Floor Statements

Offered By: Mr. Bridenstine

Amendment No. 1: Page 7, line 17, after the dollar amount

insert ``(reduced by $12,000,000)''.

Page 13, line 21, after the dollar amount insert

``(increased by $12,000,000)''.

Page 14, line 8, after the dollar amount insert

``(increased by $12,000,000)''.

Page 14, line 8, after the dollar amount insert

``(increased by $12,000,000)''.

Well, I thank my good friend, the gentleman from Florida, who is championing a cause that is near and dear to my heart, a platform that I have spent many hours in. I flew combat off of an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf and the north Arabian Sea. In the E-2 Hawkeye, I flew combat in Afghanistan, flew combat in Iraq.

I can tell you that the missions that we did, airborne battle space command and control, and control of the assets that provide close air support to our troops on the ground, was critically important to the mission in both theaters. I can tell you that we did air intercept control in order to have dominance of the skies. We provided airborne early warning.

It is not without reason that the E-2 Hawkeye is the first aircraft that comes off of the aircraft carrier when we launch a mission, and it is the last aircraft to come back. We are the first ones to the fight, and we are the last ones home.

It is also not without reason that when the E-2 gets airborne, when the rest of the air wing is on the deck and the ship is steaming across the ocean, the Hawkeye is always working because we are that airborne early warning asset that can provide threat recognition to the carrier battle group.

The Hawkeye is a critical node in America's force structure, and I would say that I was also involved in generating the requirements for the next generation Hawkeye, the E-2D. And Congress has recognized the value of the E-2D by providing the Navy with multiyear procurement authority. Multiyear procurement drives down costs by enabling block buys, improving supplier surety, and stabilizing production lines. As my friend from Florida knows, the Navy requested four E-2Ds for the fiscal year 15 budget request, which is one less anticipated.

I would just like to thank the chairman of the committee for being able to work with us on ensuring that we can get another E-2D Hawkeye.

Mr. Speaker, on May 20 of last year, a massive tornado struck Moore, Oklahoma, with very little warning. The Moore tornado killed 24 Oklahomans, injured 377, and resulted in an estimated $2 billion worth of damage. A warning was issued only 15 minutes before the tornado touched down, just 15 minutes. In fact, 15 minutes is the standard in America. Mr. Speaker, America can do better than 15 minutes.

The Weather Forecasting Improvement Act is the first step toward restoring America's leadership in weather and weather forecasting and prediction. I would like to thank Chairman Lamar Smith and the Science Committee staff for their very hard work.

H.R. 2413, the Weather Forecasting Improvement Act, is critical legislation that will save lives and protect property and critical infrastructure.

I would also like to thank the former Environment Subcommittee chairman, Chris Stewart, now a member of the Appropriations Committee, and my friend and colleague from Oregon, Representative Suzanne Bonamici, for making this truly a very bipartisan effort.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is about priorities. When America is over $17 trillion in debt, the answer is not more spending, but to prioritize necessary spending toward its best uses. Saving lives and protecting property should be the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's top priority. This bill codifies that priority.

H.R. 2413 directs NOAA to prioritize weather-related activities and rebalances NOAA's funding priorities to bring weather-related activities to a higher amount. The bill completes this reprioritization in a fiscally responsible manner. H.R. 2413 does not increase NOAA's overall authorization. I would like to repeat that. H.R. 2413 does not increase NOAA's overall authorization. It doesn't spend one more dime.

Mr. Speaker, this bill helps get weather research projects out of the lab and into the field, thereby speeding up the development and fielding of lifesaving weather forecasting technology.

By requiring coordination and prioritization across the range of NOAA agencies, H.R. 2413 will help get weather prediction and forecasting technologies off the drawing board and into the field.

This bill authorizes dedicated tornado and hurricane warning programs to coordinate research and development activities. It directs the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research to prioritize its research and development. And it codifies technology transfer between OAR--the researchers--and the National Weather Service--the operators--a vital link that ensures next-generation weather technologies are implemented.

Mr. Speaker, perhaps most importantly, H.R. 2413 enhances NOAA's collaboration with the private sector and with universities. Oklahoma is on the cutting edge of weather research, prediction, and forecasting with absolutely world-class institutions such as the National Weather Center and the National Severe Storms Laboratory at the University of Oklahoma.

