Floor Statements

I rise today in my role as Representative and with the perspective of both a Christian and a former soldier. I urge this body and our President to do all within our collective power to defeat Iran's efforts to build a nuclear weapon and delivery system, the combination of which presents a world-changing threat to every American, to every Israeli, and to citizens everywhere in our world.

I've had the privilege to travel twice to the Holy Land. One cannot walk the Golan Heights or travel the hills around Jerusalem and fail to appreciate the momentous nature of these places. Even a quick survey of history reveals that this is among the most geopolitically and strategically important patches of land on Earth, and it is also the focal point of the world's three Abrahamic religions.

Our Declaration of Independence speaks of a humanity endowed with rights by its Creator. The land we speak of here is the land where He walked, the land where He taught, and the land where my faith teaches me that He gave His life for each of us. And now this land is menaced by a dangerous and inimical enemy. One cannot stare long at a map without plotting the strategic course open to this enemy. In doing so, one is struck by the miniscule flight time for a missile departing from Iran for this land loaded with a weapon of mass destruction.

Mr. Speaker, it's election season and our President appears to be more interested in dissuading Israel from defending its people than deterring President Ahmadinejad from achieving nuclear weaponry. Unfortunately, danger--this danger, particularly--knows no timetable, and political calculation amid such peril is an abdication of a Commander in Chief's responsibility.

Mr. Speaker, we hear the President's team has said that an Israeli attack would destabilize the region. It is hard to doubt that, to a degree at least, this is possible. But more destabilizing by an order of magnitude would be the permanent threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. It is a folly to trade temporary peace for a permanent menace to world security.

Mr. Speaker, our President's intelligence chief has said that the Iranians have not yet decided to build a bomb. To me, these words are reminiscent to those of Neville Chamberlain, who doubted that the Nazi command had finalized its decision to invade all of Europe, both east and west. The threat was either ignored or considered too irrational to be possible by a timorous and distracted world bent on avoiding conflict.

Mr. Speaker, this body must unambiguously oppose the weakness our President has spoken of on this issue. Our Commander in Chief has fought against every Iranian sanctions measure that we have presented to him; he has casually mused about returning to pre-1967 borders, as if road-testing an idea; and he has consistently sided with the Palestinians on key issues surrounding American national security. It should be no wonder then that President Ahmadinejad feels emboldened, for weakness always breeds and invites aggression. In such situations, perceptions will influence outcomes--and possibly determine them.

With this in mind, we must emphatically, and in no uncertain terms, display unwavering American commitment to the defense and support of Israel. The perception that we mean it, and that we mean it without reserve, will serve to inhibit Iran's nuclear ambitions as surely as a policy of American doubt, hesitation, and vacillation will serve to strengthen it.

We are mindful, too, that our President has said, when he believed himself to be out of the reach of microphones, that he was tired of President Netanyahu. He said, ``I have to deal with him every day.'' This was an all-too-rare and certainly valuable glimpse into the heart of the President. It seems to confirm to me what many of us suspect and what gives President Ahmadinejad courage: that despite the careful language suggesting alignment between America and Israel, the President will crumble when Israel needs him most.

Mr. Speaker, I will say in front of this microphone and on the record this morning that I'm tired. I'm tired of creating risks for America's democratic foothold in the Middle East; I'm tired of a badly mistaken notion that Israel is some way or another the aggressor; and I'm tired of the President speaking of a moral equivalence between Iran and Israel.

There are but a few moments in history that have set the course for a relationship among nations, and I believe this is one of them. We must make a powerful and unequivocal commitment to the nation of Israel, and we must make an equally powerful and unequivocal commitment to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weaponry. Iran must not be allowed for even one moment to doubt our will, and it must not be allowed to think twice about our willingness to act. The fate of the Jewish people and the American people--one and inseparable--depends on it.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to commend the Air Capital Chapter of AMBUCS.

AMBUCS provides mobility and transportation for people with disabilities. They provide therapeutic tricycles and bicycles to children and veterans with disabilities, and they give along with that the sense of freedom and hope that comes with being able to be transported.

