Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise along with others this morning to note the 10th anniversary of our seemingly endless war in Afghanistan. This is a war that long ago became much more about money for the Pentagon and defense contractors than about any real threat to the American people.

And, unfortunately, just yesterday we authorized spending at a level of $118.7 billion for the coming year in Iraq and Afghanistan. Madam Speaker, we have turned the Defense Department into the Department of Foreign Aid, and the American people are tired of it. They want us to stop rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan and start taking care of our own people.

We have spent and are spending billions and billions, hundreds of billions that we do not have, that we are having to borrow on people who do not appreciate it unless they are on our payroll.

I know last year, Hamid Karzai, the leader of Afghanistan, told ABCNews that he wanted us to stay there another 15 or 20 years. Well, he wants our money; but we don't have enough of it, and we can't afford this.

Alfred Regnery, the publisher of the conservative The American Spectator magazine wrote last October that ``Afghanistan has little strategic value'' and ``the war is one of choice rather than necessity.'' He added that it has been a wasteful and frustrating decade.

General Petraeus testified in front of one of the congressional committees several months ago that we should never forget that Afghanistan has become ``the graveyard of empires.''

The American people do not want, nor can we afford, endless, permanent wars; nor do they want 11- or 12-year wars that last about three times as long as World War II.

Charlie Reese was a columnist for the Orlando newspaper, and a few years ago, probably in the mid- or late 1990s, he was voted the most popular columnist by C-SPAN viewers. Over 25,000 people, I think, participated in that poll.

But he was very much opposed to these wars, and he wrote this about the Iraq war, but it applies equally well to Afghanistan: He said this war was ``against a country that was not attacking us, did not have the means to attack us, and had never expressed any intention of attacking us. And for whatever real reason we attacked, it was not to save America from any danger, imminent or otherwise.''

William F. Buckley, Jr., the conservative icon, wrote this a few years ago: He said, ``A respect for the power of the United States is engendered by our success in engagements in which we take part. A point is reached when tenacity

conveys not steadfastness of purpose, but misapplication of pride.''

I want to repeat that. He said, ``A respect for the power of the United States is engendered by our success in engagements in which we take part. A point is reached when tenacity conveys not steadfastness of purpose, but misapplication of pride.''

I think the American people long ago reached the point where they felt that these wars should come to an end and we should start taking care of our own country.

Georgie Ann Geyer, the conservative foreign policy columnist, wrote this a few years ago: ``Americans, still strangely complacent about overseas wars being waged by a minority in their name, will inevitably come to a point where they will see they have to have a government that provides services at home or one that seeks empire across the globe.''

Madam Speaker, fiscal conservatives should be the ones most horrified by all this waste and all this spending. I wonder sometimes if there are any conservatives at the Pentagon, any fiscal conservatives at the Pentagon.

I will say once again, these wars became long ago more about money and power than they did about any real threat. It is a shame what we are doing to the young people of this country, both those in the military and those outside the military.

Just this past Sunday, I went to the funeral of another soldier, a young 21-year-old man in Madisonville, Tennessee, who had been killed in Afghanistan. And I can tell you it's time to stop all the killings of all of our young people and let them have a good future in this country once again.

Mr. Speaker, One of our closest allies and best friends in the world of nations is the Republic of China (Taiwan).

October 10th will be a very special day for the people of Taiwan as that country will celebrate its 100th anniversary.

Taiwan and the United States have been very special and close friends since shortly after World War II, and this relationship was formalized in law by the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979.

Taiwan has seen multitudes of economic miracles take place in the second half of the twentieth century and the early years of this century, because that nation has followed a free market, free enterprise system closer than almost any other country.

I had the privilege of spending a week in Taiwan along with Congressman Pete Sessions and former Congressman Sonny Callahan around ten years ago. The Taiwanese people could not have been kinder or more impressive to us than during that visit.

The University of Tennessee started having a large number of students coming from Taiwan in the early 1960s because a man from that nation, Nelson Nee, was head of the U.T. International Students Program. Many of these students became, and many still are, leaders in the Republic of China.

As I was leaving Taiwan during my visit years ago, I asked one of the officials how you said, ``Thank you for your friendship'' in Chinese. She wrote out the words, ``Shieh Shieh Ni De Yo Yi.''

Whether this is exactly correct or not, and I hope it is, I will take this time to say I am thankful for the friendship of the people from Taiwan.

