Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4197) to amend title 5, United States Code, to extend the period of certain authority with respect to judicial review of Merit Systems Protection Board decisions relating to whistleblowers, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

In November 2012, the President signed into law the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. This legislation was needed to update existing law to better help protect whistleblowers from retaliation for helping expose waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal Government.

Unfortunately, some managers were using loopholes in existing law to punish well-intentioned employees for bringing bad behavior to the light of day. These actions likely dissuaded some whistleblowers from coming forward to end wasteful or corrupt activities.

In addition, during the Oversight Committee's work on this legislation, it became apparent that many whistleblowers also may not have been getting a fair shake in Federal circuit court. Therefore, the legislation created a 2-year pilot allowing for all circuit review of whistleblower appeals, enabling whistleblower cases to be appealed outside the Federal circuit.

In the 18 months since the law's enactment, very few appeals have been heard outside of the Federal circuit, giving Congress an insufficient sample size to judge whether the various courts are appropriate venues for whistleblower appeals.

H.R. 4197 simply extends the 2-year all circuit review pilot for an additional 3 years. Extending the pilot will provide additional evidence for Congress to consider as we seek to determine the fairest and most efficient way for whistleblower cases to be handled under the Federal court system.

We must do everything in our power to help defend those who seek to do the right thing by protecting Americans and their hard-earned tax dollars.

I want to thank Chairman Issa and Ranking Member Cummings for their work on this legislation, and I support this legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from the State of California (Mr. Issa).

Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to support H.R. 4197, a great attempt to make sure there is fair and equitable access to the fair facts so that justice can be served.

I urge all Members to support the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4193) to amend title 5, United States Code, to change the default investment fund under the Thrift Savings Plan, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The Smart Savings Act, H.R. 4193, would change the default investment fund for Thrift Savings Plan, or TSP, participants from the G Fund to an age-appropriate asset allocation fund consistent with a recommendation from the TSP governing board. The change would help ensure TSP participants are better prepared for retirement by investing their contributions in a fund designed to yield higher returns over the course of their career.

Currently, new TSP participants are defaulted into the Government Securities Investment Fund, or the G Fund, and remain invested there until they can make an election reallocating their account balance into one or more of the other funding options.

The G Fund comes with some risk. The TSP warns G Fund investors that their account may not grow enough to offset the reduction in purchasing power that results from inflation.

The TSP's asset allocation funds are a mix of the TSP's offerings designed to help yield higher returns while decreasing risk as individual participants near retirement. While the funds expose participants to market risk, they address such risk in their design.

In making its legislative recommendation to Congress, the TSP found that, had the asset allocation funds been the default investment option since the beginning of the automatic enrollment in 2010, participants would have achieved greater returns.

Participants who do not want to assume the market risk associated with the L Fund will, of course, maintain their ability to determine their own allocation. That can include, for instance, transferring their entire balance to the G Fund if that is their desire.

I appreciate the bipartisan support of Representatives Cummings, Woodall, Lynch, Farenthold, Connolly, and Delegate Norton, and urge support for this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California, Chairman Issa, my distinguished colleague and the chairman of the full Committee of Oversight and Government Reform.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to join me in support of this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4195) to amend chapter 15 of title 44, United States Code (commonly known as the Federal Register Act), to modernize the Federal Register, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The Federal Register Modernization Act is an important bill that will allow our government to better adapt to 21st century technology while both serving the public better and saving money. Much of the Federal recordkeeping and document publishing includes outdated requirements for printed version of documents. This is especially true for the Federal Register.

Today, there are only 124 paid subscribers to the print version of the Federal Register. Despite this fact, the Federal Government is legally required to continue to produce a print version of the Register. Moreover, statutes biased towards paper-based communication also require Federal agencies to submit multiple physical copies of the same document for publication. The result is a nonsensical situation in which agencies must hand-deliver CDs to the Office of the Federal Register with identical versions of the same documents saved on it.

This commonsense legislation will fix both of these issues. First, it will allow the Register to be published rather than printed, allowing for an eventual switch to a digital-only version, patterned off of the Federal Register's already award-winning Web site. Second, it will streamline the document submission process to eliminate the requirement for multiple copies and give the Register more freedom in how documents may be submitted.

Importantly, this bipartisan proposal has the support of the administration, and I encourage all Members to support this legislation.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California, Chairman Issa, my distinguished colleague and the chairman of the committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to thank Chairman Crenshaw and, indeed, Ranking Member Serrano for their leadership and the hard work that they have dedicated to the subcommittee.

I would further like to thank the committee for including in the markup a language request I made during the programmatic request period. The policy I mentioned would preclude the agencies funded by this bill from hiring or contracting with outside organizations for the purpose of teaching the employees of those agencies how to support or defeat legislation being considered here in Congress.

I first learned of this practice when reviewing Senator Tom Coburn's annual Wastebook and found that NASA and other agencies had multimillion-dollar contracts out so that their employees could learn more about Congress and the legislative process.

Though I appreciate anyone's interest in Congress and the processes involved with conducting legislative business, I do not find this a prudent use of taxpayer money. So today I humbly request that, in any conference committee proceedings between the House and Senate, the chairman push to include such language in the government-wide provisions title of any final bill that would be voted upon by both Chambers rather than limiting this policy to those agencies funded directly by this bill.

It is important to me and to my constituents that Congress does not appropriate any money to Federal agencies so that those Federal agencies can use the money to pay outside organizations to teach agency personnel to support or defeat legislation before Congress or so that they may learn about the legislative process.

There are endless no-cost resources available on legislative process, committee memberships, budget outlays, and the like. My office has taken meetings with representatives from many agencies, and during those meetings, those agency representatives are free to ask about the legislative process. It should not take multimillion-dollar contracts and symposiums to achieve these ends.

Again, I thank the chairman and the ranking member for their work and their consideration of this request.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk, No. 178.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer a simple but important amendment which will save taxpayer money and demand accountability for one of the Federal Government's most invasive and rogue agencies--the

Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out that this is a 3 percent reduction, and it brings it back to 2007 levels. The Treasury inspector general has reported that the IRS has been wasting upwards of $15 billion a year--more than $140 billion since 2003--due to its failure to comply with Federal law to curb improper payments.

I think what we could do is save taxpayers a lot more money if they just didn't call the IRS. This is a blatant disregard of basic civil liberties in the use of a government agency to harass, target, intimidate, and threaten lawful, honest citizens. We need to bring the IRS into compliance.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment to the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act for the fiscal year 2015.

My amendment is simple. It transfers resources from the General Services Administration, also known as GSA, to the U.S. Court of Appeals, the U.S. district courts, our Nation's bankruptcy courts, and other related judicial programs.

Specifically, it gives the U.S. court system an additional $42 million, and it comes directly from the wasteful spending within the GSA. The $42 million transfer to the courts will put their budget in line with the budget request for fiscal year '15.

Let me say that I have taken issue with government waste since my very first days in Congress. I knew it was

bad, but I did not fully comprehend how bad things were until I actually got here and started to get my hands dirty while digging around for waste, fraud, and abuse.

I take particular issue with the GSA. The mission of the GSA is to ``deliver the best value in real estate, acquisition, and technology services to government and the American people.''

Given the major GSA scandal involving wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars on conferences with clowns and fortunetellers and on YouTube rap videos, it is clear employees within this agency have lost sight of this mission.

Furthermore, by our government's own estimates, there may be 77,000 empty or underutilized buildings across the country. The Office of Management and Budget estimates these buildings could be wasting hard- earned taxpayer dollars at a rate of up to $1.7 billion a year--yes, $1.7 billion. That is astonishing.

We are even spending money on buildings that are completely empty because the grass needs mowing, the pipes must be maintained, the fences surrounding the buildings must be checked and repaired, and the list goes on and on.

Again, I truly appreciate and applaud the excellent work the committee has done on this bill. It is a particularly tough one to craft this year in the wake of the IRS scandals and others.

I do take issue with any increase whatsoever to GSA's budget for rental of space. We are wasting billions on empty buildings, and we are worried about billions in rental agreements--$5.5 billion in rental agreements.

I would also like to note that the amount proposed in the underlying bill is over $700 million more than the entire court system of the United States. We are talking the Supreme Court, appellate courts, circuit courts, bankruptcy courts, and other Justice offices and initiatives.

They are the third branch of government, and their budget is still $700 million less than the money spent on rental agreements.