Last year, my local chapter--appropriately named the Air Capital Chapter of AMBUCS--provided Marine Sergeant Jonathan Blank of Augusta with an AmTryke bike. It allowed him to regain some of his mobility. Sergeant Blank, having lost both legs in an explosion last year in Afghanistan, has been in physical therapy to learn to use his prosthetic legs. The AMBUCS-provided bike has allowed him to get exercise and stay healthy--strengthening his body and helping him walk with prosthetics sooner.

Air Capital AMBUCS has now provided over 30 specialty bikes since they were first chartered just 1\1/2\ years ago and are now one of the top five organizations all across the country--quite an impressive accomplishment. I would like to thank the Air Capital AMBUCS all- volunteer staff for the amazing work they do and their dedication to this very noble cause.

Madam Speaker, on Monday of this week, 2 days ago, the President released his budget plan. It will take America's deficits, or total debt, to over $27 trillion. That's a big number. It's hard to get our heads around numbers like that. So I want to talk about how it impacts a particular industry and a particular group of people, how his budget and plan will put under attack 1.2 million Americans and an industry known as general aviation that generates over $150 billion for our U.S. economy.

Now, the general aviation industry is an industry that this President has been assaulting ever since he took office. It is one of America's last great manufacturing sectors, indeed, a manufacturing jewel still here in America; and yet it has become a bit of a political punching bag for our President who constantly refers to the entire industry as made up of nothing but ``corporate fat-cat jet owners.''

But I want to talk about the job creation aspect. I want to talk about how the general aviation industry impacts real people. I want to tell some real stories about how lives are impacted when a President speaks about an industry this way and then presents a budget that has such an enormous impact. There are real consequences.

I can tell you that each time the President attacks the general aviation industry, a machine shop in Wichita, Kansas, is impacted; a West Virginia company loses a sale; or a private company putting jet fuel on airplanes in California feels the squeeze.

I want to recall some of the attacks, but I also want to talk about these people. The general aviation industry produces aircraft that are a tool--a tool--that increases productivity and ultimately contributes to the success of businesses all across our country. It's about helping a parts supplier, a fellow named Jim who wrote a story to me from Plainwell, Michigan. It helps him deliver parts all across the country so not only can his company succeed and grow jobs, but all of the folks that Jim's company serves.

It's about getting a daughter to a hospital who is very ill on an Angel Flight--a wonderful nonprofit organization that uses excess capacity on small planes all around the country to meet the medical needs of people all across our Nation.

It's about the town of Fort Morgan, Colorado, whose local industries rely heavily on general aviation and which is an absolute lifeline for this small town's continuing success.

It's about a fellow named William in Mobile, Alabama, who wrote me and said:

I work for a manufacturer. We build jet engines for the

general aviation industry. We've seen firsthand how President

Obama's rhetoric hurts our industry. We lose sales. Why would

a President attack an industry that provides hundreds of

thousands of good, union jobs when he says that his entire

focus is those jobs? I wish the President would encourage

general aviation, and not attack it.

I think William has it exactly right. Many in my hometown of Wichita, Kansas, which is the headquarters for Beechcraft, Learjet and Cessna, know these stories all too well, also.

For the third time now in the President's budget, he's called for user fees on every flight of every general aviation aircraft and has set up a system whereby it will become more expensive through the Tax Code to purchase these aircraft--these American-built aircraft. But it impacts lots of folks in different places, not just the manufacturers.

Chris from Los Angeles wrote me and said:

My little flight school employs five full-time workers and

three part-time employees. Up through now, I've been able to

weather the economic storms. Unfortunately, despite the

claims that piston aircraft will be exempt, these user fees

will hurt us, Mr. President. I'll be forced to shut my doors,

thereby laying off my employees.

Madam Speaker, this is not about fat-cat corporate jet owners in the corner office. This is about the livelihood of those eight people in California who depend on this industry to put food on the table for their families.

Carl from Plano, Texas, wrote me and said:

Like others have said, a large percentage of people who use

business aircraft do it as a productivity tool. I wish

Washington would recognize that an airplane is a tool just

like production machinery and a delivery truck.