I congratulate them on this 100th anniversary, and I believe that as long as they allow their people the utmost freedom, Taiwan will remain a prosperous and dynamic nation into the future.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and H.R. 2587, the bill that it brings to the floor, and I thank the gentleman for yielding.

The Boeing Company, which operates a huge manufacturing plant in Puget Sound, has built a new production line for its 787 Dreamliner fleet in South Carolina. There has been no coinciding layoff at the Puget Sound facility. In fact, not a single job was lost in the State of Washington as a result of Boeing's decision. On the contrary, Boeing has added an additional 2,000 jobs in Puget Sound since that time; yet the National Labor Relations Board decided that Boeing was harming the labor unions in Washington, so they made this unfortunate decision.

No department or agency of the Federal Government has ever told any business that it could not or even should not move from one State to another without demonstrating the type of violation alleged in its case. For the National Labor Relations Board to tell Boeing that it cannot move from Washington to South Carolina with no substantive evidence of antiunion hostility is an unprecedented, a dictatorial power grab that makes people wonder if we still live in a free country.

If the shoe was on the other foot, Mr. Speaker, if a conservative majority on the NLRB told a company it could not move from a basically nonunion State to a heavily unionized State, those who are opposing this bill would be screaming to the high heavens.

This action by the NLRB will stifle economic growth all across this Nation and could cause more American companies to go to other countries or discourage businesses from moving here in the first place.

I am certain that those who created the NLRB could never have imagined that a future board would make such an extreme, radical decision such as this. The NLRB was not set up to be a one-sided, unfair, biased agency that was set up just to protect unions. It was and is supposed to be a fair, impartial, nonpolitical arbiter between labor and management, business and unions. Every Member who represents a right-to-work State, such as my State of Tennessee, should be very concerned about this decision.

Boeing had a 39-day strike in 2008 that cost the company an estimated $2 billion. The CEO of Boeing Commercial told the Seattle Times last year, ``We can't afford to have a work stoppage every 3 years. And we can't afford to continue this rate of escalation of wages.''

This administration claims to be concerned about jobs.

Just a few weeks ago, The Washington Post showed that 82 percent of the American people believe it is either very hard or somewhat hard to find a job. Now, unelected power-mad bureaucrats at the NLRB, who do not have to worry about their jobs, have made a decision that will stifle job creation and business growth and expansion all over the country. We should pass this bill and overturn this shortsighted decision that could possibly protect some jobs in Washington, but will ultimately hurt working people all through this Nation.

I thank Chairman Mica for yielding me this time and for his and Ranking Member Rahall's outstanding work on this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2887 extends the surface transportation programs for another 6 months, from October 1 through March 31 of 2012, and the aviation programs for another 4 months, from October 1 through January 31 of 2012, at funding levels consistent with the full-year continuing resolution passed last April.

This extension is considered clean and no policy provisions were added. During this 6-month Surface Transportation extension, Congress will work hard to pass the committee's 6-year Surface Transportation reauthorization bill. The outline of the committee's proposal was unveiled in June and makes much-needed reforms to our highway transit and highway safety programs.

The committee's proposal will streamline the project delivery process, consolidate existing programs, and better leverage existing revenues in the highway trust fund. According to the Federal Highway Administration, the project delivery process can take up to 15 years from planning through construction. This is government at its worst.

Limited financial resources for transportation and infrastructure can be more effectively utilized by accelerating the process for project approval. While project reviews are necessary to help protect the environment, a more reasonable process is essential to maximizing our taxpayer dollars.

Additionally, the bill consolidates existing programs that are duplicative and do not serve a Federal interest. Consolidation in our 6-year bill will help States allocate their Federal resources to projects and activities that are the most needed. These programatic reforms will devolve the decisionmaking authority to State and local authorities, giving the State and local people more control over these important projects.

If Congress moves this landmark piece of legislation before the spring, as we all hope, it will be considered the signature jobs bill that Americans have been waiting for this Congress to pass. It will create millions of jobs for hardworking Americans right here in the United States--not in China or India or other countries--and will leave a lasting legacy of tangible improvements to our transportation infrastructure in this country. By passing a long-term reauthorization bill, Americans will be able to see their tax dollars going towards rebuilding and strengthening our Nation's highways, bridges, and transit systems.

Mr. Speaker, I also had the privilege to chair the Aviation Subcommittee for 6 years. A strong and efficient aviation system is vital to our economy, and I am pleased that we are also extending our air transportation programs in this bill. I hope we will soon pass our traditional multiyear FAA bill, too.