The judiciary enforces the rule of law, and it administers justice in a fair and impartial manner. In fact, it is our justice system that is possibly America's most attractive component to others around the world that yearn to be free and have a fair day in court, those who yearn for rights under the law.

So, you see, there is something wrong with this disproportionate appropriation. One is for billions in waste, while the courts struggle with a steady rise in their caseload. Again, we are spending more than $700 million more on rent space than our courts, and we are wasting nearly $2 billion a year on buildings being empty or underutilized.

At this point, this amendment should speak for itself. We are wasting billions on rent when we have empty spaces all over the place. We must either sell the empty buildings or cut GSA's rental of space budget. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of my commonsense amendment.

I thank the chairman and ranking member for their continued leadership on the committee, and with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer a simple, but important, amendment, which will redirect resources in the bill to important entrepreneurial development programs with the SBA.

Specifically, the amendment reduces a $3.8 million increase, above the fiscal year 2014 level, that was slated to go towards administration and bureaucracy. Instead, the amendment prioritizes spending and redirects those funds to important programs that actually help small businesses, like the HUBZone program, Small Business Development Centers, SCORE, women's business centers, the State and trade export promotion, Native American outreach, and veterans business outreach centers.

If programs with the SBA are going to get an increase above fiscal year 2014 levels, it should be for worthwhile SBA programs, not bureaucracy.

Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and create on average seven out of every 10 new jobs. The SBA needs to continue to support worthwhile efforts that foster economic growth. The entrepreneurial development programs within the SBA do exactly that.

In 2013, Small Business Development Centers helped nearly 15,000 entrepreneurs start businesses, providing counseling for nearly 65,000 others. SBDCs assist more than 530,000 clients annually and are a critical program for creating jobs and helping small businesses grow.

In 2013, the SCORE program assisted with the creation of nearly 70,000 new jobs. The program provided important services that helped open the doors of nearly 40,000 businesses.

I could go on about several other of the entrepreneurial development programs, but I think you get my point, so in the interest of time I will not.

I will discuss, however, the offset of this amendment. The committee was critical of the Small Business Administration in the committee report accompanying this bill.

I would like to quickly read a few excerpts from that report:

The committee believes the SBA should especially focus on

these ``true'' small businesses and less on larger businesses

in ``high-growth'' areas that have more capacity and access

to capital.

The committee remains concerned about the quality of lender

oversight at SBA. SBA's loan programs depend on an array of

outside parties to be executed.

In fiscal year 2011, the SBA Office of Inspector General

(OIG) found that more than half of the loan dollars

guaranteed by the SBA were made using delegated authorities

with limited oversight.

In an OIG report released June 6, 2014, the OIG found that

the SBA's Loan Guarantee Processing Center (LGPC)

``emphasized quantity over quality for 7(a) loan reviews,''

and loan specialists were not provided adequate guidance and

training to conduct 7(a) loan review assignments.

The committee has consistently provided SBA with robust

resources and expects the SBA to appropriately fund the LGPC

in order to provide a thorough review of all loans made by

the center. SBA loans made without an effective review

process leaves taxpayers on the hook for any defaults. The

committee expects SBA to adopt the recommendations included

in the OIG report and will continue to monitor the SBA's

progress in this area.

I ask my colleagues to support my commonsense amendment, and I thank the chairman and ranking member for their continued work on the committee.

With that, I yield to the gentleman from Florida, the chairman.

I thank the chairman, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment to save taxpayers money, help the Department of Energy avoid duplicative programs, and to ensure its limited resources focus on programs directly related to its mission to ensure energy security for the United States.

This simple amendment would prohibit the use of funds to be used towards the proposed Climate Model Development and Validation program within the Department of Energy.

The duplicative and wasteful nature of this new program has been recognized by several outside spending watchdog groups. My amendment is supported by the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, the American Conservative Union, Eagle Forum, and the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.

The committee has recommended no funding for the new climate model development and validation activity in the report. I commend the committee for this recommendation and their work on this issue.

I feel strongly that the full House of Representatives needs to support the committee recommendation and send a strong message to the Senate that we should not be wasting taxpayer resources on new programs that compete with the private sector and should be funded through private investment.

If funded, this program would be yet another new addition to the ever-growing list of global warming programs that have been instituted and funded all over the Federal Government in recent years. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service estimates this administration has already squandered $77 billion from fiscal year 2008 to 2013 studying and trying to develop global climate change regulations.

Consequently, I am very concerned by ongoing efforts by this administration to waste even more taxpayer dollars on new programs for Climate Model Development and Validation.

The President's budget request for this program states:

New investment in Climate Model Development and Validation will enable restructuring the model architecture, new software engineering and computational upgrades, and incorporating scale-aware physics in all model components.

Climate modeling and all of these things are being done by dozens of government, academic, business, and nonprofit organizations across the globe. While research and modeling of the Earth's climate and how and why the Earth's climate is changing can be of value, it is not central to the Department's mission.

Considering the extensive work that is being done to research, model, and forecast climate change trends by other areas in government, in the private sector, and internationally, funding for this specific piece of President Obama's climate agenda is not only redundant, it is also inefficient.

I thank the chairman and committee for their work on this bill, and this issue specifically. This amendment is about effective use of taxpayers' money, and I ask my colleagues to support this amendment.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment is not about making a statement on climate change or the validity of climate science. This is an amendment about fiscal responsibility and efficiency.

More than 50 universities and academic institutions around the globe are engaged in climate modeling. This particular issue has been addressed very well by the academic and the nonprofit sectors with much greater efficiency and speed than any government bureaucracy can ever look at.

The President has already spent $77 billion since 2008. This is on top of the billions of dollars being spent by institutions and organizations around the world. Let's start talking about that.

The Nation is currently $17.5 trillion in debt. The Federal Government spends a trillion more dollars than it takes in.

Fact: more than 50 of the world's leading scientific institutions are already deeply engaged in climate modeling and spending billions of their own dollars on this research.

Fact: Congress must make tough choices to cut duplicative programs in government and get Federal spending under control.

Let's look at these prestigious universities that obviously don't know what they are doing: the University of Colorado at Boulder, Harvard University, MIT, Princeton University, the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, the University of Chicago, the University of California at Berkeley.

Mr. Chairman, the last I looked, these are some of the leading institutions in the country, and I think they know a little bit better than the Federal Government.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have amendment No. 173 at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment to save taxpayer money and get the government out of the business of subsidizing expensive toilet exchanges and upgrades that yield highly questionable returns.

This amendment has support from several spending watchdog groups, including the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, Eagle Forum, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, and Generation Opportunity.

If toilet exchange programs were as efficient as the EPA and Bureau of Reclamation claim, then such products would save consumers so much money and water over time that they would sell themselves in the private marketplace and would not need taxpayer subsidies.

According to the House Committee on Natural Resources, the Bureau of Reclamation's own data show that the agency has awarded a number of questionable grants on these projects since 2005, totaling almost $2 million.

The Federal expenditures spent on toilet exchange programs include a

$200,000 grant to San Francisco in 2007 and a $300,000 grant to Texas and California during 2011.

Further, in 2013, Reclamation awarded nearly $210,000 for high- efficiency flush valves to be installed on urinals in one city in California as part of its WaterSMART program, despite the fact that the investment on this project is estimated to save only 123 acre-feet of water per year.

For 2014, the agency wishes to grant funds toward a nearly million- dollar project for indoor water-efficient fixtures and toilet upgrades in California. At the same time, Federal policies have allowed for more than 300 billion gallons of water to be diverted into the San Francisco Bay and Pacific Ocean to protect a 3-inch fish, known as the Delta smelt.

If we are truly concerned about saving water, then we should, instead, invest in new infrastructure and water storage projects, including reservoirs, which would yield significantly higher returns on our investment.

Our country's Federal multipurpose dams and reservoirs provide abundant amounts of water and allow for clean hydropower generation. This infrastructure investment helps provide the foundation for economic growth and long-term job security.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration continues to focus solely on conservation and has actually taken action to reduce water storage capacity--actions which include calling for the removal of four privately held dams.

This defies common sense. We should, instead, have a balanced approach that includes both conservation and storage. Expensive toilet exchange programs are not the answer, and here are the facts and figures about those programs.

Customers are eligible for a $100 rebate for installing 1.28-gallon toilets in exchange for their 1.6-gallon toilets. These new toilets cost between $200 and $500 each.