The whole time the President is criticizing the aircraft flying industry, he flies around in one of the great jets built in Kansas--Air Force One. His Cabinet members and senior staff fly on airplanes all across the world, and I'm proud of that. But, unfortunately, the President doesn't see the value in general aviation except for when it's his own. I've invited the President multiple times to come to Wichita, Kansas, to see the workers who build these great planes. And yet it continues: the President tries to destroy an industry that employs over 1 million people.

This is not leadership. This is division and envy, and I wish the President would cease to do so. It's a travesty, it's not good for jobs in America, and it's not good for our general aviation industry.

Mr. Speaker, we often come to the podium to talk about a bill or piece of legislation. Today I have the great privilege to stand in support of protecting every human life.

In Kansas is a place that has marked a great piece in the history of the pro-life movement. In the early 1990s, the Summer of Mercy was held in Kansas. A huge step forward in people speaking out about the tragedy that is abortion.

I, personally, a couple years later had the privilege of working doing some research for a woman named Mary Ann Glendon, who became the ambassador of the Vatican, who taught me about how this movement can work, and how we can begin to eradicate this plague that sits on top of America after still 39 years.

For me, too, it's personal. I have a nephew and a niece that, but for a pregnancy crisis center in Wichita, Kansas, would not be my niece of 6, Emily, and my nephew of 10, James. Two brave women who made the right decision.

Today was an incredible privilege. I got to stand at the Mall and look out at hundreds of thousands of folks, including enormous groups of young people who came from Kansas on buses of 25-hour rides from Clearwater and from Norwich and from Garden Plain, and from our high schools and colleges in Kansas who came today to stand for life and to say that this movement will continue, that we are winning, that after 39 years we can now say that America understands that this is not about choice but about protecting those lives.

To see those young faces and those young smiles was a glorious thing. I want to thank them for coming to Washington, D.C., to be part of this today, and with them and with our continued effort we can do the right thing and protect every human life.

In 36 days, the President will have an opportunity to do a great thing for America. He'll have an opportunity to allow private industry with private funds to build a pipeline to carry petroleum all across the country to lower the price for consumers driving their cars, for manufacturers who use these products, and to do so in a way that is environmentally friendly.

It is indeed my hope that the President will take this opportunity to do just that.

Today we've got oil at over $100 a barrel. It was not all that long ago in the history of our country that we stared at North American energy production and wondered: Will we have enough natural gas, will we have enough oil here domestically so that we don't have to depend on the Middle East?

I remember when I was much younger sitting in a car with lines of cars waiting to get gasoline. We could only get gas on even days because that was the license plate that we had on our car.

Today, technology and innovation, American-style, has led us to a place where we have got an abundance of energy. All we're asking is that we permit a pipeline to carry their product safely all across the country so we can get that energy to the places we need it at prices Americans can afford.

We know, too, that we suffer much like we did back in the late 1970s. At the same time we had this perceived shortage of fossil fuels, we also had enormously high unemployment. We had a misery index in the low twenties. Today, we have a similar phenomenon. We've got far too many people out of work. Unemployment is officially at 8\1/2\ percent. But if you go around Kansas' Fourth Congressional District, you know that it's much higher in the place that matters, the place that folks would really rather work more hours, would rather work for higher pay, or, frankly, we've got a lot of folks who've just found the workplace so unappealing to them in terms of their job prospects that they've given up. Yet here we sit with a project that everyone agrees will create 20,000 jobs.

Most of those jobs are with trade unions--folks that are building and welding and riveting and who will make this pipeline safe and secure. And yet we've got a President that continues to reject this as an option for our country.

We need this capacity. We have found oil in North Dakota. We are finding oil in south central Kansas. We've got to make sure that this product can get to the markets, the places that it needs to be. This pipeline would do that.

Now, I can't figure out, for the life of me, why this pipeline has become the cause celebre of the left. We have tens of thousands of miles of pipelines all across this country. This product is transported safely. It is highly regulated. Indeed, this year, in a year when there was lots of bickering between the parties, we passed a piece of pipeline safety legislation which will continue to further improve the way we transport fossil fuels around our country. This pipeline can be done safely, too.

