Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I wish today to honor one of the most prominent leaders in my District.

Hobson Patrick Wood, or Pat as he was known by everyone, passed away recently at the age of 83. He was well-known and beloved in Knoxville for his endless optimism and service.

Pat was a longtime friend of mine, and my District is a better place because of him and his tireless effort to make Knoxville a better place, both through his business ventures and through community service.

He is probably best known for his real estate and insurance firm, the Wood Agency, which he created in the 1950's. He later went on to form the Lawler-Wood group, which is responsible for developing large portions of downtown Knoxville, including the old Whittle building now housing the U.S. District Court and my Knoxville District office. Much of the downtown skyline of Knoxville is a product of Pat's community development work.

His business partner, Rodney Lawler, remembered Pat as one of the most generous people he has ever known. He told the Knoxville News Sentinel the only disagreement the two men ever shared was when Pat tried to give him too big a share of a deal they were working on. ``We had a disagreement, a sizeable disagreement, over him being too generous to me,'' Lawler said.

Pat loved Knoxville and spent his entire career there, never losing touch with East Tennessee despite great personal success.

He also served the community as a political leader, being elected to the Knox County Court and serving on the board of the 1982 World's Fair, which he was instrumental in bringing to Knoxville.

I offer my condolences to his three children, five grandchildren, and devoted wife of 25 years, Brenda, who said she will remember Pat as ``a loving husband and father and friend.''

I too will remember Pat as a good family man who touched the lives of hundreds of people in many positive ways.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my Colleagues and other readers of the Record to join me in remembering Pat Wood and the immeasurable impact he made on my District.

Mr. Speaker, I wish today to honor one of the most well-known and selfless men in my District.

Tutt S. Bradford passed away recently at the age of 94 following a long life of community service and philanthropy. I knew him as a

good family man, but he was also a long time friend of my father.

He is perhaps best known as the former owner of The Daily Times newspaper in Maryville, Tennessee, a scenic community in my District located in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains.

The Daily Times had a circulation of only 7,500 when Tutt took it over in 1955; by the time he sold it in 1989, circulation had grown to 22,000. A close friend of Tutt, Sam Kennedy, told The Daily Times on the news of his passing that, ``He had the ability to understand what his people wanted. He knew how to produce a local, small daily newspaper that contained news that people were interested in.''

He transformed the paper into the pride of Blount County, and it still operates today as a model newspaper, frequently being ranked among the top three newspapers in the Nation in penetration of its circulation area. It has also been recognized as the fastest growing daily newspaper in Tennessee.

When Tutt sold The Daily Times, he devoted the rest of his life to philanthropy. His support of educational institutions, charities, and various causes is too great to list in this space, but Blount County and this Nation are better places because of his life and work.

When trying to decide whether to support a cause, Tutt would simply ask one question: Will it help the community grow? He undoubtedly touched the lives of thousands of people in my District in many positive ways.

I offer my condolences to his two daughters, Nancy and Debbie; step daughter, Frances; five grandchildren; 13 great grandchildren; sister, Dot; and brother, Randolph.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I urge my colleagues and other readers of the Record to join me in celebrating the remarkable life of Tutt S. Bradford.

I can think of no more fitting tribute to Tutt than to request The Daily Times article highlighting his life and accomplishments be reprinted into the Record below.

Tutt Bradford, Newspaper Owner, Community Leader, Dies at 94

(From staff reports)

Tutt S. Bradford, publisher/owner of The Daily Times for 34

years and a tireless community leader and philanthropist,

died at Shannondale of Maryville Friday afternoon. He was 94.

Bradford became the fifth owner of The Daily Times in

November 1955, and served as publisher until 1984. He

continued as chairman of the board until the paper was sold

in 1989.

Funeral arrangements are incomplete and will be announced

later by McCammon-Ammons-Click Funeral Home.

Gregg Jones, president and CEO of Jones Media, parent

company of The Daily Times, said, ``Blount County has lost a

wonderful citizen, and my family and the staff of The Daily

Times have lost a dear friend. Few have worked harder for the

progress of this community than Tuft Bradford. He was never

bashful about volunteering his time, leadership and personal

financial resources to help Blount County address its

challenges and fight for its opportunities. We all are better

off because of Tutt's passionate love for his home. To his

family we offer our deepest condolences for his loss as well

as our heartfelt gratitude for having been blessed to have

crossed his path.''

Successful career

Bradford was born in Columbia, S.C., the second of five

children. His first venture into print media began when he

had a paper route as a child in the 1920s.

After his military service during World War II, Bradford

moved into newspaper advertising. His successes led to his

promotion to publisher of a newspaper in Cleveland, Tenn.,

then later as publisher of a Bristol newspaper.

In a 2008 interview with Daily Times reporter Linda Braden

Albert, Bradford said, ``When (the Southern Newspapers Group)

bought the paper in Bristol, it was just barely breaking

even. In five years, I made $5 million. So the president of

the company called me and said, `Tutt, what would you like to

do next?' I said, `What do you mean?' He said, `Well,

wouldn't you like to own a paper?' ''

Bradford replied that he would if he had the money, and he

was offered the opportunity to purchase The Daily Times with

financing from the Southern Newspapers Group.

