Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, you know Danny came to Congress a year after I did. He must have been underage at the time, as you can see the difference in our appearance, but he was working on what was then the House Interior Committee, Natural Resources.

He is a veteran, as am I, of many years of working with George Miller in the perpetual water wars in California. I am going to say Danny didn't get that one fixed.

But then when we took back over after the election in 2006, and we did some of the best things we have ever done for college affordability and Pell grants in the Education and Labor Committee, Danny was right there working on that.

We made loans forgivable through a public service. We limited the length of time you would have to pay them if you were in a low-income job. We greatly increased Pell grants, and we paid for all that by stopping subsidized private bank loans with guarantees that they will never lose any money.

Unfortunately, we have lost a little ground since then, but I think this Congress might recapture those things and will look back to the work he did then to make higher education more affordable.

Madam Speaker, we had a couple of Members say: Oh, he was so good to me when I didn't know anything and I came in.

He was a mentor not only to staff, but to Members, and a good friend to me over many years. I hope Danny enjoys his next iteration, whatever it is.

Madam Speaker, yesterday had I been present, I would have voted in strong support of S. 47, the Natural Resources Management Act. I was detained due to severe weather and cancelled flights in Oregon.

S. 47 is a compilation of approximately 100 public lands and natural resources bills. One of the main provisions would provide permanent authorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which I strongly support.

Also included in this essential legislation are three provisions that I authored to protect critical salmon and steelhead habitats in southwestern Oregon and designate more than 30,000 acres of public land as Wilderness.

H.R. 994, the Chetco River Protection Act, would prohibit new mining claims on various rivers and creeks in Southwestern Oregon. The waters protected by this legislation supply clean drinking water to thousands of residents of Southwest Oregon and Northwest California and are critical salmon habitat.

H.R. 999, the Devil's Staircase Wilderness Act, would permanently protect Devil's Staircase, a remote, unspoiled area in the Coast Range. The legislation would designate approximately 30,500 acres of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Forest Service (USFS) lands as Wilderness. In addition, this legislation designates approximately 14.4 miles of the Wasson and Franklin Creeks, which support native Coho and Chinook salmon, trout, and steelhead runs, as Wild and Scenic Rivers.

H.R. 1056, the Frank and Jeanne Moore Wild Steelhead Special Management Area Designation Act, would designate almost 100,000 acres of public land in the Steamboat Creek Watershed in the Umpqua National Forest that is vitally important steelhead habitat. The legislation would honor Frank and Jeanne Moore's lifelong efforts to protect the North Umpqua River and its tributaries.

The lands protected in these bills are some of the most beautiful, pristine, and ecologically-diverse areas in Oregon. To leave these areas unprotected would be to subject them to pollution and mining, endanger drinking water for thousands of families, and devastate local recreation economies.

I am proud that Congress overwhelmingly passed this legislation and that President Trump is expected to sign this important legislation into law.

Madam Speaker, I missed votes on Monday, February 25 due to inclement weather in Oregon. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on Roll Call No. 89; and ``yea'' on Roll Call No. 88.

Mr. Speaker, today had I been present, I would have voted in strong support of the bipartisan, privileged resolution to terminate President Trump's proclamation ``Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States.'' I was detained due to severe weather and cancelled flights in Oregon.

While there is no doubt that our immigration system is broken, the president's wall and his proposed funding level is an irresponsible waste of taxpayer funds for a structure that would be ineffective and do very little for our national security. The emergency declaration is nothing more than a power grab by the president to fulfill a campaign promise, violating existing law and our constitutional system of separation of powers.

Congress has already rejected the president's proposed border wall, and alternatively, by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, made robust investments in our border security. These investments include $1.375 billion for approximately 55 miles of physical barrier along the southern border, $564 million for imaging equipment at our ports of entry, $100 million for new, additional border security technology, serious investments in the Alternative to Detention program to provide relief to over-crowded detention facilities, and additional funding for attorneys and courtroom expansion to assist with our country's growing immigration court system backlog.

