Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 205) to amend the Act titled ``An Act to authorize the leasing of restricted Indian lands for public, religious, educational, recreational, residential, business, and other purposes requiring the grant of long-term leases,'' approved August 9, 1955, to provide for Indian tribes to enter into certain leases without prior express approval from the Secretary of the Interior, as amended.

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

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

Under current law, each and every nonmineral lease that a tribe executes with a third party is subject to approval of the Department of the Interior before it can take effect. It doesn't matter whether the tribe and a third party have negotiated the terms of a lease to their mutual satisfaction; Washington, D.C., ultimately decides because, after all, Washington, D.C., always knows better.

Unfortunately, the result of this paternalism is predictable--the leases do not get approved on a timely basis, if at all. The government has erected all kinds of regulatory hurdles for tribes leasing their lands. In the private sector, time is money; and when the government delay costs money, investors take their business elsewhere.

In 2000, Congress agreed with a request by the Navajo Nation to let the tribe lease its land without Federal approval so long as the leasing occurs under tribal regulations and they have been approved by the Secretary. The amendments absolve taxpayers from liability for leasing decisions the Navajo Nation makes.

For years, many tribes have pleaded with Congress to let them manage their lands with less Federal supervision. H.R. 205 simply allows any tribe the same option that the Navajo Nation already enjoys. While this bill does not completely remove the government from tribal lands, which would be our goal, it takes a step in the right direction.

A previous version of this bill was introduced and ordered reported in the very last Congress, but it languished and saw no further action. So I am very pleased today that this bill, sponsored by a Democrat Member, that decreases Federal regulation of Indian lands is poised to pass with very strong bipartisan support.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), who has proven an expert as well as totally versed on the issues of Native Americans in the United States.

I urge adoption of this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

This week, in conjunction with Teacher Appreciation Week, is National Substitute Teacher Recognition Week, recognizing the 270,000 men and women who fill in for permanent teachers every day in the United States.

Research by the Substitute Teacher Institute at Utah State University shows that approximately 1 year of every kid's K 12 education is conducted by those extraordinary individuals who are willing to take on the challenge of providing quality education when the permanent teacher is out of the classroom. I taught for 28 years. I have substituted for my colleagues' classes--it is a miserable job--but these members of the community who fill the void in education are worthy of our recognition.

I would also like to recognize and commend the Substitute Teacher Institute, which since 1995 has been providing activities and techniques to substitutes and has been providing leadership in its service to districts and substitute teachers nationwide. The Substitute Teacher Institute works to revolutionize the role of substitute teachers into opportunities for educational excellence.

I commend them, and I wish to commend all of those people who are substitutes in our Nation's school systems.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1038) to authorize the conveyance of two small parcels of land within the boundaries of the Coconino National Forest containing private improvements that were developed based upon the reliance of the landowners in an erroneous survey conducted in May 1960, as amended.

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

And for some obvious reasons, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar), the sponsor of this bill that solves some real problems, for the introduction of this particular bill.

We have no other speakers. I'd ask if there are other speakers on your side.

I am ready to close if you're ready to yield back.

Mr. Speaker, as has been said, this is a problem. It's sad that it has to come all the way to the Congress to actually solve this problem, but it is being solved; and I appreciate the gentleman from Arizona's hard work in trying to help his constituents out.

I would encourage our Members to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2157) to facilitate a land exchange involving certain National Forest System lands in the Inyo National Forest, and for other purposes.

I, again, ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this bill under consideration.

This is another good bill that solves a problem that should have been solved at another level, and to introduce it I would yield such time as he may consume to the sponsor, the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon).

This is another great bill. I urge its adoption.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2050) to authorize the continued use of certain water diversions located on National Forest System land in the Frank Church- River of No Return Wilderness and the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in the State of Idaho, and for other purposes.

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

Mr. Speaker, again we have a bill that does a great job in solving a problem that should have been solved a long time ago, especially if the Senate would ever listen to it.

To introduce his bill, I would like to yield such time as he may consume to the sponsor of the bill, the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson).

Again, this is an issue that has been recognized and is a solution that Mr. Simpson has presented, and I urge its adoption.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2947) to provide for the release of the reversionary interest held by the United States in certain land conveyed by the United States in 1950 for the establishment of an airport in Cook County, Minnesota.

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

Once again, we have a problem that should easily be corrected and a bill that does that.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Cravaack) to explain his particular piece of legislation.

This is another great solution to a problem that should have been solved at some other level. I appreciate the gentleman for bringing it back.

I urge its adoption, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 491) to modify the boundaries of Cibola National Forest in the State of New Mexico, to transfer certain Bureau of Land Management land for inclusion in the national forest, and for other purposes.

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

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

This legislation would authorize the transfer of a parcel of land known as the Crest of Montezuma from the Bureau of Land Management to the Forest Service.

The Crest of Montezuma is remote from the current BLM-managed areas. It can be better managed by the Forest Service as part of the Cibola National Forest. Both agencies agree and support this legislation.

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

I have no other speakers. Do you have anyone else on this issue?

I also yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2240) to authorize the exchange of land or interest in land between Lowell National Historical Park and the city of Lowell in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and for other purposes, as amended.

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

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

H.R. 2240, introduced by the gentlelady from Massachusetts (Ms. Tsongas), will authorize a land exchange between the Lowell National Historical Park and the city of Lowell, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or the University of Massachusetts Building Authority.

This will allow the transfer of the visitor center parking lot in exchange for an equal number of parking spaces in a new garage to be built by the city. The Park Service property, where the current lot is located, is needed for the community development, and the stakeholders have concluded that this is a more beneficial use to the community and the park visitors.

I urge the adoption of H.R. 2240, and I reserve the balance of my time.

It's another great bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

I appreciate the gentleman from New Mexico's introduction, which is far more fluent than my presentation will be.

I share what the gentleman from New Mexico, as well as the gentlelady from Wyoming, have said on this particular issue, that we in the West seem to have a unique situation in which there is an

effort to try and stifle--hopefully by simple incompetence and not out of planning--but stifle the economic growth that we need so desperately in the West for our kids and for our future.

There are two things that were said today that I read in the paper that come from this administration, which tells us that we're obviously in a campaign season and that the words are simply being used in a unique and different way.

The President once said that the party to which I belong is currently engaged in a war on the poor, which I find unique because, to be honest, when you have overriding and ever-increasing energy costs, that--as the gentlelady from Wyoming said--is the real war on the poor.

Somebody who is in the bottom portion of our economic sphere, our economic stratus, will pay three times as high a percentage of their income for increased energy prices as those who are in the top will. If you have a nice urban job, you may have an inconvenience as energy prices go up. But if you're one of those struggling working families trying to make ends meet, this becomes a unique situation.