And I would like to anchor here, just to brag for a second, about what is happening at the University of Oklahoma. As a Navy pilot, I have seen firsthand phased array radar technology being used to detect, track, and target enemy aircraft many, many miles away. What this technology is now being used for at the University of Oklahoma is to detect and track clouds and very small particles in clouds. Those particles can provide reflected radar energy that goes into a data assimilation system, into a numerical weather model, and we can now predict tornadoes over an hour in advance, which is a goal of this piece of legislation.

Saving lives and property requires us to be able to warn people based on the forecast of a tornado, not just based on the detection of a tornado, moving from 15 minutes to over an hour in advance to detect tornadoes. Not only is this possible, it has been done. And they are doing it currently at the University of Oklahoma.

Mr. Speaker, this bill also clarifies that NOAA can purchase weather data through contracts with commercial providers and place weather satellite instruments on private payloads. Leveraging the private sector will lead to lower costs for better weather data; again, saving lives and property.

Mr. Speaker, the imbalance of NOAA's resources is leaving America further behind our international competitors. The Science Committee received compelling testimony showing that the European Union has better capabilities in some areas of numerical weather prediction, forecasting, and risk communication, and other countries, such as Britain and Japan, are closing in fast.

Misallocating resources can have terrible consequences, as my constituents and the people of Oklahoma understand all too well every tornado season.

The Weather Forecasting Improvement Act is a first step toward rebalancing NOAA's priorities, moving new technologies from the lab bench to the field, and leveraging formidable capabilities developed in the private sector and at universities. I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan bill.

Mr. Speaker, Pat Grant passed away on November 26, 2013.

Whether you called her ``colonel,'' ``attorney'' or ``champ,'' Pat Grant was one of the most extraordinary women you would ever hope to meet. She dominated women's golf in Oklahoma during the 1930s and 1940s. In addition to her golf prowess, Grant served her country for 22 years in the United States Army. After the Army, Grant practiced law for 30 years.

It was said of Grant:

She was not only the perfect example of an athlete; she was

the type of American our country needs to look up to.

People started noticing Grant when she won the Oklahoma State High School Golf Championship as a 13-year-old freshman at Cushing High School. She would win it three times before graduating in 1938. Then it was on to Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee. There was no golf team at Oklahoma Baptist University at the time, but she was given a scholarship for teaching golf to other students. She graduated from OBU in 1942 and was the first woman to be inducted into the OBU Athletic Hall of Fame.

While at OBU and at the age of 18, Grant won the Oklahoma Women's State Amateur Championship in 1939. In 1940, at the Indian Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Grant won the State championship again. Her third straight championship came at the Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa. During that championship, she set a new course record for women at Southern Hills and won the championship match 9 and 8. She held the trophy for the fourth straight year with a 7 and 6 win in Shawnee. The legend was beginning to take shape. Grant became known for hitting long, booming drives, some as long as 250 yards. It was rumored that sometimes she even talked to her golf ball.

There was no State championship in 1943, 1944 or 1945 because of World War II; but when play resumed in 1946, Grant won the State Amateur Championship again. With that victory, Grant became the only person in Oklahoma history to win the State championship 5 years in a row. That record still stands today.

When World War II broke out, Grant put aside her ambition of becoming a professional golfer so she could serve her country. ``It seemed like the right thing to do,'' she said. ``We were at war, and I didn't want to sit around here and do nothing,'' she said. Her career in the Army was as illustrious as her accomplishments on the golf course.

Grant and her sister, Mary Margaret, enlisted in the Army in 1942. Grant went into the Women's Army Corps, and Mary enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps. Grant was commissioned as a lieutenant in April 1943. While in the military, Grant held duty assignments all over the globe, including assisting the chief legal counsel during the Nuremberg Trials. Grant also served as the personal escort to Eleanor Roosevelt when the former First Lady toured Germany in 1948.

Grant received 23 letters of commendation while in the Army and won golf tournaments all over the world. ``It was good publicity for the Army for me to be playing in all these golf tournaments,'' Grant said. ``It was great for me because the Army was paying my way. That's what you call a 'win-win,' '' she added.

In 1965, after 22 years of Active Duty, Grant retired from the Army with the rank of lieutenant colonel. She was one of only 60 women to attain such a rank at that time. As if her life were not full enough, Grant landed in San Antonio to earn a law degree in 1966.