The objection that there are risks to groundwater and to environmental harm is greatly overblown. Industrial accidents certainly happen, but we know, to make America move forward, we've got to do it in a way that is responsible and safe. Everything about the way this pipeline has been engineered and developed meets that mark.

This President has shared this notion of energy independence as we all do. We see the need for it. Yet he's taken an approach that is so different from what we are trying to do with the Keystone XL pipeline. This approach has private citizens meeting real demand in the real marketplace, folks who want products.

The President's approach has been very different. He has spent hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money trying to subsidize energy sources that America does not want. It's not that America wouldn't like solar energy or wind energy. It's simply that today they can't be provided in a cost-effective manner, so we force taxpayers to subsidize those energies to try and bring them to market. We've seen what happens when you do that. You get things that happen like Solyndra. We don't need to do that. The energy is available.

The risk will be taken by private industry. They'll provide the capital. They'll provide the hard work. They'll provide the innovation. They'll provide energy for America at a time we so desperately need it.

I just returned to Washington, D.C., today. I was in the airport in Wichita, Kansas. I talked with half a dozen folks. Each of them talked about jobs being the most pressing issue that they wanted me to take care of when I came back to Washington, D.C.

I spent a lot of time over the break, as well, talking with folks who provide energy. We have lots of independent drillers and E&P companies and folks who provide field services to the oil patch in Kansas and in Oklahoma and Nebraska, all around. We need these products. Consumers need these products. I hope that the President, 36 days from now, will decide that he agrees, affordable American energy coming from North America, provided safely, so that the Keystone XL pipeline can move forward.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the chairman for yielding.

This is a great day for rural America. H.R. 1633 is going to do what we've been trying to do for a long time, during my entire 11 months in the United States Congress, which is to provide just a little bit of certainty for those folks who are out there trying to create jobs, trying to create food for America, trying to do the things that we've done in the rural parts of our country for so long.

The truth is the other side continues to say we are shooting the fairy dust and talking about Tinker Bell. I can assure you that I'm not amused. I can assure you that the 500 folks with whom I met just 2 weeks ago now at the Kansas Farm Bureau meeting were not amused either.

We understand that the very real risk of Lisa Jackson and the Environmental Protection Agency beginning to clamp down on farm dust still exists. We worked in our committee diligently. There were some valid concerns raised by the folks on the other side, and we endeavored, Mr. Chairman, at every moment to try and meet those concerns. We offered amendments. I offered an amendment in the nature of a full substitute which tried to address some of the concerns that the opposition expressed.

The truth is they just want to leave our farmers and our ranchers and our agricultural community at the whim of the EPA. That's not the place to put good, hardworking Americans who go out there every day trying to do the right thing. The whims of the EPA we have seen all too often present a real risk, a real risk of job destruction, a real risk of higher costs for every consumer in America.

This is a wonderful piece of legislation. It will, for the first time, get the EPA to move their hands away from the throats of our farmers and agricultural communities, and I would urge every one of my colleagues to support it.

I applaud the House for taking up H.R. 822, the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act. As a veteran and a strong defender of the Second Amendment, I encourage all of my colleagues to support me in this important piece of legislation.

In Kansas, in 2007, we began to issue concealed-carry permits. Since then, Kansas has entered into agreements with many other States across the region to create interstate reciprocity. And while many States have similar agreements, they benefit only a portion of the American population that have this basic fundamental right to keep and bear arms.

The legislation and the rule we're considering today offer an opportunity for the Federal Government to facilitate cohesion between the States without extending its reach further into our laws than is necessary. The National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act would allow concealed-carry permits in one State to be legally recognized in another and accepted in every other State of the Union that has similar set of laws.

Under the bill, everyone is still required to follow the firearm laws in each of the different States in which they choose to carry. Our Founding Fathers considered this right to bear arms so important they put it in the Constitution. Allowing this reciprocity is a simple act of extending what our founders originally intended.

I hope that Congress will honor this principle by supporting this rule and passing this bill, which at its core does nothing more than protect the Second Amendment right of every Kansan and every law- abiding citizen.

