Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, the rhetoric here just does not meet the facts. Our energy policy in this country has continued to fail us because we have spent money in areas that are getting us no results. We know that to lower costs for all Americans, we must lower their energy bills. We know that the cheapest form of energy out there is oil and gas; and yet the President puts out a bare-bones policy, yet claims to want to create jobs.

The lowest unemployment rate in this country exists in North Dakota, and the reason that unemployment is so low there is because they understand that drilling equals jobs. Now, let's see what's going on up in the Dakotas, because if we would believe what the gentlemen and ladies across the aisle would lead us to believe, that the areas that we would like to open up do not contain any resources, then they would believe, as the USGS believed in 2002, that the Marcellus shale in the Pennsylvania area only contained about 2 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Well, today, through the hard work of Americans and private industry, we have realized that there are 84 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. In the Gulf of Mexico in the 1980s, there was an assessment that believed that only 6.25 billion barrels of oil was located in the gulf, but yet today, 15.5 billion barrels have been produced.

Now, the problem is that it takes a while for private industry to recognize where these resources are, to be able to find them, to explore for them and then to determine how much is in the ground. And so that takes time. So what the President does is he takes those properties, those Federal lands, those Federal properties, off the table. It doesn't allow those companies to go out and explore to determine whether or not we can actually be energy independent, which everyone here on both sides of the aisle continues to come up to these microphones and claim they want.

Well, we can do that. And all we're asking in our plan is that we allow these properties to be surveyed and looked at and be made available.

Make these properties available so that private industry can come in to determine the amount of reserves that can be extracted out of the ground and given to Americans to reduce their overall energy consumption.

So, Madam Speaker, I will tell you that what the President does is fails the American people when it comes to creating jobs and lowering the cost of energy not only at the gas pump, but in their electric bills, in the manufacturing centers around this country and in the steel mills. In every sector of this country that uses energy, the failure for us to tap into our resources and to review and get a solid assessment on the amount of resources available to the American people is being missed here.

So I certainly hope that Members would reject the President's plan and take up our plan, which is going to expand the amount of Federal properties available to explore for oil and gas and lower the cost and create jobs for all Americans.

Madam Speaker, I just wanted to take a moment to discuss with my good friend from Massachusetts some of the statistics that he was laying out for the American people here on the floor.

The problem is that we are lacking the demand for energy right now because people are out of work. Because of high unemployment, people are not driving back and forth. That means they're not utilizing gasoline or energy. So, he's right; the amount of oil that we're having to import today has been reduced because people are out of work.

Now, what happens if--and this is a big ``if''--we can crank this economy back up and we can do what everyone here wants to do, and that is to create jobs? Well, the problem is that, if we start cranking this economy up and we don't have a solid energy policy in place, gasoline prices are going to rise and we're going to end up back in a recession.

So I would like the gentleman from Massachusetts to join me in saying, You know what? We're going to put the country on a sustainable path. We're going to ensure that when Americans get the jobs that we're going to help create here, we're going to make sure that the economy can continue.

We're going to ensure that that economic expansion is going to last a long, long time.

So again, I would urge the gentleman to reject the President's plan. Join us. Give private industry an opportunity to see what is out there. Once and for all, remove the shackles that America has chained to OPEC and let us be truly energy independent.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 438 I inadvertently voted ``yea.'' I meant to vote ``nay'' because of the drone issue.

Thank you, Mr. Graves.

Mr. Huelskamp was just on the mark. I will venture to say that today's ruling actually extinguishes the fire of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It destroys life, liberty, and that pursuit.

The question today for this country can best be summed up by President Ronald Reagan when he said, back in the 1960s, in a speech:

Will history write that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent it from happening?

This is a sad and tragic day for the Constitution. Where are the limits of our government? While the Court has answered that the Commerce Clause does have its limits and gives us that ruling, it takes away by saying that Congress has unlimited taxing power. Its limits are unlimited. I guess that Congress now, when it sees fit to regulate an issue, an industry, need only now to turn to its taxing power, as Mr. Huelskamp said.