When Bradford--who served as owner, publisher and

occasionally, editor--bought The Times in 1955, circulation

was 7,500.

He involved his daughters Nancy Cain and Debbie Bradford

Moon in the publication. Jerome F. Moon, a native Blount

countian and husband of Debbie Bradford, became president and

publisher in 1984.

When Bradford sold the newspaper to the Persis Group of

Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1989, circulation had increased to

22,000.

In the 2008 interview, Bradford said one of the highlights

of his career at The Daily Times was bringing a new press to

the company. A repairman working on the old press told him

about a three-color unit that would do all the colors in one

unit.

``Every time we did a color we had to clean off everything,

rollers and everything, and put the right ink on them,''

Bradford said. ``This way, they were put all in one unit like

we have there now. It was really great.'' Bradford put in his

order for one of the units and he said The Daily Times was

one of the first newspapers in the country to get a press

where the colors were ``left in there.''

``I knew him quite well,'' said Sam Kennedy, former owner

of the Kennedy Newspapers and Columbia Dispatch. ``He took

the Maryville paper and literally outdid the Knoxville

papers.

``He had the ability to understand what his people

wanted,'' Kennedy added. ``He knew how to produce a local,

small daily newspaper that contained news that people were

interested in.''

Community icon

During his newspaper career and long after he retired,

Bradford remained very active as a community leader and

benefactor.

``Will it help the community grow?'' Bradford asked himself

when he needed to decide what causes he would support.

One such project dear to his heart is the Hearing and

Speech Foundation, cofounded by Bradford and John Berry,

owner of Blount Hearing and Speech Services, to provide such

services for people who could not otherwise afford them.

``The reason I started the foundation was that my ears were

blasted out during World War II,'' Bradford said in the 2008

interview. He sought treatment at many places for his hearing

loss but none helped him until he met Berry. In 2003,

Bradford was honored for his continuing support of the

foundation.

According to long-time Daily Times Editor Dean Stone,

Bradford also worked for funding for the still-uncompleted

Foothills Parkway in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

First it was to get the state to purchase the right-of-way

for federal construction. Later it was for federal

construction money.

Bradford also worked successfully to get Cades Cove placed

into a historical district in the Smokies' master plan in

order to preserve some of the structures and its open nature,

protecting the Cove as we know it for the enjoyment of

millions annually.

Because of religion

Bradford also served on the boards of many organizations. A

few of the beneficiaries were Maryville College, Blount

County Chamber of Commerce, Blount County Industrial

Development Board, United Way of Blount County, Pellissippi

State Community College and the Blount County Public Library.

In 1991, he was named Outstanding Philanthropist of the

Year by the National Society of Fundraising Executives.

``It's because of my religion,'' he said. ``The Lord said

to love other people, and I have. I've really tried to help

other people, particularly when they were down.''

Mr. Speaker, last night I had the privilege of sitting with University of Tennessee Coach Pat Head Summitt as she received the top award presented by the National Alzheimer's Association. This is the Sargent and Eunice Shriver Profiles in Dignity Award, and it was presented by their well-known daughter, Maria.

No one could have been more deserving of this award than Coach Summitt. As the Nation knows, she was diagnosed with early onset dementia, or Alzheimer's, almost a year ago. She made the decision to both go public with this diagnosis and continue coaching her beloved Lady Vols. Now she has decided to give up her coaching job after 38 years to help lead the fight against Alzheimer's. She and her son, Tyler, have established the Pat Head Summitt Foundation to carry on this battle that is and will be so very, very important to millions of people.

Pat Head Summitt is certainly the most admired and respected woman in Tennessee. She is my most famous constituent and a longtime friend. I have been honored on two occasions to be her honorary assistant coach. The first time was on her 25th anniversary as a coach, and the second time was a few years later against Vanderbilt on the last home game of the season. Before that game, we were given a scouting report, and Tennessee had beaten Vanderbilt in Nashville by 30 points. So it was accurate to say that the team was fairly confident about this game. However, at halftime, the game was almost tied, and the Lady Vols came into the locker room with their heads hanging down.

That is when I saw Coach Summitt go into action. She got into each young woman's face like a baseball manager arguing with an umpire. She started with Lady Vol Teresa Geter, and told her in a drill sergeant's voice that she was going through a pity party out there and Coach Summitt was having no part of it and was giving her 2 minutes to make her presence known on that court or she was going to yank her out of there so fast it would make her head swim. When we went back out for the second half, the first thing that happened was that Teresa Geter stole the ball, took it down court, and scored her first 2 points of the game. The Lady Vols went on a 20 0 run, and Vanderbilt called a timeout.

A spectator in the stands, whom I had not seen because there were 20,000 people there, sent his card down to me on the bench, and it said, ``Jimmy, great halftime coaching, come again.'' But it was not me; it was Coach Summitt. In fact, when she was staring each one of her players in the face at halftime in an intensely angry, very loud voice, I was just glad I was not one of those players.