I urge my colleagues to pass this piece of legislation and work towards passing a long-term reauthorization bill for both our surface transportation programs and our air transportation programs.

Mr. Speaker, recently my District lost one of the most impressive men I have ever known.

William Taylor Watson, III passed away on July 19, 2011. I knew Bill personally for many years and considered him a good friend.

Born in Nashville and educated at Vanderbilt University, Bill's career as a businessman spanned 64 years and included many great accomplishments.

He was a leader and expert in finances, once overseeing some of the largest financial portfolios in the Nation.

Bill was also an active member of several churches, and I know his faith in God played a prominent role in everything he did.

Bill always said, despite his impressive life and great career successes, that his family was his greatest joy. I extend my condolences to his wife, Mary; daughter, Mary Pierson Gibson; sons, William T. Watson, IV and George Fitch Watson; and brother, Robert Watson. I know they will miss Bill greatly.

I have nothing but the greatest respect for any person who serves in the military, especially during a time of war. We use the word hero way too often these days, but Bill was truly an American hero.

Following his time at Midshipman's School at Northwestern University, where he graduated with high honors, Bill had his pick of top positions in the Military. He could have chosen a career in the safety of Washington, D.C., working inside the Navy Department; instead, he chose the most dangerous job in the military--Underwater Demolition Team frogman, the predecessor to the Navy Seals.

Bill's son, Bill Watson IV, recently contacted me to share this story as it was told in an editorial written about is father and published in the June 1, 1944, edition of The Sewanee Purple.

Mr. Speaker, this piece, which is reprinted below, shows the true character of Bill Watson better than anything I could express, and I bring it to the attention of my Colleagues and other Readers of the Record.

[From the Sewanee Purple, Jun. 1, 1944]

Editorial

. . . the greater therefore should our courage be.--Henry V

On May 10th, a class of Midshipmen graduated from

Northwestern University Midshipman School. Its members were

commissioned Ensigns in the Untied States Naval Reserve.

William Taylor Watson, III, of Nashville, graduated fifth in

that class of fourteen hundred. He had attended Vanderbilt

University, and was stationed at Sewanee in the V-12 Unit

from July until November last year. To those who knew him, it

was not surprising that he led his class.

At the time of his graduation, Admiral King had asked the

Northwestern Midshipman School for a newly commissioned

Ensign to take abroad his flagship, in order to see the

calibre of the men the Midshipman School was turning out.

There was a post in Washington, in the Navy Department, which

Northwestern was to fill--and it would take a good officer to

fill it. Both of those assignments were offered to Billy

Watson. He turned them both down. He was given his choice of

any assignment he wanted on active duty.

He chose what the Navy terms ``demolition''. Only

volunteers are accepted for this work. It is a dirty job. The

men in demolition ride small rubber rafts, in through the

surf to the beaches, where an amphibious attack is to be

made. A hundred yards from shore, the demolition men start to

swim. They search the beaches, locating mines, clearing paths

through them, and destroying any explosives which would

interfere with a landing. Then they swim back to their little

rubber rafts, and paddle away--if they can.

The choice that Watson made of course caused a good bit of

comment. We heard one emptyheaded fool laugh at it; to this

person it seemed a ludicrous choice!

There was a bright red haze in front of us for a long time

afterwards. Speech came very hard, for there was no fitting

answer to that sort of statement. The whole vital issue of

the war seemed to be tied up in that little incident. On the

one hand, was a man who had the same high ideal that kept the

Spitfires flying in the battle of Britain--that kept the

Russian line together before Moscow--that pervaded--and kept

the courage up--in the soul shattering defeat in the South

Pacific Withdrawals.

On the other hand--well--you name it. It doesn't print very

well.

To William Watson, we can say only a part of what we feel

by giving him a deeply respectful and admiring salute--for

his nobility, his courage, and his superb action in accepting

his individual responsibility.

Mr. Speaker, I want to cover two or three things very briefly here this morning.

First of all, The Washington Post reported on its front page yesterday that ``U.S. taxpayer money has been indirectly funneled to the Taliban under a $2.16 billion transportation contract.''

This is crazy. It should not be part of the job of the U.S. military to promote Afghan businesses. The official report found ``documented, credible evidence of involvement in a criminal enterprise of support for the enemy.'' This is ridiculous. And it comes on the heels of a report last week that the Navy had spent at least $300 million on two ships that were never completed, never sent on a mission, and are now headed for a salvage yard in Brownsville, Texas.