When gas prices go up to $4 or more, climbing towards $5, they may dip down again, but they will certainly rise one more time. It hurts the poor far worse than it does any other sector of our country. They are the ones who have the least likely chance of actually having some kind of fuel efficient automobile, and yet they probably have the greatest chance of needing desperately that car simply to go to work, and have no other options whatsoever. They are the ones who will have the most difficult time trying to heat their homes in the middle of winter with the increased cost of fuel. They are the ones who will recognize, first of all, that whenever the cost of gasoline goes up, the cost of food will also go up, simply because it takes money to send that food to market so that you can buy it. All of that hits those who are in the lowest sector of our economy harder than those who are in the upper sector of our economy.

One of the estimates we used a couple of years ago said that for every $420 a family has to pay in increased energy costs, it will equate to 6,000 jobs that will be lost in the economy. That's one of the problems that we simply find ourselves in. The sad part about that is we don't have to do it. This is not an energy-poor country. In fact, it is an energy-rich country.

We should be using the resources that we have here in the country to enrich ourselves and to help each other to have a better lifestyle, not getting worse. And the competition for energy is going to increase as time goes on. There are 6\1/2\ billion people in the world; 2 billion of those 6\1/2\ billion have no electricity today. They're going to want that in the future, which means our energy needs will be increasing, not diminishing. It doesn't matter what kind of efforts you put in there, our energy needs worldwide will be increasing. We have to be able to plan for that.

I have a good friend who is one of the CEOs of an energy company today who said when he was in college back in 1973, the word went out there that we were in an energy crisis, we were running out of oil, and we had to come up with a way of solving that problem. That was still the Shah's era, and so we did.

In 1977, we came up with a national energy plan. It was a colossal failure. It was an effort to do centralized planning here in Washington to come up with a way of solving our problem in the future, and it failed miserably. Thirty years later, we have people in the bureaucracies of this administration who want to try and reinvent a very bad wheel that didn't work back in the 1970s.

Someone has to tell this administration and this city that back in 1988, the Berlin Wall fell down and the idea of centralized planning was discredited throughout the entire world, not only in government, but also in industry. Everyone learned that lesson except the bureaucracies here in Washington, where a solution of this administration and far too much that takes place in this city is still the same idea: let's get a Big Government plan and let the government control everything. We want energy security, but we don't want to drill anywhere. We don't like $4 a gallon gasoline prices, but we're not ready to increase any refineries anywhere. We don't necessarily want more coal or hydro or nuclear, but we're not ready to come up with any kind of alternative. We actually do want to have more gas coming in here, but we're not ready to put any pipelines in place to try and make sure that actually happens.

The end result is we lose. The Western Energy Alliance made the prediction that because of our lack of energy development on public lands in the West, we have lost 16,000 jobs and almost $4 billion of infrastructure investment that comes in there.

The Secretary of Interior made a speech today where he called a lot of things we talk about here in Congress the ``imagined energy world.'' I think this administration believes in that imagined energy world.

It's very easy for this administration to list all of their alternative energy projects by name, because they have very few of them. They're not moving ahead with solar power. They're not moving ahead with wind power. They're not moving ahead with anything else, and they're not moving ahead with alternative forms either. And this hits us in the West specifically.

Mr. Pearce, I don't want to consume too much time. You may want to go in another direction. But I'm an old school teacher, and this is one of the areas that is of concern to me.

This map is obviously the United States. Everything in red is what is controlled by the Federal Government.

You notice that we in the West have the unique opportunity of having one half of everything in the West controlled by the Federal Government. The Federal Government controls one out of every 3 acres in the Nation, and in some of our States it's like 90 percent, 70 percent, 60 percent of all the land is still controlled by the Nation.

Now, one of the things that you may say is, Well, is that bad? I want to contend to some of my good friends who live in other parts of the Nation that they have an interest in all of this red stuff over there because my good friends who live in the East are shelling out $8 billion to $9 billion a year in order to control the West, to pay for all this land. Every year, in their efforts to make sure this map stays the same, that's $8 billion to $9 billion that comes out of their pockets.

What do they get for that investment? They get this map. The States that are in red are the States that have the hardest time funding their education systems over the last several decades.

Now, notice once again the States in red. The area in red is the Federal Government's own land. The States in red are the ones that have a hard time funding. You notice there is kind of a correlation simply between the two? This is what the United States is getting for its $9 billion investment to control the West. We are harming our schools.

Now, even in this land that's in the West, we have a huge backlog in maintenance issues. Our National Park Service is hundreds of millions behind in their maintenance system.

There are some States like mine that simply said, you know, this is ridiculous. Our kids are being harmed in their education funding. We can't generate the money we need for our own infrastructure. Why don't you just let us take control of the land, and we will save those pristine areas that need to be saved. We will ensure there is access for recreation and multiple use, and we will develop those resources.

The Secretary of the Interior today said, simply, that concept defies common sense. The idea that only the Federal Government has the ability and the intelligence to control this kind of land and that people who live in the States obviously can't do it defies common sense.

What this means is the Federal Government that wants to spend more money for land acquisition, that cannot maintain its own land right now, that harms kids in the West with their education funding, that underfunds all the projects that are there right now and simply wants more and more, that's the common sense. If that, indeed, is the future, then we have a long, long way to go.

We in the West simply have a simple situation. We can do it just as well, if not better, and my argument to you is we can actually do it better. That's what should be common sense. Our kids are being harmed by this system. We are not producing jobs for our kids because of this system. What I think we need to do in the West is realize this is a country that has energy potential, energy ability, job potential, job ability, and we have kids that definitely need that.

We in the West pay more taxes than they do in the East when you add everything up. We put a higher percentage of our State budgets into education than they do in the East. We actually have higher class sizes than those in the East. We have more kids than those in the East.

We need to have the ability of actually meeting our particular needs. Part of that is for this administration to simply realize you've got to help develop the resources that we can. We can control it. We can fund it. We can do it if you give us the opportunity just to move forward.

This administration says that we are producing more oil now than ever before because it's all being produced on private property where they can't control it, try as they might to. If they simply unleash the potential in all this red area, this country would move forward in a growth spurt that is almost impossible to imagine. That's the commonsense plan.

I am very happy to be a part of this issue because I'm excited about what my colleagues are saying in a much more refined way than I have been able to do that, and I'm excited about hearing some more of my westerners who realize, hey, listen, there is a war on western jobs and it needs to stop. We need to have help in creating western jobs, not hindrance in stopping western jobs.

I thank the gentleman from New Mexico, and, once again, I do agree with you. I enjoy your image of the world much better than this particular administration. It reminds me of ``Back to the Future'' when they had the two movies, what happened if Biff got the sports sheets and what happened if he didn't? It's almost what we're doing here. There are two actual visions of what the future of this America will be; and, I'm sorry, this administration keeps taking us down the road in which Biff actually does have the sports sheets and he is able to win all those bets and get control of everything.