Just as she protected her country, Grant fought for rights and justice through her family law practice. Because of her service to others, Grant was named Woman of the Year by the Texas Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs in 1972. Retirement came for good in 1995. Grant moved to Cortez, Colorado. At the age of 90, she was still active and full of life. Grant flew an ultralight aircraft every Saturday morning when weather permitted.

``It has been a good trip,'' Grant recently said. ``God has chosen a life of adventure for me. I wouldn't trade it.''

Grant loved God, and she loved her neighbor, and she spent her life dedicated to family, friends, and country. She was inducted into the Women's Oklahoma Golf Hall of Fame in April of 2010. She passed away on November 26, 2013, at the age of 90. She was a great role model for all Americans.

Mr. Speaker, last week, we celebrated Thanksgiving. We gathered with family and friends to thank God for his provision, his goodness, and his mercy.

But for some families, this Thanksgiving was bittersweet. Such was the case for Senator Jim Inhofe's family. They lost their son, Perry, in a tragic aviation accident on November 10.

Dr. Perry Inhofe was a highly skilled surgeon associated with Central States Orthopedics in Tulsa. David Long, Central States' CEO, said:

Dr. Inhofe was known as a very caring and compassionate

physician. He was the kind of doctor who made you feel you

had his full attention and that your health was the most

important thing to him.

Continuing an Inhofe family tradition, Perry loved flying with his children and teaching them about flying. From what I understand, he was a good pilot.

Dr. Inhofe is survived by his wife, Nancy, and two sons, Glade and Cole.

I wish to express condolences to the whole Inhofe family. I pray they will be comforted and strengthened by the fact that Perry was a believer in the living Christ, who said:

I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me,

though he die, yet shall he live.

Amen.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the upcoming National Day of the Republic of China (Taiwan); an important day which led to the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912.

Taiwan and the United States have been good friends and strong security and economic partners for many years. Both countries believe that Human Rights, Democracy and Rule of Law are critical to maintaining a flourishing society.

Taiwan is not only an economic player in the Pacific, it also plays and important role in the U.S. economy. In 2012, Taiwan was the 11th largest U.S. trading partner and it's the 7th largest market for U.S. agricultural products. In light of this, I encourage the Administration to solidify a bilateral investment agreement with Taiwan, as it would boost both trade and investments for both parties.

Taiwan is a vital part of the Asian economy and an APEC (Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation) member. I would like to see Taiwan joining the Trans Pacific Partnership as soon as possible. I encourage my colleagues to support Taiwan in their efforts to join the TPP.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, October 28, 2013, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 3304, a bill to authorize and request the President of the United States to award the Medal of Honor to Bennie G. Adkins and Donald P. Sloat of the United States Army for acts of valor during the Vietnam Conflict and to authorize the award of the Medal of Honor to certain other veterans who were previously recommended for award of the Medal of Honor. I am a proud original co- sponsor of H.R. 3304.

The late Mr. Donald P. Sloat was a constituent in the First District of Oklahoma. Then-Specialist Four Donald P. Sloat served our country during the Vietnam Conflict. On January 17, 1970, then-Specialist Four Donald Sloat, a machinegunner with Company D, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, 196th Light Infantry, Americal Division was killed saving the lives of three of his fellow soliders by shielding them from a grenade blast with his own body.

For his gallantry and intrepidity, then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates determined that Mr. Sloat's actions merited the Medal of Honor. I submit the following letter from Secretary Gates to Representative Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. In his letter, Secretary Gates notes that the Medal of Honor must be awarded ``within three years after the date of the act justifying the award.'' Congress must waive the time limit before the President of the United States can award the Medal of Honor to Mr. Sloat. By passing H.R. 3304, the House of Representatives took the first step in ensuring that Mr. Sloat receives the honor he so richly deserves.

Secretary of Defense,

1000 Defense Pentagon,

Washington, DC, January 11, 2013.

Hon. Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon,

Chairman, Committee on Armed Services, House of

Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Chairman: I am writing in response to requests

from Senator Tom Coburn and Representative John Sullivan for

award of the Medal of Honor (MoH) to then-Specialist Four

(SP4) Donald P. Sloat under the provisions of title 10,

U.S.C., section 1130, of ``Consideration of proposals for

decorations not previously submitted in timely fashion:

procedures for review.''