Coach Summitt is the winningest coach in basketball history with 1,098 victories. Her teams have won 16 Southeastern Conference Championships and eight national championships. She has coached in 18 Final Fours. She has an 84 percentage winning record as a head coach. But to me, her most impressive statistic is a 100 percent graduation rate, and she did not allow her players to take easy courses. Let me repeat that. Every player who has ever played for Coach Summitt in her 38 years has graduated. She made sure they were prepared for life after basketball, and almost all of her players have been successful after leaving the University of Tennessee. On top of all this, she has never had a question raised about her recruiting or any NCAA violation. She has shown through the years that you do not have to cheat in sports to win and be very successful.

She has succeeded at her most important job--being a mother and raising her fine son, Tyler, who is following in his mother's footsteps and will soon start his first job as an assistant coach for the Marquette women's basketball team.

Coach Summitt is a member of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame and was NCAA Coach of the Year an unprecedented seven times. In 2008 she was named the Naismith Coach of the Year. Pat Head Summitt is a woman of honor and integrity. She has been a great, great success because of her very hard work, dedication, determination, and discipline. Most of her success she credits to hardworking parents and lessons learned on her family's Tennessee farm. This Nation is a better place today because of her work with young people and the inspiring example that she has set for all of us.

Coach Pat Head Summitt is truly a great American, and I'm proud to call her one of my constituents and, as I said, one of my very, very close friends.

I thank Chairman Mica for yielding me this time, and I especially thank him for his long and hard work on this legislation. He has raised several points, Chairman Mica has, as to the problems that this motion to instruct would cause, so let me just mention a few things.

This motion to instruct conferees to accept the Senate bill in its entirety is contrary to the purpose of having a House and Senate conference. It is our responsibility to sit down with our Senate colleagues and address areas where we have differences of opinion. More importantly, the Senate bill includes provisions that many people have serious concerns about.

For example, the Senate bill requires that all new passenger vehicles, beginning in 2015, be equipped with an event data recorder. These recorders are similar to the black boxes required on airplanes. While the intent of this provision is to collect safety information, many people think this is a slippery slope that we really don't want to go down. Privacy is a big concern for many of my constituents and for many people across this country, and this provision, many people feel, would cross the line of Federal intrusion into citizens' personal, or private, lives.

There are also other areas where the Senate bill does not go far enough. We've talked about environmental streamlining for years, but everyone on both sides of the aisle knows we need to really do something about that now because other developed nations are doing projects in half the time or less than we are. In the last two Federal highway studies, one showed it took 13 years and another said it took 15 years from conception to completion. These are not transcontinental highways. These are just relatively short highway projects, and we could be doing those in 6 or 7 years.

The Senate bill does not set hard deadlines for Federal agencies to approve projects, so they can be delayed and delayed and delayed. It does not allow State environmental laws to be used in place of Federal environmental laws. There are some States in which the State laws are better. The Senate bill does not expand the list of projects that qualify for categorical exclusions. The Senate bill does not expedite projects that are being rebuilt due to a disaster, such as the bridge on Interstate 35 in Minnesota, which was done so quickly to everybody's great relief. These are issues not addressed in the Senate bill, issues which could be addressed in the conference. There are also many other issues that Chairman Mica has pointed out.

Let me just say that much of the highway bill that the House has produced came from the other side. I understand there were hundreds of letters from Democratic Members and that 60 percent of what was requested in those letters was done by the committee staff. Then there were over 100 amendments.

We started our markup at, I think, 9 o'clock in the morning, and we went until about 3 o'clock the next morning. We addressed over 100 amendments that were submitted by Democratic Members, and I think over 20 of them were put into the bill. So many things were put in by the other side before the bill ever was marked up, and then during the markup. Now we're supposed to do away with all of that and just go with the Senate bill, but I don't think that's the way we should do it. I urge my colleagues to oppose this motion.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Chairman, H.R. 4348 extends the surface transportation programs through September 30, 2012, at funding levels consistent with the fiscal year 2012 transportation appropriations bill, which we passed in November. Under the current extension, the highway, transit, and highway safety programs are set to expire on June 30. This legislation will allow these programs to continue through the fiscal year and to provide predictability during the summer construction season.

This bill also includes provisions related to the approval of the Keystone pipeline. With the rising gas prices and uncertainty in the Middle East, it is vital that we complete construction of this crucial pipeline in order to help secure our Nation's energy resources. If we don't do this, Mr. Chairman, all we will be doing is helping foreign energy producers.

I had originally hoped that the House would be able to move H.R. 7, the 5-year surface transportation reauthorization bill that was passed by our committee in February. Unfortunately, we were not able to bring H.R. 7 to the House floor at this time. Instead, we will use this bill as a vehicle to conference with the Senate-passed surface transportation reauthorization bill.

There were three amendments that were made in order by the Rules Committee, and I would like to express my support for all three. Mr. Boustany's amendment would require that we spend the revenue we are collecting for the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund on Army Corps of Engineers projects, as opposed to using this revenue to offset spending elsewhere in the Federal budget. This is a commonsense solution to help upgrade our Nation's ports and maintain our global economic competitiveness. Just this morning, we held a hearing on the importance to our entire economy of our inland waterway system, and Mr. Boustany's amendment will certainly help in that regard.