Despite these important investments, the president has proposed taking more than $6.7 billion to build his wall, including $3.6 billion from the Department of Defense's (DoD) high-priority military construction projects. These funds are meant to support much-needed improvements on military bases around the world, and misallocating these funds could undermine the training, readiness, and quality of life for our men and women in the Armed Forces. He has also proposed stripping $2.5 billion from the DoD's drug interdiction program, which could have serious impacts on our ability to combat the flow of illegal narcotics.

Furthermore, the Military Construction Codification Act only authorizes the Secretary of Defense to reallocate funds for construction projects during a national emergency if the project is ``necessary to support'' a ``use of the armed forces.'' Our Armed Forces are not responsible for enforcing our immigration laws and using these funds in this way is in direct violation of existing law.

Of serious additional legal concern is the fact that the administration would need to seize significant amounts of property not owned by the federal government in order to build a wall. Currently, more than two thirds of border property is owned by private parties or the relevant states. In 1952, the Supreme Court held in Youngstown Sheet and Tube that President Truman's declaration of national emergency, even in the midst of an international armed conflict, did not permit him to unilaterally seize private property.

In recent days, more than two dozen former Republican lawmakers and almost 60 former senior national security officials have come out in opposition to President Trump's national emergency declaration. These individuals are united behind the idea that allowing the president to ``ignore Congress'' will deprive the American people ``of the protections of true representative government.''

The bottom line is that the president's national emergency declaration is an abuse of his constitutional authority and an affront to the separation of powers. Congress has the exclusive power of the purse, and the Constitution specifically prohibits the president from spending money that has not been appropriated. Congress entrusted the president with authority to reallocate funds during unforeseen and urgent situations, such as wars and natural disasters. By declaring an emergency when Congress has overwhelmingly rejected his border wall in favor of compromise legislation, President Trump is creating a dangerous precedent for future political disputes. Congress must reject this presidential overreach and assert its constitutional authority.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 876) to direct the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to carry out a plan for the purchase and installation of an earthquake early warning system for the Cascadia Subduction Zone, and for other purposes, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 876, as amended.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of this overdue action by the Federal Government, the Pacific Northwest Earthquake Preparedness Act of 2019, as amended.

Next month will mark the eighth anniversary of the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku, Japan. Japanese officials estimate the event caused 100,000 buildings to totally collapse, 270,000 buildings to half collapse, and partially damaged almost 750,000 buildings.

Fifteen thousand people died. Most of the deaths were caused by the resulting

tsunami and not the earthquake because Japan has an early warning system for earthquakes, and it worked. It sent alarms and text messages warning citizens to take cover and likely prevented many deaths and injuries.

Within 15 seconds to 1 minute of warning, depending on location, the earthquake warning system alerted Japan's high-speed rail system to stop trains, reducing deaths and injuries; production lines had time to cease operations; and property damage economic losses were way less than would have been otherwise.

I went with then-Chairman Denham over to observe their system and discuss what they are doing now. Now what they are doing is they realize that most of the people died because they did not have ocean sensors, and they underestimated the height of the tsunami. They told people to take shelter in places 10 to 12 feet above wave level. The waves were much bigger and, subsequently, many of those people died.

So they are not waiting. The technology currently exists for a realtime warning system that will give them even more notice of an earthquake and will give them more accurate wave heights on the resulting tsunami so people can take proper shelter.

We have the same opportunity to do that here in the United States if we take action soon.

The Cascadia subduction zone sits off the coast of Oregon and northern California--right at that border, essentially--and experts believe it has generated at least a dozen major earthquakes between magnitudes 8 and 9, which is an awesome earthquake, and resulting tsunamis over the last 5,000 years.

This January was the 319th anniversary of the last large quake, and many scientists say that we are overdue and it could happen at any time. It will be essentially a mirror image of the subduction zone off the coast of Japan that caused the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The technology is here. The question is whether we want to invest in an offshore earthquake early warning system now or wait until thousands of people have died and catastrophic property damage occurs. We need to invest now rather than later.

This bill will begin to address the very real threat of a combined earthquake and tsunami off the Pacific Northwest coast before it happens. Some forecasts say there is a 10 percent chance of a magnitude 8 to 9 in the next 30 years; others predict a 35 to 40 percent chance in the next 50 years.