An average toilet is flushed six times per day, while each federally- subsidized upgrade yields about $7 per year in water and utility savings. Thirty-year mortgages provide quicker returns on investments.

The kicker is these taxpayer-funded toilets are significantly smaller and, in many cases, have to be flushed twice. Furthermore, these government-subsidized toilets are a bad investment, as they eventually leak.

If people are going to spend $200 to $500 on new high-efficiency toilets, a $100 rebate from the Federal Government is not what makes their decisions to purchase the toilets in the first place. At the rate we are subsidizing this program, we may as well be flushing taxpayer dollars down these upgraded toilets.

With this ludicrous return on investment, it should go without saying that these projects are a waste of hard-earned taxpayer money.

I ask you to ponder on the countless ways this money could be spent more wisely, including on investments to increase water storage capacity. This amendment is about the effective use of taxpayer money, and I ask my colleagues to support it.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer a simple amendment to save precious taxpayer resources and to reduce the amount of money spent on paying inefficient bureaucrats with a history of mismanagement and disorganization.

Specifically, my amendment reduces net outlays for the administration of the Army Corps of Engineers by $1 million from the fiscal year 2014 level, which reduces the budget authority in this bill for the Corps' administration by 2.25 percent. The Corps of Engineers received an overall increase of $25 million in the bill above the fiscal year 2014 level.

While I can support more funds going to worthwhile projects, I take issue when the Corps continually receives the budget request level for administrative officials who fail to curb their bad behavior and competently perform their jobs.

I would like to read a quick excerpt from the committee report for this bill that highlights some of the continued mismanagement from within the Corps of Engineers:

The Corps of Engineers has suffered several significant

failings in recent years that have resulted in cost increases

for projects, such as the massive cost escalation associated

with the Olmsted Locks and Dam project.

In some cases, the administration has not requested

authorization increases in time for the Congress to act

before projects experience delays.

The committee enacted new requirements in fiscal year 2014

intended to address these problems, but to date--5 months

after enactment--the Corps has not complied with the

committee's directions.

In addition, the committee notes that the Corps still has

not submitted a complete work plan for fiscal year 2014 nor

complied with several other oversight initiatives necessary

to safeguard taxpayer dollars.

Another blatant example of the administrative ineptitude within the Corps is the agency has now been working on one chief's report for a particular project in Arizona for 5-plus years now. Throughout the country, this is the norm and not the exception to the rule. This failure to perform even the most simple of tasks drives up the costs of projects and leads to projects not being completed in a timely manner.

Due to frustrations with these delays, Congress was forced to enact a provision that recently passed WRRDA that requires Chiefs' reports to be completed within 3 years.

Let me provide another example of mismanagement by the Corps in Arizona.

An important flood control project was initially estimated by the Corps to cost roughly $24 million. Now, several years past the deadline for completing this project, the total cost estimate for the project exceeds more than $100 million. I realize projects have issues sometimes, but this is a clear example of failed leadership within the agency. Unfortunately, mismanagement has become prevalent in the Corps for quite some time now. Several years ago, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a Democrat from South Dakota, said the Corps is ``one of the most incompetent and inept organizations in all the Federal Government.''

One final example of significant malfunction within the Corps' administration was cited by the Government Accountability Office. The GAO had nothing but negative things to say about a Corps study justifying a $332 million project in the Delaware River. GAO found that the study ``was based on miscalculations, invalid assumptions, and outdated information.'' GAO found that projected benefits for this project were nearly 75 percent fraudulent.

With an almost $18 trillion debt that continues to grow, it is irresponsible to throw more money at a department that cannot manage its own affairs. My amendment does not reduce funding for important projects. Again, my amendment simply reduces net outlays for incompetent Corps of Engineers bureaucrats from the fiscal year 2014 level.

I ask my colleagues to support this amendment.

I thank the chairman and ranking member for their continued work on the committee.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 1-year anniversary of the tragic Yarnell Hill Fire, which claimed the lives of 19 elite Granite Mountain Hotshot firefighters in late June of 2013.

The Yarnell fire began when lightning struck approximately 30 miles southwest of Prescott, Arizona, off of Highway 89 on June 28, 2013. The blaze burned approximately 8,400 acres and damaged more than 1,000 structures over a 15-day period.

During the disaster, 19 firefighters from the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew lost their lives battling the fire, the sixth deadliest American firefighter disaster overall and the deadliest wildfire ever in Arizona. Indeed, this dark day yielded the largest loss of firefighter life since September 11, 2001.

To this day, words cannot express my sadness and the depth of my condolences to the families of these brave 19 first responders who gave their lives protecting our community. I will certainly remember this horrible tragedy for the rest of my life, as well as the public memorial service that was attended by more that 1,200 members of our community. These brave men made the ultimate sacrifice fighting to protect our citizens, and for that we will be eternally grateful.

Even though a year has passed, please continue to keep the families of these Hotshot firefighters in your prayers. Furthermore, I ask that the Federal agencies responsible for actively managing our forests not forget this tragedy and take the steps to prevent similar catastrophic wildfires from reoccurring.

The citizens of Yarnell, Arizona, and the surrounding communities know all too well the importance of proactive wildfire management. While the wildfire that claimed the lives of 19 brave souls was one of the worst tragedies in the history of Arizona, millions more across the country are also impacted by these disasters.

Looking back over the past year, it is important to highlight what progress has been made in finding commonsense solutions to preventing wildfires while still acknowledging the reality that more must and can be done. We owe it to our local heroes who risk everything in order to protect our lives, our communities, and our homes.

Congress still needs to consider additional legislation that will work to get the executive branch out of the way when action must be taken swiftly. This problem can be mitigated by empowering the private sector to create rural jobs and resurrecting the timber industry as loggers thin millions of acres of badly overgrown Arizona forests. Although we are never going to prevent all forest fires, these legislative efforts will help make fires less frequent, less intense when they do occur.

I remain optimistic that, above all else, the heroic actions of the Granite Mountain Hotshots will continue to inspire our leaders to make the necessary changes to prevent future devastation and destruction. We owe nothing less to these heroes. More importantly, I will continue to do everything in my power to ensure that their legacies live on and yield substantial forest management changes.

I would like to conclude my remarks by reading the names and ages of these 19 firefighters in tribute to their service:

Andrew Ashcraft, age 29; Robert Caldwell, age 23; Travis Carter, age 31; Dustin Deford, age 24; Christopher MacKenzie, age 30; Eric Marsh, age 43; Grant McKee, age 21; Sean Misner, age 26; Scott Norris, age 28; Wade Parker, age 22; John Percin, age 24; Anthony Rose, age 23; Jesse Steed, age 36; Joe Thurston, age 32; Travis Turbyfill, age 27; William Warneke, age 25; Clayton Whitted, age 28; Kevin Woyjeck, age 21; Garret Zuppiger, age 27.

All these brave men were taken from us way too young leaving behind families and friends. Let us never forget their sacrifice.

Mr. Speaker, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I rise today to offer a cost-saving amendment to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for the fiscal year 2015.

This is a straightforward amendment that will help bring defense spending priorities in line with the fiscal realities that the United States currently faces.

Specifically, this amendment would prohibit the Department of Defense from wasting precious taxpayer dollars on the purchase of more expensive fuels made out of biofuels that are not cost competitive.

When our country is more than $17 trillion in debt, and every year the Federal Government continues to spend nearly $1 trillion more than it actually has, it is incumbent upon this Congress to get this reckless spending under control and to carefully scrutinize every dollar that is spent.

The Department of Defense has been purchasing biofuels to substitute traditional petroleum-based fuels to run its ships, aircraft, and other vehicles.

The problem is that currently, these fuels are more expensive than traditional fuels.

Until a time when biofuels are cost competitive without any Federal subsidy, no Federal entity should be utilizing this fuel source.

Let me be clear: I support a true all-of-the-above energy strategy which includes renewable energy sources like wind and solar, as well as traditional resources like natural gas and clean coal.

I have nothing against biofuels that do not need significant Federal subsidies to exist in the open market.

Unfortunately, the Department of Defense and other Federal agencies continue to waste precious taxpayer dollars to prop up this industry.

Last year, the Defense Logistics Agency wanted to buy almost 15,000 gallons of biofuel. This year, the Defense Logistics Agency is seeking up to 37 million gallons of biofuel.