This law was sold to us as a mandate and not a tax. It was reaffirmed by the President that this is not a tax. Yet, when the arguments were made to its constitutionality, this administration took the position that it was a tax, and the Court agreed.

Let's see the taxes. In 2010, an excise tax on charitable hospitals was enacted; the codification of the economic substance doctrine; a tax hike of $4.5 billion was implemented; a black liquor tax hike, a tax that increases on the type of biofuel; a tax on innovator drug companies was enacted; a BlueCross/BlueShield tax hike was enacted; a tax on indoor canning services was enacted; a medicine cabinet tax, so that Americans are no longer able to use their FSAs, flexible spending accounts, or HRAs, their health reimbursement pretax dollars to purchase nonprescription over-the-counter medicine was implemented; the HSA withdraw tax hike was implemented; a tax that will take effect this year, the employer reporting of insurance on W-4s.

Where are they going with that, Mr. Graves? Where are they going with that?

Remember, not long ago we had a big debate about that, that now we're going to report to the IRS the amount of your insurance policy that your employer gives you on your W-4, because they want to tax that as income.

And then taxes that will take effect in 2013: a surtax on investment income; a hike in the medical payroll tax.

Wait, the medical payroll tax? I thought we had a payroll tax holiday. Not in 2013. We're going to get an increase.

A tax on medical device manufacturers; a flexible spending account cap that is going to affect those parents who have special needs kids.

So those parents who have special needs kids that the other side of this aisle claims to always want to represent, this health care law is now going to tax.

An elimination of the tax deduction for employers that cover prescription drugs; a $500,000 annual executive compensation limit; an individual mandate excise tax; an employer mandate excise tax; a tax on health insurers.

And last but not least, in 2018, an excise tax on comprehensive health insurance plans, which will affect union employees.

This ladder of success that we had in this country has now had three rings of it removed, because now the government tells the individual, if you live below a certain poverty line, you will be given food, shelter, and now health care tax free, no requirement by you who is receiving these, to pay anything back to the government, zero.

What is the incentive to climb? Because the moment you start to climb, you lose these amenities and the government starts to take from you. So

the decision becomes, can I jump high enough to grab a rung so that I can then start paying back and get more of the amenities that the government was giving us and I was provided?

Let me conclude as I began, by asking: Will those who have the most to lose do the least to prevent it from happening? And as I spend time in this city, I have come to realize that the giants of America who have been memorialized for their great contributions to our society did not contribute with the goal of being memorialized but did what was right and just in the eyes of the Lord, with no ego and no agenda other than for the greater good. And that is what this country so desperately needs. We need those giants.

Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

I am honored to join my distinguished colleagues, Ranking Member Rahall, Mr. Huizenga, Mr. Tom Graves, and Ms. Herrera Beutler, on this amendment.

Our bipartisan amendment prohibits any funds under this act to be used to implement any administration mandate for global positioning systems, electronic onboard recorders, or event data recording devices on both passenger and commercial vehicles.

Madam Chairman, the Department of Transportation has become obsessed with electronically monitoring vehicle movements. Right now, the DOT is working on a mandate which would require that every car have a device which is very similar to an airplane's black box. Additionally, they are working on another mandate which would require that trucks carry an electronic onboard recorder. Even the name sounds scary. These devices would record and transmit data when the truck is in use.

This regulation is so costly that even President Obama has singled it out as a regulation which needs more study. He did so because it is estimated that the mandate will cost the trucking industry at least $1 billion to implement.

Madam Chairman, the truckers in my district cannot afford this cost. I know some companies like these devices. That's great. They can put them in their trucks voluntarily. However, just because a few companies like the devices, we should not mandate that everyone use them. For this reason, I

hope the House will adopt this commonsense amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I have heard from some of my colleagues and outside groups, and they would argue that this is not the time to have this debate.

But if not now, when? When will we publicly debate the issue? We are waiting on a conference report of which we know not what's in it. So this is the time. I would argue that this is the time for us to have that debate.