I just want to add one other thing to what the gentlelady from Wyoming also said here. When we talk about the Federal Government and what the Federal Government does on public lands, I just want you to realize it is not only related to public lands itself.

We find that this administration is not satisfied with just living within the boundaries of public lands, but is coming up with policies that impact private property that is next to those public lands. When this administration took over, in the State of Utah there were 77 oil leases that had gone through a 7-year review. They had all the public hearings, they did everything, they were ready to be let for sale to try and develop those resources in the eastern part of my State.

The very first thing this administration did was recall those 77 leases. It didn't matter that the process had gone through, they had done the work. They recalled them for the purpose of special interest groups for their satisfaction. What happened in the eastern part of my State is the unemployment rate simply skyrocketed not only for

these 77 leases that were on public land; but the private sector that was there ready to invest saw the handwriting on the wall, and they pulled out of that particular area. They were not ready to go through the kind of harassment as well as the regulation that they could see taking place. And the unemployment skyrocketed; the investment in that area went. Only now is it starting gradually and gradually to come back in.

Here is the problem that we have with this administration's policies: Not only do they inhibit energy production and jobs that can be generated on public lands; their efforts of increased regulation and efforts to inhibit that kind of development take away jobs on private property where they see that there is not a future there and they don't want to go through the regulatory hassle. So what could have been developed in my State basically went to North Dakota on private lands, and there they found their ability to make lots of money and to increase the energy production here because they simply did not have to deal with this administration.

Unfortunately, it's not just about energy jobs. This administration on public lands is doing the same thing for recreation jobs. With the number of roads that have been closed on the forest and BLM lands, stopping the ability of people to hunt and fish and do other forms of regulation, even the kinds of regulation on outfitters that tells them what kind of coffee they have to serve when they're on Park Service property, that is an impediment to the development of our recreation community and recreation jobs at the same time.

One of the things we have to realize is that this administration's effort to try and control everything is producing nothing that is helping us create jobs for our kids to keep them at home. I appreciate Mr. Pearce for actually starting this process and talking about this issue because it needs desperately to be addressed.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 614 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to claim time in opposition to the point of order and in favor of consideration of the resolution.

I am pleased to be down here for this procedural issue that is before us. The question before the House is: Should the House now consider House Resolution 614? While the resolution waives all point of order against consideration of the bill, the committee is not aware of any points of order.

The waiver is prophylactic in nature. The Congressional Budget Office has stated that H.R. 4089 contains no intergovernmental or private sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandate Reform Act and would impose no costs on State, local, or tribal governments. Again, Mr. Speaker, this waiver is prophylactic, and the motion from the gentlelady from Wisconsin is dilatory.

In order for the House to continue our scheduled business for today, we need to continue on with this proposal and dealing with the rule that is before us.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Well, I would be happy to, but I don't control the time.

I would not dare to try and supersede my interpretation over the Speaker's interpretation. That is his responsibility. However----

Would you allow me to answer the question?

That is still the Speaker's responsibility. However, what deeming applies to is that these are for procedural considerations allowed to go forward until such time as an actual budget has indeed passed. So the answer to your question is actually both: Temporarily, yes; long term, obviously no.

At some time, the Senate has to do their work. Hopefully, they will do it soon and then this issue would be moot.

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

Mr. Speaker, once again, I wish to remind the body that we are dealing with a procedural issue. We've heard a great deal of policy debate here, but what we are dealing with is a procedural issue.

The policy of the debate has been debated on this floor and will be debated in the future as well under two criteria: one, either allowing our committees to move forward with its authorization, appropriations, and reconciliation efforts, in which case certain procedural techniques must take place; or, two, actually allowing the Senate to do their work and pass a budget, going to a conference, and then moving forward in that manner. One way or the other, the procedure must go forward. This is not policy we're debating here, it's procedure.

There is precedence for what we are doing. Indeed, in the last Congress, H.R. 1500, the opposition party, the minority party, also deemed resolutions and brought them forward--actually, it's happened six times in our history. The only difference between the deeming that we have here and the deeming

that happened in the last session of Congress is that this particular budget--which will be debated again--actually went through a committee and had a vote on the floor. Unfortunately, when the Democrat Party did that a couple years ago, they had not gone through a committee, they did not have a debate on the floor or in committee or a vote on anything. Actually, the numbers that were deemed at that time were less than 1-day's notice before they were actually voted on the floor. And everyone who has spoken against this procedure voted for that particular deeming a couple of years ago in the last Congress.

There is precedence for this, and the precedence is solely a procedural issue. This is not the time to talk about the policy. There was a time before, and there will be time in the future. This is a procedural precedent, and we can only move forward in doing the work of this Congress--and I appreciate the other side for at least admitting that the Republicans are trying to move forward in the work of this Congress--if we have certain procedural issues done in advance. That's what we are attempting to do.

So, in order to allow the House to continue its scheduled business of this day, I urge Members to vote ``yes'' on the question of the consideration of this resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, to continue on, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

The resolution provides for a structured rule for the consideration of H.R. 4089, a bill to protect the traditional rights of American sportsmen to fish and hunt on public lands free from undue and illogical bureaucratic restrictions and unwarranted and irrational limitations, and

provides for 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources.

Mr. Speaker, I am actually pleased to stand before this House today and support this rule, as well as the underlying legislation. Far too often decisions are made to placate certain political special interest groups who are headquartered far away from the locations they seek to dominate and control, and too often the needs of local citizens and local taxpayers who live in those areas in which the impact will occur are ignored. This asks for our consideration.

Too often local and State considerations are not taken into account. Too often there are inconsistencies within the public domain where the BLM, Fish and Wildlife, and the National Park Service will have different rules. And the difficulty, obviously, for a citizen is not knowing where one starts and where one ends. This bill tries to bring some consistency. And though I don't know how much of the debate will occur on this particular issue, it is about hunting and fishing on public lands.

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

As was stated on the point of order, when we talk about deeming--a term that, obviously, most Americans have never heard--a procedural issue, we have had the policy debate, and we will have in the future the policy debate. But this point is about procedure.

So, Mr. Speaker, if you will allow me, I'd actually like to go back to the topic of the debate we have today and the topic of the rule and, indeed, the topic of the bill, which deals with hunting and fishing. That ought to be what we are talking about in here, because that is the issue before us in the underlying bill--hunting and fishing. And it is significant because what this bill asks for those who are sportsmen in America is that hunting and fishing be recognized as a historic and traditional recreation activity and that our bureaucracy back here in Washington will support and protect those hunting and fishing rights, although we do not insist that they prioritize them.