Biofuels without Federal subsidies are nearly 15 times more expensive than conventional jet fuel.

The biggest problem with this year's solicitation of nearly 37 million gallons is there is a $27.2 million Federal subsidy to make the biofuel blends ``cost competitive with their conventionally-derived counterparts.''

The purchase of biofuels which are not cost competitive has been so wasteful that a popular news site recently listed the practice on its list of ``Five Insanely Wasteful Projects the Pentagon is Spending Your Money On.''

I will read a brief excerpt from the article:

In a nod toward sustainability, the U.S. Navy has been

attempting to create a ``green fleet'' by adopting

alternative biofuels.

The catch is that the cleaner fuel costs $26 per gallon,

which is much more expensive than the $2.50 the Navy pays for

each gallon of petroleum.

Despite reports that there isn't a clear long-term cost

benefit of adopting biofuel, the Department of Defense has

spent millions on private companies that are developing

alternative fuels.

And green projects aren't confined to a single branch of

the military; last year, the Air Force paid for 11,000

gallons of biofuel at a rate 10 times higher than the price

of regular jet fuel.

Using the military as a vehicle to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on unproven green experiments is clearly a wasteful use of taxpayer money that must be stopped. We all must understand that the number one priority of the United States military--and, indeed, the Federal Government at large--is to defend the Nation from security threats.

I would also like to bring up Admiral Mike Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He stated in July of 2010 that:

The biggest threat that we have to our national security is

our debt.

Therefore, it is essential that we scrutinize every dollar we appropriate to ensure we are spending our limited resources prudently and judiciously. This amendment will help accomplish this goal.

Madam Chairman, this amendment was carried last year by our newly elected majority whip, Steve Scalise; and it was adopted by this body by unanimous consent.

As the Defense Logistics Agency is now proposing to purchase almost 2,500 times more fuel than last year, it only makes sense this agreement is agreed to yet again.

Think about it. Last year, they wanted 15,000 gallons. This year, they want 37 million gallons of Federally subsidized fuel sources, just to meet an unnecessary mandate. This defies common sense, and we should not be wasting millions of dollars of taxpayer money in this manner.

I urge my colleagues to support my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I think in my statement it is all about balance. When we are talking about 37,000 times more biofuels at this time, I think that is out of whack.

I think the gentleman also has to understand that some of the pollutants that actually are created by some of these biofuels may actually be even worse than what we see with carbons.

The emerging technology shows that the pollutants actually created by burning these may be more insolvent than what we see in petroleum.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, this is common sense. Balance is everything. We have a balance of problems with spending. We have acknowledged that we want to see a proper balance in all the utilizations of energy.

This country can be energy independent. What it means is not picking winners and losers, but actually using a conservative type of balance.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I have amendment No. 153 at the desk.

Madam Chair, I rise to offer a commonsense amendment to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act which will further hold accountable foreign terrorist organizations in addition to those foreign governments that support their efforts.

I will be brief as the cases made against these entities and governments are well-documented.

Iran is possibly the largest known state sponsor of terrorism in the world, and the Obama administration is throwing out the baby with the bathwater in its negotiations with Iran on its nuclear aspirations. Syria has been listed as a state sponsor of terrorism since the State Department list was created in 1979. The ongoing atrocities on the ground in Syria should be more than enough to prohibit foreign assistance to this nation.

Before moving forward, let me say that I recognize that these two nations are already ineligible for most forms of foreign assistance already, but we have seen the Obama administration's track

record in terms of following the letter of the law. It enforces only the laws it agrees with.

Now, speaking to the prohibition of assistance to the Palestinian Authority, on June 2, the Palestinian Authority announced a new unity government, which was supported by the Islamic militant group Hamas.

To quote recent reports:

The merger also appears to skirt, barely, U.S. prohibitions

on aid to a Palestinian Government that has ``undue'' Hamas

presence or influence.

The Obama administration has worked behind the scenes to

suggest terms for the new coalition government that would not

trigger the U.S. ban, reasoning that the money helps preserve

American leverage.

Republican Senators Mark Kirk and Marco Rubio have called

for a suspension and review of U.S. aid, saying the

Palestinian announcement shows that Israel ``does not have a

viable partner for peace.''

The unity government is an ``end run'' around U.S.

restrictions, they said.

I agree with those statements.

With so much blood on its hands, this newly founded coalition of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas is not worthy of U.S. assistance. Just to be clear as day, I have included the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria--again, already listed as a foreign terrorist organization--to this list, in addition to all organizations currently designated by the Secretary of State.

I understand the law, and I understand that the U.S. already has laws to prevent the transfer of assistance to these foreign terrorist organizations. It is just that I am not convinced that the President, his Attorney General, or any other member of his Cabinet Secretaries understands the laws of this Nation the way that I do or will follow those laws as U.S. citizens must. This is just one more attempt to double down on the letter of the law.

I can only hope that the President sees the dangerous ways in which he has jeopardized our Republic's system of checks and balances and that he submits to the rule of law as do all Americans. It is long past time that this Congress checks this President and balances the powers of our national government.

I urge the passage of this amendment, which will hold accountable those governments which are most hostile to the United States, Israel, and their allies.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I want to remind the gentleman as to the ``one size.'' Really, one size? Terrorism is one size. There is a right and a wrong, and it all starts with big money. There has to be consequences for actions. Therefore, I ask for the adoption of this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I rise today to offer a commonsense, cost- saving amendment to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2015.

Specifically, my amendment prohibits the Federal Government from wasting more money on storage for eight patrol boats which have cost taxpayers $3 million, have never been used, and have been sitting in storage for almost 4 years.

Recent media reports and an inspector general's report brought this issue to my attention, and the wasteful spending involved is deplorable.

In 2010, the Federal Government spent more than $3 million on patrol

boats for the Afghan National Police that were never shipped to landlocked Afghanistan. Even more troubling, the cost of each patrol boat was more than $265,000. The Washington Post has reported that similar patrol boats can be purchased in the United States for approximately $50,000 each.

The Office of the Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, also known as SIGAR, was so concerned about this waste of taxpayer money that it conducted an investigation and recently released a report. The report includes a letter dated April 24, 2014, from the inspector general to the commanding general of the Combined Security Transition Command for Afghanistan.

I would like to share a few excerpts from letter:

I am writing to request information on a $3 million

procurement of patrol boats for the Afghan National Police

initiated by the Combined Security Transition Command for

Afghanistan in 2010.

My focus is on the operational requirements that initiated

the procurement of the patrol boats for the Afghan National

Police and the reasons for the cancelation 9 months later.

Additionally, I am also interested in the requirement for

the United States Government to pay for the storage and

related expenses for these boats for the last 3 years, boats

that apparently have no planned use.

According to official at the Defense Security Cooperation

Agency, the patrol boats were manufactured and delivered to

the Navy in 2011 and have been in storage at the Naval

Weapons Station/Cheatham Annex, Yorktown, Virginia, ever

since.

The full report goes on to detail some other troubling findings, which include missing storage records, missing expenditure authorizations and justifications, and missing documents which should detail the reason for canceling the procurement order.

The inspector general's June 6, 2014, letter is even more harsh as it stated:

I continue to have concerns because the Combined Security

Transition Command for Afghanistan was unable to answer a

significant number of my questions regarding the patrol

boats. The list of unanswered questions is particularly

troubling.

Further, the Combined Security Transition Command for

Afghanistan's response indicates that its Security Assistance

office led a review board that determined that the boats do

not fill a valid requirement for Afghanistan.

To help the inspector general better understand how these

decisions were made and to help us prepare lessons learned

reports intended to avert the waste of U.S. taxpayer funds in

the future, please provide a detailed accounting of all the

elements of the Security Assistance office review boat's

proceedings which led to that decision, including

transcripts, testimony, and exhibits.

By letter today, I have also requested the Department of

the Navy to provide their plans for disposition of the boats.

I wholeheartedly agree with the inspector general, and not another penny of Federal taxpayer money should be spent on these boats that cost $3 million to produce, were never utilized, and have been sitting in storage since 2011.

These boats either need to be put in the water or resold, per Federal law. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support passage of my commonsense amendment that will ensure better use of taxpayer money.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment, 148, at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer a commonsense, cost- saving amendment to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2015.