To be clear, just because a few big companies in this country want these types of devices, what about the small business owners out there that everyone on both sides of the aisle continually come to this mic and propose that they support when our actions of opposing this amendment would say to the big corporations, ``I'm with you,'' and to the little guys, ``I'm not''?

In the Department of Transportation, is my understanding.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that I be removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 1380.

Mr. Chairman, here are some facts: an estimated 13 million Americans are out of work. The State of Colorado's unemployment rate is 8.1 percent, which correlates with the national unemployment rate. Today, the State of Colorado's estimated reserves are 1 billion barrels of oil.

In 1995, the State of North Dakota's estimated reserves were 151 million barrels. Today, those reserves have been increased to 4.2 billion barrels of oil; yet today, the State of North Dakota's unemployment rate is 3 percent. What do those facts tell us? Those facts tell us that drilling equals jobs, Mr. Chairman. And it's very simple. In North Dakota, they are drilling on private lands. They are driving unemployment rates down.

Please, if the President wants a jobs plan, it is here. And I urge all Members to vote for this bill.

I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment is very simple. It seeks to improve the environment by ensuring that those States that allow offshore drilling are allowed to keep more of the revenue generated off of their shores.

In 2007, Congress passed a historic Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, or GOMESA. This historic legislation for the first time allows States to share in the royalties generated from offshore drilling. However, GOMESA only provided 37.5 percent of the revenue to the States and then capped the States at no more than a collective $500 million per year. Conversely, the Mineral Leasing Act required the Federal Government to give 50 percent of the energy revenue generated on Federal lands to States in which it is generated.

In Louisiana, we wholly support offshore drilling. We are proud to supply 80 percent of our Nation's offshore energy. But why should we not share in the funding generated by this drilling?

My amendment simply moves offshore royalty sharing more in line with the benefit experienced from onshore States by moving the GOMESA cap from $500 million to $750 million per year. My amendment does not impact onshore-producing States. If your State is receiving revenue from onshore energy production now, my amendment does nothing to change that. All the amendment does is move Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama a little closer to what those onshore States currently enjoy.

This amendment is nearly identical to the amendment that both myself and the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Richmond) offered during consideration of H.R. 3408, the PIONEERS Act, of which that amendment passed by bipartisan support of 266 159.

I yield to the gentleman.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I would only remind the gentleman from Massachusetts that this is, if you are an environmentalist and you want to help protect the environment like I know the gentleman from Massachusetts so desperately wants to do--I have served with him in committee and enjoyed his passion for taking care of the environment--this is an environmental amendment.

The citizens of Louisiana have passed a constitutional amendment that dedicates all of the proceeds from offshore royalty to go to wetlands restoration, coastal restoration, and hurricane protection. This is buying us an insurance policy that the other 46 States, who I know have been so generous to help us when hurricanes ravage our coast, this helps to protect us. And I know that the gentleman from Massachusetts would love to protect the environment in Louisiana.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have consistently championed the need for Louisiana to protect its fragile coast and wetlands. I have offered amendments and supported bills that all positively affect the creation of new wetlands and starts to turn the tide on the coastal land loss in Louisiana. But the New Orleans District Corps of Engineers office is going to cripple our ability for Louisiana to protect itself from dangerous hurricanes by introducing a standardized method of wetlands mitigation. This standardized method is called the Modified Charleston Method.

This method is driving up the State and local mitigation cost of hurricane protection in Louisiana by 300 percent. I said only the State and local cost because the Corps has exempted itself from its own method on Federal projects. This is why the American people are frustrated at the Federal Government; it creates a rule, enforces it on everybody else, but exempts itself.

The Corps' new wetland rules are actually halting the creation of wetlands. As such, my amendment prevents the enforcement of the Modified Charleston Method within the State of Louisiana for 1 year, forcing the Corps to take a breath and develop a mitigation system that provides for our wetlands without stifling needed hurricane protection measures and economic development.