Are there no fiscal conservatives at the Pentagon? Sadly, most people in Congress today are afraid to cut the Defense Department for fear they will appear to be unpatriotic. Yet it seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that it's unpatriotic to continue with megabillions in wasteful spending or billions in spending that promotes businesses in other countries. No part of the Federal Government should be immune from having to save taxpayer money. The American people would be far better off today if every Department and agency had to take a fair, across- the-board 10 percent cut.

Let me mention a couple of other things. We're going to vote later today on the Keystone pipeline project. This is a project that will provide 20,000 jobs and also will lead to 500,000 gallons of oil coming into this country each day. This will help bring down the price of gasoline. And yet it is opposed by a very powerful group of wealthy environmental elitists. Most of these environmentalists today seem to come from very upper-income or very wealthy families and perhaps they don't realize how much they hurt the poor and the lower-income and the working people by destroying jobs and driving up prices. But that's what they're doing, and they're certainly doing that in blocking or delaying this Keystone pipeline project.

We also need to make sure that more jobs are created in this country in every way possible. Just today in The Washington Post, there's a poll that says that 49 percent of the American people are finding it very difficult to find jobs and 33 percent say somewhat difficult. Eighty-two percent of the American people say that it's difficult to find jobs in this country today. Yet we continue to cave in to environmental radicals that destroy jobs and really do just nothing other than help foreign energy producers.

So I think it's time that we start siding with the American people and stop siding with foreign energy producers.

Lastly, let me just say that the most false thing that has been said during this debate over the debt ceiling is that some people are trying to help billionaires or multimillionaires. No one is trying to help the billionaires. They can help themselves. What the debate is about is: Do you want the money spent by the Federal Government, and they will spend it without any question in the most wasteful, least effective, least efficient way possible; or do you want the money to be in the private sector, where it will do much more to create jobs and hold down prices?

If that weren't true, the Soviet Union or Cuba would have been heaven on Earth because, in those countries, the government took almost all the money. So it's not about protecting billionaires, not in the least.

Mr. Speaker, it shocks students at the University of Tennessee when I tell them it cost me only $270 tuition my freshman year and $405 my senior year in 1969.

George Washington University, where I attended law school, was private and ``expensive'' at around $1,000 a semester. Students there now marvel at that figure.

Students could attend college in the late 60s and early 70s and pay all their expenses just by working part time.

No one got out of school deeply in debt for tuition and fees.

But costs simply explode on anything the federal government subsidizes. Healthcare was cheap and doctors even made house calls until the government got into it.

Since the federal student loan program started, college tuition has gone up three or four or five times the rate of inflation, ranging from school to school, almost every year.

Before the government started ``helping,'' tuition went up at the rate of inflation. Now costs are 300 or 400 percent higher than if we had just left things alone.

A few years ago, I heard excerpts from a book called Going Broke by Degree. That is what many students are doing today by incurring huge student loan debts.

And the colleges and universities have been able to tamp down any opposition to tuition increases by encouraging an attitude of ``don't worry--we'll just give you an easy, no-interest student loan.''

I have been concerned about this for several years and especially after I started noticing so many college graduates working as waiters and waitresses in restaurants.

This is why I was so pleased to read a great column on this topic by Michael Barone in the July 20 edition of the Washington Examiner newspaper.

Mr. Barone is very respected, and he is right on target in this column, which I would like to call to the attention of my colleagues and other readers of the Record.

[From the Washington Examiner, July 20, 2011]

Will College Bubble Burst From Public Subsidies?

(By Michael Barone)

When governments want to encourage what they believe is

beneficial behavior, they subsidize it. Sounds like good

public policy.

But there can be problems. Behavior that is beneficial for

most people may not be so for everybody. And government

subsidies can go too far.

Subsidies create incentives for what economists call rent-

seeking behavior. Providers of supposedly beneficial goods or

services try to sop up as much of the subsidy money as they

can by raising prices. After all, their customers are paying

with money supplied by the government.

Bubble money as it turns out. And sooner or later bubbles

burst.

We are still suffering from the bursting of the housing

bubble created by low interest rates, lowered mortgage

standards, and subsidies to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Those

policies encouraged the granting of mortgages to people who

should never have gotten them, and when they defaulted the

whole financial sector nearly collapsed.

Now some people see signs that another bubble is bursting.

They call it the higher education bubble.

For years government has assumed it's a good thing to go to

college. College graduates tend to earn more money than non-

college graduates.