It has been brought to my attention from numerous sources within my district that in 2009 the Department of Army fully phased out the CWU- 27/P Army aviation flight uniform and moved to the Army Aircrew Combat Uniform, also known as the A2CU.

Constituents of mine, many of whom are Active Duty, retired, or friends and family of military personnel, have expressed a strong desire for the Army to go back to the CWU-27/P model uniform.

There are multiple reasons to switch back to the CWU model uniform. The most important reasons to switch back to the CWU model are safety and efficiency. But to sweeten the deal, when making the pitch to me, my constituents explained that moving back to the CWU model would also save the Department millions of dollars a year in procurement costs. Talk about hitting two birds with one stone.

First and foremost, let's touch on CWU model's proven track record of safety and practicality. The CWU model is still authorized for Army Special Operations aviators, all of the aviators in other service branches of the U.S. military, and most air forces and navies around the world. Yes, these points are a testament to the safety and efficiency of the CWU model.

And these safety aspects are of paramount importance to our Army aviators, because the chances of a fire in an aviation crash are very high. The CWU model flight suits have antistatic fiber woven in them to prevent sparks, which, for obvious reasons, are not desirable when operating an aircraft with thousands of pounds of highly volatile jet fuel on board.

The one-piece design of the CWU model is also extremely important as it does not, in the event of a fire, leave any opportunities for exposed skin. Being that the A2CU is a two-piece model exactly like ground troop uniforms, it cannot offer the same amount or types of protection. Moreover, the A2CU is also cut to a looser standard than the CWU-27/P, creating the potential for more items of clothing to snag on controls in the cockpit.

Speaking to the cost savings, the A2CU model costs an average of 56 percent more than the CWU model, and the A2CU has proven to wear out faster than the CWU. Further, every time the Army decides to change the camouflage pattern of the duty uniform, they have to spend millions more purchasing the new flight uniform. The CWU model, to my knowledge, is usually only one color per uniform.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office stated that this amendment does not score as it is written; but being that the intent is to move back to the CWU model, the effects of the policy should actually net some cost savings. Conservative estimates show that the Army could save around $5 million a year in procurement costs if it were to move back to the CWU model. Further, it should not cost anything to reintroduce the CWU model back into the supply system, as the rest of service branches still use them. In other words, there is no need to reboot the supply chain.

Further, the Army could replace the A2CU's with CWU's as they are exchanged by soldiers without the upfront cost of re-outfitting each soldier. The cost savings are tantalizing for someone like me who was sent to this town to rein in spending. More importantly, I listen to these Army aviators and flight operators. They tell me it is safer, and being that they are the ones

doing the training and fighting, I will take them at their word.

Given the safety and practicality applications, and given that the United States is not exactly running a budget surplus right now, saving a few million here and there in the name of safety and practicality is something we should all strive to achieve.

I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense amendment which cuts costs and improves safety.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to quickly thank Chairman Miller and Chairman Lamborn for their continued leadership at the House Veterans' Affairs Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I rise before you to honor a great man who served this Nation and its veterans with a lifetime of work. That man was Dr. Cameron Keith McKinley. The bill being considered here today, H.R. 1216, would designate the Veterans Affairs Vet Center in Prescott, Arizona, as the Dr. Cameron McKinley Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Center.

By way of background, Dr. McKinley served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves in Shreveport, Louisiana, from 1947 to 1949. He served with honor at the Wiesbaden Air Force Hospital during and after the Vietnam war, providing therapy to military personnel and their families.

Later, he served with great distinction as the chief of psychology at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Prescott, Arizona, from 1981 to 1995.

Dr. McKinley spent decades confronting the pressing issues of posttraumatic stress disorder, also known as PTSD, by providing cutting-edge psychological and neuropsychological assessments to the returning veterans of three separate wars.

At the Prescott VA, Dr. McKinley organized a rap group for Vietnam veterans dealing with varying degrees of PTSD. Dr. McKinley and his team also made available off-station crisis intervention groups and other specialized groups to combat veterans experiencing PTSD. He produced targeted action plans for veterans suffering from PTSD, giving them tools to deal with their afflictions and transitioning them successfully back into civilian life.

Dr. McKinley and a group of veterans who have been working with him in that area then formed the Chapter 95 of the Vietnam Veterans of America. That VVA chapter, in concert with Dr. McKinley, local leaders, businesses, and nonprofit groups, successfully petitioned the Federal Government for a freestanding Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Prescott, Arizona. That vet center opened in June of 1985.

Dr. McKinley's cutting-edge work has earned him recognition from Veterans Affairs Medical Center, the Vietnam Veterans of America, the Veterans' Readjustment Counseling Center, and the Department of the Army for his outstanding work to improve the lives of veterans of multiple generations.

Among his numerous awards, I will name a few here: Special Recognition Award from the Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 95, in 1983; Special Recognition Award from The Military Order of the Purple Heart; appreciation awards from the Prescott Vet Center on November 8, 1995; Certificate of Appreciation from the Veteran's Readjustment Counseling Center on November 11, 1989; United States Department of the Army Certificate of Appreciation for Outstanding Work in Support of Combat Veterans of Desert Shield and Desert Storm and Their Families on May 20, 1991; Special Appreciation, Prescott Vet Center, in December of 1995; and a Special Appreciation and Recognition Award for volunteer work at the Prescott Veterans Center in 2004.

Today it is with a heavy heart that I report to this Chamber that Dr. McKinley left this world on October 11, 2013. Thankfully, he passed peacefully at his home, surrounded by his loving family.

I insert his obituary from the Prescott Daily Courier in the Congressional Record.

[From the Prescott Daily Courier]

Obituary: Cameron Keith McKinley

Many longtime Prescott residents will be saddened by news

of the death of Dr. Cameron Keith McKinley, former Chief of

Psychology at the Prescott VA Medical Center

(1981-1996). Dr. McKinley died at his home in Evergreen,

Colo., on the morning of Oct. 11, 2013, surrounded by his

family and the beautiful pine-forested mountains filled with

the many birds and animals he enjoyed watching.

He was born on Dec. 9, 1930, in Shreveport, La., to William

Samuel McKinley Sr. and Goldia Simmons McKinley. He attended

Louisiana Tech University and Centenary College and received

a B.A. degree. He earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in clinical

psychology from the University of Houston.

Dr. McKinley completed an internship and residency at the

University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, where he

stayed on for another six years in clinical practice. For the

next nine years, he and his family lived in Wiesbaden,

Germany, during which time he established a Child & Family

Treatment program at the U.S. Air Force Hospital. From there,

the next assignment and home was Prescott, Ariz.

He was honored by many veterans organizations, among them

the U.S. Army Reserve for his support of active military,

veterans and their families, and for establishing a 24-hour

information center, teams of support groups, a successful

fundraising event, and a veterans mental health and

rehabilitation center. He received the Military Order of the

Purple Heart for exceptionally meritorious and conspicuous

service to his community, fellow citizens and veterans. He

was recognized by Vietnam Veterans of America as a charter

member of Chapter 95 in Prescott, acknowledging his dedicated

efforts on their behalf.

Cam volunteered at the National Vietnam Wall in Washington

from 1997-1998, and also at the VA Hospital in Prescott for

the Veterans History project and at the Vet Center that he

established. In 2012, after letters and urging from the

community, U.S. Congressman Paul Gosar introduced House

Resolution 1743, a bill that would name the Veteran Affairs

Vet Center in Prescott the Dr. Cameron K. McKinley Vet

Center. Rep. Gosar introduced this bill to honor a

groundbreaking health provider and true hero. It passed in

the House of Representatives but stalled in the Senate

because federal buildings are only named after someone who

has died. Efforts to name the Vet Center in honor of Dr.

McKinley will be renewed in the near future by those who knew

him and respected his deep commitment to our military

veterans.

Dr. McKinley married Anne Hinton McKinley April 9, 1955. He

is survived by his wife; his daughter Carol; his son, John,

and their spouses, Mark Harris and Mary McKinley; his

grandchildren, Adam and Paige Roberts, Jeremy and Tim Lisby,

and Cameron and Elizabeth McKinley; great-granddaughter

Jillian Lisby; sister Nadine McKinley Runsick; nephews Alan

and Joel Jessup; and niece Kristina McKinley Estes McKinley.

His father, mother and brother, Bill, preceded him in death.

His love of family was most important and brought him great

peace toward the end of his life.