What that means in simple language is if the agencies back here in the bureaucracies of Washington decide that some area of public land should be closed to public recreation, they have to have a darn good reason to do it. In fact, the bill lists some reasons to do it--fire safety, public safety, national security, or compliance with State laws or regulations, and only then and there. Indeed, in addition to having that criteria, unlike other elements when we deal with public-lands issues, there is a specific time limit on when these decisions have to be made; and if, indeed, the agency will not make those decisions in a timely fashion, it reverts back to what it was and these activities may go forward.

Do we need to do this? Of course we do. One Bureau of Land Management official implied that recreational hunting should be eliminated on public

lands because, in his words: The urbanites freak out when they hear the sound of shots being done on public lands.

I suggest to you that is not a logical reason on why hunting and fishing rights should be prohibited; and, therefore, you need this language in here to make sure those hunting and fishing rights are indeed protected.

There will be one amendment that will come forward later on that talks about recreational shooting. I want to remind this body that under the rules that we have, that includes such things as reenactments. If ever the Bureau of Land Management or the National Park Service has a reenactment, if that amendment were to be passed, you couldn't actually shoot a flintlock because it would violate some of the proposed rules here.

It also goes on to say that Congress has, for a long time, banned EPA from making rules or regulations dealing with lead ammunition or flying equipment. And yet, once again, we have a nuisance lawsuit that was filed on March of this particular year petitioning the EPA to make a decision to try and ban this particular process. There is no scientific evidence for that petition.

But we don't know necessarily what some of the agencies in here making bureaucratic regulations--in effect, making a legislative decision within the body of an executive agency--will do. Therefore, this legislation, once again, makes it crystal clear that Congress has spoken on this issue, that Congress has primacy on this issue, and that Congress' decision on this issue should, indeed, be respected.

This bill stops red tape by the bureaucracies that has stopped legal hunting trophies from coming into this country. I emphasize the word ``legal'' hunting trophies.

This bill is supported by every sportsmen's group imaginable.

Some people would say this is a Second Amendment issue. I don't necessarily want to go that far because our Second Amendment is about an individual right to self-defense. Hunting was not the purview of the Second Amendment when it was adopted. But, indeed, the ability of people to bear weapons on public lands to do hunting and fishing when it is allowable is important, and it is important for us to step forward and say that it should be protected.

In essence, what this bill does is say to those who like to recreate on public lands, and that recreation includes hunting and fishing, that is a traditional, that is a historic activity and that should be maintained, and any of those efforts by special interest groups to try and curtail that will be rejected by this Congress. That's why this bill is here, that's why this bill is significant, that's why this bill is important, and that's why this bill should be passed, including the rule to start forward in that process.

With that, Mr. Speaker, we will talk about other elements, I'm sure, that will come up, but we can do that at a later time, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I appreciate the concerns of some people who do not live in areas that have a vast amount of public lands owned and controlled by the Federal Government, who don't see the need for some of those situations to be modified, rectified, and secured.

For those of us who have the joy of the Federal Government as an absentee landlord, this bill is actually of significance. It's not just another gun bill; it's dealing with ways of life and recreation opportunities that should and ought to be maintained at all times.

But, Mr. Speaker, there is the deeming portion of this that happens to be there. Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, that name that goes back to my childhood, once gave a wonderful article in which he told people that if you were a Senator not to worry about the rules of the Senate because none of the Senators know what they are, so just go ahead and try what you want to. He also said that if you're a House Member, rules of the House are too complex, so just ask the Parliamentarians; don't try to learn them. There's a load of wisdom in that, because what we have in here, in this particular deeming section, is a procedural issue, something that must take place according to our rules if we, indeed, are to go forward with the work of what Congress is supposed to be.

Unlike the rhetoric that we have heard so far, this is not the debate on the policy issue. That has happened in the past. That will come again in the future. This rule is simply about the procedure if we allow Congress to move forward with our work.

I have said there is precedent for this. Six times in the history of the House these kind of deeming provisions have been written into the budget. Is it good? Of course not. No one wants to do it this way. But it has to go forward simply because of the dynamics of the two Houses that we have here right now.

As I said, this has precedent for it.

In 2010, indeed, there was another deeming motion that was made here on the floor in House Resolution 1500 of that particular year. The gentleman from Massachusetts was the sponsor of that on the floor, as well, in which, at that time, under Democratic control, we also deemed. There was a difference, though, in that deeming of that time. Under this time, there has been a budget that has gone through the Budget Committee and that was voted on in the Budget Committee and was debated on the floor and passed on the floor.

In 2010, there was no budget that went through a Budget Committee and did not have a vote. Indeed, the numbers were only given a day before the actual vote took place under martial law. At that time, in 2010, this House resolution was hereby adopted. We're not doing that this time. What we are simply doing is allowing the process to go forward.

Now, there are two ways of doing this: either we can pass this deeming concept for the House so that the appropriation bills and the authorization bills and the reconciliation bills within their committee can go forward with some kind of standard on what they are doing. To do so without that is like playing a baseball game without any umpires where no one is there to say what is a ball and what is a strike and if there is an out or a safe. That's what this concept would do.

There's another way of solving that same problem, and that's asking our good friends on the other side of this Chamber, the Senate, to finally pass a budget so that we can work together and move forward.

Look, the Senate has refused to pass a budget in, now, 1,081 days; 1,081 days the Senate has refused to do a budget on their side. And we should not be paralyzed because of their inaction. In 1,081 days, Henry VIII married, divorced, and beheaded his wife in less time than that.

The Senate should be willing to move forward, and if they did, if they passed the budget and we have this conference committee, we could actually move forward in that time. But without that, we have to do something else procedural so that our committees can actually pass authorization bills, appropriation bills, and reconciliation bills and bring them here to the floor in some kind of order.

We have to have a budget if you don't want to have a government shutdown. You have to have a budget if you want a reconciliation that will solve what Secretary Panetta says is that sequester meat ax that would happen to the defense of this country.

You have to have a budget because the Senate refuses to do a budget. I find it surprising that some on the other side are basically arguing not to do anything, which would actually lead to shutting down the government or draconian cuts, or basically telling us we're not supposed to do our work. That is ridiculous.

This is not a great concept. I'm not happy that we're doing this. It would be much better if the Senate would do their work and let us work together.

Or maybe there's a third option. Congressman Berger of Wisconsin, back in the 1920s, suggested that a constitutional amendment would be passed to dissolve the U.S. Senate and leave only the House. That is a third option that would solve our problems, and perhaps our friends on the other side would like that option better.

Sans that opportunity, we've got to move forward. This is a procedural issue to move us forward with precedents, having been done in the last Congress, precedents. I ask that you consider that.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I appreciate the former Speaker's visit to the floor, and I have a comment to make about the verbiage of deem and pass.

But first, before we get there, I'd like to actually have someone talk about the resolution itself. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Miller) to actually go back to what it's supposed to be about, hunting and fishing.

I thank the gentleman from Oregon for being here. It was exhilarating to hear someone actually talking about the bill before us. Unfortunately, it was slightly inaccurate as well, so if I could make a couple of corrections.