Politicians of both parties have called for giving

everybody a chance to go to college, just as they called for

giving everybody a chance to buy a home.

So government has been subsidizing higher education with

low-interest college loans, Pell Grants and cheap tuitions at

state colleges and universities.

The predictable result is that higher-education costs have

risen much faster than inflation, much faster than personal

incomes, much faster than the economy over the past 40 years.

Moreover, you can't get out of paying off those college

loans, even by going through bankruptcy. At least with a home

mortgage you can walk away and let the bank foreclose and not

owe any more money.

Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, is adept at spotting

bubbles. He cashed out for $500 million in March 2000, at the

peak of the tech bubble, when his partners wanted to hold out

for more. He refused to buy a house until the housing bubble

burst.

``A true bubble is when something is overvalued and

intensely believed,'' he has said. ``Education may still be

the only thing people still believe in in the United

States.''

But the combination of rising costs and dubious quality may

be undermining that belief.

For what have institutions of higher learning accomplished

with their vast increases in revenues? The answer in all too

many cases is administrative bloat.

Take the California State University system, the second

tier in that state's public higher education. Between 1975.

and 2008 the number of faculty rose by 3 percent, to 12,019

positions. During those same years the number of

administrators rose 221 percent, to 12,183. That's right:

There are more administrators than teachers at Cal State now.

These people get paid to liaise'' and ``facilitate'' and

produce reports on diversity. How that benefits Cal State

students or California taxpayers is unclear.

It is often said that American colleges and universities

are the best in the world. That's undoubtedly true in the

hard sciences.

But in the humanities and to a lesser extent in the social

sciences there's a lot of garbage. Is a degree in Religious

and Women's Studies worth $100,000 in student loan debt?

Probably not.

As economist Richard Vedder points out, 45 percent of those

who enter four-year colleges don't get a degree within six

years. Given the low achievement level of most high school

graduates, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that many of

them shouldn't have bothered in the first place.

Now consumers seem to be reading the cues in the

marketplace.

An increasing number of students are spending their first

two years after high school in low-cost community colleges

and then transferring to four-year schools.

A recent New York Times story reported that out-of-staters

are flocking to low-tuition North Dakota State in frigid

Fargo.

Politicians, including President Obama, still give lip

service to the notion that everyone should go to college and

can profit from it. And many college and university

administrators may assume that the gravy train will go on

forever.

But that's what Las Vegas real estate developers and home

builders thought in 2006. My sense is that once again, well-

intentioned public policy and greedy providers have produced

a bubble that is about to burst.

Mr. Speaker, in all the debate about the debt ceiling, the biggest falsehood is that Republicans want to protect the multimillionaires and billionaires. The millionaires and billionaires can take care of themselves; and, in fact, they come out ahead especially when government gets too big. And Republicans lose the superwealthy areas usually by two-to-one margins or more.

The reason we don't want tax increases is because the Federal Government is so wasteful. The least economical, least efficient way to spend money is to turn it over to the Federal Government. Look at how little good the $862 billion stimulus did. Unemployment went up.

Every dollar that can be kept in the private sector will do much more to create jobs and keep prices down. The ones who will benefit the most from more money in the private sector will be the middle- and lower- income working people. If this wasn't true, the Soviet Union and Cuba would have been heaven on Earth.

It is not about protecting billionaires--not in the least.

Madam Speaker, there is much discussion these days about ethanol, and for far too long the Federal Government has been subsidizing ethanol production in a very big way. Three years ago, Time Magazine called ethanol and other energy biofuels the clean energy scam. Yet 3 years later, we are dumping more money than ever into the program. It is time to admit that the ethanol program has been a failure.

A study mentioned in a recent column in the Washington Times said that our ethanol policies, if not changed, will cost American consumers more than $500 billion in the 10 years from 2008 to 2017. According to Time magazine, the biofuel boom is doing the exact opposite of what it was intended to do. The article calls corn ethanol environmentally disastrous.

We went heavily into ethanol because it was supposed to be good for the environment. The very powerful environmental lobby pushed hard on this. Now we have found that it has done more harm than good, even to the environment. This just goes to show that when someone says something is good for the environment, it is usually because they are going to make money off of it or are going to increase contributions to their organization.

I have an even greater concern that hits home with every American. The ethanol program is an economic disaster. We were promised that using ethanol to fuel cars would reduce gas prices. We were told it would reduce our dependence on foreign oil. If you look at the situation today, gas prices are close to $4 a gallon, or even higher some places, and we are still at the mercy of foreign producers to supply most of our oil. The only thing the ethanol program has done is raised the price of groceries.

