Floor Statements

Madam Chair, as a business owner, this is what I get when I hear, The government is here to help us. Look at this red tape. Wow. That's what a small business has to put up with just to create a business. That's why I rise today in support of H.R. 4078, the Red Tape Reduction and Small Business Job Creation Act of 2012.

A recent report released from Gallup suggests that 46 percent of all small business owners have put a freeze on new hiring because they are worried about regulations and costs. Clearly, sensible solutions and reforms are needed. This bill will allow small businesses to be free of the burdensome yoke of government regulation. For far too long, stifling bureaucracy and meddlesome mandates have stagnated job growth. Red tape has tied the hands and the feet of employers and entrepreneurs alike.

Look at the maze. These binds which constrict the free flow of labor and capital will be cut by this bill, which simply states that any new major Federal regulations costing over $100 million may not be implemented until the unemployment rate falls to 6 percent. This will save an estimated $22.1 billion.

Just as important, the upside down roller coaster that our small businesses and entrepreneurs have been on for the past few years can finally stop. Americans looking to start businesses, expand their business facilities, or hire more workers can plan for the future and put our economy back on a path to prosperity.

As a small business owner for 25 years, I am acutely aware of the way in which restrictive regulations and rules can hold a business owner hostage. Let's free the private sector from this captivity. I urge a ``yes'' vote on the Red Tape Reduction and Small Business Job Creation Act.

I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of my amendment to H.R. 5856, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2013.

The amendment seeks to halt any potential Department of Defense funding from being used to aid States and organizations that pose real threats to the international community. My amendment is simple. It prohibits any DOD funds from being spent on the Government of Iran, the Government of Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Hezbollah.

The cases against each of these organizations are well documented. Each of them has either sponsored terror activities, performed terror activities, made threats of terror activities, or engaged in atrocious human rights violations. None of these organizations are particularly friendly to the United States, and each of them harbors hate towards our friend and ally, Israel.

Further, I know that some make the argument that sometimes foreign aid eases diplomatic relations with certain entities. While I do not discount that theorem, I do not believe that the United States should be disbursing any funding to any entity that promotes terror and violence. To that I say, trust is a series of promises kept, and we need to start with upholding good behavior, and that is by honoring previous promises.

This amendment is almost exactly the same as the amendment I offered to the last DOD appropriations bill, only that this amendment has included Damascus, due to the al-Assad regime's terrible atrocities of late. That amendment was adopted by voice vote in the House of Representatives.

I ask my colleagues to give my revised amendment the same unanimous approval as last time. In the words of the old American adage: We do not negotiate with terrorists.

I thank the chairman and the committee for their work, and I urge a ``yes'' vote on my amendment.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

I appreciate the gentleman, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 4402.

My home State of Arizona is known for the five Cs: cattle, cotton, citrus, climate, and, lastly, copper. People have been digging in Arizona for precious metals like copper for centuries. In the 1850s, nearly one in every four people in Arizona were miners. Without a doubt, mining fueled the growth that makes Arizona the State it is today.

Today, the Arizona mining industry is alive, but it is not what it used to be.

A wide array of other critical minerals such as copper, coal, uranium, lime, and potash are mined throughout my district. These projects employ hundreds of my constituents with high-paying jobs, jobs that pay over $50,000 to $60,000 a year plus benefits. In rural Arizona, those types of jobs are few and far between--in fact, they are few and far between across this country.

But there is some potential, and there's so much more. As you can see from the graphic, rare Earth and other critical minerals have been discovered throughout rural Arizona and are suitable for development. These are minerals our country badly needs to meet the demands for production of everyday items like cell phones, computers, batteries, and cars.

So what is the holdup?

As I travel throughout rural Arizona talking with companies that do business throughout my State, the message is clear. The length, the complexity, the uncertainty of the permitting process is stymieing the development of and discouraging investors from committing to U.S. mining.

If you do not believe this, how about a real life example? I will give you an example right out of rural Arizona. Down here in Safford, in the southeastern part of my district, is the home of the newest mine in North America. It took 13 years for all the necessary permitting. Imagine that. Time is money.

I was the first cosponsor of H.R. 4402 because the government has to work more efficiently. This legislation streamlines the process and sets benchmarks while ensuring continued environmental protection.