The trophy concept that is there is not opening it up for new elements. It is simply saying those trophies that were already legally hunted and have been denied access to this country can be accessed into this country. It doesn't expand anything. Indeed, rather than actually taking away State and local control, one of the provisions of this bill is that the rules will be attuned to State and local laws, which means State and local authorities actually have a great deal of authority under this particular bill. They have more authority than a bureaucrat sitting here in Washington.

But let me go back to what the other people wish to talk about, and that is this deeming concept again--even though that is one of the provisions and is still not the basis of the bill.

I taught debate for almost a dozen years, and I had a debate coach when I was younger who used to say when you're totally lost on an issue and you don't know what to do, just find an argument and keep drilling it in over and over again and just maybe the judge will vote for you. You've heard that happening today. No decision is being made on this procedural vote. We did actually have a debate and vote 3 weeks ago. That debate would have been appropriate, was appropriate 3 weeks ago, and will be appropriate in the future, but not necessarily. This is a procedural vote on how we move forward; it is not a policy vote on how we move forward.

Words do have consequences and meaning. The Speaker was kind enough to come in here and talk about how we are deeming and passing something. I have to take umbrage of that slightly. We are not deeming something and passing something. That actually took place in 2010 when Speaker Pelosi presided over House Resolution 1500 that, indeed, deemed and then passed something--passed something that had not

gone through committee, had not been discussed or voted by anybody. And with less than a day of actually looking at the numbers, that was deemed and then passed.

What we are talking about here is passing something which happened 3 weeks ago and now, so that we can go forward with the discussion in our committees, deeming it simply because the Senate, once again, in over 1,000 days has failed to allow us, in a traditional way, to move forward. That's why this is a procedural vote. This is not about policy. This is not an effort where you have to pass something to find out what's in it. This is the procedure in which we will go forward on something we have already passed out of committee, on something which is in the nature of what is going forward, which has been debated here on the floor, and now allow it to be debated further. This is procedural. This is procedural.

I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

I appreciate that. And reclaiming the time very briefly because I know you're the next speaker and you're going to go over this issue one more time, yeah, that's exactly what--there has to be a procedure to go forward. But, once again, unlike what happened in 2010, we're not pulling the numbers out of thin air. You actually had the chance to debate that earlier in your Budget Committee and will have the chance to debate that again on the floor as well as in the committee. That's process; it's a process. If you want to, again, go across the rotunda and talk to your friends over on the other side, maybe we wouldn't have to do that. But until they're willing to do something, we have a procedural problem here.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time and look forward to hearing the gentleman.

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

My old debate coach is looking down on our actions and is smiling, saying his advice was right. Just keep making the same arguments over and over again, and maybe someone will actually believe those. This, actually, still is about a sportsmen bill and about hunting and fishing rights on public property.

What the gentleman from Maryland just said is 99 percent accurate. There is one slight difference in what he said, and that is that this would be deemed until such time as there is a conference report. If there, indeed, is another avenue to go, ask the Senate to do its work, to do its job, to have a conference committee, and to actually move forward in that manner. Otherwise, we have to either do it in an improvised way, which is this, or you have to simply not do it at all.

Actually, one of the end results of what the other side is telling us to do is to simply not do anything. Do not go forward with any ideas. Do not go forward with reconciliation, and have a defense sequestration go into effect that would devastate the military that Secretary Panetta is begging you not to do. You have to do something procedurally to move forward. This vote does not implement anything. This vote allows our committees to go back and do the work that we were supposed to do. You defeat this, and we go back to a policy of doing nothing.

As I said before, there is precedent for what we are doing. I don't know why we say we are burying this in a hunting bill; but in 2010 when we did this deeming practice over another administration, it was buried in section 4 of House Resolution 1500. Once again, in going through a different process back then because no committee had ever looked at those numbers before, they were deemed and passed. This time, we actually passed a bill. We debated it in committee. We debated it on the floor. Now we are going to deem those numbers until such time as the Senate is responsible enough to do its work and have a conference committee report so that the House at least does what we are charged to do, and that is the work of the American people.

This is a procedural resolution that allows our committees to go forward to find solutions and to do it with some order to it. It doesn't presuppose what the final decision will be. That's the argument that's being made here. It does not presuppose the final decision. It is the procedure to go forward, Madam Speaker, and that is why we so desperately need to do this--so the House can do its work when the Senate refuses to do its work.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I would urge the gentleman to pay particular attention to some of the amendments that are proposed under this rule, one of which would actually probably prohibit those Hollywood people from making movies on public lands again if any kind of hunting and fishing action were to be required.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

With that, Madam Speaker, let me yield 5 minutes to the chairman of the Rules Committee, who is here to clean up the mess I have made so far.

How many would you like me to have?

Then we will have that many, but I hope I will be the last.

Madam Speaker, there is, as I finish this, a couple of areas I want to talk about. There are children who are preparing to go to preschool today who have lived their entire lives without seeing the Senate actually pass a budget. Were that not the case, we would not be here with this particular issue, and if they actually were to pass a budget, we would go forward without this particular issue.

Once again, the merits of the budget notwithstanding, this vote does not implement anything; it allows us the procedure to go forward to implement something. The underlying bill still does talk about the ability of those of us who live in public land States to have hunting and fishing rights guaranteed and protected without the heavy hand of Washington bureaucrats stopping that concept. Indeed, State law will have to be considered before they do any kind of concept.

I also want to put one other concept before you, just in closing, that illustrates the problem we have with the American people on how we waste money and, indeed, that needs to be one of the first things of our consideration.

CBO has scored this bill as potentially costing $12 million. It doesn't make a difference. There is nothing mandated in here that needs to have a review under the NEPA process of these bills. The administration said that we might have to go through this process, therefore, you should score it at $12 million.

Let's make an assumption that you actually had to go through the reprocessing of going through all of the land management plans. And I would ask the people the question: Does it make sense that it would take $12 million for the Park Service and the BLM to decide whether hunting would or would not be allowed? Could that not be done with the Secretary and a cell phone within a week if we actually were decent about what we were attempting to do?

When, indeed, we have bills like this in which the administration and the government is trying to say, well, it will cost $12 million to make the decision of whether hunting is allowed or not, it puts all of our efforts into question. It does not make sense. And it may be one of the reasons why we need to look at what we are doing internally first, and that would be an appropriate thing to take place.

Madam Speaker, in closing, I want to reiterate that this is still a procedural vote on a rule that is extremely fair, and it is appropriate to the underlying legislation of H.R. 4089, which does talk about fishing and hunting rights, preserving that time-honored tradition and, indeed, allowing those of us in the West to make sure that we are not precluded from those traditional areas of activity. It's a good bill and, more importantly, this is a fair rule, and I urge you to adopt it.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

The Antiquities Act, which allows the President to designate land, is a legislative function that the legislature gave to the executive branch in Teddy Roosevelt's time. Whether it is good or not, it is wrong for Congress to give its authority away to the executive branch. At the time, it was thought it would be okay because there were specific restrictions placed on it. You had to have a specific something geological, historical that you were going to preserve, it was in imminent danger, and it was going be on the smallest area possible in the debate that was going to be over a couple hundred acres.