Hardworking Americans are paying more for milk, meats, and everyday items they need from the grocery store. This is because the price of corn has doubled in less than 2 years. In 2009, corn cost $3.30 a bushel. Today it costs roughly $7 a bushel. When the price of corn increases, it causes a chain reaction. Corn is used to feed livestock, which increases the price of beef and dairy products. Corn syrup is found in everything, from cereal to salad dressing. Nearly everything at the grocery store costs more today than it did just 1 year ago.

To turn corn into ethanol, it takes diesel fuel to run the machines, fertilizer, and months of hard work from farmers. A study by Cornell University estimates that it costs $4.50 to produce 1 gallon of ethanol. A gallon of pure ethanol has only about two-thirds the energy of a gallon of gasoline. Yet like a lot of things we tend do here in Washington, the cost is too high and average Americans are the ones paying for it. In 2010, the Federal Government spent nearly $8 billion to subsidize the ethanol program. That number is probably closer to $12 billion when you count money from State and local governments.

The bottom line is that corn should be used to fuel our bodies, not our cars.

I would like to take a moment to tell you about a friend of mine, Harry Wampler. Harry Wampler is the owner of Wampler's Farm Sausage Company in Lenoir City, Tennessee.

The Wampler family started this company in 1937, one of the great small business success stories in my district. However, in 2010, Wampler's Sausage lost money for the first time. They are now losing money every month.

They are not losing money because all of a sudden they are no longer a great company. They are losing money because the cost of raw materials is far too high. Instead of paying 35 cents a pound for hogs like they did in 2009, they pay more than 50 cents a pound, a more than 40 percent increase in just 2 years--40 percent increase in 2 years. To keep up, meat producers like Wampler's are forced to raise prices in the grocery store.

The reason this is happening is simple. It takes a heck of a lot of corn to produce ethanol. The study I mentioned earlier by Cornell estimated that in 2009, one-third of U.S. corn was used to make ethanol.

That is a lot of corn, but it only reduced America's oil consumption by 1.4 percent. In fact, if we were to take all of the corn produced on American farms and convert it to ethanol, it would replace a mere 4 percent of U.S. oil production--a lot of corn with very little result.

Environmentalists shouldn't be happy with the ethanol program either. In this country and around the world, we are destroying forest wetlands and grasslands to make room to plant more corn. The program doesn't make sense for the economy or the environment, even though it was forced on us primarily by environmentalists.

A lot of politicians are afraid to admit the ethanol program was a mistake because they are afraid to offend the farm lobby, and anyone considering running for President may be afraid to offend corn farmers in Iowa. But, Madam Speaker, we can no longer afford to waste money on this program that does not work.

The Ethanol Program does not solve our energy crisis or eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. The only thing it does is drive up grocery prices for everyone in the country.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2018, and I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Last year, Thomas Donahue, the President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a speech to a major jobs summit:

``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.''

Mr. Speaker, if we are ever going to see an economic recovery, if we are ever going to create enough jobs for our young people, we have got to stop this explosion of Federal rules, regulations and red tape. This country could be booming right now, but it is being held back by Federal bureaucrats who have very little or no business experience and who do not realize how difficult it is to survive in small business or on small farms today.

This is my 23rd year in Congress. I believe I have heard and read more complaints about the EPA in the last couple of years than about all other Federal agencies combined. This bill is a very moderate attempt to rein in environmental radicals at the EPA and to put some common sense and, more importantly, some fairness in these clean water rulings.

I have heard from farmers, homebuilders, small business people, Realtors, coal miners, small property owners, and others. These rules and regulations do not hurt the big giants in business--in fact, they help them by driving out competition--but they are sure hurting the little guy, and they are hurting poor and lower income people by driving up the cost of houses, the cost of food and everything else, and are destroying jobs. Simply put, the EPA is out of control.

A few years ago, when I chaired the Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee, we heard testimony from a cranberry farmer in Massachusetts. During his testimony, he broke down into tears over the way he was treated by the EPA. The EPA claimed he filled 46 acres of wetlands that the farmer said never existed. The farmer, a Mr. Johnson, spent $2 million over two decades in fighting this case. At the end of it, Mr. Johnson said he was ``disgusted'' by all the millions of dollars the government spent on a small section of his 400-acre farm.

He said, ``For the money they spent, they could have bought all of our property with half of it.''