I reviewed the proposal for award of the MoH to then-SP4

Sloat for saving the lives of three of his fellow soldiers by

shielding them from a grenade blast with his own body on

January 17, 1970, during the Vietnam conflict. After giving

the nomination careful consideration, I believe then-SP4

Sloat's actions merit award of the MoH. However, title 10,

U.S.C., section 3744, requires that the MoH be awarded

``within three years after the date of the act justifying the

award.'' Therefore, a statutory time waiver to title 10,

U.S.C., section 3744, is required before the President of the

United States may, if he so chooses, award the MoH to then-

SP4 Sloat.

The final award authority for the MoH rests solely with the

President of the United States. My favorable determination in

no way presumes what the President's decision might be.

If you have any questions regarding this matter, please

contact the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for

Legislative Affairs. A similar letter is being sent to the

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Senator

Tom Coburn, and Representative John Sullivan.

Sincerely,

Robert M. Gates,

Secretary of Defense.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of our guest chaplain, Dr. Rod MacIlvaine. Rod MacIlvaine is the founding senior pastor of Grace Community Church in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, a community just north of Tulsa.

He also serves as a fellow with the Veritas Center for Faith, Freedom, and Justice at Oklahoma Wesleyan University, and he is an adjunct professor in the doctor of ministry department at Dallas Theological Seminary.

His ministry at Grace Community Church concentrates not only on worshipping the risen Christ, but also on equipping people to serve the city, especially helping people recover from substance abuse and painful pasts.

For the past 10 years, he has also worked through a missions organization he cofounded called ``Grace Missions International.''

He and his wife, Cindy, have been married for 34 years, and they have

four children: Sarah, Kristin, Caleb, and Jared, and six grandchildren, including one adopted from Uganda.

I want to thank Dr. MacIlvaine for serving as our guest chaplain today.

Well, I really appreciate it.

I would like to thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. DeSantis), who has been such a great leader on constitutional issues in this body. And I'd like to say that, here you have a gentleman who went to Yale undergraduate and he played baseball. He got a law degree from Harvard, and then he decided to join the United States Navy. He has served bravely in the United States Navy as a JAG officer, and now he's serving in the United States Congress. So if there is anybody in this body who has the credibility to discuss these constitutional issues, it is my good friend from Florida, Ron DeSantis. And I appreciate your leadership on these issues.

When you think about the constitutional process, Mr. Speaker, there is one particular issue that is near and dear to me, that is near and dear to my constituents, that we have seen this body go through earlier this year, and that is the issue of gun control. I think it was back in April. The President had an agenda and Harry Reid had an agenda, and their agenda was to outlaw certain types of guns. These guns didn't operate any differently than other types of guns; they just looked scary, so they wanted to ban them.

Interestingly, that effort died in the Senate and it never came to the House of Representatives. So then they started another effort, and that effort was for what would eventually be a national gun registry. They called it ``universal background checks,'' but ultimately it would be a national gun registry, and that effort died in the Senate.

Now, the constitutional process, if the President wants his agenda enacted, he needs to go to the United States Senate or the House of Representatives and pass a law, in a bicameral process, and eventually it needs to go to his White House for signing. Ultimately, this bill did not have the will of the American people. This bill did not have the desire of the Members in this body to pass that bill. So what the President did recently--which I believe is egregious--is he decided to enter the United States of America into an international treaty to accomplish the very objectives that the House of Representatives and the Senate had rejected, and that's the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.

Under this treaty, anybody who purchases a gun internationally--if a gun comes from another country, maybe a Glock from Austria--well, then you have to enter into an international database. You have to enter your name and your address and your phone number. There will be an international database of anybody who buys a gun that was ultimately produced in a country other than the United States.

And let me be clear about this, because I've talked to a lot of gun manufacturers. Many parts of many guns are not made in the United States. You could have a handle that's made in China. You could have a trigger that's made in Mexico. If you look at most of the guns that are made in the United States, major parts of them are made elsewhere, which means that we are going to have a national gun registry that will have an international body overseeing our national gun registry per the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.

Now, for the President of the United States to have an agenda item that doesn't get through the Senate, that doesn't get through the House of Representatives, that never comes to his desk for signing, that he is ideologically committed to this--which is a violation of the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution--for him to then enter into a treaty, an international treaty where there will be an international body responsible for overseeing this treaty, to me, is an egregious lack of leadership and certainly violates the intention of the Constitution. The President knows full well that the Senate will never ratify this treaty.