Let me be clear. Despite what the opposition says, this bill does not exempt the industry from complying with environmental regulations. It tackles the problems on the government approval process.

Let's restore some sanity into the permitting process.

If the current bureaucratic gridlock was in place 150 years ago, I do not believe Arizona could exist as it does today. Copper would not be one of our five founding Cs.

Let's restore some sanity to the permitting process and get American miners back to work. Vote ``yes'' on the National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act. Our economy deserves and depends on it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6079.

The court said Congress can impose new taxes, and the individual mandate is constitutional as a tax. As Dr. Seuss would rhyme: If it walks like a tax, talks like a tax, and quacks like a tax, the Supreme Court will tell us surely it is a tax. And so it did.

Maybe we can serve it with green eggs and ham.

Uncle Sam, I still don't think Americans will like this ObamaCare sham.

Uncle Sam, loyal to patient-centered choice I am.

As the ledgers on exploding costs are already showing us and the courts declared that day, a tax burden is what ObamaCare is, and Americans remain dismayed.

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

Mr. Speaker, finding Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr. in contempt of Congress is long overdue, but welcome news for the American people, and especially for Arizonans.

As I explained in my recent statement, Mr. Holder has shown his contempt and utter disdain for our constitutional rights, our border, Arizonans and all Americans; 115 Members of Congress agree that Americans lack confidence in Mr. Holder and his Department. Every Member of Congress should do their constitutional duty and hold the Attorney General to be in contempt today.

The people of Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas, who deal with the unsecured borders and violent Mexican cartels on a regular basis, now must also live in fear of these firearms.

Some have said that these charges against Attorney General Eric Holder are racially motivated, and I couldn't disagree more. The violent cartels armed by our government have no regard for party ID or race. Throughout our Nation and, specifically, in Arizona, folks from all political parties and all races are now living in danger of this lethal violence due to the actions of this administration.

Make no mistakes about it, today's vote is to deliver justice and accountability for the Brian Terry family and the over 300 Mexicans who have died as a result of Fast and Furious. Time's up.

Mr. Speaker, I join with my colleagues from Arizona to commend the Translational Genomics Research Institute for a decade of biomedical research success.

TGen was founded in Arizona in 2002 to leverage new scientific discoveries from the mapping of the human genome, and its establishment promptly accelerated the state into the era of genomics and personalized medicine.

Significant to TGen's establishment was the confluence of support from all sectors of the state to attract this new institute to base its operations in Arizona as well as recruit the renowned geneticist, Dr. Jeffrey Trent to lead it, and position the state as a worldwide leader in bioscience and medical discovery. Academic, business, philanthropic and government leaders all joined forces in a statewide campaign within a matter of months to strategically assemble the necessary support. The members of Arizona's delegation also rallied behind this collective vision.

What most excited Arizona leaders was the vision put forth by Dr. Jeff Trent, to accelerate and translate scientific discovery into more immediate and effective benefits for patients, all made possible with the new information from the human genome and rapidly developing technology.

It was on this day ten years ago, June 26, 2002, with high expectations and hopes, that Governor Hull and state leaders announced the successful launch of TGen and the genomics era in Arizona. A decade of exciting growth and new research discoveries has since transpired, with TGen's rising tide lifting all boats.

Investment into TGen and the biosciences spurred growth across the state, catalyzing the launch of the Critical Path Institute and Bio5 in southern Arizona, to ASU's Biodesign Institute and a northern Phoenix bio campus, and TGen North and expansion of W.L. Gore in northern Arizona. The bioindustry has flourished over the past ten years, even during economic downturns, becoming a significant high-performing sector of the Arizona economy.

For patients, TGen is offering hope where there had been none with novel treatments offered only in Arizona. By partnering with clinical entities like the Mayo Clinic and Scottsdale Healthcare, TGen is focusing on utilizing genomic analyses to improve and customize patient treatments. Patients with pancreatic cancer and rare diseases like basal cell carcinoma are finding answers to their treatment struggles, improving quality of patient lives and allowing more years to spend with loved ones. Whether it's sequencing anthrax or the plague, investigating H1N1 or Valley Fever; finding new clues to triple- negative breast cancer or Alzheimer's disease; or, leading new collaborative research partnerships addressing pediatric and canine cancers, TGen's research has made substantial inroads over the past ten years.