Mr. Ribble's amendment is based on the environmental streamlining provisions that were included in H.R. 7. This amendment would eliminate duplication by providing a single system to review decisions. It reduces bureaucratic delay by requiring concurrent, instead of consecutive, project reviews and setting deadlines for the completion of environmental reviews. These changes could cut the delivery process in half and could save taxpayers many, many billions over the next several years.

The last two studies by the Federal Highway Administration said the average highway project takes 13 years, one study said 15 years. That is far too long. Other developed nations are doing these projects in half the time or less than we are.

Mr. McKinley's amendment includes the text of H.R. 2273, the Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act. This amendment would prohibit the United States Environmental Protection Agency from driving coal-powered plants out of existence and doubling and tripling our utility bills.

The U.S. has been called the Saudi Arabia of coal, Mr. Chairman. If we do not use our coal in a clean and safe way, we will hurt millions of poor, lower-income, and working people all across this Nation.

I salute Chairman Mica for his hard work on this bill for the last several months, and I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 4348 and the subsequent amendments.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, let me just say that Chairman Mica has performed great leadership of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and he has tried in every way possible to work with everybody he possibly could. His task has been made much more difficult by the rule prohibiting earmarks. And as he just mentioned, the other side couldn't bring a bill out of committee and to this floor, a highway bill, in the last Congress when they controlled the House, the Senate, the White House, and still allowed earmarks. So we're in a very difficult situation at this point, and that's why we're here today asking for this 90-day extension.

H.R. 4281 extends the surface transportation programs through June 30 at funding levels consistent with fiscal year 2012. The transportation appropriations bill passed in November. This extension is clean and does not add any policy provisions. Without this extension, the transit and highway safety programs are set to expire this Saturday. This legislation will allow these programs to continue to operate as the spring construction season kicks off.

If Congress fails to pass this extension by Saturday, it will cost the highway trust fund about $1 billion a week in lost revenue and put the brakes on 134,000 highway projects and 5,700 transit projects across the Nation. States that seek to be reimbursed for their Federal aid for highway and transit projects would be unable to receive Federal funds for the work they have completed. The Federal Highway Administration would furlough 3,500 of their employees, and work on environmental permits and project approvals for new construction projects would come to a screeching halt. Over 280,000 construction workers, Mr. Speaker, working on highway and bridge projects today could lose their jobs if Congress cannot pass this extension.

This country simply cannot afford a loss of such a magnitude during our tenuous road to economic recovery. Time magazine has a cover article this week describing our recovery as the wimpy recovery, and it's based primarily on pent-up demand.

We need to pass this extension so that we can work toward completing and finalizing H.R. 7, our long-term authorization reform bill.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I thank him for his leadership of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

H.R. 4239 extends the surface transportation programs through May 31, 2012, at funding levels consistent with the fiscal year 2012 transportation appropriations bill passed last November. This extension is clean and does not add any policy provisions. Without this extension, Mr. Speaker, these programs are set to expire this Saturday. This legislation will allow the highway and transit programs to continue to operate as the spring construction season kicks off.

During this 2-month extension, we fully expect the House to pass H.R. 7, the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act of 2012, and conference this bill with the Senate's 18-month reauthorization bill. H.R. 7, as Chairman Mica just noted, is a 5-year reauthorization bill that provides the long-term funding at current levels. It provides the predictability that States and localities need and have requested in order to plan major transportation projects and critical improvements to their transportation systems. Additionally, H.R. 7 eliminates, or would eliminate, wasteful Federal programs and put important decisionmaking power back in the hands of the States. There is no reason to have a bureaucrat in Washington dictating which projects should be funded in my home State of Tennessee or in other States.

Federal aid transportation projects around the Nation are sitting idle because of inefficient and unnecessary project review requirements. H.R. 7 goes the extra mile by streamlining the project review process and by eliminating scores of unnecessary Federal requirements. My constituents in the Second District of Tennessee and those throughout this Nation want a more efficient and smarter process for investing our Federal transportation dollars,

and H.R. 7 would accomplish this by doing more with less.

We need to speed up these highway projects. The last two studies by the Federal highway officials have estimated that it takes 13 years-- one said 13 years; one said 15 years--from conception to completion. All these other developed nations around the world are doing these projects in a half or a third of the time that we are. We've got to speed things up to become more globally competitive.

When Congress sends H.R. 7 to the President, it will be considered the signature jobs bill that Americans have been waiting for Congress to pass. Just this week, Time magazine has a cover which describes our recovery as ``wimpy.'' Yesterday, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Chairman Bernanke, said that the job market continues to remain weak.

This bill, H.R. 7, if we can pass it, will create millions of jobs for hardworking Americans right here in the United States--not in China or India--and will leave a lasting impact with tangible improvements to our transportation infrastructure. By passing the long-term reauthorization bill that the business community and State and local officials across this country want, Americans will be able to see their tax dollars working to rebuild and strengthen our Nation's highways, bridges, and transit systems. In addition, people all over this country want us to stop rebuilding other countries and start doing what we need, rebuilding our own country and putting our own citizens first once again.

I urge my colleagues to pass this brief 2-month extension so that the House can continue its work and then pass H.R. 7, the long-term reauthorization reform bill that this country needs.

Mr. Chair, I am caught between a rock and a hard place on this bill. I spoke and voted against the health care bill that is most frequently referred to as ``ObamaCare.''

