Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, now here, a group has done an assessment of the various State regulatory regimes, and as you can see, they vary tremendously. They think that the best is Maryland. There are others gathered toward the top, the middle, and then way down here at the bottom, you have Virginia.

Some States require comprehensive pressure testing of the casing. That is essential, particularly if you are going through the water table to get to the gas. If you get the leaks, then you destroy the water table. Some States don't require that.

Some States require that you contain the fluids that come back up, the waste products laden with toxic materials not only from the fluids but from the ground itself. Other States allow it to be in open pits.

Some States require disclosure of the chemicals that are used. Now how can you say there has been no contamination when there are contaminated wells in many places across the U.S.? Some of it has to do with baseline contamination with arsenic or other things, but if you don't know what they are sticking into the ground near your well or water table, you can't track what it is that was a baseline before and/ or what is pollution that has resulted. We don't know that. So why not require disclosure of the chemicals?

We are having a gold rush right now for fracking. It is not exactly like this is going to have an impact if we put in place a reasonable floor of Federal regulations. One Macondo, just one Macondo in this industry, one well that blows out in a large aquifer or some other disaster, and this whole thing is going to come grinding to a halt, and then you are going to see a strong push-back for strong regulations.

Quite frankly, I don't think that the regulations being proposed by this administration are stringent enough for a floor. They are probably above maybe some of these people on the bottom, but they are way below some of the best-performing States here.

Why should it be different State to State to State? What is it? Do we want to protect the above ground resources and not have open pits? Well, under this bill, if you have an open pit, it is on a flyway, migratory birds land there and die quickly, the Federal Government can't do anything about it. If that State allows open pits, we can't do anything about that. That is up to that State, and that is a fact. A number of States allow open pits.

We should have a regulatory regime where the Federal Government, on its lands, which belong to all the people of the United States, sets a reasonable floor for regulations. If a State like Maryland wants to go above good, solid regulations, well, then, good. But if someone else is a bad actor, and they want to drag it down, and they want to have open pits, they don't want to test the casing, they don't want to do other things that are absolutely essential to protect resources, then they can do that on Federal lands?

It is bad enough that they are allowing people to do it on private lands and do it on their State lands. But these are Federal lands. We are going to require and should require a higher bar to protect the public, to protect the environment, to protect these precious resources and do this responsibly.

I thank the gentleman for the question.

It was done by an advocacy group called Resources for the Future. It is kind of like your study that says it will cost $350 million, which was done by industry. It is an advocacy group. You have an industry advocacy group. We have an environmental advocacy group.

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

Mr. Chairman, this is an amendment that I think will help deliver on some of the promises being made here today. This would say that natural gas produced on Federal lands, on Federal lands only, would not be allowed to be exported from the United States.

Now, the principal argument we are hearing on the Republican side is that, by adopting their standard, which they say is the states' rights standards--I have already raised concerns about that on fracking--that it will encourage yet more development on Federal lands, increase our domestic energy supply, and free us from the OPEC cartel. Okay. But that won't work if we produce energy on Federal lands and then we export it to other countries like China or Japan or elsewhere.

The Energy Information Administration has done a study. They say there will be a tipping point in the export of liquefied natural gas where we will create a world market; we will be subject to the world price. That means that there would be a dramatic increase in gas prices here in the United States both for residential, factory use, and as an input for manufacturing fertilizer or other sorts of manufacturing.

So, suddenly, we would see an advantage which we have only very, very recently developed. We have manufacturing companies bringing production back to the U.S. because of our plentiful natural gas and saying it is to our advantage, our energy is cheaper here, our feed stocks are cheaper here. This is a tremendous advantage for us, and they are producing here and exporting finished goods.

If we begin to export in great volume the raw material, the feed stock, the natural gas through a liquefied process, then suddenly it will be we are in the international market. It means a dramatic run-up in natural gas prices. We lose our competitive advantage for domestic manufacturing, and we are back where we are with oil, despite the idea that if we produce more oil we will somehow become free of OPEC or other countries around the world.

The fact is that oil is traded as an international commodity, and no matter how much we produce here, it is going to be priced internationally at the highest price being paid in the international market. That is not so today for natural gas. But if we export enough of it and create enough capacity to export it, that will become the case.

So this would have no impact on gas produced on State lands, Indian lands, private lands. It just simply says that that approximately 15 percent of the natural gas being produced on Federal lands could not be exported, must be used domestically to keep prices down here at home to advantage manufacturers here at home.

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

To the gentleman's point, it is absolutely clear. It says ``gas.'' It does not say products derived from gas, fertilizer, or manufactured plastic or anything else. It just says the gas must be sold here in the United States.

He admits and says that it will make it less valuable. That means he is looking at increasing the price of natural gas here to accommodate exports overseas to put us in a world market. Then we are, yet again, screwed, just like we

have been with oil for years. We are back to the point where we are competing in an international market. We lose international competitiveness. We lose more manufacturing.

This is pretty transparent here. I mean, the industry is pressuring, I am sure, on their side of the aisle, saying, Oh, my God, don't do that. Don't say that that 15 percent of the gas produced on Federal lands, belonging to the taxpayers of United States, has to be used here to help keep down our prices for our homes, for our manufacturing, to give us a competitive world advantage. Let's do it like all our other free trade, which is bankrupting the country and exported millions of manufacturing jobs over the last few years.

He talked about it again. Globally decided free market. He used those words. If we go to a globally decided free market in the export of natural gas, we lose the advantage, and their basic premise that this will lower prices for Americans is stood on its head.

If you don't adopt this amendment, if you vote against it, you are voting to increase the price of natural gas, according to the Energy Information Administration, for all consumers and manufacturers and the downstream products from those in the United States of America. So, if you really want to lower the price to consumers, vote for this amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I was listening with interest to some of the statements made earlier in the debate about the administration deliberately restraining the oil and gas industry in this country. Actually, the facts belie those statements.

The Federal lands oil production is growing faster than that on private lands--plus 30, plus 35. Obviously, they start with a larger base, but still it is growing faster. So that hardly shows any deliberate attempts by the Obama administration to limit this production.

And, again, Republicans talk about that the President had not leased an adequate amount of land. But if you look, these little photos are of former President George Bush, and when the lines start to go up, these are from the current President, Barack Obama, and onshore oil production on Federal lands is up 35 percent.