More than a decade ago, the mapping of human genome represented a challenge to the world to make use of this new knowledge for the benefit of humankind. Arizona answered this challenge and now TGen is leading the model to fuse modern medicine with the power of translational research to fuel the next wave of treatments for all manner of human diseases.

As the tenth-year anniversary of TGen's launch is celebrated today, I applaud Dr. Trent and the scientists at TGen for their unwavering commitment to make a difference for patients and lead innovative research for Arizona into the next decade.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I rise today in support of my amendment to H.R. 5972, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for the Fiscal Year of 2013.

The purposes of my amendment are straightforward and simple. First, the amendment aims to hold one particular Federal agency accountable for its terrible mismanagement of resources, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.

Second, the amendment saves over $24 million in taxpayer dollars during these trying economic times. I was perturbed to read that Appropriations Committee Report numbered 112-541 as it related to HUD's administrative operations and management. I will read an excerpt from page 71 here:

While the Committee appreciates the expanded Congressional

Budget Justifications the Department submitted, the committee

is appalled with the quality of the information the

Department and administration provide throughout the year to

explain and to justify their budget requests. HUD does not

have adequate knowledge of the number of people

it takes to implement a program. Further, the information HUD

provides is often wrong, contains mathematical errors, and

calls into question HUD's entire Congressional Budget

Justification and the Department's competence in managing its

resources.

On the following page, the report goes on to show that HUD cannot account for much of its data regarding salary and benefit levels for its employees. HUD also violated the Anti-Deficiency Act multiple times in FY 2011, in which the Department hired more people than it had resources to pay.

Let me say that I do appreciate the committee's awareness of the situation and its desire to lower funding levels in this bill, as compared to last year's levels. But I believe that HUD's administrative, operations and management resources can and should be reduced to FY 2008 levels. This is a reasonable level of funding that allowed them to do their job during very troubling economic times. Unfortunately, we still live in such times; and that fact, combined with their negligence, means that they must operate with less. Business incompetence isn't an answer and cannot be rewarded within any budget.

For these reasons, I ask each Member of the House to support my amendment to the underlying bill. This is a win-win for the American taxpayer. You can cast a vote to hold government accountable and reduce the deficit, and you have the ability. Join me in supporting this commonsense amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, outside these walls people across our country are suffering. Electric bills and gasoline prices are increasing as we enter the heat of the summer.

Over 13 million Americans are still without work. Our constituents are counting on us to take action.

The Republican-led House has been leading the way with solutions to our country's energy problems. The bill before us today, the Domestic Energy and Jobs Act, is just another part of that agenda. It will remove government roadblocks and bureaucratic red tape that hinder onshore oil, natural gas, and renewable energy production and facilitate job creation. This act truly embraces an all-of-the-above approach that our country so desperately needs.

A country is only as strong as its people. Henry Ford II once said:

What's right about America is although we have a mess of

problems, we have great capacity--intellect and resources--to

do something about them.

Let's use that capacity to address our country's energy crisis and put people back to work. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the Domestic Energy and Jobs Act.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of my friend Trent Franks' legislation, H.R. 2938.

Ten years ago, stakeholders from across the State of Arizona gathered together to come up with a 21st-century plan to manage gaming activity. As part of that final agreement, many tribes agreed to forgo building a casino to share revenues as a whole. Gaming revenues were set aside for education, health care, and other measures to improve the lives of average tribal members.

The key part of that compact was a tribal agreement that no new additional casinos would be permitted in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The Tohono O'odham Nation agreed to those terms; but as they agreed to one thing publicly, they were preparing privately to undermine the entire agreement. The tribe has since acquired land in Glendale and has made it clear they intend to break their agreement and establish a casino on that land. This legislation ensures the Tohono O'odham Nation must keep the promise they made in 2002 to the other tribes, the State, and our constituents.

Additionally, the small, but vocal, opposition to this legislation claims the bill before us seeks to unilaterally nullify an Indian water rights settlement. I assure my House colleagues that statement is false. Water rights associated with the Gila Bend reservation were settled in the Arizona Water Rights Settlement Act of 2004, not the Gila Bend Act.