I am strongly opposed to this Independent Payment Advisory Board, which many see as being a major step towards rationing of medical care.

I strongly favor protecting access to healthcare which is the title of H.R. 5.

However, legislators have been talking about $250,000 caps probably since the late 1970s, if not earlier.

I can assure you that $250,000 in the 70s is far more than $250,000 today.

Secondly, it does not seem fair to me to tell all of my constituents--or at least more than 99 percent--that they can be sued for everything they have, but we are going to limit suits against this one small, privileged segment of our society.

I have great admiration and respect for physicians, but I also believe they should not be placed on a pedestal way above everyone else.

Third, every trial judge sits as a 13th juror and can set aside or reduce a ridiculous or unjust judgment. If the trial judge does not act, then there are courts of appeal. There are safeguards throughout the system, and most really excessive judgments have been reversed in some way by a trial court or at a higher level.

Fourth, USA Today published a box 4 or 5 years ago which showed that for the then most recent five-year period, medical malpractice judgments had gone up only 1.8 percent while medical malpractice premiums had gone up 131 percent.

A few big insurance companies have given the public a very false impression of what is really happening in the courts so that they can impose very exorbitant rate increases.

Last, some members, including me, believe that this should be handled by the states under our Constitution and that this malpractice part of the bill goes against the spirit and intent of our tenth amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I voted to go to war in Afghanistan, but I did not vote for a forever, permanent war that has now lasted almost three times as long as World War II. We should have ended our involvement in Afghanistan many years ago, and many young American lives would have been saved.

The first war against Iraq and Kuwait lasted just 7 months. With the recent killings of four more Americans and with massive anti-American demonstrations being conducted by hundreds of thousands of Afghani citizens, we need to greatly speed up our withdrawal. We need to leave Afghanistan the sooner the better.

We've spent hundreds of billions there over the last decade, a great amount of which has really been just pure foreign aid. We've built schools and medical facilities and helped their farmers. We have trained their police and military and have had thousands of Afghanis on our payroll.

We've had to borrow approximately 41 percent of all of these mega- billions we have spent to help the Afghan people. No country has done nearly as much, Mr. Speaker, for another country in the entire history of the world as we have done for Afghanistan.

Now, the people there have made it very clear that they do not appreciate what we have done for them. In fact, not only are they ungrateful, but they are showing, through their actions, that they have anger or even hatred toward us. We should stop spending all these billions of taxpayer dollars just as soon as we possibly can.

I did not criticize President Obama when he apologized for the burning of the Korans. However, I did not think it was something that rose to the level that required a Presidential apology. Some person or persons made a mistake in burning the Korans. They should have apologized, or the commander of the Air Force base, or perhaps our Ambassador.

However now, where is the apology from the Afghan leadership about the Americans who have been killed or for all of the hatred and anger directed toward our country? Where is the gratitude for all that America and Americans have done for the Afghan people over the last 10 or 11 years?

We have a national debt of over $15 trillion that is headed far higher at a more rapid rate than ever before. It is far past the time that we should have been taking care of our own country and putting our own citizens first.

We need to let the Afghan people run Afghanistan, and we need to stop trying to be everything to everybody all over the world. We simply cannot afford it, and we are jeopardizing the future of ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren if we continue trying to run the whole world.

Mr. Speaker, Tony Blair was the Prime Minister of Great Britain and was considered to be a political liberal, and perhaps his actions didn't always match his words, but I would like to read a statement he made at one point. Mr. Blair said:

The role of government is to stabilize and then get out of

the way as quickly as possible. Ultimately, the recovery will

be led not by the government but by industry, business, and

the creativity, ingenuity, and enterprise of people. If the

measures you take in responding to the crisis diminish their

incentives, curb their entrepreneurship, and make them feel

unsure about the climate in which they are working, the

recovery becomes uncertain.

That was Tony Blair.

Then Thomas Donohue, the president of our national Chamber of Commerce, said at a jobs submit about a year and a half ago here in Washington:

The regulatory activity presently going on is so far above

and beyond anything we have ever seen in the history of this

country, that we are in danger of becoming a government of,

by, and for the regulators instead of a government of, by,

and for the people.

I thought of these two things when I read a letter recently from one of my constituents who runs a small bank in east Tennessee. He wrote to me. He said:

One of the single greatest needs of small business is

access to capital, and much of that small business lending

capital is typically provided by America's more than 6,700

community banks. Yet, community banks are by and large being

forced to withhold and constrain lending at the time America

needs it most. This is largely due to unprecedented onerous

regulatory constraints being placed on community banks by

Federal bank examiners.

He goes on and says this:

Never in modern history have banks, especially community

banks, been under great pressure by banking regulators. Much

of that pressure is unprecedented, virtually ignoring or

redefining historic standards and definitions of bank

examining. Routinely, banks are being required by bank

examiners to classify and put into a nonaccrual status loans

that are current on their payments. In many cases, this be

can far more than half of all of the classified loan assets.

This is enormously inconsistent with historic bank

examination practices.

And I go on, quoting from this letter:

In most cases, this results in a bank's capital being

constrained and consequently may well lead to a forced merger

of these banks by the Fed into the larger banks. Despite

acknowledgement by the Fed that the two big banks represent a

systemic threat to the U.S. and global banking systems, the

big banks seemingly are allowed to keep getting bigger.