I thank the gentlelady for yielding.

I rise today in strong support of H.R. 358, the Protect Life Act, and I want to thank Congressman Pitts for his hard work on this legislation.

Kansas has long been on the front lines of defending life, and I join most other Kansans in acknowledging that life begins at conception. Nearly all Kansans understand that Federal taxpayer dollars should never be used for abortions.

I know the history here. For a very long time, there was bipartisan support for the Hyde amendment and for legislation that said that taxpayer money should not go for abortions; but today, the left has moved so far that they object to this simple, commonsense measure which will protect taxpayers from their money going to a procedure which they find abhorrent.

Simply put, we must end what ObamaCare did, and we must stop subsidizing abortions with Federal taxpayer dollars. I urge my colleagues to support both this rule and H.R. 358 and to protect the life of the unborn.

Mr. Speaker, since coming to Congress 9 years ago, I have sadly relearned that the government in Washington D.C. only grows and grows and grows. When Democrats and many Republicans, too, come to the floor of the House and talk about spending cuts, they are often talking simply about slowing the rate of growth of government. There is seldom, if ever, any real discussion about cutting the size of the Federal Government or about eliminating an entire program or agency. But today, with $14.8 trillion in debt, we can't continue to simply slow the rate of growth. We've got to cut it, and we've got to get rid of some things.

As a first step this week, I will proffer a bill that will eliminate the Economic Development Agency. It's part of the Department of Commerce and was established in 1965 as an element of President Johnson's Great Society. For over 45 years, the EDA has spent billions on local projects, not national projects, trying to pick winners and losers amongst various projects by region, industry, and community. Much like a stimulus bill or earmarks, the EDA provides loans and grants to pet projects of the administration in power.

In 2008, the EDA spent $2 million on the Harry Reid Research and Technology Park at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Just last year, it spent $25 million on the Global Climate Mitigation Incentive Fund. This year, the agency will spend almost $300 million of taxpayer dollars. Now, this might not sound like a lot of money sometimes here in Washington, D.C., but in Newton, in Independence, in Wichita, and in Goddard, Kansas, that's still a lot of money.

I want to take just a minute to talk about the EDA. Most folks in Congress and most folks back in Kansas will have never heard of it. I had not before I entered Congress. It provides these grants and loans to projects it selects all over the country. At its very core, the EDA is nothing more than a giant wealth redistribution machine. It takes money from people in one place and at one time and redistributes it all across the country for inherently local projects.

For example, it gave $2 million to the ``culinary amphitheater,'' wine tasting room, and gift shop in Washington State. It gave $350,000 to renovate a theater in Colorado. In 2011, it gave $1.4 million to build infrastructure development so that a steel plant of $1.6 billion could be built in Minnesota. Like the vast majority of projects, that steel plant would have been built without Federal taxpayer dollars. It was a $1.6 billion project helped by the Federal Government to the tune of only $1.4 million.

Our even bigger problem, however, is with EDA. It's duplicative. It's just one of at least 80 Federal economic development agencies. HUD and Ag and HHS all have economic development grants as well.

Second, it's ineffective. It typically provides a very small part of any given project. The GAO reports that most of its financing did not have any significant effect on the success of projects and produced, at best, inconclusive results and, in some cases, may even detract from a more flexible workforce.

Third, this is an incredibly wasteful agency. It was identified by GAO as one of the agencies that ought to go away. Indeed, a recent inspector general audit of 10 projects totaling $45 million showed that 29 percent of the grant money had been wasted due to various violations of EDA grant requirements. Four of the 10 projects EDA funded in that group were never completed.

Finally and perhaps more importantly, this is not the role of the Federal Government. As the Cato Institute has written, the Federal Government has no business trying to direct economic activity through politicized subsidy vehicles like the EDA. We've seen that with bad outcomes, like with Solyndra, only too recently.

Every great journey starts with a single step. This is a small agency, but it's time for the first time in decades that we eliminate an entire program, an entire agency, so that it cannot continue to grow and grow and grow as part of our Federal Government. I would ask my colleagues to support the EDA Elimination Act.