The passage of H.R. 2938 would not affect the State adjudication of water rights. Any claims to water rights based on aboriginal occupancy that Tohono might have claimed were also waived in the tribe's separate water rights settlement, an act that provided for a complete and total waiver of all such water rights in exchange for substantial consideration and payments. Last fall, the Department of the Interior testified on this bill, and water rights were not mentioned. The committee resolved any concerns during the markup of the bill.

Today's debate is not about jobs or Native American water rights. It is about protecting the integrity of Arizona's gaming compact and preventing a dangerous precedent that could lead to the expansion of off-reservation casinos in other States.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 2938.

I have an amendment at the table.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today and speak of my simple and straightforward amendment.

My amendment would reduce funding at the United States Botanic Garden to the levels appropriated in 2009, which equals just over a $1.2 million cut. That money would then be transferred to the spending reduction account so that we can take one more step towards reining in Federal spending.

I will be the first to say I appreciate the Botanic Garden and its beauty. I believe it is a great program, and I am personally interested in botany. But Members of Congress are often faced with difficult choices, especially given our current fiscal crisis. There are programs that are constitutionally mandated and other programs that are nice but are not constitutionally mandated. This is one program that is nice, but it cannot be immune from the fiscal pressures facing our government.

While the Botanic Garden is a wonderful attraction, Congress must seek to limit excess spending in the name of getting our fiscal house in order. No line item can be overlooked in making these assessments and decisions, including our own office budget, as we on the House side have demonstrated.

Mr. Chairman, so many families are tightening their belts during these trying economic times. Congress must do the same and make cuts where it can.

I ask each of the Members to vote in favor of the Gosar amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall vote No. 377, I was unable to make it to the floor in time for the vote due to a previously scheduled meeting with constituents. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Stated against:

I move to strike the last word.

I am from Arizona, and I am proud to rise in support of this amendment because no other State has suffered the consequences like we have in Arizona and will continue to.

Let's think of the ramifications of what transpired here. We did not follow proper protocol in allowing guns to walk. We didn't even know where they were--and we still don't know where they are--and yet Arizona will suffer the consequences of those guns on our side of the border. Let's take a look at the other aspect. What about the Mexican people? Where is the outcry? Where is the justice? Here we've had the Hispanic people who have lost over 300 people to this impropriety--and it was overseen by the Federal Government and the Department of Justice? This is outrageous.

I am glad that what we're doing is defunding this aspect in order to make sure that we know what's right and what's wrong and in order to hold people accountable for the cover-up that has occurred. But think about it. Have we ever seen something of this atrocity? We've actually overstepped the oversight and sovereignty of the Mexican Government.

What we need are answers. The American people need the answers, and the folks from Arizona need the answers. We want to make sure that those who are accountable are held perfectly to that standard like everybody else. Yes, we have not seen the documentation. The other side says that we have seen the documentation and that everybody has been held accountable. That's wrong. That's absolutely wrong. Take it from somebody from Arizona who has had to live under this Department of Justice. We want to make sure that we have accountability.

Last but not least, what about the Brian Terry family? When we look at the whole oversight of this egregious operation, did it have to take the life of a brave soldier, Brian Terry? That's what it took to even come to this situation. It cannot be repeated. Absolutely, it cannot be repeated.

I am glad that my colleague has offered this amendment to make sure that we do not give funding for those who are in the Department of Justice and, if they do, that they are held to the letter of the law.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I move to strike the last word.

I am proud of my colleague from Arizona for bringing up this amendment, and I am tired of the Department of Justice dictating to the States. It's about time that we embellished and supported States to actually help us with this. And I want to remind our colleagues, if it's good enough for us--here's my card in order to vote--it should be good enough for the rest of the United States. What we do in Congress we should do for the rest of the country, and this is where it starts.

There are so many things that we can talk about, but it's about time that we stopped suing States. And I think this is a great amendment-- rewarding good behavior instead of rewarding bad behavior--and giving our Department of Justice an outline of what good behavior is, because I think they've lost their way.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, this House has a critical opportunity to reform the Federal contracting process, save the taxpayers billions of dollars, and spur job creation. Last Thursday, I introduced the Fiscal Responsibility in Federal Contracting Act to suspend the Davis-Bacon Act for 10 years.