So let's deal with what the real intent here is. The Obama administration has an all-of-the-above strategy. They are trying to produce these resources responsibly. The other side of the aisle would have us believe that environmental laws and other restrictions and an intentional campaign by the Obama administration are making us vulnerable to foreign influences. Actually, our imports were at the lowest level in recent history in the last year. We are producing more and more of our own oil and are headed toward self-sufficiency. But we also have to deal with climate change, and we also have to deal with prices to consumers.

Now, with this legislation, we are actually celebrating Thanksgiving a week early. I would call the bill a turkey. But it is not just a turkey; it is leftovers from Turkey Day, because we have actually passed this legislation previously, and it went nowhere previously, as will this legislation here today.

But they want to pretend that this will somehow benefit consumers and that somehow there is a campaign by the Obama administration to restrain the supply. Nothing could be further from the truth. I will have an amendment later.

If we want to drive down prices at the pump tomorrow by 70 cents, it is pretty simple: just stop the speculation on Wall Street. But I will talk about that more later.

There are a number of provisions in this bill that are egregious. I don't have time to go into all of them, but there are a few things. As I mentioned earlier, basically do away with environmental protections, muzzle the public's voice in terms of them appealing decisions by the distant Federal Government to develop in their backyard or next door, you know, to elevate oil and gas drilling to the predominant use on any Federal public lands--yes, predominant use over and above hunting, fishing, recreation. Anything else, oil and gas is predominant.

Now, the President also said, You know what? I think that we ought to go out and look at these parcels before we lease them. That is something they didn't do in the Bush era. We have 25-year-old land use plans at many of these agencies. They are understaffed. They are behind. They haven't revised their land use plans in a long time. A lot of things have happened in the last 25 years, and it might be that there is now a ski resort right next to an area that was previously available or was potentially available for oil and gas leasing.

The Obama administration said we ought to go out and look to see how it can impact other activities that have come to the floor in the last 25 years. They are being criticized for that. Now, that does take a little bit of time, but they are saying, hey, some States are allowing private lands to go forward in 10 days. These aren't private lands. These are the lands of the people of the United States of America. I think a little more due diligence is in order. We don't want to mimic a State that says, Oh, you want to drill there? Okay. Here you go. No one gets to say anything about it. It is your land. You go right ahead.

Then, this is amazing. This is kind of a fun math issue. They say that the industry can nominate land, which is the current law, but they are saying the government must lease 25 percent of whatever the industry chooses to nominate in a given year. So there are 130 million acres available for oil and gas leasing in the United States, predominantly in the West. So in the first year, the industry nominates 130 million acres. That means the Interior Department has to offer 32 million acres to lease. Now, next year, well, we have only got 100 million left, so they would get 25 percent of that. That is 25 million acres.

As you can figure it out, we are sort of infinitely headed toward zero here. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) is a scientist. He can probably figure it out better. I don't know if we would ever get to zero. But it would be in ever and ever smaller increments that we were leasing here. And yet there are 25 million acres that the industry has under lease that they haven't yet developed, but they could get this astonishing increase.

I was thinking of bringing a map of all the leasable land, but it would be difficult to produce. But you can get it in your imagination.

So let's deal with the real problems before us. If we are going to produce energy on Federal lands, make sure there is no real conflict. Let's keep the multiple use concept. I think most members of the public support that, not give oil and gas a predominant use. Let's also keep in mind that we have to look at alternative energy development on Federal lands so that we can deal with climate change, which some of us believe in.

This warmed-over leftover turkey proposal will pass the House, of course, but that will be the last that anyone hears of it. Happy Thanksgiving.

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

Mr. Chairman, much of the majority's argument here is based on providing relief to the American consumer, and this amendment would provide a real and potentially immediate relief to American consumers.

Two years ago in the Senate, in the spring when we were having a big run-up in oil prices, they had the head of Exxon Mobil testify. He said, Hey, don't blame us for those high prices. He said, Blame Wall Street. He basically said that 60 cents to 70 cents per gallon at the pump is going to Wall Street speculators. So if we want to provide real relief to the American people, we need to rein in speculation.

But the Republicans only have one watchdog out there--the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. They are supposed to set up position limits for nonparticipants, people just speculating on price, not people actually utilizing these commodities. That hasn't been done, and they are otherwise under relenting attack, including a $10 million cut in their budget by the Republicans.

So if we really wanted to do something to help consumers, we would pass this amendment, get a few more watchdogs downtown, put in place those position limits on speculators, and next May you wouldn't see prices run up $1, $1.25, $1.50 a gallon like we see every May. That has to do with two things: refinery manipulation by the industry and speculation by Wall Street. We are not addressing either of those things.

Today, we are talking about putting more land up for leasing. And today, we have a total of 35,397,010 acres of active leases, and the nonproducing leases are 30,019,256, i.e., that is about 85 percent of the leases that are nonproducing leases.

They have got plenty of places to go now. It is in their interest to constrain supply somewhere along the way. It hasn't been on the side of production because we are exporting crude oil. We are still exporting gasoline, even. It has been on the refinery side and has been speculation by Wall Street that has driven up the price.

I urge adoption of this amendment and reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time I have left?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

Mr. Chairman, according to MIT, then, the head of Exxon Mobil perjured himself under oath at the Senate and the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis is wrong because they have an in-depth study not paid for by the industry that says, indeed, speculation is a major factor.

Here is over 1 month where you see the price vary by up to $11 per day.Now, you tell me that the supply changed by $11 worth in a day and then, whoops, the next day it is back down? Then, Ben Bernanke said he saw a further decline coming and the industry tanked oil futures by $6.

This is pure speculation. Don't defend it. Support the amendment and give the American people real relief from high gas prices that are unnecessary.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, on July 27, 2013 we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the end of the Korean War. By signing the armistice agreement, the border between the Koreas near the 38th Parallel was established. It was in the wake of this armistice that Holt International Children's Services first began its compassionate work, and today continues to be a leader in the field of adoption and child welfare issues.

Harry and Bertha Holt of Eugene, Oregon were from humble means--Harry a lumberjack and a farmer and Bertha a nurse. In 1954, the Holts went to a small high school auditorium to view a film about Amerasian children living in South Korean orphanages. Moved by the film, their faith and a firm belief that all children deserve permanent, loving homes, the Holts began their lifelong mission in 1955 to revolutionize intercountry adoption.