Mr. Speaker, this morning I rise in support of the TRAIN

Act, H.R. 2401. This bill provides a commonsense approach that addresses a series of EPA regulations that will cost jobs and cripple our Nation's economy.

TRAIN requires a commission simply to study the cumulative impact of EPA's regulations, but it would also delay two incredibly expensive regulations--the Utility MACT rule and the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule. The impact of these two EPA regulations on Kansas would be enormous.

The Sunflower Electric Cooperative has been trying to build an 895- megawatt coal plant in Holcomb, Kansas, for years. Holcomb 2 will increase our Nation's energy supply, utilizing environmental controls to reduce air missions. It's a win-win that is good for jobs for Kansas, good for the economy, and good for the environment.

But now this project is in serious jeopardy because of these EPA rules. The Kansas Attorney General has now stepped in, filing a lawsuit in the D.C. Court of Appeals trying to slow down and stop this rule because it will be physically impossible for Kansas utilities to comply with these rules.

The problems in Kansas are the same problems all Americans face because of EPA's refusal to consider the real economic costs of these regulations. Passing the TRAIN Act saves jobs. Let's do it.

Madam Speaker, I came to Washington, D.C., 9 months ago with the hope that we would restore a little bit of common sense and a whole lot of spending control to Washington, D.C. I also came to Washington, D.C., having never heard of an eco-ambassador. Now I had heard of ambassadors and I am familiar with the environment, but I had never heard of an eco-ambassador.

Indeed, I had never heard of an eco-ambassador until just a few short weeks ago when our Environmental Protection Agency that has done so much damage to our economy, so much damage to our Kansas' Fourth Congressional District, our farmers, our manufacturers, and our families, our Environmental Protection Agency decided at this time of massive Federal deficits that we needed a new program to create eco- ambassadors--eco-ambassadors, each of which will be given $6,000 of your money, eco-ambassadors which, in exchange for that money, will come to Washington, D.C., and go back to their home places and work for 20 weeks--20 weeks for $6,000--part-time at that--for their internship program.

When you read the requirements to be eligible to receive an eco- ambassador internship position, you will be fascinated to see that it is an ideologically driven program. Students who apply must have a strong interest in environmental justice, social justice issues, and other issues relating to environmental health disparities in health, volunteer, or employment settings. This is a liberals-only policy.

The Environmental Justice internship is of course administered with your taxpayer dollars. We don't need a program like this at any time; we certainly don't need it at this time.

So I have offered a bill, H.R. 2876, the EPA Student Nondiscrimination Act. It simply says that when you apply for employment with the Federal Government, we're not going to seek to find out whether you agree with this administration's radical environmental agenda. We're not going to seek to find out if you have worked as a community organizer. All we're going to ask is that you are qualified for the position.

Now, there are many efforts and many concerns about environmental disparities across the country. I share those concerns, but our EPA and our Justice Department already have many remedies for folks who feel like they have been discriminated against. What we don't need is yet another Federal program aimed at trying to solve a problem that we know can't be solved in Washington, D.C.

I'll close with this thought: this is a small program. The total dollars expended in the scale of our massive Federal deficit are very, very small; but it is symptomatic of a place, Washington, D.C., that has become completely disconnected from America and commonsense values, the values that we all have in Kansas. We don't need eco-ambassadors. We don't need this program. And I would ask my colleagues to support my legislation to eliminate it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to talk about how our President has systematically and relentlessly attacked the general aviation industry.

You know, this is one of the few last great manufacturing gems left in America. It creates $1.2 million jobs--the gentleman before me was speaking about jobs--1.2 million jobs in America and $150 billion worth of income and a tremendous amount of exports.

This industry is enormously important to my district, but not just my district, the air capital of the world, but all across the country. These are good jobs. These are middle class jobs. They are jobs for machinists and welders and riveters and managers and purchasing people who make some of the finest airplanes in the world.

But instead of supporting the general aviation industry and welcoming those jobs, the President has attacked it. At the very least, he could just leave it alone. But this is part of his larger class warfare effort.