That is a serious problem. It was the too-big-to-fail banks that got us into the mess that we got into in the first place, and now many of the smallest banks in this country are being forced out of existence or forced to merge. So the big keep getting bigger and the small and the medium-sized ones are having a real struggle to survive.

Finally, this bank who wrote to me said:

If America is going to have economic recovery and jobs

depend on it, banks must not only be allowed to lend, but

encouraged to lend. Instead, they are largely being

constrained from lending with much of that constraint

attributable to overly aggressive

bank examination. By and large, most U.S. banks are having to

shrink in size in response to the Fed's pressure, which

translates into reduced lending.

We have been going through a period of time in which President Bush and his Secretary of the Treasury at the tail end of their administration started saying this and then President Obama and his Secretary of the Treasury then saying it. They have been saying loan, loan, loan, and then the local bank examiners having been saying no, no, no, and it has been holding us back. This country could be booming beyond belief right now, but we're holding it back in so many ways, and we will never come out and have a full and complete recovery unless that atmosphere changes.

I heard a talk this morning by Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana, and he said that our employment rate is less than 64 percent now. He says that is the lowest it's been since the era of stay-at-home moms. He said over a third of adult children are now living at home with their parents, which is way above what it has been in the past. In fact, we have an unemployment rate that is far too high, but our underemployment rate is perhaps even much higher. All across this country you have college graduates who are working as waiters and waitresses in restaurants or in other low-paying jobs because they have gotten college degrees and can't find good jobs because we've sent so many good jobs to other countries in recent years and because our regulatory environment is holding this country back and keeping it from booming as it should be right now.

Madam Speaker, I rise to talk for a few minutes about security. I know that almost no Member is willing to vote against something that has the word ``security'' attached to it, but I wish that most Members would consider these words from Ian Lustick. Professor Lustick is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and he wrote several years after 9/11 about the war on terror money feeding frenzy. He wrote this:

After September 11, 2001, what accounts for the vast

discrepancy between the terrorist threat facing America and

the scale of our response? Why, absent any evidence of a

serious domestic terror threat, is the war on terror so

enormous, so all encompassing, and still expanding? The

fundamental answer is that al Qaeda's most important

accomplishment was not to hijack our planes, but to hijack

our political system. For a multitude of politicians,

interest groups, professional associations, corporations,

media organizations, universities, local and State

governments, and Federal agency officials, the war on terror

is now a major profit center, a funding bonanza, and a set of

slogans and sound bites to be inserted into budget, project,

grant, and contract proposals. For the country as a whole,

however, it has been a maelstrom of waste.

He pointed out an example that even Dunkin' Donuts franchises had received $22 million in Federal counterterrorism loans.

Madam Speaker, in addition to that, shortly after 9/11, when every government, department, and agency was requesting more money for security, The Wall Street Journal carried an editorial that said:

Any bill with the word ``security'' in it should get double

the public scrutiny and maybe four times the normal wait,

lest all kinds of bad legislation become law under the phony

guise of fighting terrorism.

Unfortunately, we haven't followed the guidance of Professor Lustick or The Wall Street Journal. I thought of these writings by Mr. Lustick and The Wall Street Journal when I read two recent articles. On December 20, 2 months ago, Vanity Fair magazine carried an article on its Web site which said:

As you stand in endless lines this holiday season, here's a

comforting thought: all those security measures accomplish

nothing at enormous costs.

The magazine said since 9/11, the government has spent more than $1.1 trillion on homeland security. Then the article added this:

To a large number of security analysts, this expenditure

makes no sense. The vast cost is not worth the infinitesimal

benefit. Not only has the actual threat been exaggerated,

they say, but the great bulk of the post-9/11 measures to

contain it are little more than security theater; actions

that accomplish nothing but are designed to make the

government look like it is on the job. In fact, the

continuing expenditure on security may actually have made the

United States less safe.

And then a second article by ABC News. Probably, Madam Speaker, the most needless, useless agency in the entire Federal Government is the Air Marshal Service. USA Today once reported that more air marshals had been arrested than were arrests by air marshals. Talk about a soft, easy job. All these people do is ride back and forth on airplanes, back and forth, back and forth, mostly in first class.

A few days ago, ABC News reported that air marshals took taxpayer- paid trips to visit families and to go to vacation spots. One supervisor was even photographed asleep on a flight while carrying a loaded pistol. ABC reported that managers at the Air Marshal Service acted like ``a bunch of school yard punks,'' and that they ``repeatedly made fun of blacks, Latinos, and gays,'' according to agency insiders. I guess they had too much time on their hands and too little to do.

I know, as I said earlier, that it's almost impossible to get Congress to vote against anything that claimed to be for security. But this almost $1 billion that we give to air marshals each year is a total complete waste. When we go ridiculously overboard, Madam Speaker, on security, we are taking money away from individuals and families who really need it, and taking money away from other good things on which this money could be spent.

I thank the gentleman from Washington for yielding me this time, and I thank him for his leadership on this very important bill.

I rise in strong support of this legislation.