This bill directs the Federal Emergency Management Agency to develop a plan to identify funds to purchase equipment necessary for an earthquake early warning system and to report to Congress on the implementation of the plan.

It also requires the President to establish an earthquake and tsunami task force. The task force will consist of representatives from potentially impacted areas as well as earthquake and tsunami experts to develop a comprehensive strategy and recommendations on how the Nation should prepare for, plan for, mitigate against, respond to, recover from, and adapt to an earthquake, tsunami, or combined event of a large magnitude in the Cascadia subduction zone.

We need to take this threat seriously and prepare accordingly. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan for his support of the bill, and I will look to support him on issues that deal with the Great Lakes in the future or other concerns that he may have.

This is just something that, as a nation, as we see threats to our citizens around the country, we should be pushing for preparedness and for resilience. This bill, if we move forward with the plan and put out the instrumentation, will save lives and will be a tremendous benefit to the Nation as a whole.

Madam Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Ms. JOHNSON-of Texas. Madam Speaker, I support passage of H.R. 876, the Pacific Northwest Earthquake Preparedness Act of 2019, as amended. I commend my friend from Oregon, Chairman DeFazio, for addressing the urgent need to develop better earthquake and tsunami warning systems in the region of our country most vulnerable to such natural disasters. In fact, my own committee, the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, has had for many years a leading role in strengthening earthquake and tsunami preparedness and response in order to minimize the loss of life and property.

In December 2018, we enacted a reauthorization of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP), which was first authorized in 1977 but had not been updated since 2004. In the 15 years since, our scientific understanding of earthquakes as well as how we apply that science to save lives and property have evolved significantly. In the reauthorization, we updated the program to reflect those developments.

Four agencies participate in NEHRP. The National Science Foundation and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) carry out fundamental research in the earth sciences that contributes to our understanding of earthquakes. In addition, USGS develops and manages ShakeAlert--the earthquake early warning system. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is the lead agency for NEHRP and also carries out applied research in support of more earthquake resilient building codes. FEMA provides earthquake training and awareness to States and territories and assists communities in creating seismic mitigation plans. Each of these agencies has a unique and essential role as clearly defined in the NEHRP statute. I want to thank my colleague Chairman DeFazio for working with me to ensure that H.R. 876 does not unintentionally create any confusion or uncertainty as to the respective roles and responsibilities of each of these agencies.

Our committee also has a lead role in tsunami warning and preparedness. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has run a tsunami early warning system for many years. In 2006, the Science Committee passed the Tsunami Warning and Education Act. We updated that program just last Congress through H.R. 353, thanks to the leadership of another colleague from Oregon and a valued Member of the Science Committee, Rep. Suzanne Bonamici.

We all share he same goal of taking advantage of the strengths and resources of our federal agencies to minimize the tragic loss of life and the economic impact of large scale natural disasters. If H.R. 876 becomes law, I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure good coordination and collaboration between the new activities required in H.R. 876 and the ongoing activities under the NEHRP and Tsunami warning programs. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 876.

Madam Speaker, well, the President is increasingly focused in messaging on the need for the wall as being the shipment of illegal drugs into the United States of America and the drug epidemic. I think we are all concerned about that, and we would all like to do something effective to deal with it.

Now, as his current acting chief of staff said when he was a Member of Congress about a wall: You go under--tunnels--you go through or over, and what you need is more manpower, more technology.

So the President says we need a stupid, static wall at extraordinary costs. Actually, we need something else. What we need are effective measures.

The Department of Homeland Security says they need $5 billion to reconfigure our ports of entry and to bring in new technology.

El Chapo's lieutenants and others have testified at his trial in New York they don't go across remote desert areas. They buy semi-tractor trailers and they reconfigure them and bring them through the ports of entry. They are very efficient. And that is how they are getting drugs into this country.

We lack the personnel and the equipment to detect these shipments. So how about investing there?

Oh, and by the way, the people who are screening at the ports of entry, 8 percent of the vehicles is all they can screen today. Probably less today because they aren't getting paid, and some of them can't show up to work because they can't hire childcare or they can't fix their car to get to work or something else.