And this is another important point, I think. The President has had other agenda items. He wanted to sign us up for other treaties--the United Nations Convention for the Rights of Children, the United Nations Convention for the Rights of Women, the United Nations Convention for the Rights of the Disabled. There are all these conventions, and they're all seemingly very good conventions; but what I would say is this: The United States of America has laws, and those laws are far more stringent than these treaties.

For what purpose would we sign on to a treaty when our laws themselves are stronger at adhering to the principles that these treaties are trying to promote? Why would we sign on? Why would we turn over our sovereignty to an international body? I personally don't understand it.

The United States is a leader in the world. We can lead the world by example, but signing over our sovereignty so that there will be an international body that comes in and inspects our country because the President has an ideology that he couldn't get through the House, that he couldn't get through the Senate, that ultimately these treaties were not going to be ratified by the Senate, I think it is egregious.

Certainly the Second Amendment of the United States is, quite frankly, not up to debate by foreigners, and it is not up to debate by foreign bodies. Foreign governments cannot come into the United States and force us to overturn our own constitutional amendment--the Second Amendment.

That is, I think, another example of where this President has overreached beyond his constitutional authority in certainly passing laws--not actually passing laws, but creating treaties because he can't get his laws passed--that would violate our Constitution.

Will the gentleman yield?

I just wanted to ask you a quick question, which is, when you consider the fact that the media reporting is very different from what I have perceived in this body as a Member of Congress, I am more astonished every day at how the media reports the story. But the very last ask that we made before the government

shutdown was about 1 o'clock in the morning, so I guess technically the government had been shut down for about an hour. That very last ask was simply a meeting. It was simply a conference so that people on their side and people on our side could come together and discuss ObamaCare and some of the problems that we have with it.

Now, when you talk about the Constitution and the constitutional process that we have and you have divided government--I would like to ask the gentleman from Florida--is that not a perfectly reasonable adult way of handling disputes?

I appreciate that, and it is perfectly appropriate that we have the gentleman from Arizona here as well. The gentleman from Arizona, and when you serve in this body, you get to meet a lot of very interesting people that have done amazing things in their lives. The gentleman from Arizona who we heard from earlier had an opportunity to serve in this body back in the 1990s, and then he left. He had a term limit pledge. He honored his term limit pledge. And then he came back recently as a newly elected freshman with the rest of us, and it is an honor to serve with him. But in that hiatus when he was back in Arizona, he ran for the governorship of Arizona, and he darn near won. Interestingly, he ran against the person who won, who was Janet Napolitano, who became the Secretary of Homeland Security here in the Obama administration.

I would like to discuss some things about why it is so important for me personally. I am a Navy pilot, as the gentleman from Florida said, and I have flown combat. But interestingly, I have also flown counterdrug missions in Central and South America. And I can tell you without a doubt that the drug cartels that we fight down in Central and South America, they don't try to get the drugs into the United States of America anymore. Their only objective is to get the drugs to northern Mexico, where they are vertically integrated with gangs and other cartels who bring the drugs across the border without a hitch. Now, because we have these drug wars in northern Mexico--and, by the way, there are over 100,000 people who have been killed in the last 7 years in these drug wars in northern Mexico, but that exists because we have an open border policy on the south side of the United States.

So if you were to hand a 16-year-old kid a backpack with $1 million worth of cocaine and you say to him, Hey, go across this border and get to that point, you're going to be very well rewarded. A 16-year-old kid will do that in many cases in these impoverished areas in northern Mexico. Interestingly, another 16-year-old kid will see that backpack and want it for himself, and the next thing you know, you've got one killing the other, and then you get a third killing the second. And then you have these gangs form, and this is how you get to a point where you have cartels and gangs that are killing not only each other, 100,000 people, but they are also killing judges. They are killing police officers. They are killing politicians. And on top of it all, they are not just transporting cocaine, they are transporting young girls in the slave trade. And they are transporting weapons. This is happening in northern Mexico just south of our border. Mexico is on the brink of a failed state because of this, and it is the direct result of an open border policy.

Now the Secretary of Homeland Security, former Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has been on record. What does she say? She says that the border is secure. That's what she says. I have just got to tell you that I know firsthand that it's not. And the people who live in Arizona know that it's not. The people who live in Texas know that it's not. The border is not secure.

But here's what we have done in this body. We have passed laws to secure the border. Has the border become secure? No. Have thousands of people died since those laws have been passed because we haven't secured the border? Yes.