The unfortunate thing is Presidents since that time have used this monument designation power for political purposes in areas quite bigger than that. The last monument that was created in my State was not a couple of hundred acres. It was bigger than the States of Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island combined. It was done at 9 a.m. after the Governor of the State was told about it at 2 a.m., after having been told earlier that day that nothing was going to happen in this kind of an area.

Earlier this year, the Antiquities Act was used at Fort Monroe when the entire delegation and the local community were in favor of it. When ours was done, as well as many of the other Antiquity Act monuments were done, the local delegation was not in favor of it, and the Governor was not in favor of it. Everyone was not in favor of it. What the Foxx amendment tries to do is simply say, look, if you're going to keep this power with the President, at least get a check-and-balance system somewhere. Let's make sure that the local people, the State people are fine with this designation before the President does something arbitrarily, capriciously and, unfortunately too often, for political reason.

Keep the legislative power where it should be, with the legislature, but at least if you're not going to do that, at least put some kind of logical check and balance on the system.

I think I thank the gentleman from Ohio for that introduction.

Since 1857, if I count correctly, John Sullivan is the 19th Parliamentarian we have had in the House of Representatives, even though the term actually wasn't used officially until 1927. But of those Parliamentarians in the 20th century, Lewis Deschler served for 46 years as Parliamentarian, and I believe his replacement, William Brown, served for 20 years.

So John, in all sincerity, serving only 8 years as the Parliamentarian here makes you a Parliamentarian slacker. I think a couple more years would be appropriate if you'd like to reconsider and stay with us.

But through those almost 8 years as the Parliamentarian, 20-plus years working in that office, your ability to help the majority meet its goals while at the same time respecting the minority is not an easy task. But John Sullivan did do it with aplomb.

Former Senator Eugene McCarthy once said, The Senate has rules, but none of them over there care about it. In the House, the House rules are too complex. Don't learn them; just ask the Parliamentarian. I think for all of us, we do that.

I do know from my time in the chair, Parliamentarians do not like ad libbing. There is one time I simply turned to John and said, Why don't we just mike you, and I will move my lips. I still think that would be far more appropriate, but I don't think anyone in his office found that funny.

George Will once wrote that the only thing he remembers about his wedding day was the Cubs lost a doubleheader. I say that because John's grandfather pitched for the 1919 Chicago Black Sox, and John is still a fan of the White Sox and closely associated with that franchise. His replacement, Tom Wickham, who will come in, is a fan of the Cardinals. For a Cubs devotee like myself, there is just no hope in this world.

But I do want to know, even though both of you are on the wrong side of the baseball sphere, I want you to know that I thank you so very much, Mr. Sullivan, for your personal friendship. I also thank you for your two-plus decades of loyal service to this House. I also thank you for your lifetime of service and dedication to this country. We wish you well. We are a better place for having worked with you here.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 587 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

I am obviously in favor of consideration of this resolution.

The question before the House is: Shall the House now consider House Resolution 587?

While the resolution waives all points of order against consideration of the bill, the committee is not aware of any point of order. The waiver is a complete waiver in nature.

Note, there is not a specific waiver against an earmark simply because the bill contains no earmarks. It is in compliance with the earmark definition provided for us in the House Rules, a rule that goes back to, actually--to make the record complete--the 109th Session of Congress and the earmark ban instituted by the House Republicans when they took the majority in January of last year.

As is required by House Rules, the committee report filed for this bill on January 18 includes a specific determination and statement that the bill does not contain an earmark. I will quote from page 5 of the report: The bill does not contain any congressional earmarks or limited tax benefits or limited tariff benefits as defined by the Rules of the House of Representatives.

With all due respect to my friend from Arizona, each person may have his own perception of what an earmark is, but, with all due respect, the term ``congressional earmark'' means a provision that provides or authorizes or recommends a specific amount of discretionary budget authority, credit authority, or other spending authority or expenditures with or to an entity. It has to have money involved in it.

Specifically, the definition of an earmark requires that there be spending in the form directed to an entity or targeted geographically. This bill does not involve the spending of money or loan authority or credit authority or any other form of payment of funds.

The land in question is already with the county. It will remain with the county. Whether we pass this bill or not, it is still with the county. The only issue is the deed restriction, not the value of the land, not the transfer of money.

This parcel is with Virginia on Federal land that at one time had a deed restriction. It simply removes that deal.

The CBO viewed and scored this bill, and concluded it would not cost money, stating it ``would have no significant impact on the Federal budget.''

Moreover, this type of bill, clearing the title to land, has repeatedly been approved when the House has been controlled by both Republicans and Democrats. The definition of an earmark is clear. There has not been a fiscal impact, and this bill does not meet the House rules definition used by either Democrats or Republicans.

This is really a red herring to stop economic development and the creation of jobs caused by lingering Federal bureaucratic red tape.

This county is one of the poorest counties in the Commonwealth of Virginia, with more than 16 percent of its population living in poverty and a higher rate of unemployment than the rest of Virginia. This very small bill, at no cost to the Federal taxpayer, will help to turn that around.

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

Mr. Speaker, once again, the rule does not waive an earmark, because there are no earmarks. It is a general waiver that is in there. If one were to look back at the past three Congresses, official bills that have been prepared that are very similar to this have also included the same type of language and were determined as not to have an earmark. Specifically, go back to H.R. 944 in the 112th Congress, H.R. 86 in the 111th Congress, H.R. 356 in the 110th Congress, H.R. 2246 in the 110th Congress, and S. 404 in the 112th Congress--same language, same situation, same condition.

Once again, the rules of our House say this is not an earmark. The

Let me try and once again put this in perspective.

The Federal Government, in and of itself, owns no land, especially in one of the original 13 States.

Virginia had the land and gave it to the Federal Government. In 1976, the Federal Government gave this back to the county with a lease for a park and restrictions, a deed restriction only. There is no transfer of money if we take away the deed restriction. There is no transfer of authority. The county has it. The county will continue to have it.

The dollar value that was given was made up in the minds of the Department of the Interior. This county actually said, if you really want more parkland, we will create 32 acres somewhere else for more parkland. The Department of the Interior said, No, let's have cash instead. They are the ones that determined that this land was worth 25 grand an acre, asking almost a million dollars from one of the poorest counties. They came up with that on their own. That does not mean it's reality.