So the President is concerned? Really? I don't think so.

And then there is another way that drugs are more and more frequently coming into our country. As you can see from this display of drugs here, the Coast Guard intercepted $5.6 billion of drugs coming in on maritime routes last year. But the retiring Commandant said that is only about 20 percent of the drug shipments we can identify. We don't have the personnel or the proper equipment to intercept the other 80 percent.

Oh, by the way, the Coast Guard, they are not getting paid either.

But the President is concerned. Well, has he talked about the need to give more resources to the United States Coast Guard?

So, hey, it would be great if they get $5.7 billion, and that is one- fifth of the drugs they can identify. That would be $25 billion of drugs being intercepted next year if they had the equipment, the personnel they needed--five times the cost of a stupid, static wall.

So if the President is truly concerned about cartels and Asian mobs shipping drugs into the United States, he should be talking about putting money where it is needed: at the ports of entry, the Coast Guard for maritime interception, and other places where it would be more effective.

That is the position of the Democrats. We want to have effective 21st century border security, not a failed wall. That has been tried by a number of civilizations.

Static walls don't work. Let's do real things to deal with the real problem.

Mr. Speaker, the President has really made his wall argument on the basis of stopping illegal drugs from coming into the country.

Last week, I talked about the Maginot Line in France, an impenetrable defense. The Germans went around it.

If drugs were being smuggled across the desert, another section of wall isn't going to stop them. They will go around it. But that is not the way drugs are coming into the United States of America. They are coming through our legal border crossings. I talked about that last week.

We need more personnel. We need more technology there to inspect a larger number of the vehicles, all the vehicles coming across, with high technology, to find the human smuggling, the drug smuggling, and the weapons smuggling that is coming in that way.

But there is another way that drugs are pouring into the United States of America, and here is, last year, just one of the incidents that the Coast Guard intercepted. They intercepted $5.6 billion of illegal drugs being smuggled in through maritime pathways.

The recently retired commandant said that is only about 20 percent of the shipments. We could intercept more if we had more personnel. If we had more and modern helicopters, if we had more fast-pursuit boats, we could stop a much larger percentage.

But today is a really special day. These brave men and women of the United States Coast Guard will miss their paychecks today, the first time that I know of in recent history that members of the uniformed military are not being paid by their government.

41,000 Active Duty coasties won't be paid. And guess what? The first of next month, 50,000 retired coasties won't be paid. In addition to that, there are 8,000 Coast Guard critical civilian employees who are not being paid.

So if the President really wants to talk about intercepting drugs, and he wants to talk about real border security, he should be talking about giving more resources to the United States Coast Guard, not stiffing them on their paychecks and not making them fly ancient helicopters and 50-year-old cutters.

But he wants to waste $5 billion on a wall across part of the desert that you can go around, if that is the way they were smuggling in drugs. But as I said earlier, they aren't.

Let's have smart border security. Let's use our precious tax dollars in an intelligent, 21st century way, not a vanity wall.

Madam Speaker, on January 8 and 9, 2019, I missed the following votes due to a medical appointment. Had I been present I would have voted: on Roll Call Vote 13, on passage of H.R. 269, I would have voted Aye; on Roll Call Vote 14, on passage of H.R. 251, I would have voted Aye; on Roll Call Vote 15, on approving the Journal, I would have voted Aye; on Roll Call Vote 16, on Ordering the Previous Question to H. Res. 28, I would have voted Yes; on Roll Call Vote 17, on agreeing to H. Res. 28, I would have voted Aye; and on Roll Call Vote 18, on passage of H.R. 226, I would have voted Aye.

Mr. Speaker, we know the President doesn't like to read, but I think perhaps his acting chief of staff did.

There was something called the Maginot Line the French built between World War I and World War II, an impenetrable defense against the German invasion. Unfortunately, the Germans went around it.

Here we are in the 21st century. The President wants $5.7 billion to build a wall along part of the Mexican border. Now, his own acting chief of staff, when he was a Member of Congress and perhaps speaking more freely, said:

You go under, you go around, you go through. What they need

is more manpower and more technology.