Cam, as he was known to those close to him, loved canoeing,

hiking, fishing--the great outdoors. He took pride and

interest in his Scottish heritage. He read voraciously, wrote

his memoirs and expressed his artistic talents through

painting, calligraphy, and his passion, photography. He

captured the beauty of nature through the lens of his camera.

For those who knew Cam McKinley, his qualities of

leadership, courage, humor and resilience stood out. He was

generous of spirit, giving himself in service to others. We

will remember his laugh and the twinkle in his eye. He will

be missed by many and we are all better for having known him.

The family suggests memorial donations be sent to the

Intrepid Fallen Heroes fund (fallenheroesfund.org), or the

Mount Evans Hospice Inc. for their outstanding and loving

care, 3081 Bergen Park Drive, Evergreen, CO 80439.

Mr. Speaker, so it is only well and fitting, as a tribute to this remarkable man's life, Congress names the facility after the very leader who was its inspiration and who was a lifesaver for so many.

I am also saddened that we could not take up this bill and pass it into law sooner so that Dr. McKinley could live to see how this hallowed body shows its appreciation for his work. I hope his family may share a few smiles as the bill moves forward in the legislative process. I would also like to think that Dr. McKinley is smiling down upon us right now.

I pose a challenge to my colleagues, Members of the executive branch, and anyone else listening. Dr. McKinley strove for exemplary service to his veteran colleagues. In naming this building after Dr. McKinley, we hold his life's work in the highest esteem. We hold it in this way to show all Americans what it means to lead a life of service to others, and so we shall all strive to follow in his footsteps.

The challenge before us is to provide timely, quality, patient- centered, and patient-friendly care to each and every veteran. Most importantly, it is long past time that the Federal Government follow his example and do the very thing that he did with all his veteran patients. The Federal Government must listen.

Today, I thank the Veterans' Affairs Committee for supporting this bill. I thank my Arizona colleagues for their support in being original cosponsors of this bill. I thank all of the veterans' service organizations for their support of this bill and all they do for our vets.

Finally, I want to thank a very special organization known as Friends of Camp McKinley for their continued advocacy on behalf of such a great man.

I ask my colleagues to pass this bill.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer the simplest of amendments.

This amendment transfers $220,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's wasteful and ineffective Office of the chief financial officer to the Department's Office of Inspector General, bringing their appropriations in line with the President's request. It seems only fitting that the inspector general's office receive additional resources, particularly at the expense of the office it will most likely first investigate.

In April of this year, the inspector general reported that the Department's chief financial officer failed to comply with the Improper Payments Information Act for the third year in a row. The CFO would have saved more than $415 million by simply following Federal law and ensuring certain programs met their spending reduction goals. Instead, the CFO continued to turn a

blind eye, and the inspector general reported that, last year alone, the USDA made $6.2 billion in improper payments. Let me repeat that: $6.2 billion in improper payments were made by the USDA last year alone. I would like to provide a few examples of this wasteful spending.

In fiscal year 2013, the USDA paid more than $50 million to special interest groups to promote Christmas. The USDA's chief financial officer authorized a loan to a well-established brewing company for over $450,000. The USDA spent $20 million on IT software that did not work. On the chief financial officer's watch, $403,627 was wasted last year on a study to see if we could turn cow manure into electricity. Over 100 people received loan guarantees of $500,000 or more to buy a home in Hawaii. This ``Hawaiian beachfront property'' loan program lost nearly $500 million last year according to the Office of Inspector General.

I yield to the gentleman from Alabama.

We will accept the gentleman's proposal.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer another amendment to the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2015.

This amendment pertains to the Department of Agriculture's Office of General Counsel.

By way of background, this office was appropriated $41,202,000 in fiscal year 2014. The President's budget for FY15 requested a steep increase of $6,365,000. The President attempts to justify this 15.4 percent increase by saying that these moneys will go towards: ``31 full-time equivalents to handle an increased workload, to support current staff, rent, and enhance OGC's information technology reporting capabilities and litigation management tools.'' In other words, most of that money will be used to hire both government attorneys and to give raises to government attorneys already on staff.

You see, because I am from the Western States, I take issue with that.

I represent a rural district in western Arizona, and I serve on the House Natural Resources Committee, which oversees much of the executive branch's activities with regard to resources and lands. I am quite familiar with the effects government attorneys often have on States, their resources, and their lands, and my colleagues and I are generally disgusted with the overreaching policies the Obama administration has imposed on Western States. Therefore, I oppose any plans by the Department to hire more government attorneys, many of whom will be used to implement and defend the administration's overreaching landgrabs, watergrabs, and climate change policies.

I appreciate that this committee decided not to fulfill the President's request in full, but it did propose appropriating roughly half of his request. I simply cannot, in good conscience, allow more attorneys to be hired at the USDA--attorneys who will infringe upon many States' 10th Amendment rights.

My amendment proposes to cut most of the increase the Appropriations Committee has offered in this bill, but it leaves a portion of the increase for the sole purpose of improving the informational technology of the Office of the General Counsel.

I understand the Federal Government generally has major issues with information technology. Our departments and agencies are often using archaic IT systems and many should be updated for efficiency and security purposes.

IT issues are often highlighted at my other committee assignment on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. This a bipartisan issue and has been addressed regularly by Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Cummings, and the rest of my colleagues.

To close, I ask my colleagues to support this amendment. It would help to reserve States' rights, curb executive branch overreach, cut spending, and improve information technology systems all at once.

As always, I appreciate the work of the committee, particularly the work of the chair and the ranking member.

I urge passage of my commonsense amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to reiterate the government's overreach, particularly in Western States. With due respect, this budget does not look at the appropriate utilization of funds for attorneys. And when you look at the overreach of this administration with climate change, with water, and with resources, it is about time that we made conscious use of attorneys' fees.

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

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I rise today to offer an amendment to save taxpayers money and to hold a disorganized and wasteful department accountable for its actions and inactions.

My amendment is very simple. It reduces the funding to the executive offices at the Department of Housing and Urban Development by $2 million, which brings their funding levels back to fiscal year 2014 levels.

As always, I appreciate the work the committee does to put these bills and committee reports together. It is not an easy job, but I am also glad that Members are able to read their work and offer further input here on the House floor.

Since Republicans took the House majority in 2012, we have done our best to bring regular order and an open process to the House proceedings. I am happy to see a return to regular order, and I am further grateful that I and my colleagues are able to participate in the appropriations process.

For the second year in a row, I have read the committee's report on the administrative offices at HUD and was stunned to see that, yet again, HUD is running in an inefficient manner and has, again, likely violated the Antideficiency Act.

Further, HUD did not notify or request permission from Congress for certain budget reprogramming activities and hired more people than they could afford to pay.

I would like to quickly cite excerpts from the committee report on this issue:

HUD must have systems in place to track fundamental

budgetary resource data, including budget authority and FTE

levels.

A lack of essential information at HUD has, in the past,

led to Antideficiency Act violations in which HUD hired more

people than it had resources to pay.

While the committee recognizes deficiencies caused by

antiquated enterprise systems and acknowledges HUD's effort

to address these deficiencies, proper management of agency

resources is a fundamental responsibility and antiquated

systems are no excuse for the violation of Federal law.

The committee also directs HUD to clearly identify in its

budget justifications the movement or transfer of budgetary

resources from one account to another account, so that year-

over-year comparisons are possible.

The fact that the committee must specifically spell out and direct an executive department or agency to conduct its affairs properly is, quite frankly, embarrassing and deplorable.

Then again, I suppose government inefficiency is the status quo these days. These same inefficiencies have been identified year after year now. HUD cannot get its affairs in order. As such, Congress should not be increasing funding for paper pushers and other bureaucrats.

I would also demand that HUD stop hiring more people than they can pay, stop reprogramming money within their accounts to fix self-imposed mistakes and then withhold that information from Congress, and finally, stop breaking Federal law. Congress must not reward bad behavior with increased funding levels.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office stated this amendment reduces both the budget authority in the bill and the 2015 outlays by $2 million. With a Federal debt surpassing $18 trillion, it is irresponsible to throw more money at a department that cannot manage its own affairs.

I ask my colleagues to support this commonsense amendment. I thank the chairman and ranking member for their continued work on the committee.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I rise today to offer one last amendment to save taxpayers money and hold a disorganized and wasteful department accountable for its actions and inactions.