My amendment impacts only Louisiana. If your Corps districts use the MCM and it works for your constituents, great, your Corps districts can continue to do so. But the MCM does not work for Louisiana. In fact, the State of Louisiana, the Police Jury Association of Louisiana--our association of counties--the Association of Levee Boards of Louisiana, Vermillion Parish and countless local communities all have severe concerns about the MCM.

Moreover, the MCM does not acknowledge that some construction projects actually preserve wetlands. For example, a flood protection levee that protects homes also protects wetlands from saltwater intrusion and erosion. However, these benefits are not calculated.

The Corps itself does not follow the MCM. And until it does, local parishes, communities, and builders should not be forced to follow it as well.

I urge passage of this amendment and reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. Chairman, the only thing consistent about the method is that it doesn't work in Louisiana. In fact, the only thing that it increases is the amount of land that the mitigation banks can sell.

We have parishes in Louisiana who understand that the Federal Government doesn't have any more money. The residents and citizens of those parishes have taxed themselves to protect themselves from storms, and yet the formula that the Corps is using is driving the cost of these projects to a point where they can't build them anymore. But yet some in this body will argue that after hurricanes come in, after hurricanes affect Louisiana's coast, they don't want to pour the money in to rebuild those communities.

Those communities are trying to protect themselves at a time when the Federal Government has told them ``no'' as a source of funding, and yet now the Federal Government is going to change the rules. It just doesn't work in Louisiana. And for that, I urge my colleagues to help me pass this amendment.

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

Parish of Jefferson,

Office of the President,

Jefferson, LA, June 5, 2012.

Hon. Jeff Landry,

Cannon House Office Building,

Washington, DC.

Dear Representative Landry: I strongly oppose use of the

Modified Charleston Method (MCM) to assess wetland habitats

and compute compensatory credits for wetland impacts from

public safety and economic development projects. The MCM must

be revised to provide adequate and defensible compensation

calculations for required mitigation.

Jefferson Parish has serious concern that the MCM, in its

current form and with its current factor value(s), may cause

unnecessarily high and impractical compensatory mitigation

values. Section 404 of the Clean Water Act requires that

compensatory mitigation be practicable. The MCM offers the

very real possibility of quantifying compensatory mitigation

calculations that are unworkable and in direct violation of

both the letter and the spirit of the Clean Water Act.

The Parish is also concerned that the MCM may have a

negative influence on important public works projects that

are tied directly to public safety. It is the Parish's belief

that the MCM will have a direct negative impact on important

public safety projects by requiring an inordinate amount of

compensatory mitigation for wetland impacts associated with

these projects. The communities of southeastern Louisiana

have little choice, in most cases, than the construction of

the necessary flood protection structures in areas which

trigger wetland mitigation requirements, if they are to

provide adequate safety for these communities. Ultimately,

the utilization of the MCM for assessing the wetland impacts

for these important projects may lead to loss of property,

livelihood, life, and result in local, state and federal

legal liabilities.

In addition, the Parish is concerned that the MCM may also

have a negative influence on critical infrastructure projects

such as roadways/hurricane evacuation routes, ports,

hurricane protection features, etc. Most of this

infrastructure also provides crucial access that is required

for the maintenance and growth of the petroleum and chemical

industry, which supports this state, the region and the rest

of the nation.

Accordingly. I vehemently oppose use of the Modified

Charleston Method and would like to offer my support of your

proposed amendment to H.R. 5325,

Sincerely,

John F. Young, Jr.,

Jefferson Parish President.

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

Mr. Chairman, in 2007, Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Section 801 of this act authorizes the Department of Energy to create a national media campaign to promote alternative green technologies and wean Americans off of fossil fuels. My amendment defunds this media campaign.

Our government must get out of the business of picking winners and losers. The American public knows far better than any government bureaucrat what energy sources work best for them, their families, and their businesses. Instead, private green energy firms should use their own advertising campaign funds on behalf of the energy sources they sell. Why are government dollars needed?