That is Mick Mulvaney, well, saying something different now, I guess, because he wants to keep his job. But the point is, he had an honest opinion then, and that is the way it will work.

Here are a few things:

You can go over walls and fences--oh, by the way, we just had a demonstration today that the steel slats the President now wants can be cut with a handsaw.

Tunnels, drugs come through that way and people are smuggled in that way.

Oh, they are using the squad copters. You can buy those pretty cheap--oh, and then some more primitive device over here.

But, actually, the flood of drugs coming into the United States comes in right here, legal border crossings.

A couple of problems with that right now:

First off, the people who are manning the border crossings aren't getting paid.

Secondly, they don't have enough technology or the capability of inspecting more than 10 percent of the vehicles that come through. So for the cartels: ``Hey, what the heck. We just lost a semi.'' What do they care? Pocket change. ``Couple of hundred thousand

bucks, million bucks--whatever. We don't care.'' They just try all the time.

And we don't have the defenses we need. We could invest there, but, no, the President wants the wall.

Now, there is another way that drugs are coming into this country. Last year, the Coast Guard intercepted $5.6 billion--sound familiar? $5.6 billion, almost as much as the President wants for the wall--worth of illegal drugs being shipped via the ocean into the United States.

The Commandant of the Coast Guard testified 2 years ago, they are only intercepting 20 percent of the known shipments because their medium endurance cutters are half a century old. They don't have enough helicopters. They don't have enough air support. They don't have enough fast-pursuit boats.

But, no, we are going to invest in a stupid static way. They can go around it in the oceans. They can go around it in the desert. They can go under it. They can go over it.

And the people who are really doing the job, like the Coast Guard, guess what. They are not getting paid either. The first line of defense, Customs and Border Protection--not being paid. The Coast Guard--not being paid.

There is a very long list of Federal employees who are critical to national security who are not being paid today and don't have the tools they need. But the President wants to invest in a stupid static wall because they promised one.

And, oh, by the way, Mexico is going to pay for it, which, of course, they aren't.

You know, yesterday the tip sheet from the Coast Guard support group, the Trump administration, had helpful tips for coasties: you could hold a garage sale; you could perhaps dog walk; you could register as a mystery shopper.

They actually posted this for people who are the first line of defense in the United States of America, instead of saying: ``Put them back to work and pay them, pay them for defending America.''

Now, the President says he can relate to this. He understands. Yes, when he was in business, he stiffed a whole lot of people, and he is stiffing 800,000 Federal employees right now.

Mr. Speaker, why are we here today? We are here today because the President is down on the border and he wants to build, along part of the border, a wall, a Maginot Line, if you would have it. The French thought that they could keep the Germans out by building a fortified wall and fortifications along part of their border. The Germans went around it.

Well, if the drugs were coming over the border illegally, they would go around it. But that is not where they are coming. They are coming through the ports of entry, where we don't have enough personnel, who, by the way, aren't getting paid today, and where we don't have the technology we need to find the humans and the drugs that are being smuggled through in tractor trailers and other vehicles across the border.

If you want to invest in border security, that is a place to invest in border security.

Now, the President promised us a grand infrastructure plan. Little did we know it was going to be a partial wall along the Mexican border that he felt so strongly about that he would shut down the government.

We have the busiest, most complex aviation system in the world. It is the safest in the world. Today, 14,000 air traffic controllers are working without pay. They all got checks today--I just got a copy of one--for $0. So they are still processing their checks, but the check is for $0.

Then we have 3,300 aviation inspectors who are furloughed. They are not essential. We are allowing the airline industry and all the aircraft maintenance facilities and everything else to self-regulate. No one is looking over their shoulder. ``Oh, don't worry about it. No problems.'' Right.

Then, of course, there are a few other issues that this bill would deal with. We have a $100 billion backlog to bring existing transit, which is inadequate for today's needs, up to a state of good repair. This is delaying dealing with that problem more and more into the future.

We have 56,000 bridges on the national highway system that need substantial repair or replacement. Well, guess what? That is not going forward today either.