The reality is the county has the land. The county will continue to have the land. There is no transfer of dollars. There is no loss from taxpayers in America. Actually, these guys who live in Virginia are taxpayers, too. Transferring from one pocket to the other is a ridiculous requirement to place on them, and all we're talking about is a deed restriction--how can we best use the land to actually help people.

Now, if the other side does not care about this county, does not care about the 16 percent of the population living in poverty, does not care about the unemployment rate, does not care that they actually use this land in a logical, rational manner, I can understand that. It still doesn't mean that's an earmark.

The point of order is a delay tactic of today's consideration of this legislation.

Sometimes in the past, a couple of other Members who have declared what I think are earmarks as non-earmarks have always used the old cliche if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. But as Hans Christian Andersen told us, sometimes those ducks you perceive are actually the honking of a swan. This bill is a swan. This bill will help these people to produce themselves.

This point of order has no merit to it. In order to allow the House to continue its scheduled business of the day, I urge Members to vote ``yes'' on the question of consideration of this resolution.

I yield back the balance of my time.

For purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlelady from New York (Ms. Slaughter), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

The resolution provides for a modified open rule for the consideration of H.R. 2087, a bill to remove certain restrictions from a parcel of land that's situated in the Atlantic District of Accomack County, in Virginia. It provides for 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources. This rule makes in order all amendments that were preprinted in the Congressional Record and which otherwise comply with the rules of the House.

So this modified rule is a very fair rule. It is a generous rule. It will provide for a balanced and open debate on the merits of this bill that is not an earmark.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to the sponsor of this bill, who will once again try to describe to this body how this county land should stay with the county and needs to be dealt with by the county and all we have to do is remove an unnecessary restriction on its deed.

With that, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Rigell).

I would be more than happy to close at any time you are ready.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak in favor of the underlying bill. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Rigell) knows his constituents; he knows the needs there and has worked very hard for their benefit.

This, as we already discussed and voted, is not an earmark. The gentlelady from New York introduced a heritage area for Niagara Falls that got $10 million sent from the Federal Government to that place. That was officially not an earmark. This bill has no money going anywhere. The land is the county's, no exchange of profit whatsoever. There is no earmark, and there is no money being exchanged.

This land was originally Virginia's land. They gave it to the Federal Government for a Federal purpose. Thirty-six years ago, the Federal Government, in no longer needing the land, gave it back to this county for a public park. As a public park, it is useless. Now that's the common bond here. It is not needed as a park; it is not used as a park; there is no parking; it is inaccessible; and it is lousy for that purpose. The county, though, would like to use their land to do economic development because that is where it is and for what it would best be used, how it would help the public and the general good if it were used for economic development. All they need is the Federal Government to graciously grant a deed restriction, which they refuse to do--for whatever purpose, no one really knows, but they won't do it. That is why the county needs to keep the county land, to do something that is common sense, simply use the land for the purpose in which it best suits the needs of the people.

I don't know why the Department of the Interior, in its infinite wisdom, decides they want to tell the county in Virginia what is best for Virginia, but that is exactly what they are trying to do by being hard-nosed, not on a law, but on an internal rule from the Department of the Interior.

Look, this government already controls 1 out of every 3 acres in this Nation. One-third of America is controlled by the Federal Government. That means the Federal Government's in-holdings are larger than any country's in the world, with the exception of Russia's and Canada's. That's what we already have. And yet the Department of the Interior is straining over 32 acres that shouldn't be a park and that need to be used to help the people of this particular county, and that is simply illogical. It is irrational.

I have faced similar circumstances in countless bills that we have had and passed before this body. There was public land in the middle of Park City in my district that was controlled by the Bureau of Land Management. They didn't need it; they didn't want it; they didn't use it. It was actually being occupied by squatters. The city had no control over it because it was public land, and yet the Department of the Interior did not want to let go of that land because the control was already there.

We passed another bill earlier that went through the House and the Senate that transferred land that the Forest Service had that they didn't even know they had. We had to do a title search to remind them, oh, yeah, that actually is ours. They didn't need it; they didn't want it; they didn't use it; and after 6 years, we finally got them to give it up so it could be used for a better purpose.

We have another bill for 2 acres in Alta that the Park Service doesn't want to give up, for whatever reason, even though on that 2 acres there is already the city building, a public safety building, and public bathrooms for the community and those that go to that ski resort; and yet the Forest Service, in this case, doesn't want to give that up for whatever reason there may be.

Mr. Speaker, we were just in a hearing earlier this morning that dealt with a proposed Eisenhower memorial. In all due respect, I just recently read a biography of Eisenhower. When he was just a lieutenant in the Army, he had his first child, and he applied for and received permission for a housing increase that he thought he deserved and so did the commanding officer who approved that housing increase. A little while later, they did an audit, and the acting inspector general did an audit and found out that there was a technicality to which General Eisenhower was not entitled to that housing increase. When he was confronted with that, he immediately apologized and said he was more than willing to pay back the $250.67 that he owed the government.

But that wasn't good enough for the inspector general. That acting inspector general wanted a court-martial because that was what the rules where. That acting inspector general had this blind fetish for fealty to follow rules because that's what bureaucrats always want to do. Fortunately, there was a commanding officer that realized that this young Army officer had a talent and an ability and intervened and allowed General, then Lieutenant, Eisenhower simply to pay the $250.67 and get on with it.

It is amazing to consider what this Nation and what this world would be like if Lieutenant Eisenhower had actually been court-martialed over $250.67 because that was the rule.

We have the same situation, 32 acres that is useless. Right now it has no purpose. It sits there, and the Federal Government wants to deny a county in Virginia the ability to do something useful to help people on 32 acres because it violates their internal rule. There has to be some time when common sense takes over and we actually do things because it's the right thing to do, because it is the better thing to do.

Fortunately, there was an officer in Texas that realized, in the case of General Eisenhower, common sense should take over. It would be nice, it would be wonderful if, within the Department of the Interior, there were some element of common sense that said it is stupid what we are doing with this land. We need simply to use common sense and use the land for a better, better purpose.

There is no transfer of land. The county has it. If we don't pass this bill, the county will still have it. They just can't use it effectively.

If we pass this bill, there will be no transfer of money. All you're saying is the county can use the county's land to do something the county needs to help the people in that county. And, honestly, should that not be our goal? Is that not our purpose, to actually use common sense? Or do we have the bureaucratic blood running through our veins that we put these little blinders on and, unless we check the right box, it doesn't matter if it helps, it doesn't matter if it's good, it doesn't matter if it's possible, we won't do it because of our internal rules?

That is, indeed, where this country and this Congress has come. There is something definitely wrong with us.

This rule is a fair rule. It will provide for a good debate. It provides for all those amendments that were preprinted and are in order to be debated here on the floor.