Following to the heels of my previous amendment, this amendment reduces funding for ineffective bureaucrats at HUD by $21 million, bringing their funding levels to the level recommend by the House Appropriations Committee in fiscal year 2014.

The current bill funds these HUD bureaucrats through the administrative support offices at a staggering $500 million. My amendment reduces each subaccount by 4.2 percent, so that the sum of each reduction to each subaccount equals the $21 million reduction to the overall account. Again, this is the amount recommended by this committee for the overall account in fiscal year 2014.

As I mentioned, I appreciate the work that the committee does to put these bills and committee reports together, but the committee report associated with the appropriations bill, once again, for the second year in a row, highlighted major deficiencies in the Housing and Urban Development management Offices.

At minimum, this mismanaged agency should at least include those reprogramming efforts in their budget justifications. They failed to do so and are far from being considered a model of transparency.

HUD's bureaucracy is not only massive, it is extremely wasteful and inefficient. The associated committee report--which I cited in my comments on my previous amendment a moment ago--is quite harsh to HUD and rightfully so.

These same inefficiencies within the agency have been identified year after year after year. Again, Congress must not reward bad behavior with increased finding levels.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office stated this amendment reduced budget authority in the bill by $21 million and reduces the 2015 outlays by $16 million. With an $18 trillion debt that continues to grow, it is irresponsible to throw more money at a department that cannot manage its own affairs.

I ask my colleagues to support this commonsense amendment. I thank the chairman and the ranking member for their continued work on the committee.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer a simple amendment that will save taxpayers money and prevent HUD from hiring outside counsel. This wasteful practice has been utilized by the agency in the past to conceal questionable operations, stifle inspector general investigations, and limit overall transparency.

Mr. Chairman, a recent report commissioned by Inspector General David Montoya revealed that the Philadelphia Housing Authority paid more than $30 million for outside legal services from April 2007 through August 2010. That is nearly $10 million a year in outside legal fees for one public housing authority in this country.

The inspector general report stated:

Alarmingly, the Public Housing Authority could not

adequately support $4.5 million that it paid to outside

attorneys during that period, virtually the entire limited

amount we reviewed, raising questions about the propriety of

the remaining $26 million in payments that we did not review.

In addition, the Public Housing Authority made unreasonable

and unnecessary payments of $1.1 million to outside attorneys

to obstruct the progress of HUD Office of Inspector General

audits. The Public Housing Authority also allowed an apparent

conflict of interest situation to exist when it entered into

a contract with a law firm that employed the son of its board

chairman.

Mr. Chairman, all of this fraud and abuse was revealed by investigating one-fifth of the spending of one public housing authority during a 3-year period. There are more than 3,000 other public housing authorities throughout the country.

While not every public housing authority commits this type of abuse-- and to be fair, some are responsible stewards of the taxpayer dollar-- the bottom line is this is shameful and an unnecessary expenditure of taxpayer money. It is inexcusable and must not continue.

The bill we are discussing here today provides nearly $100 million for the sole purpose of funding HUD's Office of General Counsel.

As stated in the committee's report on the bill:

It is the responsibility of the Office of General Counsel

to provide legal opinions, advice, and services with respect

to all programs and activities, and to provide counsel and

assistance to the development of the Department's programs

and policies.

In addition to having their own counsel, HUD also has access to attorneys within the Department of Justice. There is no logical reason HUD should be spending millions of dollars a year on outside counsel. The inspector general agrees and has previously stated:

We have been concerned for some time about the extent to

which some to public housing authorities use outside legal

counsel.

I appreciate the inspector general for bringing forward this wasteful and fraudulent practice to the attention of Congress. I ask my colleagues to recognize the inspector general's recommendations and support this commonsense amendment.

I thank the chairman and ranking member for their continued work on the committee.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Would the gentleman understand that all grants under HUD go to public housing and, therefore, they are subject all under?

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment intended to prevent yet another costly overreach by the Federal Government into the jurisdiction of local towns and communities.

HUD has proposed a new regulation, titled Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, which would grant the Department authority to dictate local zoning requirements in any community across the country that applies for a Community Development Block Grant.

According to reports, in 2012, this rule would have negatively impacted more than 1,200 municipalities throughout the country. A trial run of the rule already took place in New York. It failed miserably, and a local county was forced to reject $12 million in funds that would have benefited the community due to the impractical and unrealistic requirements associated with compliance.

The county had intended to use a large portion of the block grant funds to establish public housing for individuals in need. Clearly, this flawed proposal by HUD will increase local taxes, depress property values, and cause further harm to impoverished communities that are actually in need of these funds.

These new burdensome zoning rules being imposed by HUD bureaucrats on localities would be derived from tracked residential data based on citizens' race, sex, religion, and other federally protected demographics.

Multiple watchdog groups have raised serious and valid concerns about HUD's proposal. Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens wrote me in support of this amendment and stated:

We call on every Member of the House to support

Representative Gosar's amendment to defund HUD's scheme to

redraw zoning maps in any locality that accepts any part of

the $3.5 billion a year in Community Development Block Grants

from the Federal Government.

The utopian goal of creating evenly distributed

neighborhoods based on racial composition and income is bad

policy, and it is unconstitutional. HUD has no place in local

zoning decisions. Under federalism, that is left up to

States, counties, and municipalities to determine for

themselves.

At a time when the Supreme Court is roundly rejecting

racial quotas as unconstitutional, there is no place for

wasting taxpayer dollars on social engineering that will

never withstand judicial scrutiny.

Housing discrimination based on race has been illegal since

the 1960s, and people should be allowed to choose for

themselves where they live without D.C. bureaucrats

nationalizing zoning decisions for political reasons.

Representative Gosar deserves the thanks of all Americans

for his courage in taking on this backdoor attempt to

federalize our most basic living decisions.

Americans for Limited Government strongly supports Gosar's

amendment to defund racial quotas in local zoning decisions.

I sincerely appreciate the strong support of this respected watchdog group. I completely agree that this misguided proposal by HUD is a clear infringement by the Federal Government on municipalities. HUD is essentially creating a thinly veiled set of rules and regulations by which these communities must conform or face losing out on billions of dollars in grant money.

What has been so wrong with the process thus far? Are there a plethora of examples of discriminatory applications of these grants? Couldn't the Federal Government simply deny further moneys to those grantees proved to have engaged in discrimination?

American citizens and communities should be free to choose where they would like to live and not be subject to Federal neighborhood engineering at the behest of an overreaching central government.

Further, the Federal Government must not hold hostage what are traditionally grant moneys to improve communities based on its quixotic ideas of what it believes every community should resemble. Local zoning decisions have traditionally been and should always be made by local communities, not bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.

I ask my colleagues to support this commonsense amendment because it keeps the Federal Government from reorganizing communities to a fantastical standard.

I ask my colleagues to support this amendment because its aim is to treat municipalities and individual citizens as capable and intelligent rather than disenfranchised, divided, and coddled groups in need of protection from a problem that does not exist.

As always, I thank the chairman and ranking member for their continued work on the committee, and with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I appreciate the gentleman's point and his advocacy for the Fair Housing Act.

As I mentioned, I abhor racial discrimination, but to my knowledge, there is no widespread examples of these block grants being used for discriminatory practices.

Has the Community Development Block Grant system thus far been such a failure to warrant this rule? My concerns are numerous, but I will outline the main two.

First and foremost, this is a major violation of federalism. The Federal Government has a long history of infringing upon states' rights and the Tenth Amendment. This rule seeks to go even further and puts the Federal Government down into the municipal planning process. This overreach is disturbing and unfortunately all too common in the Obama administration.

Second, it really opens up a Pandora's box of problems related to unconstitutional practices. The government is essentially using this rule as a thinly veiled attempt to implement some sort of social justice.

But this rule leaves a lot to interpretation, not only at the Federal level, but at the local level. It is not difficult to imagine lawsuits flying in both directions if this rule is finalized.

For instance, HUD is trying to lay out a framework by which it wishes to see these grant monies used to better integrate societies, a solution which seems to be in search of a problem. In doing so, HUD places a large burden on communities to write plans and grant applications which necessitate unconstitutional and prejudicial practices. Jim Crow is dead, and the free market and local policies have driven decisions such as community planning for years now.

How does a community make plans to enact these types of social justice without taking into consideration factors which we frown upon, factors such as racial demographics?