The President's job per the Constitution is to faithfully execute the laws, not pick and choose which laws he wants to follow based on political preference, which is what he has been doing.

So if it is all right, I would like to yield to the gentleman from Arizona. You have been near and dear to this for a very long time. If you have some comments, I would love to have you share them.

I just wanted to take a moment because there's a lot of information out there, Madam Speaker, about what's going on in our country right now--and a lot of misinformation. I thought it would be appropriate just to set the record straight.

A little over a week ago we sent a bill to the Senate. That bill funded the entire government. It kept the government open and it defunded ObamaCare in its entirety. Senator Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats stripped from that bill the defunding mechanism and they sent it back to the House. So we looked at it and we said, What can we do that they might agree to?

Well, the President has already unilaterally delayed major provisions of ObamaCare, including the employer mandate. He did that because he saw the jobs report. People were being forced from full-time work to part-time work. Many of them were being forced out of a job. In my district, I talked to an employer that has 57 employees; they're trying to get down to 49. And guess what they did. This is happening across our country. So the President unilaterally decided he's going to delay the employer mandate.

So we said, okay, if he wants to delay that for 1 year, let's give him an opportunity to delay the entire ObamaCare for 1 year. So we passed a bill that funded the government, kept the government open, and we sent it to the United States Senate with a 1-year delay of ObamaCare. We did that at about 1 o'clock in the morning.

Interestingly, the next day, the Senate Democrats took the day off, and the day after that they didn't even show up until 2 in the afternoon. This was my first indication--as somebody who's new to Congress, I've seen a lot of crazy things--it was my first indication that maybe they wanted a government shutdown. Astonishingly, they just didn't show up. When they did show up, they tabled it.

So then we said, okay, well, what if we just delay the individual mandate? He has already given multibillion-dollar corporations a 1-year reprieve. He's given Members of Congress a subsidy. It's not written in the law; in fact, it's illegal. He had a meeting with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, and the next thing you know Members of Congress get a subsidy.

So we said, look, if Members of Congress are going to get a subsidy and multibillion-dollar corporations are going to get a break, why don't we give hardworking Americans a 1-year reprieve? So we passed a bill that funded the government, kept the government open, and delayed the individual mandate for only 1 year. Of course Harry Reid took that bill and he immediately moved to table it.

So then at about 1 o'clock in the morning we decided, okay, let's just ask for a conference so that we can have some people from our side and some people from their side get together and work this out. Astonishingly, they didn't even want that. If you can imagine that, they didn't want to sit down and talk to Members of Congress.

Interestingly, the President called on the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, to go to the White House, and he went and he talked to the President. Guess what the President told him? The President said, We're not going to negotiate. He said, We're not going to negotiate on the continuing resolution to fund the government, nor are we going to negotiate on the debt ceiling.

This is not how it's supposed to work in our constitutional Republic in split government, but that's where we are. This is indicative of the fact that this is Harry Reid's shutdown. This is President Barack Obama's shutdown. This is not the Republican shutdown. We have done everything we could to keep this government open, and Harry Reid and President Barack Obama have shut it down.

But here's the good thing. Here's what we have done: We passed a bill, and that bill said we're going to fund the troops. We passed it unanimously in the House of Representatives. We passed it unanimously in the Senate. The President signed it into law. That's a good thing.

Then we had another bill. We thought we could pass it under suspension, so it would require a two-thirds vote. That bill was to fund the veterans of the United States, the Veterans Administration. Interestingly, Members of this body on the other side of the aisle killed it, if you can imagine that. It is every bit as indefensible to kill funding our veterans as it is to not fund our troops, every bit as indefensible.

Then, after that occurred, we wanted a bill that would fund our National Guard and our Reserve. I'm a reservist. I've been on Active Duty. I've been a reservist. I can tell you firsthand that reservists serve this country every bit as honorably as those on the Active Duty side. So we wanted to fund them. And guess what? We brought up a bill. We passed it under a rule so it only required a simple majority, and we passed it. We sent it to the Senate, and they haven't done anything with it.

This is where we are. Harry Reid and Barack Obama are holding our veterans hostage and they're holding the National Guard and our reservists hostage to ObamaCare. It's that simple.

And, by the way, it's not just to ObamaCare. It's one very simple provision that is only a 1-year delay of the individual mandate. When you think about it, it's really they're holding it hostage to having a meeting. At the end, we just said, Okay, let's have a meeting. They said, No, we're not going to have a meeting, and, oh, by the way, we're shutting down the government.