Several years ago, in one of the most famous wetland cases, the trial judge in a Federal court said, ``I don't know if it's just a coincidence that I just sentenced Mr. Gonzales, a person selling dope on the streets of the United States. He is an illegal person here. He's not an American citizen. He has a prior criminal record. So here we have a person who comes to the United States and commits crimes of selling dope, and the government asks me to put him in prison for 10 months; and then we have an American citizen who buys land, pays for it with his own money, and he moves some sand from one end to the other, and the government wants me to give him 63 months in prison.'' The judge said, ``Now, if that isn't our system gone crazy, I don't know what is.''

That's what this bill is all about. We've had so many of these bureaucratic rulings that have just gone crazy.

Mr. Speaker, this is supposed to be a Federal system in which our Founding Fathers felt more power should be given to the States than to the national government. They certainly didn't envision a Federal dictatorship, with the States being dictated to by unelected Federal bureaucrats.

This bill does not go very far, but it at least tries to put a little more balance and fairness back into our system so that we can have both clean water and a stronger economy.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 472, final passage of H.R. 2021 ``to amend the Clean Air Act regarding air pollution from Outer Continental Shelf activities,'' I mistakenly voted ``nay'' when I intended to vote ``yea.'' I have always supported efforts to expand American oil production.

Mr. Speaker, I recently hosted at the Capitol a group of extraordinary students from Heritage Middle School located in my District in Maryville, Tennessee.

The very first time I visited the U.S. Capitol was as part of a school trip, and I know how impressionable such an experience can be to young people.

Following their visit, the students were asked by their teacher, Patricia Russell, to write a report on how their feelings about the Nation have changed since visiting Washington.

I encourage my colleagues and other readers of the Record to read these very impressive essays.

``Freedom Is Not Free''

(By Lindsey Basham)

It always pains me to see people talk about how hard they

have it. But in reality, a homeless person in America would

be a middle-classed person in a third-world country. We take

for granted all that we have, and the most important thing

would be freedom. The only reason we have this freedom is

because of our soldiers sacrificing their lives for ours. But

where would we be without a leader? My personal favorite

President is Abraham Lincoln because he was the only

president out of sixteen at the time to do something about

the most remorseful action America ever did--slavery. Because

of these two reasons, I liked the Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam

Memorial, and WWII Memorial the best.

There are many people who would rather others like them

instead of sticking out of the crowd, but those people do not

have what it takes to run one of the most powerful countries

in the world. President Abraham Lincoln did though, and one

of the noblest things this man ever did was create the

Emancipation Proclamation. Even against half the country, he

freed the slaves of the south once and for all. He said that

a house divided against itself will not stand, yet he took an

enormous risk with the Proclamation making the southern

states angry. Lincoln believed that owning another human

being went against the Declaration of Independence and he was

not going to sit back and watch inhumanity happen to such

innocence. Sadly, the sixteenth president of the United

States was assassinated in a movie theater by a man named

John Wilkes Booth. Even so, the legend of this famous

president lives on in one of my favorite memorials in the USA

capitol today.

Small children learn to count to one hundred, but many

times they will trip up on the numbers afterward. Later on,

they will have the skill to make to one thousand, but then

again, they might mess up on their correct numbers after that

high number. At around the age of ten, a person can count as

high as he or she wishes, but the problem is patience. Even

the most patient person will get bored after around ten

thousand. The number 58,267 may seem like an ordinary, random

number--a number higher than most of us are willing to

count--but that number is the exact number of people who are

commemorated on the Vietnam Memorial. That is a number that

makes me appreciate being an American because I think about

those people who fought for what we all take advantage of.

The moment that precious freedom is taken away from us, we

will regret being so easy going about it. ``Freedom is not

free'' as said on the Korean War Memorial, is very scary at

how true that statement is. Tens of thousands of people have

died in each and every war our nation has endured and they

knew what was bound to happen. It is only common sense that

these people would be honored.

Four-thousand stars all representing one-hundred soldiers

is one of the key things I saw at the World War II Memorial.

On the day the Japanese planes flew over Pearl Harbor,

Hawaii, was a devastating day in American history. This was

the day our country was launched into the Second World War.

So many, many people fought and died during the years that

followed the day of Pearl Harbor. As every war is, this war

was as bloody as any and it makes me feel that there is a

place for every single one of us. Some were destined to make

that journey for the rest of us. And for all we know, a

person who nobody has ever heard of could have cost us the

winning of the war. Every person who is honored in those

fountains and stars had a big role in a big part of history

and deserve to be in one of the major memorials in

Washington, D.C.