At the time, there were no laws allowing children to immigrate from one country to another for the purpose of adoption. Overcoming legal and cultural barriers, Mr. and Mrs. Holt sought families for children orphaned by the Korean War. The Holts persuaded Oregon United States Senator Richard Neuberger to introduce legislation titled ``The Relief of Certain Korean War Orphans.'' The legislation became law on August 11, 1955, enabling the Holts to adopt eight Korean War orphans: Joseph Han, Mary Chae, Helen Chan, Paul Kim, Betty Rhee, Robert Chae, Christine Lee and Nathanial Chae. With this act of love and the founding of their agency, Holt International Children's Services, two farmers from rural Oregon pioneered international adoption.

Today, Holt International strives to uphold Harry and Bertha's vision to find loving homes for children regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or gender. Holt is committed to finding

families for children, not children for families, an important distinction that sets the tone and priorities for Holt. Since the 1955 act, Holt has placed 49,630 children from 31 countries with families in all fifty states. As the oldest intercountry adoption agency, Holt is the only organization that has more than three generations of adult adoptees.

Holt continues to play an active and vital role in establishing policy and practice for intercountry adoption. In 1993, Holt adoptees Susan Cox and David Kim were members of the U.S. delegation to the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, an agreement which sets international standards for intercountry adoption that protects the child, the birth family and the adoptive family. Later, in 2008, Holt was a leading advocate in ensuring the U.S. ratify the Hague treaty. Holt believes that adoption is a life long experience and has been at the forefront of developing post adoption services to ensure that adoptees grow and develop to their fullest potential.

In addition to these monumental accomplishments, Holt International has become much more than an adoption agency. When considering a child's future, Holt always keeps the child's best interest at the forefront of every decision. For some children adoption is the only option, but Holt realizes that it is not the first option for children without families. Holt believes that it is best if children can stay with their birth family. Over the years, Holt has worked to develop and maintain programs overseas to give orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children safe and nurturing environments in which to grow and thrive. These overseas programs include initiatives directed at Family Preservation, Nutrition Support, Child and Maternal Health, Income Generation, Assisting Children with Special Needs, and Shaping and Establishing Intercountry Child Welfare Systems. Through these initiatives, Holt impacts approximately thirty thousand children each year and helps to ensure that children at all stages of need are provided for in an effort to avoid the separation of families.

In November, as we celebrate National Adoption Month, it is appropriate to recognize Holt International Children's Services for its diligent efforts and accomplishments in the field of child-welfare and intercountry adoption that have impacted thousands of children in the United States and around the world.

I thank the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall), the ranking member, and I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster), the chairman, as well as the subcommittee chair and ranking member.

This is a recognition of the extraordinary importance of Federal investment in the infrastructure of the United States of America to engage in both domestic and international commerce. Sometimes that seems to be lacking around here. We seem to lump everything the Federal Government does into one big pot, and if you have got something you don't like, it kind of all gets associated together.

This is a program that will be paid for out of the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund. Yes, there is a trust fund--sort of, kind of. It has got $7 billion of theoretical balance in it. Unfortunately, our friends on the Appropriations Committee have seen fit to spend that $7 billion on other things because it is not a real trust fund.

This legislation will begin to move us back toward utilizing those dedicated tax dollars in a dedicated way to maintaining the port and maritime infrastructure of the United States of America. I mean, here we are today, the Corps of Engineers has stopped dredging all small ports. I will tell you what; that is kind of a disaster in my State, and it is a disaster all around the country.

I have one port where they have to take the boats out of the water onto a dock, and they are having trouble even now getting into that port at high tide to get the boats up onto the dock. I have other channel entrances that are shoaling and becoming dangerous. We are going to lose lives because the Corps doesn't have the money to do the work. We have jetties that are failing. If we fix them now, $10 million, $15 million; if they go totally a failure, $50 million. Now, what sense does that make? But we are the United States of America. We can't afford to do the $10 to $15 million now. We have dams and locks that are failing. Are we going to wait until they fail or are we going to do the repairs now?

This bill begins to move us in the direction of doing the repairs that are needed to better move commerce, people, and goods in this country. It is long, long overdue. And this bill has a 10 percent set- aside which will be dedicated to the small ports.

This year, I had to get my State to partner with the Federal Government so the Federal Government would bring the four dredges with the Corps crews down to dredge my small ports, paid for by the State of Oregon. My State doesn't have a lot of money, but we partnered and we did that. There are innovative solutions that will work, too. But long term, we need the full investment. We need the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund dollars to be spent on needed harbor maintenance.

As I mentioned earlier, I have a jetty at Coos Bay that is failing. We could fix it now for less or a lot more later. We have a jetty on the Columbia River that is failing. We can fix it now for less or a lot more later. That is repeated all around the country.

And I am glad to see today the bipartisan work here and the agreement on the critical infrastructure role that only the Federal Government can play using funds raised federally on imports into the United States of America, a tariff that is placed on those that is dedicated to these functions. It is a paid-for program. We need it now.

I congratulate Members for their good work.

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would delay the environmental shortcuts in section 103 until the Secretary certifies that the Corps has significantly reduced the backlog of projects that have already been approved, using the current environmental review process--already been approved.

The reason we are doing this is to make the point that this shortcut process would undermine environmental protections and critical public participation under NEPA and other conservation laws. Combined with strict timelines and limited funding for feasibility studies, it guarantees the Corps will not have the information it needs to plan major projects with broad environmental impact.

There is no evidence that the public participation environmental review process has caused delay. In the hearings on H.R. 3080, no witness identified a single project where that had been the case. When asked directly about why Corps projects take years to implement, the common answer was: lack of available appropriations at critical times during project development and construction.

The problem is not NEPA. The problem is that this Congress has failed to appropriate enough money to keep up with the projects we authorized. WRDA 2007 authorized $23 billion in new projects. Few have even been started. The estimated cost of completion of Corps projects currently under construction is another $20 billion.

In stark contrast, the most recent appropriation of the Corps' construction budget was $12.2 billion. If the Ryan budget is adopted-- well, it was adopted in the House, but not implemented--that number would be even lower, pathetically lower.

Clearly, complying with NEPA and other environmental and public participation requirements is not the reason we have a backlog of projects worth billions of dollars.

Congress should appropriate--and this bill is a start--the funding needed to allow these projects which have already been approved, using all existing environmental review requirements, to be completed before we implement any new shortcuts.

A more thoughtful approach, as we work through this backlog over the next 5, 6, 10, 15 years at the current rate of spending--or 25 or 50 years at Ryan spending--would be to bifurcate the process. If we identified that there was a delay, particularly for repair, rehabilitation, replacement, or minor projects, we could streamline those under the House or Senate provisions, but major projects should still go through a full review so that we don't end up later in endless litigation over those very same projects.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to the time remaining.