That's where we are.

So I just wanted to clarify that for my constituents back home. We are opening the government one bill at a time, and we're being blocked by the Senate. Certainly it's in nobody's best interest in this country to have a government shutdown. It's nothing any of us wanted. Yet Harry Reid and Barack Obama gave it to us.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3230 for our National Guard and Reserve. I would be astonished if any Member of Congress votes against this bill.

In the midst of a shutdown, due to the President and Harry Reid's unwillingness to negotiate, Congress came together, and we acted to fund our Active Duty troops. Following this vote, the radical left voted against funding our veterans; they voted against funding our national parks; and they even voted against funding cancer patients. Now we are trying to pay the Reserve and Guard components, who have fought valiantly for this country all over the world. The citizen warriors of my State of Oklahoma and across this country should not suffer because the radical left, which includes our President, is unwilling to negotiate.

Voting against our Guard and Reserve servicemembers is every bit as indefensible as voting against our Active Duty servicemembers and our vets. I urge my colleagues to act responsibly and to fund our Reserve and Guard.

I thank the gentleman from Texas. Thank you for your leadership here in the House of Representatives, and also thank you to my friend from California.

I would just like to maybe have a brief dialogue with the gentleman from Texas if that's okay.

It wasn't too long ago we passed a bill to fund the entire government. That was something that was hard for a lot of us to swallow because there's a whole lot of things in a continuing resolution that we're not, frankly, interested in funding, but we swallowed that pill because it defunded ObamaCare. We sent it to the Senate. Harry Reid stripped out the defunding, and he sent it right back to the House of Representatives.

So we said, Okay, let's just take 1 year. The President has already delayed major provisions of ObamaCare. He saw the jobs report. People were shifting from full-time work to part-time work. Some people were losing their jobs. People were losing their health insurance. Health insurance premiums were spiking. Companies were trying to get down below 49 employees. So we said, Okay, the President wants to delay major provisions of ObamaCare, let's give him a year. We'll delay it for a year and fund the entire government. Again, I voted for that.

I would just like to ask the gentleman from Texas, I'm new here. I've been here for 9 months now. We passed that at about 1 o'clock in the morning on a Saturday night--I guess it was a Sunday morning--and the next day the Democrats didn't show up. The next day after that, they didn't even come in until 2 in the afternoon.

I would just, with your vast wisdom and experience, sir, maybe you could clarify for the American people what was going on. I mean, we're on the brink of a government shutdown and they just didn't show up. Was it maybe that they were looking for a shutdown?

When you think about what we did last night, we talk about common ground a lot in the House of Representatives. It is a couple of words I hear all the time: common ground, common ground, common ground.

Here we had an opportunity last night in the midst of a government shutdown knowing that we have warriors coming back from the battlefield--I am one of them myself; I flew combat in Iraq and Afghanistan--and we wanted to pass a bill where there is strong common ground, we want to fund the Veterans Administration, we want to make sure that our veterans get the care they need.

Yesterday, on the floor of the House, the Democrats in this body killed that. Maybe you could shed some light on why they would want to do that?

The only thing--and I have thought about this a lot--the only thing I can possibly think of why they would not want to fund the veterans is that they want to hold the veterans hostage for something else, namely ObamaCare. That is the only thing I can think of.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 9 o'clock and 33 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, October 3, 2013, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, Congressman Kelly from Pennsylvania, for yielding me the time. I would also like to thank my good friend, the senior Senator from Oklahoma, Jim Inhofe, who has been the upper Chamber's fiercest opponent of the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty. I am proud that Senator Inhofe also stands firmly with Senator Cruz in his fight to defund ObamaCare. There seems to be some confusion about that back in Oklahoma, but he has been standing with Senator Cruz from the beginning.

Mr. Speaker, already this year, the President tried to ban guns he thinks look scary. They don't operate any differently--they just look scary--so he tried to ban them.

Rejected by Congress, the President tried to create what is effectively a national gun registry. The American people and their representatives rejected that plan as well. In response, President Obama today had his Secretary of State sign what is effectively an international gun control treaty that will ultimately force all of us to register our guns and our names and our information into an international database.

President Obama once again demonstrated his hostility to the

Constitution, to the Second Amendment, and to the U.S.

sovereignty by signing the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty. This

President is fundamentally antagonistic toward both our

constitutional right to keep and bear arms and American

independence from international bodies.