The Davis-Bacon Act requires the Department of Labor to, essentially, set wage rates for workers on Federal construction projects. The metrics used to come up with these wages are deeply flawed and inflate the labor costs of Federal construction projects by 22 percent.

Suspending this act, as Presidents of both parties have done in the past, would save the taxpayers billions per year and empower Federal contractors to employ more people on their projects. Imagine getting five Federal projects for the price of four. That's a win/win for the U.S. taxpayer and construction workers.

I urge my colleagues to join me in this important reform bill by cosponsoring H.R. 4403.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of my legislation, H.R. 1038, legislation that settles a Federal land boundary dispute in the Mountainaire subdivision in Coconino County, Arizona. This legislation is a commonsense solution to an incomprehensible Federal land situation.

In 1961, the Federal Government conducted a survey in which several acres of the United States Forest Service land were misidentified as private property. It was not until 2007, when the Federal Government contracted another private survey, that the mistakes were realized, and the residents of the Mountainaire neighborhood were informed of these errors.

Until the 2007 survey, many of these residents had maintained these parcels and had developed them as their own for years and, in some cases, decades. In essence, the Federal Government seized lands that residents had maintained, developed, and paid taxes on for years.

So what does this mean?

On some of these parcels, the revised boundary goes right through the portions of the residents' homes, literally right through people's homes. Can you imagine the Forest Service, if they told you we own half of your living room?

Questions associated with the land ownership have plummeted property values in the neighborhood and prevented a number of owners from selling their homes.

For years, the residents of this neighborhood have tried to work individually with the Forest Service to settle the situation administratively. It did not work. So I put forth this legislation to solve the problem immediately.

H.R. 1038 authorizes the Forest Service to convey all rights, titles, and interests in approximately 2.67 acres of the Coconino National Forest to the homeowners. It will provide much-needed relief to my constituents in the Mountainaire subdivision in Coconino County.

In exchange for the land, the homeowners pay a fee. The $20,000, required in the bill, which was agreed to by all parties, including representatives from the local national forest, is based on precedence, the Northern Arizona Land Exchange legislation. This legislation pertained to a small piece of property within the same county.

Frankly, I do not believe these constituents should have to pay anything to retain property rights on land they have developed and paid taxes on as property owners for decades. However, I have agreed to this compromise, a compromise agreed upon by all parties, because my constituents need this situation fixed now.

The Forest Service does not want to own these people's living rooms, and the property owners certainly don't want to share their homes or yards with the Forest Service. This bill is a no-brainer. Everyone supports it, including the administration.

Before I conclude, I want to thank the residents of the Mountainaire neighborhood and Coconino County. They worked with my office to put together a video, to call members of the committee, and to advocate on behalf of this bill. Without this teamwork, we would not have garnered unanimous support at the committee level and would not be voting on this bill today.

I would also like to thank Chairmen Hastings and Bishop and their staffs for pushing this bill forward. While this bill affects a small amount of land, it is vital to the livelihoods of my constituents that are affected.

It is not often that Congress gets the opportunity to take up noncontroversial legislation like H.R. 1038. I encourage my colleagues to vote in favor of this legislation and relieve my constituents of this financially burdensome situation.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Madam Chair, I rise in support of the Sportsmen's Heritage Act of 2012. I have lived in rural America my entire life, where hunting, fishing, and sport shooting are more than just hobbies--they are a way of life.

Unfortunately, in Arizona, where the Federal Government administers nearly 50 percent of our land, recreational activities are being restricted by ill-advised land management decisions. BLM has shut down nearly 72,000 acres in Agua Fria and is targeting 600,000 more at the Sonoran Desert and the Ironwood Forest National Monument.

The bill we are considering today removes government roadblocks to these activities and guards against new regulations that threaten to block or limit access to hunting and fishing. Our way of life should not be infringed upon because of the prejudices of bureaucrats who do not understand the lifestyles of sportsmen in rural America.

I urge my colleagues to protect jobs, economic growth, and the traditional right of American sportsmen to hunt and fish. Vote ``yes'' on H.R. 4089, the Sportsmen's Heritage Act.