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

I have one more speaker.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Sheila Jackson Lee.

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlelady from California (Ms. Lee).

I thank the chairman for his generosity, and I yield myself the balance of the time.

Mr. Chairman, I think there is substantial agreement here in that we need to put more investment into critical water infrastructure projects. This bill begins to do that. We want to do it in the most thoughtful way possible. Some of these projects will alter local or regional environmental resources forever, sometimes to mitigate, sometimes, perhaps, not so much if they are not well thought out. Many of these projects are designed to last for 100 years or more. It certainly would behoove us to spend a little bit of time fully vetting these projects before we authorize them and move forward.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.

I think there is a little misunderstanding here. This is not about a new agency or giving agencies new regulatory authority or direction. I will use a simple example.

We have great prospects for wave energy off the Northwest coast. We had a really great wave period doing research at Oregon State. I have a couple of private companies interested, but there are at least three Federal agencies involved. Simply what this executive order does is require that those agencies coordinate and they don't stovepipe, they don't work in silos. So when

the wave developer goes to FERC, FERC will also have in the room NOAA, Marine Fisheries; the Pacific Fisheries Management Council will be involved; the other Federal agencies that have jurisdiction will be involved, and we won't end up going through one process with one agency, getting to the end of that, and then having another agency saying, ``Wait a minute. You didn't talk to us.''

This just happened with the bridge over the Columbia River to Washington State where the Coast Guard came in very late and said, ``Wait a minute. We have height concerns about passage under this bridge.'' Had it been coordinated terrestrially inland in the same way that the President is imposing for agencies to work in the ocean, we will have a better, more comprehensive process that serves all interests.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, this irresponsible, unnecessary, politically motivated government shutdown is unacceptable for all Americans, but it is particularly offensive to those in Indian Country.

The government's trust obligation to the tribes is not a discretionary act; it is a fiduciary responsibility. To assume that money associated with that fiduciary responsibility can be bartered or used as a political football is more than insulting.

It is another example here of tabloid legislating, ripping issues from the headlines and trying to legislate based on negative public reaction to just some part of the Republican government shutdown. It is kind of like a game of Whac-A-Mole, where an issue pops up and the far right pretends to care suddenly--Gee, we didn't know this would happen if we shut down the government--and they draft a continuing resolution to cover it--or their posteriors.

Now, where was all of this concern for the tribes when sequestration kicked in? Where is the compassion for the poverty faced by our first Americans every day, not just when it is politically expedient? Where has the compassion been to address the high rates of unemployment, educational challenges, access to resources, challenges tribal people face every day, challenges that have only been made worse by the Republican sequester?

This is so cynical. Not only does the temporary measure for tribes inadequately fund the few programs it identifies, picks, and chooses, but it neglects other critical programs inside and outside the Department of the Interior.

What about the Office of the Special Trustee? We haven't done so well as trustees of the moneys of the Indian nations recently. We need the Office of the Special Trustee. Oh, it is closed.

What about the Bureau of Reclamation office that disburses settlements for Indian water rights? Closed.

How about the Native American Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program? Closed.

Tribal nutrition programs? Closed.

Even if this bill passed and became law, those would all still be closed. I guess their compassion only goes so far. There are many other things missing from this bill. I could go on and on.

Already, sequestration has disproportionately impacted Indian Country. We don't need to rub salt in the wound with this continuing resolution that provides only one-third of the funding for these nations.

The irresponsible tactics need to cease. We need to open up our government to the first Americans and all Americans. It is simple.

We offered unanimous consent requests last Saturday before the Republicans adjourned in a huff and went off for a couple of days while the government was shut down. Any one of those acceded to could have brought a vote on a 6-week continuation of government at the Republican levels of funding with sequestration. That is a concession on the part of Democrats. It is your budget, those lower numbers, the Ryan budget. You could have done that. You wouldn't do it. You changed the rules of the House so we couldn't bring it up as a privileged resolution, and then you pretend to care.

Come on, guys. You can do better than that.

This morning, 186 Democrats signed a petition to end the Republican shutdown and routinely continue to fund the government through November 15 while we work out our differences.

We need only 32 more signatures. I expect every Democrat to sign. Will some on the other side of the aisle cross over to reopen the government, go back to regular order, and negotiate our differences without a shutdown government, without threatening to default on the United States of America?

Earlier, we tried to bring up a bill that would do that under unanimous consent, but the Republicans changed the rules of the House. After more than 200 years, they changed the rules to say ``no,'' we couldn't bring that bill up. We cannot have a vote on continuing to run the government.

Now, man up. Man up over there. Give us a vote. If you have got the votes, then you can keep the government shut down. If we have the votes, we go back to routinely funding a continuing resolution for the government until November 15. I think that would be a service to the American people.

Mr. Speaker, it is day 7 in a bizarre, new twist on the Republican Tea Party trip down the rabbit hole. On Saturday, the House of Representatives voted unanimously to pay retroactively every Federal employee, those who are working, Capitol Hill Police, those who are being kept from working, like the aviation safety inspector I talked with yesterday. He was quite concerned about what might happen with a long lapse in aviation safety nonpartisans, but he's not allowed to work. That's a bit bizarre. He's thankful that he will someday be paid for not working, but he would rather be working, actually.

How is it in this weird world that the Mad Hatter Tea Party explains to their people back home, Well, we've shut down government sorta. We've shut down the services, but we're going to pay people for the work they're not doing. We're going to let the Social Security applications pile up and not be processed. We're going to lock people out of the national wildlife refuges during hunting season. We're going to keep the crabbing fleet grounded in Alaska because we can't issue their permits, and we're not going to continue to do the surveys for the fishing season off the northwest coast.

We've withdrawn all of that. All of those people are sitting around at home, frustrated by law, can't even access their official email, but they're going to be paid. And the Republicans say, We made it good. We're going to pay them.

What about the American people getting the services?

It reminds me of Wimpy J. Wellington from Popeye, who says, I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. Somehow, Tuesday never came, and repayment was never made. In this case, perhaps someday, when they stop their games, we will repay people. But what about the people who have automatic withdrawals, and they're living paycheck to paycheck, and their mortgage is coming due today or next week? What are they going to do? I see the credit unions offering zero percent loans. That's very nice of them. Wouldn't it be better if we actually put those people back to work and we paid them, and you declared victory?