After all I have seen, I have come to appreciate the

delicate balance of power and freedom our country has

perfected. But I will always remember that freedom is not

free, and sometimes it takes a noble person to stand up for

man's natural born freedom, and sometimes it takes more.

Sometimes many lives are lost and much blood is shed on the

soil. But, even though we are sometimes forced to do this,

that does not mean we cannot commemorate these brave men,

women, and--in my opinion--the best president this country

has seen yet. Therefore, it seemed necessary to create the

Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, and World War II

Memorial. I have come to love this country even more so than

I already did.

Mr. Speaker, as a Member of the Congressional Motorcycle Safety Caucus I rise to recognize Ride to Work Day.

Each year the third Monday in June is designated as Ride to Work Day and this year, on June 20, more than a million motorcyclists across the Nation will use their motorcycles to commute. In doing so, these riders will make a statement about the utility, fuel economy and fun of using motorcycles and scooters for transportation.

The Motorcycle Industry Council's most recent information estimates that more than 21.5 million Americans operated a motorcycle in 2009. Many of these riders visited Tennessee, and specifically the 2nd Congressional District, which features some of motorcycle riders' favorite roads in the Country. Two members of my own staff ride motorcycles for both fun and transportation.

As more and more Americans choose scooters and motorcycles as transportation options, or just choose to ride for recreation, it becomes ever more imperative that each of us does all we can to promote motorcycle safety. This means that motorcyclists must ride responsibly, by getting trained and licensed and obeying traffic safety laws. Other road users can do their part by being aware of motorcyclists and sharing the road.

On June 20, I encourage all riders to gear up and ride to work. I also encourage all other road users to take special note of all the riders on the road and remember to always look out for motorcyclists.

Mr. Speaker, the Congressional Quarterly today has a headline that says, ``Some House Republicans Showing Signs of War Fatigue.'' Unfortunately, this headline comes just the day after the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee has approved another $119 billion for our overseas wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. That's $10 billion a month and $2.3 billion each week.

By the most conservative estimates, we have now spent over $2 trillion in direct and indirect costs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of this money has gone into nation building rather than stopping or defending against any real threat. We have turned the Department of Defense into the Department of Foreign Aid, and the American people are tired of it. They want us to stop rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan and start taking care of our own people. We are spending billions and billions that we do not have--that we are having to borrow--on people who do not appreciate it unless they are on our payroll.

Alfred Regnery, publisher of the conservative American Spectator magazine, wrote last October that ``Afghanistan has little strategic value'' and ``the war is one of choice rather than necessity.'' He added that it has been ``a wasteful and frustrating decade.''

The American people do not want, nor can we afford, endless, permanent wars. Nor do they want 11 or 12-year wars that last about three times as long as World War II.

You can never satisfy governments' appetite for money or land. They always want more.

Every gigantic bureaucracy always wants to expand its mission so it can get more funding. Every government agency always exaggerates the threats or problems it is confronting so it can get more money.

The Pentagon is a gigantic bureaucracy that will do everything within its tremendous power to keep getting more and more money from the taxpayers. But there have to be limits somewhere, and fiscal conservatives should be the ones most horrified by all the hundreds of billions we have poured, and continued to pour, down these Iraqi, Afghan, Libyan rat holes.

The American people and conservative Republicans all over this country are saying enough is enough. They want us to stop rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan and paying for a useless war in Libya and start rebuilding the United States of America.

We are almost $14 trillion in debt and headed much, much higher very, very soon. Soon, we will be printing so much money that our Social Security and other pensions will be worth very little. We have got to get our fiscal house in order. We have got to stop spending hundreds of billions all over the world and start taking care of our own people.

Georgie Anne Geyer, the conservative foreign policy columnist, wrote a few months after the Iraqi war started many years ago that ``Americans will inevitably come to a point where they have to choose between a government that provides services at home or one that seeks empire across the globe.''

Mr. Speaker, the American people reached that point a long time ago. Hopefully, the Congress will soon follow their lead.

Mr. Speaker, Tom Pauken, Chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission and author of the book ``Bringing America Home,'' has written a column in the Washington Times that I wish every American would read.

The column, entitled ``An Agenda for the Next President'' and reprinted below, is a very important one that I would like to call to the attention of my colleagues and other readers of the Record.

[From the Washington Times, Mar. 31, 2011]

Gates Grilled on Price of `Illegal War'

(By Tom Pauken)