Let us proceed forward with this bill. Let's help this county that desperately needs our help and that desperately needs us just to use some good, old-fashioned common sense. Vote ``yes'' on this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

The previous question was ordered.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 570 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlelady from New York (Ms. Slaughter), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

This resolution provides for a modified open rule for the consideration of H.R. 2842, succinctly titled the Bureau of Reclamation Small Conduit Hydropower Development and Rural Jobs Act of 2011. It provides for 1 hour of general debate equally divided between and controlled by the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Natural Resources and makes in order all amendments which were preprinted in the Congressional Record and which otherwise comply with the rules of the House.

So this modified open rule is a very fair and generous rule--a continuation of the work of Chairman Dreier and the Rules Committee-- and will provide for a balanced and open debate on the merits of the bill.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to stand before the House today in support of this rule, as well as the underlying legislation, H.R. 2842. I appreciate the hard work of the bill's chief sponsor, Mr. Tipton of Colorado, as well as Mr. Gosar of Arizona, one of the cosponsors, Representative McClintock of California, who is the chairman of the subcommittee that held the hearings on this bill, and of course Chairman Hastings of the Resource Committee, who brought this bill forward as one of the companion pieces of the myriad of pieces of legislation which, if enacted, would greatly improve our Nation's energy policy and provide for a responsible and balanced approach to further energy development.

With that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), who is the chair of the subcommittee that heard this particular bill.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tipton), the sponsor of this particular bill, who will talk about how to create real power using water resources that we have.

(Mr. TIPTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I reserve the balance of my time.

I advise my colleague that I am prepared to close.

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

I am grateful that we have found new sources of energy, specifically oil and natural gas, on private property because it has not allowed the Federal Government to stop the development of those, and that is the growth that we have seen in recent times.

However, it is interesting to note that the bill before us, which deals with hydropower and development of more hydropower, is a bipartisan bill and for just cause. We can both agree, on both sides of the aisle, that there is a great need for more energy, and that greater, cheaper energy is vital to the growth of the economy and the growth of jobs. That's what this bill tries to do.

Frequently in this House, we have brought bills that have tried to increase our offshore drilling on Federal property. We have talked about the Keystone pipeline and the ability of 20,000 high-paying jobs if it were just permitted. We have talked about trying to increase domestic energy production on public lands that have been put off- limits by this particular administration. Those efforts we have dealt with. We have passed through this House. They're over sitting in the Senate waiting for action. And today we add to that effort with a significant bill that will add to our hydropower and hydroenergy that once again comes along with this.

But the problem that we have and the reason why this bill is here before us, if I can summarize, is, simply, our efforts to add this kind of energy to our portfolio are being stopped by special interest groups and, unfortunately, layers of bureaucracy.

It was Nelson Rockefeller who came up with the great line of calling the deadening hand of bureaucracy on proposals and programs; and, indeed, we see that and we feel it today as we are having a harder time trying to be energy independent, and we are feeling the results of the Federal Government's program to stop energy production on Federal lands and Federal property every time we fill up our cars and, unfortunately, every time we pay our electrical bills.

Now, it is bureaucratic manipulation that is causing this problem and why this bill is here. Look, it was the energy debate and the energy bill of 2005 that told the Federal Government to move forward in this area with making sure that we had a master plan for hydrological development of energy. Seven years later, now the Federal Government and our Department of the Interior is starting to move forward in that direction, which is either the old cliche of paralysis by analysis or the fact that Rockefeller was right when he called the bureaucracy a deadening hand on programs and progress.

One particular program, the Klamath River, took 5 years for government to decide who actually had the authority to move forward on the project. That is the kind of bureaucratic analysis, that's the kind of red tape that is slowing back our efforts to develop this type of energy, and we need it desperately.

That's why H.R. 2842 is here, to develop small projects that will add to our total energy portfolio and add to our independence. It stops and simplifies a regulatory process which unfortunately costs these small efforts, these small entities trying to make these efforts tens of thousands of dollars just to do the paperwork. It's ridiculous.

It clarifies the role of the Bureau of Reclamation on this area. This only

deals with Bureau of Reclamation projects on manmade facilities, but the jurisdictions are not clear. Some jurisdictions have been mandated by Congress; some are administrative; some are questions on whether FERC has responsibility, the Bureau of Reclamation has responsibility. That is causing our slowing in developing these projects. This bill clarifies what that role is.

It also clarifies NEPA, that you don't have to do a second NEPA on these small jobs. Anything greater than 1.5 megawatts of production, you do the analysis again. But for small projects, on man-made property where the land has already been disturbed and already has had an analysis done and the mitigation has already taken place, we move on and do the job.

The Bureau of Reclamation does have a right of categorical exclusion, but they won't do it. All they're saying is, We may start thinking about it some time in the future.

Let me give you an example. There are three specific projects in the neighboring State of mine. One was mandated by Congress in 1990. They are still starting the process because of that administrative red tape. Two other projects took a full year for them to decide to actually start going through a process, and when they did it, they realized there was no change; it had already been done before. All you did is take a year to check off the box and do the expense with it. We had somebody from Arizona come in and testify that the administrator review cost more than the actual construction of the project. That's silly. That is ridiculous,

H.R. 795 deals with this same issue on non-Federal land. This bills deals with this same issue on existing Bureau of Reclamation projects. It's a commonsense development to get an untapped resource that we need to develop. It would not significantly enlarge the environmental footprint because these are already man-made entities who have already gone through the NEPA process once, and there is no rational reason to reinvent the wheel and do it a second time only to find out they were right the first time.

What would be the benefit from this bill?

First of all, new sources of clean energy to add to our portfolio.

Second, we can facilitate small projects to help offset carbon-based irrigation pumping in the West.

Third, it would help reduce the cost of energy. It would produce a cash flow to irrigation districts so they could actually increase and pay for and improve their aging infrastructure and modernize these water facilities.

Fourth, it does create jobs, and for once we have a bill that actually increases revenue coming into the government from this. CBO has estimated, the Congressional Budget Office, that this will generate $5 million in additional revenue coming into the government. So not only can we create more energy, we can do the right thing, we can fix our infrastructure, but we actually make money that comes into the government to help with other issues.

There is a reason this is a bipartisan bill: because it's the right thing to do.

There is a reason why we should move forward with this bill: because it taps a valuable resource that will go to waste if we do not do it.

There is a reason that this bill is here: to speed up the regulatory red tape, to cut through the cost, to make things happen and help us move forward as a Nation with better energy development and energy independence.

There's a whole bunch of good reasons for this bill, and that's why I support the bill, and I also support the rule that will make it possible to give a good and fair open balance to this debate.

With that, this is a good bill and an incredibly fair rule. I urge the adoption.

I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that it shall be in order at any time through the legislative day of March 1, 2012, to consider in the House House Resolution 562; the resolution be considered as read; and the previous question be considered as ordered on the resolution and preamble to adoption without intervening motion or demand for division of the question except 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the majority leader and the minority leader or their respective designees.