You have victory within your grasp, and you're refusing it. Is it about ObamaCare? You know that was an impossible goal. That victory is not within your grasp. If it's about the deficit, which is what Gingrich put the government out of work for, then you have victory within your grasp, because Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Reid agreed weeks ago to a 6-week continuing resolution, which is what has customarily been done around here for the 27 years I've been here when the two bodies can't agree on a budget. We don't shut down the government every year. Out of 27 years, twice have we got it done in time. So in 23 of those cases, we've continued. In this case, Senator Reid agreed to continue running the government at lower levels of spending, a major reduction back below the 2010 levels. All Speaker Boehner has to do is bring that bill to the floor of the House, and it will pass.

There are enough Republicans who told the press that they would vote for that. They can declare victory. They cut the budget yet again. They're not off on this fruitless errand of trying to stop ObamaCare from going into effect, which went into effect last week. By the way, 234,000 Oregonians have accessed our Oregon Web site, which is working quite well, thank you very much. In the States that are cooperating, it's working well. In those bonehead States that said they wouldn't cooperate and wouldn't help their people and are actually prohibiting people from being helped like, Florida, no, it's not working so well. I wonder why. Go figure.

Let's not continue this, and let's begin to deal very quickly with the issues before us because we have looming a deadline that you can't make good later. You can't make it good later. You can't tell the people of the world, all those to whom we owe hundreds of billions of dollars and the Social Security trust fund and others, Oh, we'll make it good later after we default on the debt someday. Interest rates will jump up; houses become more expensive; the housing market probably crashes again; auto sales grind to a halt; credit card interest rates go to even more extortion levels. The damage you will do by credibly threatening to default on the debt of the United States of America for some clearly undefined goal will not be undone for generations. You can't go there.

Declare victory temporarily. You got your lower levels. Bring a bill to the floor today. Let us vote on it. The Speaker said on the weekend he doesn't have the votes. Let's check that out, because we really think he does have the votes; and it's making him not look too good that he actually accepted the deal before he rejected it and now says he doesn't have the votes. That's an interesting kind of conundrum, and we can prove it very easily.

Bring the bill up today. Fund the government. Pay people to actually work.

Mr. Speaker, through the looking glass, ``curiouser and curiouser,'' said Alice. I'm confused. It started out as: We're going to shut down the government until we repeal ObamaCare. Then it was: We'll shut down the government until we delay ObamaCare or the individual mandate or repeal the device tax, or something. Now, I just heard the gentleman from Texas say we're shutting down the government because we're concerned about the deficit. What is it? Which is it?

Come on, you're concerned about the deficit. We have a process. It's called the annual budget process in appropriations. It's a law. We should follow the law, which means temporarily continue the government. We don't shut down the government to deal with our differences in how much money we want to spend each year for what agencies.

This is getting absurd. We're now going to pay Federal employees to not work. Let's just declare them all ``essential,'' make them come back to work, and then we'll pay them later. Maybe in the Republican world that makes sense.

No. Let's just end the shutdown, bring them all back to work, give them their regular pay now, let them have their leave, and move forward with negotiations over the budget.

Mr. Speaker, one minor point. We say ``Oregon.'' And since the Ducks are going to win the national championship this year, we want to make sure everybody knows how to say it properly.

I rise today to discuss something that happened earlier in the week. The Republicans are playing Whac-A-Mole. Every time something pops up in the national press that is really embarrassing about this shutdown, they whack and hit it with a phony resolution--they're going to fix the problem--that they know is going nowhere in the Senate and not going to the President.

Earlier this week, after the extraordinary embarrassment of the veterans at the World War II memorial, they were hearing from a lot of small business people outside of Yosemite and other parks saying open the parks. I was just down there for an Honor Flight this morning.

They still don't have bathrooms, by the way.

So they took one little tiny slice of the Department of the Interior budget and they funded it, that which is most iconic, that which is most visible in the press. Guess what? They forgot everything else that goes on within the Department of the Interior.

I'll start locally, and we'll build back to the national issue here.

The William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge in the Willamette Valley opened the very popular firearms hunting season for black-tailed deer late last month, in September, but this week they are having to turn away hunters because of the House government shutdown.

The Bandon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, also in my district, is a great spot for waterfowl hunting. Right now, the only thing it is open to are swarms of mosquitos. My colleague from California will talk in some detail about the Klamath Refuge. It's closed. The beginning of hunting season, closed.

The Fish and Wildlife Service in Oregon recently proposed that three other Oregon refuges--Baskett Slough, Nestucca Bay, and Siletz Bay--be open to hunting. Guess what. They can't continue the process to open those areas of hunting because of the government shutdown.

According to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, nearly 300,000 hunters spend more than $135 million a year. By shutting down the Federal Government, restricting hunting access on public lands, House Republicans have turned their backs on sportsmen and small businesses not just in Oregon, but across the country.

In addition to hunting, the refuges provide for anglers, hikers, kayakers, birdwatchers, and other outdoor enthusiasts, all who spend money in the local communities around these refuges. They're not coming. They're not spending the money in the local businesses all because of the phony shutdown of the government. Well, it's a real shutdown, but a stupid shutdown of the government by our Republican majority.

National wildlife refuges generate $1.7 billion in sales for nearby communities, and many of them are very dependent upon that for their survival. And every day, small businesses across the country that relate to hunting and fishing and other outdoor recreational activities, $4.5 million a day is lost in sales to their small businesses. This has got to end.

There are other very serious issues, which a number of my other colleagues will talk about here this morning, as relates to commercial fishing, commercial crabbing, and a number of other critical activities that are fulfilled by the Federal Government under the Department of the Interior, which were not restored or phonily restored by the Republicans.

I am now happy to yield to my colleague from California, Mike Thompson.

I thank the gentleman.

My colleague from California, Mike Thompson, is the two-time chairman of the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus. And he was recently inducted into the California Waterfowler's Hall of Fame. So he obviously speaks with great authority on these issues and the impact of this unnecessary shutdown on hunters and related businesses in northern California and southern Oregon.

With that, I yield to my colleague from Washington State (Ms. DelBene).

I want to thank the gentlewoman for her statements and her concern for the Washington crab fleet and others who have been impacted by this manufactured crisis.

I find it particularly bizarre now that this all started with the radical Tea Party minority on the Republican side. And I wonder what their supporters and constituents, who seem to hate all things government, are thinking about the fact that we are now paying Federal employees to stay home and not provide critical services, like opening the crabbing season in the State of Alaska.