This administration, Mr. Chairman, has a Secretary of Energy who told The Wall Street Journal that we should be paying the same price for gasoline as they're paying over in Europe. At the time he said that, they were paying $8 to $9 a gallon. Well, I know that most environmental radicals come from very wealthy or very upper-income families, and perhaps they can afford gasoline at $8 or $9 a gallon, but most people can't. In fact, Mr. Chairman, many experts are predicting we're going to be at $5 a gallon as soon as this summer. I can tell you that's going to hurt a lot of poor and lower-income and working people if we go to even $5 a gallon, and it's going to hurt a lot of small towns and rural areas because people in those places generally have to drive longer distances to go to work.

I represent, Mr. Chairman, a large part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. That national park is slightly under 600,000 acres. We get between 9 million and 10 million visitors a year. ANWR--and I happen to be one of the very few Members who has been to ANWR twice--is the most barren place I've ever been to. Chairman Young estimated that there are 100 miles without a tree or a bush on it. ANWR is 19.8 million acres, which is 35 times the size of the Great Smoky Mountains. Time magazine said they get about 200 to 300 visitors a year, and you have to be a survivalist to go in there.

Now we want to expand our energy production there with just a few thousand acres--a minuscule portion of ANWR--to help our own people. If we don't do that, who we're helping are foreign energy producers; but we're hurting a lot of poor and lower-income and working people in this country.

When we passed ANWR in the mid-90s and when it was vetoed by President Clinton, it was said at that time that it would produce 1 million barrels a day coming down into this country, but President Clinton vetoed it. They said at that time that it wouldn't help right away. Well, it would sure be helping now if it hadn't been vetoed. In addition to that, if we would start developing more of our natural resources now, some of these foreign energy producers would have to start bringing their prices down. I think--in fact, I'm convinced--that this legislation would start helping right away or it would, at least, in a very short time.

We need to start putting our own people first, once again, instead of just helping out foreign energy producers.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this bill, and I thank the gentleman from Texas, Chairman Smith, for yielding me this time and I commend both him and the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Davis) for bringing this bill to the floor to us at this time.

Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in his speech to the Jobs Summit a few months ago said, ``Taken collectively, the regulatory activity now underway is so overwhelmingly beyond anything we have ever seen that we risk moving this country away from a government of the people to a government of regulators.''

I want to straighten out one thing, Mr. Chairman. This bill does not do away with any of the thousands and thousands of laws and regulations that are already on the book. It applies only to new regulations, which will cost businesses and the consumer over $100 million each. I think the American people would be very surprised if they thought the Congress did not already act on legislation and laws that would cost our economy that much money.

We've heard estimates today by the SBA that rules and regulations cost small businesses almost $2 trillion a year, and anywhere from $8,000 to $10,000 per employee. We have so many thousands and thousands of laws and rules and regulations on the books today, Mr. Chairman, that they haven't even designed a computer that can keep up with them, much less a human being. People are out there every day violating laws that they didn't even know were in existence.

The thousands and thousands of rules and regulations that we have today make it more difficult to run and maintain a business than at any other time in this country's history, and they're the cause of why so many small businesses and medium-size businesses are going under or being forced to merge and why the big keep getting bigger in almost every industry.

The REINS Act is a very modest attempt to end Washington's almost unchecked regulatory power. And it would apply only to regulations which cost over $100 million annually, so there is nothing even close to being radical about this bill.

I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this bill, this very moderate and reasonable bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to a great American who passed away last week, my friend, Mel Hancock.

Mel served in this body from 1989 to 1997. He could have easily been reelected, but he had pledged to serve only 8 years, and he kept his word.

Mel served the people of southwest Missouri with great honor and distinction. He was one of the most down-to-earth people ever to sit in Congress, and I can assure everyone that Washington never changed Mel Hancock one bit. He was one of the most conservative Members here, and if everyone had voted as he did, we certainly would not be in the astounding hole we are in today.

Mel was a very successful small business man. Early in his career, he was a salesman for International Harvester and actually lived in my hometown of Knoxville for a year and a half in 1954 and 1955. I told him once I was glad he moved back to Missouri so I could be in Congress. Of course, it was 33 years later when we both first ran.

Mel was 59 when first elected and was the oldest freshman of those who were elected in 1988. All of the new Members very quickly grew to respect and look up to him.

In Missouri, Mel had started a business installing security cameras in banks. He started with very little, worked very long hours, and saw the American Dream come true in his own life. He saw that as government grew bigger and bigger, it took away more and more of our freedom and really hurt the middle class and those in small business. He believed that Big Government really helped only those who worked for the government and very wealthy Big Government contractors.

So he took on the establishment in Missouri with what came to be called the ``Hancock Amendment.'' This was an amendment to limit property taxes, and he really just started out as one man taking on the government and its contractors. But he won, and Missouri was a better place for it. The people had more control over their own money.

One quick story. I doubt that Mel hardly ever went to a movie, but one night he and I were invited to the world premier of ``Air Force One,'' a movie starring Harrison Ford. It was a Hollywood-type opening with bright lights and a long red carpet. Most people came in tuxedos and long dresses, many in limousines. At that time, because I did not drive long distances in Washington, I drove a very cheap chocolate brown K-car that I had bought used from a rental company. The passenger door made a horrible, very loud sound when it opened. I do not believe I ever saw Mel laugh as hard as when the attendant opened his door of that little brown car, making the loud noise, so Mel and I could walk in our very ordinary suits down that long red carpet. He loved the fact that we were among the very few who had not come in tuxedos and limousines.