Why is the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty so dangerous? First, the treaty is ambiguously worded. Its basic terms are not even defined, which permits gun-grabbing U.N. bureaucrats the widest possible interpretive scope. We all know that the U.N. gun-grabbers will interpret this treaty just as loosely as the President interprets the Constitution of the United States.

Second, the Arms Trade Treaty is a direct shot at the Second Amendment of the Constitution. Lawful ownership and use of firearms-- including for self-defense--are basic constitutional rights. The treaty does not recognize this. In fact, the Arms Trade Treaty ``encourages governments to collect the identities of individual end users of imported firearms at the national level.'' This is the core of a national gun registry.

The treaty also creates a national ``responsibility'' to prevent the ``diversion'' of firearms to illegal trade. Since illicit trade is not defined, does this mean one American selling a gun to another American counts as illegal? Who is to say? Groups like Amnesty International have already stated that the Arms Trade Treaty is a ``start'' down the path of control for ``domestic internal gun sales.'' This is international gun control, plain and simple.

Mr. Speaker, the Arms Trade Treaty is fully consistent with the President's policy of ceding more U.S. sovereignty to international bodies. He's pushed the Senate to ratify treaties that do nothing except diminish U.S. sovereignty. These treaties include the U.N. Conventions on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, the Rights of Children, and the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.

Does this mean that the United States finds no morally compelling interest in protecting disabled persons, children, or women? Of course not. In each of these, cases U.S. domestic law imposes far higher standards of protection than many of the countries that have ratified all three of these treaties. For example, such beacons of human freedom as Cuba, China, Nigeria, Russia, and Syria have ratified all three of these treaties. North Korea and Iran have ratified two of the three. Unlike these countries, though, the United States actually upholds its treaty obligations.

Mr. Speaker, the Arms Trade Treaty is a perfect example of a dangerous trend in international legal thinking called ``transnationalism.'' The goal of transnationalists is to ``circumvent resistant legislatures'' and ``download'' so-called ``global norms.'' We've heard the President talk about global norms ad nauseam. But the idea is to circumvent resistant legislatures and download global norms into U.S. and other domestic law. Let me say that again: the transnationalists pushing the Arms Trade Treaty, like Amnesty International, want to avoid Congress, they want to avoid us--the people's representatives--and impose international law from foreign bodies.

Mr. Speaker, perhaps the pro-Arms Trade Treaty supporters need a lesson in the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. We choose those that govern us and under which laws we live. We should not give up our God-given rights and liberties to foreign bodies such as the United Nations. The Second Amendment is not up for debate. The individual right of Americans to keep and bear arms is not a matter of discussion for foreigners.

The President will treat the Arms Trade Treaty as binding on America no matter what the Senate does. He can't impose gun control in Congress so he's going to use an international treaty instead. I pray that the Senate rips this treaty to pieces and that our next President removes America's signature and, with it, this hideous assault on our Constitution.

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the minority whip would like Republicans to help in fixing this bill, considering that they weren't interested at all in Republican input when they passed it in the middle of the night with a pure party-line vote.

I think everybody understood that the promise of ObamaCare has been thoroughly discredited, but the worst is yet to come.

The authors of the bill promised that it would bring down the cost of health care, but premiums have gone up substantially. They promised that if you like your health care plan and the doctor you have, you can keep it.

Now, when you go to the President's healthcare.gov Web site, it says that ``Depending on the plan you choose in the marketplace, you may be able to keep your current doctor.''

Many supporters promised that the bill would actually create jobs, but even Teamsters Union President James Hoffa has now said that the bill will ``destroy the foundation of the 40-hour workweek.''

A small group of Members, in 2010, led by former Congressman Bart Stupak, had the chance to inviolably prohibit any funds in ObamaCare from being used to pay for abortions or abortion-inducing drugs. Unfortunately, they caved.

And now, companies like Hobby Lobby are being forced into court to prevent ObamaCare from requiring that they provide health care services which directly violate their conscience and their religious principles, values and rights that are enshrined in the First Amendment.

The IRS, too, has irrefutably proven the political nature and intimidation tactics of the work it performs every day, an attitude that will, beyond a shadow of a doubt, carry over into its tag-team partnership with HHS in enforcing ObamaCare.

Let's pass H.R. 2009 and start putting a stop to this madness before it gets even worse.