I would also note that the west coast groundfish trawl surveys have been suspended. The five ships that were out there doing the survey were called back to port. All of the NOAA employees were sent home, but they will be paid later, some time. But they aren't doing the critical work we need for those commercial fisheries.

With that, I yield to my colleague from the State of California (Mr. Garamendi).

I thank the gentleman from California. What he pointed out is critical. There is a time sensitivity to this. My other colleague from California pointed that out, too. Many small businesses are dependent on these critical weeks of opening season for their businesses. It is essentially like Christmas for retailers; the opening of hunting season for waterfowl and other species is for people who provide lodging and other services, guiding in those areas, and you are keeping them from working and you're depriving them of their livelihoods.

In Nevada, duck season opens October 12; swan, October 12; deer, October 10; elk, October 10. That's Nevada. That date is pretty soon.

Arizona: turkey, October 4. Well, we're there. Big horn sheep, October 4. On any of these Federal wildlife refuges, hunting will not be allowed.

But the bizarre thing is that some Republicans are saying this is about the deficit. So they are going to pay Federal employees to not work to make a point about the deficit. They are going to cause businesses to lose money on which they won't pay taxes because it is about the deficit; or, well, then there are others of them who say it's about ObamaCare. I wish the Republican majority could make up their mind.

But one thing is plain and clear--and I have been here 27 years--I believe in 27 years--I may be off by one--I believe two times out of 27 years, under both Democrats and Republicans, have we gotten by all of the appropriations bills passed by the beginning of the fiscal year on October 1. Two times in 27 years. But we didn't shut down the government every time that happened. We adopted a very simple continuing resolution. We'd say let's continue to fund government--not send people home and continue to pay them. Let's fund government and have them work, the same cost, and we'll do it for 4 weeks, 6 weeks, to force people to the bargaining table. Sometimes it was done at the prior year's level, sometimes slightly enhanced, sometimes slightly reduced. We have offered to do that. We have brought that up numerous times here. We're not allowed to bring it up explicitly but on votes on rules, and the Republicans won't allow a simple majority vote on temporary funding of government.

They allowed a vote today, which was unanimous, to pay people not to work, but they won't allow a vote on paying people to work over a short period of time.

I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson).

It depends upon the topic. We're talking about locking hunters and fishers out of wildlife refuges and the impact on small communities across America, and the fact that it's essentially the Christmas season for many of these lodges, many of these local businesses that have been shut down. Certainly the Grinch has stole Christmas, and I'm not sure what the gentleman wishes to address. I will yield very briefly, but if we're going to go off topic or get on to something else, then I will have to reclaim my time.

I have known the gentleman for years, and so I am happy to yield.

I thank the gentleman for those very tempered remarks and the kind remarks about the gentleman from California.

I would like to talk about a couple of other impacts. Some are in the Interior budget; some are in another budget we haven't touched yet. Mike was talking very eloquently about the fact that these impacts are falling most on rural residents and on rural small businesses, areas that are for the most part pretty darned depressed in this country. A lot of my rural areas are well into double-digit unemployment.

I was talking to the chief of the Forest Service--granted, a different budget, one that hasn't gotten on the Republican radar screen yet, although I was talking to a Republican leader this morning who said they may yet do whack-a-mole on this one to try and fix it, and that is that the chief of the Forest Service has an obligation when timber is sold to a private party to have Forest Service employees monitor those sales. He has not found a way to declare those employees as essential and, as of Monday, is going to end somewhere between 400 and 500 active timber sales, bumping up against the winter season where many people won't be able to operate, depending on where the sale is, and incurring obviously penalties on the Federal Government because he does not have the staff to go out and monitor those sales.

I don't yet know about the Bureau of Land Management timber sales. They are a fairly unique thing. They happen on the statutorily unique lands of the Oregon and California lands. In Oregon, we have been in touch with the BLM, and we don't yet have an answer about how they're going to handle it.

Much of the restoration work from recent fires cannot be considered emergency; some of it can, but most can't. That work is not ongoing. Certainly any responsible timber salvage that might happen is not even being considered, and we're losing critical time there where those activities might be conducted.

And this morning, we did get the World War II Memorial reopened, only for honor flight and World War II veterans, and maybe other veterans. I'm not sure exactly the categories that were established. There were two rangers there this morning, and I encountered a problem. I was there to greet a large contingent from Oregon, wonderful people who put their lives on the line, but we are looking at a group here who are fairly elderly, and the adjacent bathrooms are not open. I went and asked the rangers if they could give me the key and they said, we don't have the key; that's maintenance. So we placed a call to the Park Service looking for whoever is the highest ranking person not being paid to stay home, and we got a fellow in charge of at least the World War II Memorial and some other grounds, and he said, I'm prohibited from doing that. I don't have that authority.

I've now called the White House to ask them. I mean, come on, restrooms for very elderly men and women who put their lives on the line, saved the world from the horrors of World War II, and we can't open bathroom facilities. I will go down and volunteer to refill the toilet paper rolls and clean up at night, you know, if we do that. I think other people I know would also do that.

So we've just got to end this. I mean, it became so bizarre today that Congress voted unanimously to pay a majority of the Federal workforce to stay home and not provide public services, to make what point. Let's just go ahead with a continuing resolution that doesn't change anything. We can adopt the lower levels that the Republicans have advocated for. Why can't we do that for 4 or 6 weeks? Open up the refuges so business can flow again to these areas because these hunting seasons are ephemeral, as are these timber sales.

There's another impact, and that is the Student Conservation Association

of the Interior Department has been shut down. So, again, hundreds of interns were sent home who were providing public services.

And then also in the other budget, agriculture, the job corps has been shut down. Thousands of young, at-risk people have been sent home. I don't know how many of my colleagues have ever gone to a job corps. It is the most inspiring thing. These kids are learning skills. These kids are high at risk. Many of these kids, young people, have been in trouble.

They're getting skills and they're getting jobs. They want to be there. They're working hard. They have been sent home. Some of them don't have a home to go to.

With that, I yield to my colleague from California.

I would like to correct one thing the gentleman said. As I understand it, we are not paying them. We will pay them. For working today, they will get a hamburger on Tuesday, sometime, maybe, perhaps.

For a lot of people, that's a hardship. A lot of Federal workers are of modest means. I would point to our Capitol Hill police here. I've had conversations with a number of them. Leaves are canceled. Some of them have had plans for a very long period of time. They can't get sick. They are not being paid. They will be paid. They'll get a hamburger on Tuesday, maybe, sometime, depending on how long this whole thing drags on.