He demonizes general aviation users. He calls them corporate fat-cat jet owners at every turn. But it's not impacting the folks who use those as business tools; it's impacting the people who build these airplanes. They are productive. They are working to grow their businesses, and they are growing jobs.

His rhetoric kills sales of American manufactured goods and, with them, the jobs that are created when those airplanes are built. You know, he has attacked it in multiple ways.

Most recently the Department of Transportation issued something called BARR. It's a program which has long ensured basic privacy rights for general aviation users by allowing them to opt out of being tracked by everybody with an Internet connection. But on August 2, the FAA changed that rule and said, no, now anyone with an Internet connection can find out and violate the privacy rights of anybody who decides to fly in an airplane all across the country unless they specifically opt out and can state a valid security threat.

This is an unprecedented step. It will facilitate serious violations of privacy, and it doesn't help create jobs in America.

I have introduced a piece of legislation called the BARR Preservation Act, along with Kansas Senator Pat Roberts, and I would urge my colleagues to support that legislation. It will create jobs in America.

Now the President most recently announced, as part of his efforts to reduce the deficit, user fees on general aviation aircraft, over $100 per flight, not to mention the enormous bureaucracy it will take to collect this set of taxes. At a time when America has got unemployment of one in six or more, it's no time to add taxes on folks who are trying to fly their airplane around this country to get from Topeka to Des Moines, to get to small towns to support American manufacturing. This President wants to put taxes on general aviation users.

Finally, let me just talk for a moment about the taxes and the rhetoric. Mr. President, this industry is not asking for a handout. This President mistakes hardworking people for folks who are looking for something from the Federal Government. All we ask is to be left alone. We don't want the bailouts that the city of Detroit received and that the automotive folks received. We're not asking for tax favoritism. All we're asking is that you respect the hardworking people of Kansas and all across America who build the finest airplanes in the world. This is, Mr. Speaker, failed leadership.

We have $4 trillion in additional debt and a loss of 2 million jobs under this President. Don't give us a bailout; don't give us a handout. We don't want special favors. Simply leave us alone to grow and create good, middle class, hardworking people's jobs right in Kansas and right in America.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his hard work on this important piece of legislation.

In Kansas, we build airplanes with American workers. The Boeing Company has a big facility there. Indeed, last night, on a telephone town hall, I had a worker from Boeing call in. He was very worried about his continued employment right in Wichita, Kansas, and in America. He was worried because this administration has taken actions to destroy manufacturing and aviation manufacturing here in America.

I rise in support of this rule and the underlying legislation because the NLRB has no business telling The Boeing Company, who wants to invest hundreds of millions of its own dollars--not taxpayer dollars, its own dollars--creating jobs in South Carolina. What next? An attack on Kansas? An attack on aviation workers all across America?

We need to pass this piece of legislation immediately and ask the President to sign it. It's too important to American workers to allow the NLRB to continue the Big Government policies of this administration.

Mr. Speaker, throughout history, great change has mostly come from steady, determined hard work performed over long, long periods of time. Think of our Revolution. It took years. Think of the war that freed the slaves and the progression towards racial equality. It has taken years. Think of the continued long march against radical Islamic terrorism that continues today.

Today, the challenge we face is a frightening economic challenge. We must put people back to work. We've got to grow our economy so we can pay off the crushing debt that has been heaped upon the next generation over the past 40 years. It is the fight of my generation. There are two world views to tackle this problem that threaten our Republic.

The first, offered by the President and those who control Washington, D.C. today, is more government, more spending, more redistribution of wealth, and more physical and spiritual dependence on government. The American people rejected this world view on November 2, 2010.

Then there is a second view. It is one that offers liberty and freedom from government instead of control by government. It recognizes that the left's morally misguided policies will expand government, suffocate growth, further depress job creation, and push millions of people farther away from any hope of rising out of poverty. These policies negatively impact American culture by squelching individual responsibility and initiative and work ethic. America has always had a cultural bias in favor of productive work, and has disapproved of the easy acceptance of charity and welfare payments when these are not necessary and when one can provide for oneself.