Last year, we wasted 3.1 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel idling in traffic. A lot of concern about climate change--well, on this side of the aisle, not on that side of the aisle. They don't believe in it. I don't know, maybe the gentleman from Florida does; they are kind of going underwater.

But we aren't giving people the options they need to get out of their cars, to be more efficient with transit.

Wastewater, the Federal Government used to partner with communities to deal with wastewater. We are not doing that anymore.

So are we going to rebuild America? Are we going to deliver on the President's promise of something other than a stupid, wasteful, ineffective wall?

How about shutting down the government because Congress won't provide the funding we need to rebuild our infrastructure? That would be, perhaps, a better cause for this President.

I urge Members to vote for this, reopen the government, fund transportation and infrastructure, and fund our air traffic controllers who are keeping us safe.

Mr. Speaker, I will vote in support of H.R. 2, the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, also known as the Farm bill.

The bill contains many of my priorities. As the author of the 1990 Organic Food Production Act and co-chair of the House Organic Caucus, I am pleased the conference report includes robust funding to help conventional producers transition to organic farming, strong research funding, and new authority for organic producers to be eligible for conservation programs when previously the programs were only available to conventional farmers. The bill also maintains current SNAP benefit levels, increases funding for food bank programs, including The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), and keeps separate funding streams for the Environmental Quality Incentive Program and the Conservation Stewardship Program.

However, the bill maintains the current agricultural subsidy programs, which I strongly oppose. The subsidies are only supposed to go to those ``actively engaged in farming.'' Yet under the bill, the nearly $900 billion in subsidies continue to be skewed towards wealthy individuals and mega-farms at the expense of small and medium-sized farms. In fact, the Environmental Working Group found that 18,000 Americans living in urban areas received more than $63 million in subsidies in 2015 and 2016.

Not only do the subsidy loopholes from previous Farm bills remain, they are made even worse in this newest Farm bill, which expands the definition of ``actively engaged in farming'' to nieces, nephews and cousins--even if they have never set foot on the farm.

Real farmers, especially small- and medium-sized family farms, are in the middle of one of the worst economic downturns in decades, and they need and deserve our help before they are forced to sell their farms and lose their way of life. While the Farm bill contained many improvements to previous bills, the lack of reform and the expansion of subsidy program eligibility is outrageous. I will continue working to reform agricultural subsidy programs to ensure that the benefits go to small- and medium-sized farms, and only to those that actually work the land.

Mr. Speaker, today I would like to honor Mr. Craig LaMountain for his dedication and accomplishments in establishing the Vietnam War Foundation and Museum for the purpose of memorializing those who fought in Vietnam as well as to educate succeeding generations concerning these veterans' experiences, sacrifices, service, and devotion to duty.

Mr. LaMountain is a Vietnam veteran, drafted into the U.S. Army in October 1966 and coming home in August 1968. Mr. LaMountain began collecting memorabilia and visiting schools in New York after his brother, LT Vetal Charles LaMountain, a Naval aviator crashed while on a mission during the Vietnam War and whose remains were never recovered. When Mr. LaMountain's close cousin, Mickey Addy, died of cancer from Agent Orange, the collection was expanded to further present to schools the opportunity for veterans to share their experiences. Like so many Vietnam veterans, Mr. LaMountain continues to sacrifice to this day in fighting his own battle against the effects of Agent Orange.

Upon retirement, Mr. LaMountain incorporated his collection as the Vietnam War Foundation (VWF), a non-profit 501(c)(3) public education foundation. The VWF provides schoolchildren and the general public the opportunity to learn about the military legacy of the 1960s in a ``hands-on'', free of charge environment, hear its Vietnam veterans share their stories, and see and touch restored, historic military aircraft and vehicles. No other known educational foundation in the U.S. is totally dedicated to preserving this unique Vietnam era equipment and memorabilia for future generations of schoolchildren and the general public to experience. Mr. LaMountain has devoted himself to this mission for over 30 years.

