strike section 726.

Offered By: Mr. Kingston

Amendment No. 16: Strike section 738.