There's an old saying about ``being country before country was cool.'' That was Mel. Mel was possibly the first Tea Party person in the best sense of those words many years before there was the Tea Party of today. Mel ran for Congress on the slogan of ``Give 'em Mel.'' When he won, he became a gift to this Nation and to his people.

Mel was assigned to the very prestigious Ways and Means Committee. Most former members of that committee become lobbyists or highly paid consultants. But it was no surprise to me that, when he left, he went home to be with his family and the people of Missouri and never came back. He was a kind, honest, hardworking American who helped thousands of people.

Mel Hancock loved his wife, Shug, and his children, and he loved his country. He made this Nation a better place by all that he did in his good life.

Mr. Speaker, in the current issue of the American Spectator Magazine, Robert Merry, the former CEO of the Congressional Quarterly, has a great article that I wish everyone would read. It is an article about the Presidency of Andrew Jackson, but it applies lessons of history to modern-day issues and problems better than almost anything I have ever read.

Mr. Merry says the Republican Party should not follow the big government conservatism of David Brooks, William Kristol, or Presidents like Theodore Roosevelt or George W. Bush, who he says ``expanded the size and scope of the Federal Government and pursued the global goal of remaking other cultures in far-flung regions.''

Mr. Merry asks, ``Who among past Presidents should Republicans turn to for lessons and guidance?''

``The answer,'' he says, ``is Andrew Jackson, who would have slapped down the notion of American greatness conservatism,'' i.e., big government conservatism, ``with utter contempt because he believed,'' that is, Jackson believed, ``the country's greatness emanated from its people, not from its government.

``Jackson was the great conservative populist of American history, and his story bears study at a time when the country seems receptive to a well-crafted brand of conservative populism.''

``Indeed,'' Mr. Merry continues, ``conservative populism is the essence of the Tea Party--opposed to big, intrusive government; angry about the corporate bailouts of the late Bush and early Obama administrations; fearful of the consequences of fiscal incontinence; suspicious of governmental favoritism; wary of excessive global ambition.

``These concerns and fears were Jackson's concerns and fears 180 years ago when he became President, and his greatest legacy is his constant warning that governmental encroachments would lead to precisely the kinds of problems that are today besieging the country. That legacy deserves attention.''

Mr. Merry also admires Thomas Jefferson. He wrote:

``Jackson was of course a Democrat, but the Democratic Party of that era was almost the polar opposite of today's version.

``The 19th-century party emerged from the politics of Thomas Jefferson, who despised the governing Federalists of the early Republic for their elitist tendencies and push for concentrated Federal power.

``Jefferson brought forth new political catchphrases: small government,

strict construction of the Constitution, States' rights, reduced taxes, less intrusion into the lives of citizens.

``His administration, historian Joyce Appleby wrote, would speak for `the rational, self-improving, independent man who could be counted on to take care of himself and his family if only intrusive institutions were removed.' ''

Then Mr. Merry goes on and says about Jackson: ``Jackson knew that big government could always be manipulated to benefit the few at the top, especially those who worked or formerly worked for the government and big government contractors.''

Merry wrote: ``Jackson's most penetrating political insight was that concentrated governmental power always leads to corruption and abuse. The way to prevent this, he believed, was to maintain a diffusion of power and keep it as close to the people as possible.

``It wasn't that ordinary folks were less likely to abuse power; human nature applied to all. But if power were spread out through the polity, it couldn't be directed toward special favors and privileges for those who always managed to get their hands on power when it was available in sufficient increments. The playing field would be level.''

Of course the thing Jackson is most remembered for as President is his veto of a federally run national bank.

``The President wasted no time in vetoing legislation, daring his political opponents to make the most of it. Few documents in the American political literature capture conservative populism with the verve and power of Jackson's veto message. In it he portrayed the bank as a government-sponsored monopoly that employed the money of taxpayers to enhance the power, the privileges and wealth of a very few Americans and foreigners--`chiefly the richest class'--who owned stock in the bank and worked for it.

``If government is to grant such gratuities, he said, `Let them not be bestowed on the subjects of a foreign government nor upon a designated and favored class of men in our own country.'

``Rather, he added, such favors should be granted in such way as to `let each American in turn enjoy the opportunity to profit by our bounty.' ''

Finally, Merry applies the Jackson philosophy the Dodd-Frank bill and similar legislation, which, he says, Jackson would have opposed, and says Jackson ``would expel Wall Street henchmen from the government, particularly if they came from Goldman Sachs.''

He also wrote that ``Jackson would be aghast that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac still exist. Kill `em, he would demand.

``The whole story of these government-sponsored enterprises would scandalize him--government guarantees that amount to government subsidies that are then used to lobby the government for ever more economic leverage.''

He has very accurately described the big government, big business duopoly that runs this country today. I urge all of my colleagues and others to read the Robert Merry article about Andrew Jackson in the October issue of the American Spectator Magazine.