It is my privilege to honor Mr. Craig LaMountain today, and my sincere hope that you'll join me in recognizing him for his extraordinary effort to present the Vietnam era story and experiences to schools, veterans and their families, historians and the general public.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in full support of S. 140, legislation that we have been somewhat patiently waiting for the Senate to move on for over a year. This legislation incorporates three different bills passed and reported by the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee last year: H.R. 2518, the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2017; H.R. 1726, the Coast Guard Improvement and Reform Act; and H.R. 2593, the Federal Maritime Commission Authorization Act.

This is going to provide both positive improvements in maritime policy, help with the competitiveness of the U.S. maritime industry, and it is going to be of substantial assistance to the Coast Guard. There are issues where we had some disagreement. It is not a perfect bill, but I am pleased to support it, and I urge all Members to support it.

I am particularly pleased with the 2-year authorized funding levels for the Coast Guard. It has been hurt over a number of years. Their budget has been too thin, and cuts imposed by the

Budget Control Act have been harmful. So this is a reasonable--not optimal--funding level, but it will meet both the acquisition and operational needs, and the Appropriations Committee will have the capability of meeting the targets we have set.

It would have a rigorous new process before the Coast Guard can permanently close any air facility it operates. In my home State of Oregon there was a rather sudden announcement of a closure of an air facility in the mid-coast, Newport, in Representative Schrader's district. The waters of the Pacific are extraordinarily cold year- round. Survival times are not long, and we were putting mariners--both recreational, commercial, and others--at risk. So we have now imposed a new process. There will have to be an extensive public review justification, and then Congress will also have time to review, evaluate, and, if necessary, reject future proposed closures.

I also support a provision in the bill that will allow certificates of documentation to be renewed on a multiyear basis. The Coast Guard has had a backlog forever on certificates of documentation, and they are annual. The rationale has been, well, we need to know your home port every year. We are going to have a process where you can get a 5- year certificate, and then if you change your home port, you have to report it within a certain number of days to the Coast Guard. That solves that issue.

There was a long-discussed provision that was very controversial on the Senate side on the Vessel Incidental Discharge Act. We came up with a compromise. Again, I don't know that it is optimal, but we can live with it. It sets strict technological standards for vessel discharges under the Clean Water Act to protect local waters, minimizing the introduction and spread of aquatic invasive species to where it was becoming an incredibly expensive and difficult problem. We don't need to spread anymore. It establishes a uniform national standard for ballast water treatment that will be developed both by the EPA and the Coast Guard to aid commercial carriers in movement of goods by providing regulatory certainty throughout the United States. It retains a significant role for individual States and citizens to protect their local waters, which has been a critical sticking point in prior efforts to pass this measure.

So under this proposal, States are guaranteed the ability to co- enforce and oversee implementation of the vessel discharge program, petition the EPA and Coast Guard to strengthen ballast discharge standard, should technologies that are more stringent become commercially available, and call for the establishment of no discharge zones in important and sensitive State waters, similar to those currently available for marine sewage. That, again, was not necessarily optimal, but I think it is workable and protects the interests of the State and our precious resources.

I want to acknowledge the chairman and thank him. This will be the last bill he manages on the floor. He has imposed regular order on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee with the water resources development bills, the first long-term FAA bill in three decades, and now an excellent Coast Guard authorization in addition to other products.

I would like to also thank my ranking member--soon, perhaps, depending on where he decides to go--chairman of this subcommittee for his contributions. This is the third time that John Garamendi has worked with the Republicans to deliver a good Coast Guard bill during his tenure. So, all in all, this is a strangely productive day for the House of Representatives, and I am proud to be here.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi), who is the ranking member.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the State of Washington (Mr. Larsen).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney).

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

I want to thank Dave Jansen for his hard work and again congratulate the chairman on his last bill passing on the floor.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a few wolves in my district, not enough. I don't know that I will take Mr. Peterson's wolves, but we are breeding our own.

OR-7 made an incredible journey from way up in northeastern Oregon all the way down to the California border. He went down to California looking for a mate. He finally found one, and those were his first progeny.

Guess what? We are not having catastrophic predation on cattle in southern Oregon. We could accommodate more wolves.

Now, there are reasons why cattle die. My colleague from Oregon might show up, and he has a picture--it is kind of ugly--of a calf that was killed by wolves. It was sad that that calf didn't get to grow up and go to the slaughterhouse.