This has risen to the point of absurdity. It started out to stop ObamaCare from going into effect on October 1, and it went into effect. It then became chipping away at ObamaCare in ways they knew the President would never sign a bill to do.

But I heard just earlier today from a gentleman from Texas saying this is all about the debt and deficit. If it's all about the debt and deficit, this is pretty easy. Let's bring up the continuing resolution that would actually reduce spending from current levels, continue government for 6 weeks while we sit down and negotiate how we're going to deal with longer-term structural problems in our economy, dealing meaningfully with our debt and deficit. That seems pretty darn simple to me. It seems we're pretty close to agreement there. But, unfortunately, I think there's 30 or 40 Republicans whose agenda is still to stop or repeal ObamaCare.

So I believe the gentleman who spoke today was probably speaking out of school and not speaking for them. But what he said, and I believe a majority of Republicans want to do, could get Democrats to agree to in a minute. Bring up the continuing resolution. We're not very happy with the further reduction in spending levels across the board--it's a dumb way to cut--but we'll accept it for 6 weeks while we work out a longer- term deal.

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

Mr. Speaker, this irresponsible shutdown of the government has deprived Oregonians of many federal services that they rely on. For the time being the Veterans Administration has been able to use reserve funds to continue providing benefits and medical services to our nation's veterans. Today the Republicans put a disingenuous bill on the floor, H.J. Res. 72, that claimed to fund the VA while the rest of the government remains shut down. H.J. Res. 72 would cut the VA budget by $6.2 billion. It provides no funding for prosthetic research, VA cemeteries, construction of VA facilities including the new CBOC in Eugene, Oregon, and many other critical services. This is unacceptable. I refuse to cut funding for our nation's veterans. For that reason I voted against H.J. Res. 72. The Republican House leadership needs to ignore the small faction of their party that insists holding our veterans and other Americans hostage. They need to bring the Senate passed funding bill to the floor for a vote so that we can reopen the government. Our veterans deserve no less.

I strongly support H.R. 813, which would authorize advance appropriations for all VA discretionary accounts. I fought for years to get advance appropriations for the VA, which we finally secured for medical accounts. It is time to ensure that all of the VA receives advance appropriations so that veterans are never again used as a political football. I am also a cosponsor of H.R. 3181, which would make sure that every account at the VA is exempt from any future across-the-board sequestration.

Mr. Speaker, the Republican majority, who've been stampeded by a radical minority of their Conference, are continuing the game of Whac-A-Mole; every time something visible pops up on television about yet another Federal agency and people having been disadvantaged, particularly when it affects Republican districts or constituencies they have some concern about, they play Whac-A-Mole. That's fun, that one. They know it's not going to happen and they know it's not going to be accepted, but they're pretending to care. It's time to stop pretending to care and to really care.

We just did a great applause for the Capitol Police. I was standing with everybody else. Guess what? They're working, they're not getting paid, and they can't take leave or be sick because they're essential employees. That's what's happening to every essential Federal employee in this country. Their life is being blown up. They're not getting paid. They can't take leave. They can't be sick.

This is not right. It's time to just allow this body to vote on a clean continuing resolution. What are you afraid of? Are afraid it would pass, to temporarily fund the government until November 15? Is that too much to ask? Then you can negotiate.

I thank the gentleman.

So when the Republicans passed their shutdown bill, did they not know it was going to close down the national parks? No, they knew that. But in their little bizarre echo chamber they thought the American people would rise and applaud their move to shut down everything that relates to the government. Instead, they've gotten a big raspberry, if not an invitation to read between the lines. They're a little bit surprised and shocked.

Now, what did they leave out of this bill? Yeah, we'll reopen some national parks and other iconic places. They left out 155 national forests, 20 national Grasslands, seven national monuments, and 28 Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers shut down. That's thousands of kids working hard to get an education, get skills, and not get thrown out in the street. Have you ever visited one? I've been there. I can't believe you guys would shut that down.

There's 440 Wilderness Areas, 560 National Wildlife Refuge units, including locking out hunters and fishermen. Come on, guys--all BLM- managed campgrounds.

There's only one reason this bill is on the floor, and it's because their constituents love iconic national parks and monuments, as the Republicans just learned, much to their chagrin.

They can't take the heat from the government shutdown they're responsible for. What's next? This is whack-a-mole. What is tomorrow? CDC preparations for flu season. That's kind of important. Still shut down.

How about our Capitol Hill Police keeping us alive and guarding us every day, who are having their leave canceled and they're not getting paid, and they're still standing out there. Are you going to put them on the list? When are you going to take care of them?

Put the whole government back to work now.

Mr. Speaker, well, here we are. The gentleman who just preceded doesn't want this to be political. It's totally political.

The Republicans spent billions on the last election. They lost badly in the Presidential. They didn't take over the Senate. They even got 1.4 million fewer votes for the House but, because of gerrymandering, they're still in charge.

So now they're attempting to usurp the constitutional order in the United States of America. They're saying that one-half of one branch of the government of the United States, that is, the Republican majority in the House, should dictate policy to the rest of the country. They should be the rulers. They can change laws. They can ignore the Senate, ignore the President.

They are making unequivocal demands. They've taken the country, the government hostage. This is disruptive. It's expensive. It's inconvenient for a lot of Americans who need to access these agencies.

I was just meeting with the chief of the Forest Service. It's going to delay their capability of planning salvage and restoration activities on the hundreds of thousands, millions, of acres across the West that burned. They're going to have to stop all that. And then winter sets in, and then you're going to have big problems that you can't undo.

But they don't care about any of that because this is totally political.

Now, we're in the shutdown phase now, but their objective is to drag this out and hitch all of their demands--and if you've seen the list of demands, it's every bill that the Republicans have passed since they took over in 2011 that has not seen action in the Senate or been rejected by the Senate--would be appended to the debt limit of the United States.

Now, shutting down the government, pretty radical. But we are really dealing here with, for short, ``Cruzites,'' I guess I would call them. They're sort of anarchist radical Libertarians who don't believe in government.

They don't believe in evolution. They believe in devolution; devolve all the duties to the States, dissolve the Union, essentially, go to some loose federalism, and we'll reach some ideal point somehow.

It's crazy stuff. But they're in charge. It's not even a majority of their caucus. It's a minority of their caucus who are dictating to the majority, because, with 211 fully-red Republican districts, this is all about politics.

Those people know that if they act reasonably here that they will get an ultra right-wing nut case Tea Party primary challenge, funded by the likes of the Koch brothers and others, very, very generously funded.