Let's move to the next step in the process, which is when the community is submitting their plan and an application to HUD for consideration. That is also incredibly difficult. For instance, one portion of the application which would simply be meant to appease HUD's quixotic standards of utopian society may open up the applicant municipality for lawsuits from the left and right.

Then HUD is charged with evaluating these applications to determine whether or not to award the grant. What exact criteria will HUD use to make these determinations? Might it be possible that HUD will deny grant monies to applicants based on HUD's opinion that the zoning plan did not do enough to integrate racial or religious clusters? The mere idea that HUD will be making such approvals or denials based even partially on these factors is counterintuitive and runs contrary to American values.

Imagine a denial letter from HUD on one of these applications. It will read one of two basic ways:

The first scenario is: Dear Community A, your block grant application has been denied because your plan did not integrate people of different races, ethnicities, or religions into one area. That would likely lead to an immediate lawsuit in which the court would uphold the municipality's case.

The second scenario would be a lengthy and wordy denial which is vague enough so that HUD does not open itself up to a lawsuit, but also so vague that the applicant will likely never know how to correctly plan and apply for one of these grants.

We see there are two separate and distinct avenues by which major lawsuits could fly and constitutional challenges arise. Both the Federal Government and the local government would be setting themselves up for failure.

If these issues arise and court challenges ensue, we have seen the recent patterns from the U.S. Supreme Court on issues of racial quotas and attempts at racial diversity. Again, the solution is looking for a problem. The mere notion that the Federal Government must step in and tamper with the most local of politics to integrate people of various races, economic statuses, ethnicities, and religious backgrounds is offensive to me and many of my constituents.

Mr. Chairman, I have one last amendment at the desk, 129.

Mr. Chair, I rise to offer an amendment to save taxpayers money, to protect the civil liberties and privacy of my constituents in accordance with the Fourth Amendment, and to champion efforts of local law enforcement and those advocacy groups which work hand-in-hand to curb citizens from driving under the influence.

My amendment is simple. It seeks to prohibit funds from being used to administer the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's National Roadside Survey. This ``survey'' looks like and acts like a police checkpoint and uses uniformed officers to pull cars over.

I yield to the gentleman from Iowa.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and celebrate the Sesquicentennial of the city of Prescott, Arizona. The city of Prescott was founded in 1864 as the territorial capital of Arizona. Shortly after President Abraham Lincoln appointed the territory's first governor, John A. Gurley, Prescott was selected as the site of its first capital because of its mild climate and access to valuable natural resources such as water and gold.

In its 150 year history, the city of Prescott has been host and home to pioneers integral to both the story of Arizona and the United States. The city is recognized as home to the world's oldest rodeo where in 1888 local merchants organized the first professional ``Cowboy Tournament.'' It is also home to Arizona's first elected female official, Sharlot Hall, whose celebrated poem ``Arizona'' helped influence the U.S. Congress to admit Arizona and New Mexico into the Union as two separate states. Barry Goldwater launched his magnetic 1964 presidential campaign on the steps of the Yavapai County Courthouse; a campaign of principles that continues to influence political debate today.

The city of Prescott embodies the spirit of Arizona, the spirit of a free and fiercely independent people, of pioneers who forged

homes out of the desert and who continue to lead the community and state into the future. Congratulations on a momentous 150 years.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment which seeks to bolster an important program in the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriation Act. This an amendment is fully paid for by cutting wasteful spending, and specifically takes $8 million from the office space for the Department of Justice bureaucrats in order to bolster the prescription drug monitoring activities. This program is the Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program.

The gentleman, Mr. Rogers, is the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and he has spent years on the issue of combating prescription drug abuse in our great country. The problem is truly plaguing our streets, our youth, and our communities. Prescription drug abuse is contributing to addiction, health deterioration, and even untimely death amongst many of our friends and loved ones.

Prescription drug abuse also fuels demand for other illicit drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamines, ectasy, and heroine, much of which flows over our southwest border and into my home State of Arizona, along with human trafficking, gunrunning, and murder. I have seen drug abuse all over my State, and I know I am not the only Member who has been affected by the rampant drug abuse in my community.

As a dentist of 25 years, I am well aware of how easy it is and can be for doctors and patients to abuse the prescription drug system. With a background in chemistry and biology, I know how easy it can be for people, both young and old, to become addicted to these substances.

The primary purpose of the Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program is to enhance the capability, the capacity, of regulatory and law enforcement agencies to collect and analyze controlled substance prescription data through a centralized database administered by an authorized State agency. States that have implemented prescription drug monitoring programs can collect and analyze prescription data much more efficiently than States where the collection of the prescription information requires the manual review of pharmacy files.

It is this body's duty, through the annual appropriations process, to evaluate which programs are worthwhile and which ones are not. We must decide which programs should have their funding increased, which should be reduced, and which should have theirs zeroed out. It is not an easy job, but it is a job that each of us was elected to do.

The Prescription Drug Monitoring Program has shown promising results, but we must not give up on it. It is easy to overlook these issues, but I think our families, our friends, and our future generations deserve it. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this amendment.

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

Mr. Chair, I move to strike the last word.

I would like to speak on the amendment, and I yield to the chairman.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to stand with veterans throughout the country and offer a simple amendment that seeks to bolster funds in this act for the Veterans Treatment Court initiative.

My amendment pays for this modest increase for this critical initiative by reducing funds for salaries and expenses from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives by $6 million. The Bureau's salaries and expenses were increased by $21 million from fiscal year 2014 levels, with a proposed appropriation of $1.2 billion overall on this bill for the agency.

My amendment redirects funds from the bureaucrats in the mismanaged Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agency of to a worthy treatment program for our Nation's veterans.

Veterans Court promotes sobriety and recovery through coordinated local partnerships among community corrections agencies, drug treatment providers, the judiciary, and other important community support groups. Veterans Treatment Courts have been extremely successful since they were first created in 2008 by a Buffalo judge to combat the growing number of veterans appearing before the court who were addicted to drugs and alcohol, as well as suffering from mental illness.

Many of our Nation's heroes returning from combat are traumatized due to the associated violence and pressure of war and often cope with such feelings with substance abuse. They need focused treatment and a helping hand, and these courts provide such an avenue.

The alternative to funding the Veterans Treatment Court initiative is jail. I think we would all agree that providing treatment for our veterans through a community partnership at the local level is a far better option.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support the passage of my commonsense amendment and this worthwhile program.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment which seeks to bolster a critical law enforcement program within the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. That program is the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, also known as Byrne-JAG.

My amendment is fully paid for by cutting unnecessary spending elsewhere in the bill. Specifically, the Office of Justice Programs, Research, Evaluation, and Statistics budget was increased by $4.25 million from the FY14 levels. This amendment takes that increase and redirects those funds to the Byrne-JAG Grant Program to bolster law enforcement nationwide.

As we all know, one of the Federal Government's core responsibilities is to secure the peace.

The government establishes a National Guard and a standing military for security purposes, but it can also assist local law enforcement with funding, critical information, and joint efforts between local, State, and Federal officials, or any of these combined.

My home State of Arizona, in particular, has some serious issues and needs when it comes to law enforcement. Being that Arizona shares an international border with Mexico, we have seen increased amounts of illegal trafficking operations--from noncitizens to illicit drugs to illegal firearms.

I believe the Federal Government, in conjunction with State and local law enforcement, has a duty to uphold the rule of law and to combat these activities in the best ways possible.

My State of Arizona uses multijurisdictional task forces, or MJTFs.

It also funds probation-based drug monitoring programs and other probation-related services, including drug courts, pro bono defense services, and other metrics-based programs aimed at curbing drug abuse.

In the 2010 fiscal year, Byrne-JAG contributed to 58 worthwhile Arizona programs. This local investment assisted Arizona's 16 multijurisdictional drug task forces with arresting over 6,000 drug offenders. These same drug task forces seized over 847,000 grams of cocaine, nearly 50,000 grams of heroin, more than 200,000 grams of methamphetamine, over 300,000 pounds of marijuana, and more than 40,000 marijuana plants.

Finally, and perhaps most satisfying, the combined efforts of these drug task forces and tandem prosecution resulted in over $23 million in forfeited assets.

These Byrne-JAG programs nationwide have proven themselves worthy of sustained Federal resources.

As a member of the Congressional Law Enforcement Caucus, I will strive to keep American homes and communities safe by providing important resources to worthwhile law enforcement programs that protect local communities.

I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of my commonsense amendment.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.