Here are the real facts. Seventy-four percent of loss is due to health issues; that is, good husbandry. Eight percent almost, 7.8, is due to weather; 2.7 is due to coyotes, cougars, bear, and dogs-- predators. Oh, here we are. Look, that is the problem. Wait a minute. We have new numbers, 0.2 percent--0.2 percent--is due to wolf predation.

Now, I doubt that my colleagues on the other side have gone to Yellowstone to see the phenomenal recovery of the ecosystems in Yellowstone. We will hear that, oh, it is bad for hunters, elk. Well, actually, the elk population is doing very well, but they don't browse all the way down into the streams anymore. So now fish have come back, and other species have come back, because the elk are worried about the wolves, so they stick to the forested areas where they should be. So having apex predators is incredibly important to a balanced environment.

To say that we have to go out and slaughter those--Fish and Wildlife or Animal Damage Control, whatever the heck we call those jerks these days. The Federal Government has been subsidizing for years the indiscriminate slaughter of predator species, ostensibly to help out the ranchers.

Now, when I was a county commissioner, we were kind of broke, and we went through a list of everything we were doing. I said, what are we doing, giving this money there? They said that is our match to the Federal Government to come and kill coyotes. I said, why? What is that about? They said, oh, sheep predation, horrible, horrible.

We were broke. We cut out that. We said, no, we don't want these people here anymore. We are not going to subsidize it.

Guess what happened? Nothing. We did not have horrible sheep predation in my county.

So a lot of this is based on some kind of gut-level, historic fear or hatred of predators that has been passed down from generation to generation.

We can have a healthy wolf population, and you can still do good husbandry with cattle.

So they want to delist the wolf in all the lower 48. We have maybe 8, 12, 10--

we don't even know--in my district, which is historic habitat. In other parts of the State that have been previously occupied, there are no wolves. A couple of our wolves have wandered down to California, the first ones there since we were on this campaign to eliminate them all.

The other thing is science. When you kill the apex predators, then the coyotes depredate on the cattle. Then you have overpopulation of elk, and they browse riparian. A balanced environment is good for everybody.

Mr. Speaker, these people want to unbalance it and delist the entire lower 48. They want to defy good science. And, oh, by the way, what they are doing is so indefensible, but, well, we can't go to court because, actually, we are not following the law.

So this bill does a number of things that are really short-term bad.

By the way, it is going nowhere in the Senate. We are hearing messaging today that we could be doing a farm bill, and we could be doing affordable college education. There are a lot of things we could do--a budget for the United States Government. But, no, we are here on a talking point for a few idiots.

Mr. Speaker, I will vote in support of the Conference Report for H.R. 6157, the Department of Defense and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act of 2019 and Continuing Appropriations Act of 2019.

The legislation includes several provisions that I strongly support, including giving servicemen and women a well-deserved raise of 2.6 percent. Those who serve in uniform have made extraordinary sacrifices for our country and have earned and deserve a pay raise. The legislation also prohibits the use of funds in Syria and Iraq in contravention of the War Powers Resolution. As a co-equal branch of the federal government, the president must come to Congress to seek authorization for the use of military force. It also includes funding for Ukraine and Eastern Europe security initiatives to counter Russia's heightened military provocations and annexation of Crimea.

Despite these vital provisions, I have concerns with a number of provisions included in the Conference Report. This legislation authorizes more than $606.5 billion for the Department of Defense, including $67.8 billion to the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) fund, an account which is not counted in the budget and is not paid for. It adds to the deficit and is used as a slush fund by the Pentagon.

Unlike every other federal agency, the Department of Defense (DOD) has yet to complete a financial audit; taxpayers deserve to know how the biggest bureaucracy in the federal government spends their money.

Additionally, the bill prohibits the closing of Guantanamo Bay, which costs more than $100 million each year to house 41 prisoners and has been used as a top recruiting tool by terrorists. The bottom line is that the prison has been a black eye for the United States, has eroded relationships with our allies, undermined U.S. missions abroad, and put U.S. citizens and our troops at risk of retaliation