So they've even managed not only to take the government hostage, but to intimidate their own truly conservative members, those who aren't ``Cruzite'' anarchist radical Libertarians.

Now, default is unbelievably irresponsible. Even a tiny threat of default, as they did a couple of years ago, downgraded our credit and drove up interest rates just a little bit. But we were much better off then.

Today, if they do this, interest rates for everything in America will go up dramatically. That means tens of billions of dollars more per year just to retire the Federal debt. They supposedly care about the debt. Well, they're going to raise the debt immediately by adding interest costs.

It means home mortgages bump again, stalls out the housing recovery. Cars go up again for loans.

But, you know, they don't really care because they don't borrow money for things. Most of these people are rich, so they don't care. So what if it impacts hundreds of millions of Americans in their daily lives with their credit cards, with their car purchases, with their attempts to get at housing?

They don't care. No, let's not make it political, guys. No, this isn't political.

Come on. You want to be responsible?

What's it about?

If it's about the problems with ObamaCare, there are a lot of us over here who would like to fix it. You came in with repeal and replace, repeal and

replace, 42 times repealing. Where's the replace?

What are you going to do about people who have preexisting conditions?

What are you going to do about kids between 18 and 26 who are on their parents' policies?

What are you going to do about childhood disabilities who can get insurance now?

What are you going to do about the 50 million uninsured people in this country?

Where's the replace?

Repeal, repeal, repeal. And now you're going to append a whole other list of demands onto this. Not political. Of course not. Not political at all.

You lost the Presidential election. You lost the Senate elections. You lost the popular vote for the House; but because of your gerrymandering, you're still in charge.

You do not represent a majority opinion in the United States of America on these issues. Don't do irrevocable harm to our government, our country, our future to get your political demands met unilaterally.

I thank the gentleman yielding.

Wow, the Republicans just figured out that their irresponsible activities of shutting down the government for political purposes have led to some unpopular things, like closing the national parks. They saw it on television. So, okay. They're going to try to put a bandaid on the national parks.

What about other natural resource agencies? I'm pleased that you're going to do something for the parks. But what about Fish and Wildlife? What about all of our national wildlife preserves? What about the U.S. Forest Service campgrounds, BLM campgrounds?

Today I just met with the chief of the Forest Service. He is suspending all activity for emergency recovery and repairs and anything for restoration on the Rim fire in California and on other fires throughout the West. And he has suspended all activities on any possible potential salvage. This impact is even bigger.

Then what about someone who has just turned 66 and wants to go down and get their Social Security benefits? Well, they can sign up, but they can't get it because they can't process it. What about somebody who is due for treatment at the National Institutes of Health? They're dying of cancer. Well, sorry. They're not taking any more patients.

So you want to put a bandaid on a few things that are getting on television, a few things that sound good. But you don't want to back off your unbelievably irresponsible, politically motivated shenanigans here about a full closing down of the government of the United States, which is having a real impact to accomplish ends you couldn't accomplish in the last election.

We don't have a system where one-half of one branch of the government gets to dictate to the Senate and the President of the United States and the courts. And that is what you are trying to do.

Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend and colleague for yielding that time.

Well, another day, another giveaway. Pretty ironic: here we are, we're about to get into a massive fight over whether or not we should increase the debt limit of the United States or default on our obligations, which involves many trillions of dollars, and today we're going to give away a taxpayer asset that is worth billions of dollars. We're going to give it away. Oh, we're going to get some pretty land in exchange. That's valuable. That's nice. But, you know, for many billions of dollars, we could probably buy a lot more land if we wanted it, or we could have a little debt reduction.

I had a simple amendment. My amendment would have said that we would charge an 8 percent royalty. Eight percent of the value of the copper coming from these publicly-owned lands would be paid to the Treasury of the United States of America. And guess what? The Republicans didn't allow the amendment. What are they afraid of? They're afraid that maybe some of their Tea Party types over there might vote for it? You want to run government like a business, don't give away assets. That's what we're doing here. You would still get the jobs.

Now, you know, this bill contains sort of a bizarre--they're saying, oh, we're going to get some money maybe, sort of, kind of. Except Treasury--nobody can interpret the language of this bill. It's a rather unique and very speculative--potential, future, possible--payment scheme, which would be controlled entirely by the company using proprietary information. Of course they're going to volunteer to pay money. Yeah, I don't think so. It's not going to happen.

So we're going to trade away a multibillion-dollar asset for a few thousand acres of recreation land. I would say on any other day I wouldn't hear from the Republican side of the aisle that that was a good idea--give away billions of dollars of Federal assets for some recreation lands.

Now, this isn't about the surface. It's just about the fact that Rio Tinto, a foreign corporation, is not going to pay anything, or very little, for the value of the minerals that are extracted from this land. In fact, I understand that they've pretty much stopped any other exploration around the world because this is the richest copper load in North America, one of the richest in the world. They don't want to go to these other piddly places where they've been--Indonesia, Australia and all that. They're just focusing all their energy for copper right here.

And guess where the copper is going to go after it's mined and after they don't pay anything to us for taking it out of the ground? It's going to go to China. Foreign corporation, ship it to China. Yeah, we'll get some jobs. And if they paid a royalty, we would still get the jobs and we would make the taxpayers whole.

Now, the oil and gas industry pays 12.5 percent royalty to the government for the value of the resources they extract. Why shouldn't the mining industry pay? Well, they don't pay because we're operating under an 1872 law signed by Ulysses S. Grant. That's what governs mining here. Now, come on. It's time to update that law. And if they don't want to update the law, they could at least begin to charge some royalties for the extraction of these minerals.

We have given away billions of dollars of gold mines to foreign corporations--platinum, everything. Now we're going to give away our greatest copper resource to a foreign corporation with no royalties, no charge--and they will shelter most of their earnings overseas. They will pay little, if anything, in U.S. taxes. Yes, their employees will pay taxes--oh, they will pay taxes. Yeah, of course. We're going to extract that out of the employees, but the company isn't going to pay. They will find a way to shelter that overseas. It's a foreign corporation.

This is outrageous, absolutely outrageous. There are the issues regarding the environmental waivers and the other things that Mr. Grijalva talked about. We are going to evaluate this after the asset is transferred to the mining company. The mining company will some day go through this bizarre speculative scheme and they might pay us something in the future.

Let's have a plain and simple and fair 8 percent royalty, make the taxpayers whole and run this government a little bit more responsibly, guys.