These competing visions of America frame the debate over reducing our Nation's spending addiction. It is the fight we're having today. So, today, I will vote for a bill that for the first time in decades begins to turn the tide against the radical job-killing spending of our current President.

Now, it's true that the election of President Barack Obama in 2008 and the Democratic retention of the Senate in 2010 continue to have consequences, so this bill is necessarily insufficient. It does not complete the mission. If this plan is all we ever do, we plainly will have failed the task that the new class of freshmen was sent to Washington, D.C. to take on.

But it is not all we'll do. We will continue to execute the will of the American people, and we will hold this Republic together by ending this spending addiction that has afflicted this town for decades. This bill is the Lexington and Concord of the American Revolution. It is Antietam to our Civil War. It is D-day to World War II. It is the first skirmish in a very long battle.

That great Kansan, General Eisenhower, did not declare victory on June 6, 1944, after America successfully commenced its liberation of Europe. Rather, he acknowledged a good day, that the battle had been joined, and he had a deep recognition that he needed to continue to execute his battle plan.

The American people spoke on November 2, 2010, and we now begin to do what they demand that we do.

This bill we vote on today honors that commitment. We said we would not raise taxes. This bill does not do that. Our President complains. We said we would not increase the debt limit beyond the amount of spending reductions that we undertake. This bill does that. Our President complains.

These were bold commitments we made to the American people, especially when Washington, D.C. continues to be controlled by liberal Democrats. How could we be sure that a rump group of Republicans could accomplish this? It had never been done

before--but today, we have an opportunity as this monumental struggle begins.

How big will our Federal Government be? Will our country return to its constitutional role of having bounded government?

In Kansas, I know that the battle sometimes looks messy--big challenges often look that way. Today, however, I can say clearly that we have stopped a President intent on growing government, and we have begun to head down a path towards prosperity for our Nation and our freedom. It's a good day.

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

Mr. Chairman, let me begin by saying thank you to the committee chairman for running a great piece of legislation. I think this bill will go a long way towards creating a pro-growth economy. We've done a great deal of work to reduce spending on this bill, and I stand here this afternoon hoping to help out even just a little bit more.

The amendment I offer I offered during H.R. 1. It passed. It passed with votes from both sides of the aisle. The Senate failed to act on it, so I'm here today again to offer this amendment one more time, and I hope it will pass again with bipartisan support, and that we will, once again, move towards a smaller, more humble Federal Government that does only those things that it's intended to do.

The amendment I offer today seeks to reduce by $6.2 million the amount of money available for the EPA's greenhouse gas registry program. If I had my druthers, I'd probably prefer to see the program go away. But I offer a more modest amount today.

This amendment only reduces spending for this program back to the levels from 2009. Now, this is very consistent with the legislation that we're acting on, the bigger bill which takes us back to 2009. This is a program that currently stands, without this amendment, 95 percent higher than the funding for the greenhouse gas registry in 2009. I think we can all agree that we weren't spending too little money in 2009 regulating greenhouse gases in America.

We know the EPA says that this registry is just about data collection. We'd just like a little bit more information. But those of us in Kansas who are trying to operate businesses and make a go of it know that there's an agenda far beyond that. This is an agenda that is job-killing. This is an agenda that will destroy jobs, not only in Kansas, but will drive up the cost of energy for every American. And so I urge my colleagues today to support this amendment.

If we simply restore funding back to the 2009 level we will roll back, I hope, again with bipartisan support, and we'll create jobs and keep EPA doing those things it ought to be doing.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. I will be very brief.

I certainly care deeply about clean air, so do all the businesses in Kansas, so do all the agriculture people. We want clean water, but we know how to do it and we're doing it.

You said this was the ``ignorance is bliss'' amendment. I would prefer to call it the ``jobs are a good thing'' amendment.

When things get mischaracterized--I'm not suggesting we abolish this. There is still $6.2 million available for the Greenhouse Gas Registry. That's as much as was available in 2009.

This is a simple, modest amendment that many on your side voted for when I offered it before, and I hope many of them will continue to do that.

I thank you for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.