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and to defund this taxpayer media campaign.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise as a proud member of the Tea Party. I opposed the debt ceiling. I opposed some of the CRs. I opposed our involvement in Libya. I'm a strict constructionist when it comes to the Constitution. When I joined this body, I raised my hand to God and swore to uphold the Constitution and protect it from all threats both foreign and domestic. I am a veteran.

With this oath, my duty to protect our citizens' liberties is matched by my duty to protect their lives. That is exactly what the text of this bill, when combined with this amendment, does. It ensures that every American has access to our courts and ensures that they will not be indefinitely detained.

Equally important, our amendment does not harm our Armed Forces' ability to protect this Nation. Unfortunately, some in this body choose to believe that our soil here is not a battlefield in a war on terror. They want to treat the al Qaeda cell in Seattle differently or better than the al Qaeda cell in Yemen.

To yield to these Members to adopt their view does nothing to protect the liberties of our citizens. It only harms their safety. For that reason, I urge them to adopt this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment turns the global fight on terror into a CSI investigation.

On its face, the supporters will say exactly, but let's see the results. The mission of those who fight the war on terror, now it's how do we prevent acts of terror from inflicting billions of dollars of damages to save lives?

You see, our law enforcement and prosecutorial system in this country is, by nature, an after-the-fact determination, meaning, we rarely have the ability to arrest a potential murderer until after he commits the crime. The deterrent is the length of the sentence for the murder that deters people from trying to harm or kill another.

That's not the case in terrorism. We set the punishment level to the severity of the crime. But the level under terrorism, there's no known level. What deters a person from flying a plane into a building? So how does passing this amendment protect the furtherance of that crime or would we simply be satisfied with investigating after the fact?

I would like to thank Chairman McKeon for working so diligently with me to protect the civil liberties that we enjoy so much in our country.

Mr. Chairman, as we debate the protection of these civil liberties in this bill, we need to ask ourselves: What are we trying to provide? We must protect every citizen's basic due process rights. What are those basic due process rights?

Specifically, it would be the right to notice, the opportunity to be heard, the right to a neutral forum, the right to counsel when before the court, and the right to an appeal. Some of my colleagues are proposing the creation of additional rights. Doing so does not further protect us under the Constitution nor does it further the protections of our constituents.

They say we must allow foreign terrorists captured domestically to be tried in criminal court, enveloping them with all of the protections granted to civil criminals. It gives them access to our national security intelligence that ordinary Americans currently are denied. We incentivize them to come to America. The base text of

the bill makes it clear and precise that anyone detained is afforded access to the basic rights of due process that I mentioned earlier. Therefore, those basic rights are now enshrined.

I urge Members to support the underlying bill, accompanied by the Gohmert-Landry-Rigell amendment, and to oppose any other attempts to create additional rights for foreign terrorists.

I have an amendment at the desk.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

NOAA and the fishing industry have had a long history of working together. Since the 1990s, NOAA has worked with the fishing industry to develop a regulatory system that provides meaningful protection to turtles, while at the same time not economically harming our fishermen. Under the system, fishermen had agreed that they would periodically remove their nets from the water, allowing any turtles trapped in the net to escape. By offering to do so, they would not have to use the turtle exclusion devices.

Now NOAA intends to regulate these shrimpers and force them to use TEDs. The recent rulemaking negates this partnership and places the whims of environmentalists ahead of the scientific data or economic well-being of the fishermen in the coastal communities. There is no scientific data that's proving that the lack of the use of TEDs by shrimpers is causing any additional deaths in the turtle population.

Over 60 percent of the shrimp landed in Louisiana is by the inshore and near-shore fleet, which is primarily

skimmers and butterflies. This regulation, if implemented, will affect thousands of fishermen in Louisiana. Fishermen will lose money due to the cost of TEDs equipment and also the money lost from loss of catch.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Offered By: Mr. Landry

Amendment No. 47: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Landry

Amendment No. 48: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Landry

Amendment No. 49: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Landry

Amendment No. 50: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Landry

Amendment No. 54: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following: