Floor Statements

I appreciate the gentleman from Iowa spending some time talking. We had the opportunity earlier this year of traveling to Germany together to meet with the chancellor, the foreign minister, the economics minister, the interior minister, several of those to talk about it. I recognize that I'm not putting myself here as an expert in this particular area because sometimes it is a matter of perspective.

I know at one time when I was over in Germany meeting with our fellow parliamentarians, who are members of the Bundestag, that I was amazed as we started talking about the impact of the Helsinki Accords on the ultimate destruction of the Soviet Union and the falling of the Communist empire. They seemed to have a greater emphasis on the significance of the Helsinki Accords than I have ever heard any political scientist in the United States putting on it.

So sometimes there is that perspective that is somewhat different. But in dealing specifically with how we should resolve and go forward, specifically with Russia which is rejuvenated, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. I'm not sure quite how you play with them all, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind. The first one to keep in mind is, the Russians have not played nice with their neighbors who used to be part of the empire. So the Ukranians, they clearly cut the oil and gas and threatened the economic security and independence of the Ukrainians at a time when it was not the most convenient, and it created more political instability in the Ukraine, as if that was a part of an overall goal.

Shortly after that, there was the invasion of Georgia, another former republic of the USSR that is now an independent nation. Certainly, the consequences of that have yet to be actually played out in the international arena. But what the Russians did cannot be considered as a nice neighborly approach to any type of situation.

I would also put into that milieu of understanding some concepts of what is going on internally in Russia. The Russians have traditionally liked having scapegoats for internal problems. One of the problems that the Russians are facing right now is one of demographics. They are losing population. They have a massive amount of land to control without a population that is growing or an economy that is growing to handle that. And one of the elements that historically has happened within the Russian mind-set is to try to find some scapegoat for that particular approach. I think we have got to keep that in the back of our minds as we are dealing with how we actually move forward in relation to the Russians and everywhere else.

It is, indeed, correct, as the gentleman from Iowa said, that if the Russians had been helping us to pressure the Iranians in a nonviolent embargo approach, that we would be further along in that effort to try to pressure the Iranians to use only a peaceful nuclear program, rather than what we, I think justifiably, suspect for all kinds of concepts that would be going there. We would not have Mr. Morgenthau from New York City, who can never be considered a right-wing radical Republican, talking in newspaper and magazine articles about the interconnect between Iran and Venezuela and how some of the money that was supposed to be stopped in the embargo has been able to be laundered through Venezuela and the connection between this. Eight times Chavez has visited Iran. Iran is now putting money into Chavez' efforts. So I see the future of the problem when we look at the Iranians on the east, Venezuela on the south of our country, the North Koreans on our west coast and realize that we are living in some very perilous times.

I happened to be in Germany when Ronald Reagan was talking about putting the missiles in Germany. It was heavily contested at the time. The Soviet Union was violently opposed to it, and there were a lot of pacifists within Europe who said that putting missiles in there was the worst thing we could possibly do; it will escalate the conflicts; it will escalate the violence. And what we found out in looking at history is it did just the opposite. It worked in actually bringing about a longer term peace as well as, ultimately, the end of a reign of terror of communism and allowed people who had never been free to finally become free.

That is why I am so worried about our decision, after our Polish and Czech allies went out on a limb politically to allow us to have some kind of missile defense system that would protect Europe and the eastern coast of the United States before the Iranians could develop anything offensively, to stop that prior to that, saying that we will now come up with a program that won't work until 5 years after the Iranians would probably be effective. I worry about what the result is, and I worry that we, as a country, have not learned the lessons from history, from the past, because we seem to be making what I consider to be mistakes as we deal with these rogue nations.

And mistakes as we deal with our allies in Europe, insulting them, putting them in difficult positions, and then yanking the rug out from under them, as well as putting ourselves at some kind of military disadvantage as to the defense of this country against other countries that significantly are malevolent in their attitudes towards the United States, it's a very cumbersome and difficult situation as we look at how that chess game is being played.

I think the demographics of what is taking place in Russia should not be overlooked. They have decisions that have to be made, and they don't have a lot of very good choices before them right now. They will be looking for choices which kind of deflect the inability of their interior policy that is not working.

I appreciate the gentleman from Iowa offering me this opportunity to tell you flat-out that I don't know what they have done or where they are going.

I do know that what we have found is for the United States to be effective, we had to be strong and secure and make sure that our self interests could be protected.

I just finished a book about the Civil War and about Lincoln as the Commander in Chief and his approach to it. He was much more intellectual about his view of the war than we are. He understood that time and resources are weapons just as much as individuals are or soldiers are in using war. And to be honest, the problem he had with the Union generals through most of the war was they didn't catch the concept of time and resources as an integral part in making decisions. He got it. And he was very much vilified at the time because he insisted on an approach which ultimately said the only way we can win is if we are forceful and strong and insist on this.

If Lincoln had simply backed off and said, What we're going to do is we're going to negotiate a peace with the South, there would have been a lot of people that would have said, Yeah, I am tired of the war; let's negotiate a peace with the South. And a lot of people in the North would have said, Yeah, let them go; we don't want to be part of them anyway.

But what Lincoln clearly understood from the geography of the situation and the future is that the Civil War would have been the first war between the States, not the only war. It would have been the first of many wars in the States as the North and South then battled over economic issues, transportation in the Ohio Valley, use of the Port of New Orleans, frontier land in the West. He clearly got what the future would be.

I think President Reagan, when he decided to stand tough and he was highly criticized for it, got what the future would be. He did not want to see a world where there was nuclear proliferation, but he understood that America had to be tough in order to get to that point.

I worry that we have somehow lost those lessons of history, and we don't realize that for the United States to move forward, we have to ensure that we are perfectly capable of defending ourselves. That's why I'm worried. The decision that we made to take the missiles, not implement the missiles in Poland and the radar system in Czechoslovakia, does not make us more secure. The idea of trying to cut our ground-based missile defense does not make us more secure. And where is this overall vision that we are trying to go? Where is this concept that we have to have security first before we can therefore start to negotiate other items around the world?

I'm concerned with our enemies, especially Venezuela, who are clearly malevolent in their approach to us, spreading that document throughout the rest of Latin South America. At the same time, the Iranians are very bellicose, to say the least. And North Korea, who knows what you want to do with him. Those are the concerns. Those are concerns.

I appreciate the opportunity of speaking with the gentleman from Iowa. I know when we had the chance of going to Germany, he was very forceful in presenting an American approach, and he was willing to ask the tough and difficult questions when the rest of us were trying to be reticent here, not in an obnoxious way, by any means, but in a way of saying somebody's got to play the devil's advocate and say, What does this really mean, and where will we go in the long term?

And I appreciate his efforts in that. And I know, if you'll excuse me at this time, that he will also go through that in this period of time that he has on the floor. And, Mr. Speaker, he will do what he always does. He asks the right questions in a way that you can't avoid trying to find a good answer to those questions.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I think a couple of the speakers have given what is one of the crux problems, not of this, the Santa Cruz Heritage Area, but of the overall issue itself. The gentleman from Arizona, who does a good job in representing his constituents, did say there are 49 heritage areas that have been heritage areas for the last 25 years, and therein is the problem.

When Mo Udall was chairman of that committee and Bruce Vento was the subcommittee chairman, that is the first time this concept of a heritage area was introduced. The concept was going to be that this was start-up money, and then the heritage areas would be on their own. Bruce Vento did say, 10 years and we are out of there. This was never supposed to be a 25-year program for any of these areas.

The problem is that when the 10 years are up, we keep extending the time limit on these areas and we keep extending the life and giving more and more money to these areas. In fact, it has become such a part that there is a cottage industry that has developed going out to areas to train them on how they can become and stay a heritage area to get more and more funding. It violates the very concept of why heritage areas were there in the first place.

This year alone we have added nine new heritage areas. This bill itself has $15 million, which is a 50 percent increase on what the majority of heritage areas do receive.

The problem is very simple: This heritage area is to try to expand its tourism and other elements, and other areas pay for it. So if you are in tourist area A, you are now being taxed and your money will go to promote tourism in area B. And if that was simply a start-up fund, simply to get them started, none of us really have objections to that. But it isn't. It is becoming perpetual as we extend and extend and spend and spend more and more on these elements.

This particular heritage area in front of us covers 3,300 square miles, private and public land. When Republicans were in charge of this committee, as a standard we always included language in heritage area legislation that gave property owners the ability to opt out of boundaries. It was a compromise. It was weak, but at least it was there.

What we are trying to say in that is that people should have a voice in what is done to them. People should be given choices and options. And we should not refrain from doing that. We should not have the government setting what the standard is, what the boundary is, what the requirement is. And there are instances when outside groups have tried to pressure local zoning entities because of these boundaries.

It is not right that people should be locked inside a boundary, oftentimes with little prior knowledge of what is actually happening, because boundaries do have consequences. Otherwise, why have these boundaries?

If these heritage areas are so innocuous, there is no reason to lock an owner in. Give them the opportunity for full information so they can make decisions and, again, give them the choices of what they wish to do. That is how we should be treating individuals and property owners.

This area is one that is heavily traveled with narcotic trafficking, human trafficking, and now I appreciate the fact that the gentleman from Arizona and the Rules Committee in a self-executing rule did give some modicum of protection on these areas.

As late as last July we attempted in committee to try and put language similar to this to give some protection

in these areas. Rejected--not on a partisan vote, because several of the opposition side actually did vote with us, but nonetheless rejected in committee. I am proud of Representative Grijalva for now including this language in this bill, but it could be better, and that is the issue before us.

Less than a week ago, the GAO revealed that secure border initiatives are behind schedule, are years behind schedule, because of environmental delays. That simply means there are people out there within the National Park Service that blame the Border Patrol for environmental damage.

The Park Service's own admission is that it takes 6 months to complete documents necessary to place critical border protection technologies, like observation towers. There was one tower stopped on the border areas until they could prove in some kind of scientific study that the Sonoran pronghorn deer would leave that area of their own volition and would not be scared by these towers. I am sorry, that is ridiculous, but that is the reality of why we are here and the reality of what is happening.

So there are some concerns with this area. The majority did put language in there to try and protect border security and the border areas, and I am thankful for that and I applaud you for doing that, but you could have taken a big step further.

In this bill you did put some language in there to try and protect personal property, but you could have gone further just simply to say people should have the choice and the option of what they are doing. And once again we have a problem of heritage areas, supposed to be temporary, supposed to be start-up, staying year after year after year, getting fund after fund after fund of public money from point A to fund the exact thing that is happening in point B in competition with point

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

In its current form.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity.

As I said, this bill could definitely be improved, and we are presenting some amendments in here that take the bill and make it a much better, stronger, significant bill.

I said in the original remarks that of course we have problems with heritage areas that simply will not go away. Even though they were supposed to be around for only 10 years, they keep living and living and consuming more and more funds. Having said that, I could still be supportive of this amendment if there were some specific guarantees placed in there for those specific issues that we have addressed in the past that actually could be a way we can move forward with other bills of a similar ilk.

Specifically in there, it deals with the idea of property rights. The gentleman from Arizona did sponsor legislation that dealt with the Yuma Crossing National Heritage Area. This was an area created in the year 2000 and, according to the Arizona Farm Bureau, was much larger than local farmers were expecting. Further exacerbating the problem, local zoning bureaucrats began to use the heritage area boundaries in planning. The problem is, once established, those entities had no recourse as private property owners to exempt themselves unless you came to Congress and had Congress adjust the boundaries. The gentleman from Arizona did that. We passed a law that shrunk the size of those areas down. That is a cumbersome and silly process to go through when all we need to do is give people the opportunity of being informed and make decisions for themselves so they can remove themselves when they wish to. That is what this amendment does. It asks the properties owners, before being included, to give their consent to be included in this new entity.

Now some will say, well, that's burdensome and difficult. It's hard to find all the property owners in an area. Yet when tax time comes, the government entities have an easy time finding all the property owners in an area. We could do the same thing, because the matter is not how efficient it is or how easy it is. The matter should be that private property rights are not a burden to government, and they should be respected in every way that is possible, especially in these areas where the National Park Service, who will be administering this, does not have a celebrated history of respecting private property rights and finding unique ways of having willing sellers.

This language that we are proposing should become the standard template for all legislation that deals with heritage areas and how we handle private property rights within those. This bill draws boundaries on a map. It covers and surrounds private property owners and then gives them no real recourse to remove themselves from those boundaries. Even if it says they don't have to participate, that is not the same thing, and it does have consequences. When it comes to border security, this bill is a perfect effort for us to move forward in some specific way.

Now, as I said, I commend the gentleman for actually adding some language that we have been trying to add to these types of bills in committee. But the language here is not necessarily enough. The sad situation that we find--not because of this bill, nor will it be solved because of this bill unless we add this particular language--is that the Border Patrol finds itself in a position of subservience to the National Park Service. I don't think Americans really know that when a Border Patrol agent crosses into a national park, he has to get out of his car, park it and walk. I don't think they realize that the Border Patrol has to consult with the National Park Service before they can put up an antenna on that border. Their amendment gets some language in there to try to not impede or prohibit. But what we also put in this amendment is language that says that nothing will happen that will hinder or restrict our homeland security on border areas. This is a perfect opportunity to do so. It is there.

This amendment, for the first time, says that when those land use plans--and the bulk of the border in which the drug traffic and human traffic is coming are on public lands--it says that Homeland Security must be consulted in coming up with the land use plans. So they are an equal partner because this is significant. Right now they are not. This amendment is going to move us forward so that Homeland Security will not be impeded in their element. They will not have to wait to put up surveillance to see if a particular sheep will, on its own volition, move or not move. That is ridiculous, but that is what we are trying to do with this amendment.

Once again, this amendment takes the bill and improves it, which is why I'm proud of this amendment. This amendment clearly states what property rights are and which property owners may be in a heritage area which, as we have noted, does not go away in 10 years but tends to last on and on and on.

This amendment clearly gives Homeland Security, for the first time, a right to be an equal player in the decision of how to handle these lands, and this also gives us the right to make sure that nothing hinders or restricts what we do on the border.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 722, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

I appreciate the gentleman from Missouri for yielding.

Actually, if you would maybe get that next one, the chart you have on the back there about abortion, because I think it relates to the same issue.

We oftentimes have a great deal of debate and discussion over what is or what is not in the bill. That's probably because there is not one bill. There are several bills floating out. What is in some places are there and what is not in some places are there. But I think one of the things to remember, because this is basically the same issue, the language the gentleman from Missouri just gave on Medicare and what it does as far as the practicing of medicine is something that was supposed to be in the Medicare bill when that was first produced 40 years ago. It doesn't quite work that way because when you start down a road, you often find out you end up in a different situation than when you started down that path.

When I was still teaching school, I often showed my students about the construction of the Berlin Wall. I was so amazed at the Berlin Wall as to, in fact, why the United States did nothing to stop the construction of the Berlin Wall. They had a great interview of Dean Rusk, who was Secretary of State at that time, who said that if you know at the end of the day you're not going to go down that path, you don't take the first step down that path.

Many of the issues like the issue of will this actually fund abortion or not, will this actually deal with illegal immigrants or not----

Well, this, unfortunately, was in my committee as well in which amendments were made to try to put a limitation on the abortion funding, as you can see the language that is up there. And once again, that was defeated. What it tells us is that what is in the bill is not necessarily the same thing as what will happen 5 and 10 and 20 years down the road, because oftentimes what we're doing is not necessarily starting a program now but we are opening up the door. I'm mixing metaphors here. You're opening up a door that's going to take us down a path, and the question is where will that path end. Not

today but where will it end in the future? And that's why sometimes people can have a difference of opinion, on not necessarily what is in the bill but what this bill provides the opportunity to do in the future. That is not in the status quo.

We have, in this bill, many kinds of provisions in there that may not necessarily start a program now, but it gives the opportunity. We may have a program that right now is voluntary and it's established, but it easily could become fully funded and then mandatory.

If I could make just one more statement to the gentleman from Missouri because I know we are joined here by one of the most creative thinkers I think we have here on the floor, the gentleman from Arizona. And I think if I could add a segue here in some particular way, I agree with you. This presents all the warning clouds out there if we insist that the only solution is a government- controlled, government-mandated solution.

And what I think I would like to do in the few moments that I have is to make it very clear that this is not the only plan that is out there. There are other bills. The gentleman from Arizona has a bill. The gentleman from California (Mr. Issa) has a bill. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Price) has a bill. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) has a bill.

He has one. Mr. Gohmert has a bill. And all of them are based on a different premise, and the premise is that what government should be doing is not telling people what they do and telling people what their choices may be but to try to open up the system so that people have options so that they can choose what they wish. And I think that's one of the things that is a fundamental difference in what we are talking about. And if we really want a bipartisan bill, those bills must be brought to the floor and allowed to be debated and voted on so we have a discussion on the philosophy of how we're going to solve this problem and if we truly desire to empower people or truly desire to empower the government.

I yield back.

I just wanted to give a simple illustration of what the gentleman is talking about in today's medical market.

If you still want to get a nose job, plastic surgery, the cost is decreasing every year. Because there is no middleman and no insurance, you go and negotiate with the doctor. Lasik surgery does the same thing.

That is why I would like the gentleman to talk about what could happen. There is a large pool of people who have a difficult time getting insurance. They are the so-called uninsurable. But what would happen to that pool of individuals out there who can't get insurance right now if, indeed, you allowed them to buy insurance with pretax dollars, not post-tax dollars, you allowed them to go across State lines to look for insurance, and you allowed them pooling opportunities to do that. What would happen to that pool of uninsurables which might then be able to be handled by 50 different States with coming up with programs to meet the demographics of those States. And once again we try to do this thing of simply empowering people to meet their own needs and solve their own problems. What would be the result of that?

If I could just add one philosophical problem, and once again this is one of the reasons why I think this debate is becoming so partisan and bitter, is because it is philosophical. That has happened repeatedly in the history of this country.

Progressive era, great growth in the size of government. In the twenties, there was retrenchment on the side of individuals.

New Deal: Government. Eisenhower, Kennedy: Individuals.

Great society: Big Government.

Reagan: Individuals.

We are now in that time where this administration wants to move us to again grow the size of government. It is a philosophical debate more than just taking the original chart you had and moving this agency here and trying to do kind of those practical things that lend themselves to bipartisanship. It is a structure on whether we try to help people make choices for themselves or have government come up with a government plan, government standard that comes in here.

This is once again where I believe the Founding Fathers, who had the idea of federalism, play a significant role.

My State has a plan recently instituted for those who are truly uninsurable, but it is dedicated and devoted to the demographics of my State. Once we do what you are talking about of giving people options so they can form their own pools, buy across State lines, buy their own products pretax, you will shrink the number down so it can be affordable.

The advantage of federalism is simply this: you can have greater creativity and greater justice applying to circumstances. And more importantly if a State fails, a program fails, you don't screw up the entire Nation, which will happen. That is what we need to do if we really are going to find better solutions.

So I appreciate that, and I appreciate once again bringing to the floor that the idea presented by the Speaker and the President is not the only idea out there. There are other ideas and other options that have a different purpose, and that purpose is to empower and ennoble the individual.

Mr. Speaker, this will be a debate on a bill of complete congeniality, because I don't think any of us are really opposed to a lot of what is attempted in this underlying bill.

I certainly am not, Mr. Speaker, one who likes to say ``I told you so,'' but I told you so. You see, it was said in the history of this particular bill, the first time it was passed it was passed with a 5- year reauthorization and it passed unanimously in both houses. The second time it was reauthorized 5 years and it passed unanimously in both houses. Last year you decided to take the reauthorization away, not impose the 5-year limit, and we said on the floor if you actually put that back in there it would have a significant enhancement of its ability to pass the Senate, and you didn't do it. It didn't pass the Senate, so we are back here a year later doing the same thing again.

So I don't want to say I told you so, but to quote that great philosopher Yogi Berra, this is like deja vu all over again. For, indeed, a year ago, last year, instead of talking about energy issues, which were primarily on the minds of the American people, we brought up this particular bill and apparently did the same thing we are doing this year when health care is primarily on the minds of most people.

This is a particular bill which, in fact, is the only bill we are going to debate this week under a rule. I appreciate the majority leader being here and his statements on this particular bill. I don't know if I appreciate flying back for 4 hours just to do this bill this week. But, nonetheless, it is still the only one we are going to have here, even though there are significant issues we should be discussing, that the American people want us to discuss.

The majority leader was slightly in error in what he said though. Everything he said about the cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay was accurate. But this is not a cleanup bill. This is not an environmental protection bill. This is not an EPA bill. This is a recreation bill. I don't oppose that, but it is clear this is a recreation bill. And the National Park Service has made several suggestions, because once again there are no Federal waters or Federal assets associated in this particular area, the National Park Service did say that we should give technical assistance to this area, but they did not recommend fully funding on a nonrenewable basis other types of grant programs to this particular area. Indeed, the Obama budget does not have money in it for this particular bill.

So one of the things we need to talk about is if we are going to abrogate our oversight responsibilities, and if we decide not to abrogate our oversight responsibilities and treat this bill as other bills from the Resource Committee have been treated, we will probably have a better chance of actually passing the bill this year in both Houses of Congress and not coming back for a third try next time around.

Mr. Speaker, I have an amendment made in order under the rule.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity of presenting this particular amendment, not because we have any antipathy towards the Chesapeake Bay or the recreational purposes that may be there, and I appreciate the fact that you enjoyed the first speech, but because it's about time we do it right way. Surely we can bully through this any way we want to, but we need to do it the right way, the way it was done the first time and the second time and the way it should be done this particular time.

When this bill last year came out of the Resources Committee, it was compiled with six other bills, all of which had 5-year reauthorizations. Some of the bills that Resources has sent out here have not had those type of reauthorizations. However, they had another factor which put a cap on the kind of appropriations that could be there, and that's why a 5-year reauthorization process is the perfect kind of compromise.

It's a position between the National Park Service which last year said there should be technical assistance, but was opposed to any kind of grant process going through this because they said this program had matured to the point it no longer needed to be supported by the Federal Government, or the sponsor's approach, which simply says, take off limit and continue on with what has been now close to $9 million of earmarks for this program.

It's not a problem. The appropriations is not a problem. What is the problem is we are now giving up our rights to review these types of programs, which is not what an authorizing committee ought to do. There is, in past experience, not here but in past experience, where sites that no longer have to be renewed by Congress do become lethargic and no longer have that desire for innovation to produce results. That's not necessarily to say it will happen here, but that has been the process that we have learned through history.

The purpose of an authorizing committee is to authorize and then review those authorizations, which is why it has been tradition for committees to put in an authorization period for those particular reviews. And it is not wise for Congress to abrogate our congressional responsibility for those purposes. What we're talking about is simply saying, look, what we need, as a Congress, are the options to review this in the future and not take the options off the table.

That's the one thing all Americans are talking about more than anything else is the idea of options. Like my family just gave me an Ipod. And I don't know how to download stuff, but they can put music on there. When I was growing up, if I wanted a song and,

Mr. Speaker, you're probably in the same situation I was, I had to buy the entire record to get the song. I don't need to do that. I now have more options. If I want to go and buy cereal, I look at an entire store and there is an entire wall of potential cereals up there which I can buy. I am given options. If I want to order vanilla ice cream, I can still go to a store that offers me 31 flavors. There are 59 different kinds of Eggo waffles.

Our entire life is provided by options. And yet, as a Congress, we decide and seem to have this tendency to take options off the table so we don't have them for the future. That, to me, is just a mind-boggling approach to it. It's the same thing that we're talking about in health care, which is the topic on the minds of the American people which we should be talking about today on this floor, rather than reauthorizing a bill we all like and support.

But in that, the issue once again, is options for the American people. There are myriad types of proposals being put out there by some of my Republican colleagues, all which deal with the concept of giving options to the American people: options to buy their own health care, options to get HSAs, options to have new association pools, option in which they can buy across lines, options in which we can have tort reform. All those things should be on the table, and that's what we should be doing.

In like manner to this particular bill, we are, once again, limiting our options, which is the exact opposite thing government should be doing. Now, that's what's important, and that's where we should be going. Like I said, a year ago we had this particular bill, this particular amendment again, which would have made it better and probably then had helped the Senate to actually include it in their list of bills to be passed.

If we do this particular amendment, to do what we have traditionally done with other bills, what we are doing is simply providing Congress with the options Congress should accept, and make sure that we are always reviewing the programs we have to see what they are doing, and a 5-year period is the norm. It is traditional.

This simply would say we're going to do this bill and we're going to do it the right way, do it totally the right way, so once again it might be passed unanimously, as it was the first time when they had a review in there and the second time when they had a review in there, and was not passed the third time when they decided not to put a review in this particular piece of legislation.

We've got options. We should be doing it. Mr. Speaker.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Fleming).

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

I am ready to use my final minute if I might, Mr. Speaker.

I don't want to be cantankerous about this. We are talking about a decent bill from a decent program with a decent sponsor, but we are not in the system of sending out messages. We are a legislative body that is supposed to review and that is supposed to budget, and in that way, we should not be abrogating our responsibilities over to the appropriators. It's an authorizing concept. It's what authorizers ought to do. It's what we should be doing. NEPA is renewed. Endangered Species is renewed, as is the Clean Water Act. In fact, the only thing we have not renewed--and it's on a permanent basis--is the Nautical Charting Act that was started in the 1700s by Thomas Jefferson.

So what we are talking about is doing what is the norm and doing what is rational and doing this bill the right way and actually--I hate to say this--but once again, to try and not limit what we are doing as a body.

Health care is what we should be talking about. The bill that Pelosi has put on the floor is not the only idea. There are better bills out there that think outside of the box, but unless we put the Price bill, the Shadegg bill, the Ryan bill, and the Gohmert bill on the floor to be discussed and debated, we will not have all of the options open to us. That is also why I am arguing that we should have a permanent review, a review every 5 years, of this program. It is what Congress does, and we should do it and do it the right way.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as part of H.R. 3293, Labor, Health and Education Appropriations Bill of 2010.

Requesting Member: Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 3293

Account: Elementary & Secondary Education (includes FIE)

Legal name and address of requesting entity: Ogden City School District, located at 1950 Monroe Blvd., Ogden, UT 84401

Description of project: $250,000 for a teacher training initiative, including purchasing of equipment.

Requesting Member: Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 3293

Account: Higher Education (includes FIPSE)

Legal name and address of requesting entity: Western Governors University located at 4001 South 700 East, Suite 700, SLC, UT 84107

Description of project: $100,000 for curriculum development.

Requesting Member: Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 3293

Account: Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Health

Legal name and address of requesting entity: McKay-Dee Hospital Center located at 4401 Harrison Blvd., Ogden, UT 84403

Description of project: $150,000 for facilities and equipment.

Requesting Member: Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 3293

Account: Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Health

Legal name and address of requesting entity: Weber State University located at 4018 University Circle, Ogden, UT 84408

Description of project: $350,000 for expansion of nursing programs, including purchase of equipment.

I appreciate the difficulty we're in; but once again, to have air superiority requires two things: technical superiority, which the F-22 provides, as well as numerical superiority, which was why originally we were going to build 750. Up until last year, 381 was the minimum. Everyone from Air Combat Command, to Air National Guard, to every study says 243 is the number. There is no data that says 187 is the correct number, other than the Secretary. If the Russians are going to build a new generation and sell 200 to 300 at the same time we cut 250 legacy planes from our Air Force, at the same time we stop the F-22, at the same time the F-35 is not going to be available until 2014 at the earliest and still has problems, we may find ourselves on the wrong side of history

if we do not stand up for the F-22. If we can spend $5 billion on ACORN but complain about $2 billion for 18,000 jobs to continue on a plane that we need, there is something in our prioritization that needs to be reviewed.

I appreciate the position of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, but here is the time we need to make a statement that the future is essential.

Mr. Speaker, we all know that to maintain air superiority, which we have had since the Korean War, requires two elements: one is the technological ability, which we know the F-22 provides, but the other is the numerical superiority that we have to have, which is why, when this program was originally started, it was supposed to be 750 planes.

Even as late as last year, the military was telling us 381 maintains the status quo and 243 is the absolute minimum, a number still maintained by Air Combat Command, by the Air National Guard, by 30 of the military studies over the last 15 years. Even the Chief of Staff admitted the 243 is what they needed.

The only person that said 187 is the Secretary of Defense. There is no study to verify that number. That number is a political number, not a military number.

As we go into the future where the Russians are building a new generation fighter with 200 to 300 extra planes to sell to countries like Iran and Venezuela, when we then couple that by cutting 250 legacy planes already in the Air Force and stopping the F-22 and having an F- 35 which will not be available under the best of circumstances until 2014, maybe even 2016 as we are talking about it, what we are doing is putting ourselves in danger 10 and 15 years out of being on the wrong side of history. We cannot do that.

This amendment mirrors what the House voted on the Defense authorization bill by putting back procurement money for 12 F-22s and adding $100 million for military personnel to help the anticipated shortfall in the upgrade in what we are doing in Afghanistan.

This is the right thing to do. This is what the military needs. We should not simply make a political decision, because I hate to say this in this crass of a way, but when we can authorize $5 billion for groups like ACORN but $2 billion to keep 18,000 jobs going and provide planes for another year that this country needs, we have something to do to look at our priorities. The $2 billion is for the defense of this country into the future. The military needs this plane.

I appreciate the gentleman from Florida for yielding me time and also the entire committee. Putting this particular budget together is not an easy task, and I'm very proud of most of the things that are in this particular budget. I, too, though, have a couple of concerns, as was originally indicated by the ranking member as well as the ranking member of the full committee, that deal with air superiority.

I'm just an old history teacher, but I realize in the 1930s this country decided to save money by cutting back on the P-35 construction. When World War II began, our bombers taking bomber runs were suffering casualty rates well over 20 percent. It was to the point we actually suspended some of those runs until we could go into an emergency production to build enough fighters to accommodate the bombers that we had. The bottom line is we were unprepared for a future we had not anticipated.

We don't have the luxury anymore to be in that type of a situation, which is why the air superiority which we've had since the Korean War is such an essential element of our defense structure and our defense posture.

And there are two elements that are essential for our air superiority. One is technical advancement. The other is production. The numbers that we have is as important as the technology. We cannot afford to find ourselves on the wrong side of history again. The world moves much too rapidly for that.

I have a great deal of gratitude for the long hours that were put in for this budget, and with a couple of exceptions in there where I have great concerns, I applaud the efforts and would like us to look seriously at that particular element of air superiority one more time.

The Obama administration and Secretary Gates have gone to great lengths to say that they want to stop the production of the F-22 for the Air Force. I have made a mistake. I have to admit, I have been reading some of the blogs on the comment board, and I am amazed at some of the shallow analysis of this particular decision. So since tomorrow we are going to be debating and discussing the Defense appropriations bill, I would like to take just a few moments today and simply talk about this issue, the F-22 and the Air Force, along four areas.

One is the military necessity for this plane; two and three are the ways we keep our air superiority, both by technology and the number of planes we have; and then finally, the priorities and what it says about this particular Nation.

Two years ago the military was unanimous when they came before our committees and said that we need 381 F-22s and that 250 put us at a moderate risk. Now today Secretary Gates will tell us we only need 187, not the 381 planes. One has to ask, what has changed? Has the threat this Nation faces changed? Or is it simply the political climate that may have changed? In the last 15 years, there have been 30 independent separate studies, all of which say the same thing: 243 is the minimum number of F-22s we need; and at that, our air superiority faces a moderate risk. Air Combat Command General Corley has written a letter saying he needs at least 243 planes, F-22s, and that his command was not consulted when the decision to cap at 187 was actually made. The Air National Guard General Wyatt has also written a letter to our colleagues in the Senate, saying he needs at least 243 to 250 F-22s. General Schwartz, Chief of the Air Force, has already publicly stated that 243 is the minimum we need; and when asked in front of our committee, Is 187, that particular number, a military decision of what we need or is it the political decision of what we can afford?, he simply said, It is what we think we can afford.

The bottom line is that nowhere has there been any study conducted to say that 187 is the correct number. In fact, that number has been contradicted. General Corley of Air Combat Command clearly said that with 187, the Air Combat Command could not fulfill its air force function. Is this a military decision? Does the military still want the F-22? And the answer is clearly, yes. Secretary Gates does not want the F-22. The 187 F-22s is a political, not a military, number; and the House, who has already voted to maintain the higher number should not back off in relationship to what the Senate has particularly done.

Let me go also to this concept of air superiority. The United States has had air superiority since the Korean War, and there are two aspects of that: technology as well as the numbers that we have. I hate to say this, but before I came to Congress, there were air games that the United States engaged in with the Air Force of India. We used F-15s. We didn't use everything at our disposal; but the only reason we won those air games is because of the ability of our pilots, not because we have the technology to do it. The technology level of the United States, as good as the 15 and the 16 airplanes are--which are 30 years old--is that we still have the same technology advantage as a third-world Air Force. The F-22 moves us forward in that technology debate. However, just having the technology doesn't work if you don't have the numbers. The Russians are already building their fifth generation, and they are scheduled to build about 600 of their next-generation fighters. They will only keep about 350 for themselves. You have to ask the logical question, What will they do with the others? They will sell them. And where will they go? The bidders right now are countries like Venezuela and Iran, countries that are not necessarily friends of ours, but countries that could become a problem with this new generation of fighter that they buy from the Russians.

We have been told that the F-35 is enough for what we need. However, the F-35 is not a replacement for the F-22. And the problem is, we won't even get an F-35 under the best of circumstances before the year 2014, and there is some indication that it may be the year 2016 before that takes place. We are in a situation where this administration clearly puts $5 billion in programs like ACORN but doesn't want to put $2 billion to continue the production of the F-22, vital to the defense of this particular country.

Is this plane expensive? Yes. Is this plane militarily required? Yes. Is it useless? No. Is it a Cold War element? Well, actually, almost everything we have is a Cold War element. We just simply try to improve them as time goes on. What we are dealing with now, Mr. Speaker, is simply the concept that we are dealing with what we need in the next 15 to 20 years. And in that particular situation, the F-22 is what we need for the future defense of this country.

This is one of the few times I am here without charts, and I feel totally naked on the floor. I apologize for that. But I also appreciate the chart that was here and any effort that you can get to maybe publicize that because it speaks to the problem that we have if, indeed, this kind of expansion of the government takes place.

That chart is the reason why the Federal code of our laws cover 35 volumes, one-sixth of which is about the Federal regulations and bureaucracy, but the Federal regulations is a 200-volume document, and why it has grown from John F. Kennedy's time of 15,000 words to 77,000 words; why Kennedy was able to appoint within 2 months about 300 officials that ran the bureaucracy.

For George W. Bush, it took him almost a year because he had to do 3,300 officials appointed, having been subjected to advice and consent from the Senate. We are expanding this thing enormously. And in this particular project, because my committee, unfortunately, spent 20 hours going through the organizational part, most of the questions that our side had of how this plan worked was, we will have to work that out. Somehow, the new commissioner will solve that problem.

Let me just give you one example, and you can play with this one. In this plan is supposedly a position of a new national ombudsman whose job is to meet with individuals to help them work through their health options. However, the law says that this ombudsman must speak in a linguistically appropriate manner. Now, my problem was, what is a linguistically appropriate manner? It's not defined anywhere in the pages that are in that bill. It's someone's poetic idea of being politically correct. But when you don't have definitions, it opens us up to lawsuits galore. And, once again if we, as Congress, don't take the time and the ability to solve these problems and answer these questions, some bureaucrat, in this case the commissioner, is going to be able to make more and more regulations. And that's why the bureaucracy is sometimes called the unelected faceless people in Washington because there is no interface between people and the bureaucracy.

I believe it's so. But I will tell the gentleman from Missouri that at least when they are interfering with your doctor, they will do it in a linguistically appropriate way.

That gives me confidence.

Mr. Speaker, last week the President accused doctors of performing unneeded treatment just for money. I received a call today from Dr. Mobley. He is the ear, nose and throat residency director at the University of Utah who oversees the training of doctors, and he was disappointed at the President's remarks.

He appropriately thought the President should apologize for two reasons: Number one, his baseless accusations against the profession; but also the second reason is because of the underlying message of the statement. And I don't know why the President decided to become involved in kids' tonsils; but for some reason, he thought it was within his jurisdiction.

His statement implies a time will come when the government bureaucracy will deem it in their realm of power to decide what a doctor and a patient may or may not do. A government big enough to provide for our basic needs has historically found themselves increasingly comfortable in regulating other behaviors regulated to that health care need. In other countries they've told one how to exercise, how and when to eat, to sleep, what kinds of cars to buy. What we need is a system that allows the patient and the doctor to make decisions, not a Washington bureaucrat.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding eight earmarks I received as part of H.R 3326, the Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010. I certify that neither I, nor my spouse, have any financial interest in these requests, and certify that, to the best of my knowledge, these requests are (1) not directed to an entity or program named or that will be named after a sitting Member of Congress; (2) are not intended for a ``front'' or ``pass-through'' entity; and (3) meet or exceed statutory requirements for matching funds (where applicable).

Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT-01)

Bill Number: H.R. 3326--Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010.

Project: Small Responsive Spacecraft at Low-Cost (SRSL)

Project Amount: $3 million

Account: RDT&E, Air Force

Requesting Entity: Utah State University Space Dynamics Laboratory

Address: 1695 North Research Park Way, North Logan, UT 84341. -

Project Description and Justification: Funding would continue previous years' efforts in conjunction with Air Force Research Labs to develop and demonstrate technologies for new, low-cost space systems that have military utility. Current space-based reconnaissance assets are cost-prohibitive and too massive to be used in a quick-reaction tactical environment. This effort could lead to providing local field commanders a dedicated space asset for tactical actionable intelligence applications in a highly modular and customizable design to meet military needs under the Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) construct.

Matching Funds and Spending Plan: Not applicable.

Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT-01)

Bill Number: H.R. 3326--Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010.

Project: Optimizing Natural Language Processing of Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT)

Project Amount: $1.5 million

Account: RDT&E, Army

Requesting Entity: Attensity, Inc.

Address: 90 South 400 West, Suite 600, Salt Lake City, UT 84101. -

Project Description and Justification: Military intelligence collection methods must adapt to the highly-evolving and dynamic IT based sources. Project would fund an ``all-source'' fusion tool for collecting data from open sources such as the web, blog, social networking sites, and RRS feeds, in cooperative effort with the State University of New York at Buffalo to provide more effective intelligence analysis and decision-making tools for the Army in asymmetric warfare situations.

Matching Funds and Spending Plan: Not applicable.

Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT-01)

Bill Number: H.R. 3326--Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010.

Project: Laser Phalanx

Project Amount: $1.5 million

Account: RDT&D, Navy

Requesting Entity: Colmek Systems Engineering,

Address: 2001 South 3480 West, Salt Lake City, Utah 84104.

Project Description and Justification: Phalanx is a combat-proven ship defense system that is effective against a variety of threats. Spiral development and integration of a laser into existing Phalanx system will significantly increase its defensive capabilities. Funding would enable new technology integration to fill emerging gaps, while also reducing acquisition and ownership costs.

Matching Funds and Spending Plan: Not applicable.

Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT-01)

Bill Number: H.R. 3326--Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010.

Project: Internal Auxillary Fuel Tank System

Project Amount: $5 million

Account: Aircraft Procurement, Army

Requesting Entity: Robertson Aviation, Inc.

Address: 14668 Heritage Way, Bluffdale, Utah 84065.

Project Description and Justification: Would purchase crash-resistant internal auxillary fuel tanks for installation on National Guard UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, including the Utah National Guard. Existing fuel tanks are not crash-resistant and pose threats to life and safety of military personnel when operating the helicopters.

Matching Funds and Spending Plan: Not applicable

Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT-01)

Bill Number: H.R. 3326--Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010.

Project: TranSim Driver Training

Project Amount: $3.5 million

Account: Other Procurement, Army

Requesting Entity: MPRI, Inc.

Address: 2961 West California Avenue, Salt Lake City, Utah 84104.

Project Description and Justification: Funding would continue efforts begun last year to offer high-tech simulator training for troops scheduled to be deployed overseas in the proper operations of Army tactical wheeled vehicles, such as the up-armored HMVEES. Such vehicles have challenging and particular handling characteristics for the drivers. Prior to this training, there were a number of deadly and tragic roll-over accidents in theatre that could likely have been avoided if this training had been offered earlier. It has already been proven to reduce accidents. Troops come from a variety of urban and rural backgrounds and life-experiences, and to simply put them behind the wheel of a large and cumbersome vehicle is not intuitive but requires a modicum of training. It is almost inconceivable that the military wouldn't fund this on their own accord, but instead, is another example of the Congress having to step in and fund essential programs for the health, safety and welfare of our troops. Project would continue training in a mobile configuration so that it could be moved around the CONUS where needed. Avoidance of even 1 accident could more than pay for the program, not to mention the lives saved.

Matching Funds and Spending Plan: Not applicable

Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT-01)

Bill Number: H.R. 3326--Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010.

Project: Portable Armored Wall System

Project Amount: $1 million

Account: Procurement, Marine Corps

Requesting Entity: Dynamic Defense Materials (DDM), Inc.

Address: 100 Sharp Road, Marlton, NJ, 08053.

Project Description and Justification: Would fund purchase of additional combat-proven modular armor wall systems for the Marine Corps that can be rapidly deployed and configured for a variety of applications to provide high levels of protection against most threats found in theater from IEDs to small arms fire and RPGs. Replaces antiquated and cumbersome sandbag method. International Armoring Corporation in Ogden, Utah is supplier to DDM.

Matching Funds and Spending Plan: Not applicable.

Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT-01)

Bill Number: H.R. 3326--Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010.

Project: Electric Actuation Systems

Project Amount: $1 million

Account: RDT&E, Navy

Requesting Entity: Moog, Inc.

Address: 2268 South 3270 West, Salt Lake City, Utah 84119.

Project Description and Justification: Project would fund development and demonstration of shipboard qualified electric actuators that could lead to replacement of antiquated hydraulic systems which are heavy and have environmental hazards associated with hydraulic fluids. Would also reduce repair and maintenance costs over legacy hydraulic systems for Navy.

Matching Funds and Spending Plan: Not applicable

Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT-01)

Bill Number: H.R. 3326--Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010.

Project: Under Vehicle Inspection System

Project Amount: $3 million

Account: RDT&E, Defense Wide

Requesting Entity: Kachemark Research Development, Inc. (KRD)

Address: 59584 East End, Homer, Alaska 99603.

Project Description and Justification: Funds research and development on modifying existing auto scanning equipment used at military bases to provide real-time quick inspections of delivery vehicles, to mobile versions, making the technology more accessible to different locations and situations, and reducing risks to military inspection personnel.

Matching Funds and Spending Plan: Not applicable

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as part of H.R. 3288, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010.

Requesting Member: Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 3288

Account: Capitol Investment Grants

Legal name and address of requesting entity: Utah Transit Authority, 3600 South 700 West, SLC, UT 84130

Description of project: $80,000,000 to build a 44 mile long commuter rail line running from downtown SLC to Weber County via the cities of Woods Cross, Farmington, Layton, Clearfield, Roy, Ogden, and Pleasant View.

Requesting Member: Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 3288

Account: Airport Improvement Program

Legal name and address of requesting entity: Ogden-Hinckley Airport, 2549 Washington Blvd., Ogden, UT 84401

Description of project: $500,000 will be used for utilities infrastructure, construction of a maintenance hangar, and runway repairs.

Requesting Member: Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 3288

Account: Alternatives Analysis

Legal name and address of requesting entity: Salt Lake City, 451 South State Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84111

Description of project: $360,000 to fund an alternative analysis under USC 49 section 5339 on a corridor from SLC to Centerville.

Requesting Member: Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 3288

Account: Buses and Bus Facilities

Legal name and address of requesting entity: Cache Valley Transit District, 754 West 600 North, Logan, UT 84321

Description of project: $500,000 to expand the maintenance facility, storage areas, parking facility, administration building and transit hub.

Mr. Speaker, I want to introduce you to Mr. Pitchford. He is a young and exciting teacher who gets 12-, 13- and 14- year-olds to enjoy geography and history. But this September, he is not going to be back in the classroom because his district relies upon resource jobs and royalties and development to fund schools. And this administration, through the arbitrary and unilateral decisions of the Secretary of the Interior, has cut this funding. This is the administration that stopped new uranium development for 2 years, has postponed offshore drilling decisions, and has postponed oil shale development projects. And for Mr. Pitchford, has taken 77 oil and gas leases and suspended them because they don't think 7 years of study was enough time.

If we do not develop the resources on our public lands, jobs are lost. If we don't have cheap forms of affordable energy, jobs are lost. And those jobs aren't simply a number. They are a face of a real person like Mr. Pitchford, who is no longer a teacher not because of his choice, but because of government decisions. And the collateral damage of these government decisions are the 13- and 14-year-olds in his classroom. Where are the jobs? They're not in Mr. Pitchford's classroom.

Mr. Speaker, today, 134 Republicans came here to the floor and spoke for 1 minute each about the issue of jobs and where they had been, for, indeed, we were promised that there would be jobs that would be created and saved if we simply passed a stimulus bill and didn't take the time to read it like a couple of others we did. Unfortunately, the reality has not been quite the same. In fact, this is basically the report card that we came up with.

This administration said that if we quickly pass that huge stimulus bill, there would be some unemployment but it would only be 8 percent. In fact, the dark blue line here is what they said would be the recovery path of our economy. They said if we didn't do that, we would follow a trajectory of the light blue line and actually have 9\1/2\ percent unemployment. That is a difference of 3 million workers being out of a job if we took the time to actually read the bill and think about it.

The sad part is, though, after 5\1/2\ months, the trajectory line is actually the red dots there, which means we are far exceeding anything that was projected whether we did the stimulus or didn't do the stimulus. In fact, you can arguably say that we might have been better off not doing anything at all.

The Vice President was correct when he said that this administration totally misread the economy. Nonetheless, Speaker Pelosi and President Obama have teamed together to put up the largest budget, and we're still in the process of voting for it. We are on track now, Mr. Speaker, of actually spending $4 trillion in this year's Congress. We are spending money like it was Monopoly money with the possible exception that you can't pass go and you don't get $200 every time you do it.

To put this kind of concept in place, at $4 trillion, we would be spending $1 billion every 2.2 hours. To put it in perspective again, if you tried to pay off $4 trillion, that means every single household in America would have to cough up 35 grand to cover it. And the problem that we have with that is simply we don't have that kind of money lying around, whether we spent it or not. In fact, we will be predicted to be in a deficit. CBO scores this year's deficit at $1.85 trillion. That's the amount of money we'll spend that we have absolutely no funds for.

Now, you can see on this chart, back there at the turn of this century, we actually had a surplus. You can notice when 9/11 hit we went into deficits. Those grey lanes are the deficits run up by the big-spending George W. Bush--at least, he was accused of that. What we have over here is what we have been spending ever since. The light red lines are the estimates of the Obama administration. The dark red lines are the estimates of our Congressional Budget Office, and they predict that this year it's $1.85 trillion that we will overspend.

Now, this isn't perhaps the best view. This is only a 1-year shot of what we are doing as far as our finances. If we actually took a bigger view of it and tried to find all of the things we still owe, we are actually at about $11.6 trillion in total debt. And if you add things like the bailouts and the bank rescues and the auto recovery loans we have, we're about $23 trillion in debt, which is difficult when our total gross domestic product is about $14 trillion.

Let me put that in a kind of perspective for you.

When we went to the Moon, if you put the money we spent on that effort to go to the Moon in today's dollars, we would have spent around $200 billion. Everything FDR did in the New Deal to try to get us out of the old original Depression in today's dollars would be about $500 billion. If you took everything we spent on World War II, that's about $4 trillion. Today, we are spending, in real dollars, $4 trillion and a deficit of almost $2 trillion and a total deficit of $23 trillion of everything combined. That was not the change that we were promised.

And the proponents of the stimulus package, quite frankly, view its failure in the fact that we didn't put enough money into it and that perhaps we should have another stimulus package to spend more money. The Democrats' solution, quite frankly, is we need to spend more money. The bottom line, though, is spending money is not the same thing as creating jobs. There are other alternatives that are out there.

The Republican Party has introduced almost a thousand bills of alternatives that have never been allowed to be discussed on this floor. We had one called the no-cost stimulus bill. It was estimated that it would grow our gross domestic product by $10 trillion and create 2 million jobs and would cost the taxpayers exactly nothing and has still yet to be allowed to be discussed on this particular floor.

Now, we come here today as part of a Western Caucus with the understanding that much of what we do in the West is a catalyst for us solving this particular problem in moving our economy ahead.

Unfortunately, this administration, which misdiagnosed what the stimulus would do, has also misdiagnosed the opportunity that so much of our public lands have offered to us. It is not an effort to try to destroy the environment, but there are enough resources we have in this country that we could create an energy policy that would indeed build real jobs.

Unfortunately, this administration looks at the gift that it has at its disposal and instead goes in the opposite direction. It creates an environmental policy that is aimed at benefiting special interest groups so that instead of our using our resources to create jobs, we actually are sacrificing jobs to a false ideology.

In this opportunity today, we are going to be talking about some of the things this administration is doing which actually harms this country and loses jobs when we have a great opportunity to try and grow jobs if we'd just use the resources that we have wisely.

I am joined and will be talking with Representative McClintock of California. He has a unique area that deals with the forest area that has a chance of actually bringing people together for a benefit that could grow jobs, help the economy, help the environment, and for some reason, we simply are not doing it.

We will be joined later by Representative Thompson of Pennsylvania; not necessarily the West, but he has the same situation with a forest in Pennsylvania and, once again, the administration's misuse of land policy is costing people jobs and should not be there.

I'm joined by my good friend Representative Broun from Georgia. He's going to try to put all this into some kind of perspective at the same time as

we deal with this issue and other issues, all of which have the same problem of costing us jobs. And hopefully there will be a few more Members who will join us before this hour has concluded.

And I'd also like to talk about a couple of policies that this administration has started which, in reality, costs American jobs when we should be producing jobs with the resources that we have.

But, Mr. Speaker, with that said, I would like, first of all, to yield some time to Representative McClintock of California, who has a wonderful opportunity of creating jobs in California, desperately needing the jobs, desperately needing the income, but is faced with a unique barrier that's going to be extremely difficult to overcome.

Would the gentleman yield for one moment?

This is truly a tragedy that you have mentioned that is taking place in your home district. As I was out there in the community of Quincy, I was noticing that the concept that they said is that if they could thin those forests, they could minimize the risk of forest fire as well as using the resources that would be pulled out to create jobs at the same time.

Could this fire have at least been mitigated if we had gone through these practices of thinning the forest under proper procedures that would help the forest as well as help the economy at the same time?

To the gentleman from California, I thank him for joining us here. I know that we all send our sympathy to the community and especially the family at this time of their particular loss in a heroic effort to try and help and save others.

Part of the problem that the gentleman from California is talking about is because of the land that is owned by the Federal Government. On this particular chart, everything that is in red is owned by the Federal Government. You will notice that it has a preponderance in the West. And where Mr. McClintock is talking is that area in California surrounded by red. Let's face it. If you live in that area that is surrounded by red, you really don't have a whole lot of options. The Federal Government controls what opportunities you do or do not have.

Let me give you just one example in my State of a different area. And I want to introduce you to a young man by the name of Mr. Pitchforth. Mr. Pitchforth is a young and exciting school teacher who got 12-, 13- and 14-year-olds excited by geography and history, which by itself should give him some kind of hero's medal. This September, though, he is not going to be teaching school. He is not going to be teaching school because the district in which he lives is one of those red areas in which this administration unilaterally and arbitrarily decided to take 77 oil and gas leases and suspend them, take them off the market, making them unusable. And in so doing, took neighboring and abutting pieces of property owned by the school trust lands and make them also sterile for this time period. The schools lost money. And in so doing, their reaction was to fire the first teacher hired. Mr. Pitchforth is not there anymore. You see, this doesn't deal with just people who are working in oil and gas. There's collateral damage from every one of our decisions that the government makes. Mr. Pitchforth isn't working because of a choice he made, but because of a choice some bureaucrat back here in Washington made. And it's not fair. It's not fair for him. It's not fair for his family.

There's other collateral damage that takes place in this area where the Secretary of the Interior decides to pull these leases and suspend these leases for the rationale that the Bush administration did them too quickly. Actually, the Bush administration took 7 years to go through the process. I guess 7 years was not enough time to decide whether we were doing the right thing or not, at least that is what the Secretary said. Let me read to you a letter from, once again, somebody who is not directly employed but who is in the transportation business that does the shipping of materials both to and from those potential sites. As he wrote the county commission where he lives, Let me applaud your efforts in trying to get the message to our Interior Department that their actions have caused great harm to the economy of our area and to individuals living there. At the end of 2008, we employed over 230 truck drivers and leased 204 trucks. Our payroll was $12 million a year. But since the first of the year, we have laid off 36 trucks and 47 drivers. There are now 47 families without income nor payroll benefits associated with them. Our overall payroll is down 29 percent, projected now to be down to $9 million by the end of this calendar year. On a personal note, my son who has worked in the oil fields for the past 8 years has never been unable to find employment until now. He has been off now for 3 months and is getting very discouraged. My daughter is a single mother of two growing boys. She has been struggling to make ends meet with the economy the way it is now and seems she has lost hope of ever finding employment elsewhere. To Brett who is the field manager who was laid off on July 1, July 13 he and his wife had a baby. To Jody and Jeff, two truck operators, Jody lost his truck because he couldn't make payments after he was laid off because of the decision made by the Secretary here in Washington. Curtis was a craftsman and a cabinetmaker who lost his job due to the cancelled contracts once they realized these leases were taken off the table. Travis, a construction worker, husband, father of two children, laid off, once again, as soon as a bureaucratic decision here in Washington was made that had unintended consequences far beyond what was anticipated when a bureaucrat in Washington decided to make decisions on what should take place on the ground out there and took the opportunity of solving our problems and creating problems and taking jobs away from people.

We talk about the numbers unemployed. Each of those unemployed numbers is a face and a real person with a real family and a real issue. I would like to yield some time to the gentleman from Georgia to try and put this in perspective. And then we will be joined by two other members of the Western Caucus.

I appreciate Representative Broun from Georgia for joining us. He provides a unique element to the Western Caucus of giving a Southern input, which we find so similar to the problems that we're facing, as well as a medical background. Part of the problems he's talking about is the reason that the policies we have been creating as a government is part of the problem why we have 14.7 million unemployed right now.

I'd like to go to the Eastern part of the country, if I could, and yield some time to Representative Thompson from the State of Pennsylvania, who also has a similar problem, similar situation, with a similar heavyhanded result of bureaucratic Washington decisions, and it has direct impact, so that these unemployed are not just faces, they're real people.

Then, we will be happy to be joined by Representative Lummis from Wyoming, who has the same things in her home State as well.

Representative Thompson.

I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania. This clearly shows we are desperate to create jobs and yet we have an Interior and an Agricultural Department whose decisions are killing jobs and the ripple effect those jobs have.

I'd like one other illustration of how this is happening. My good friend, Representative Lummis from Wyoming, one of my favorite elements about Wyoming is that fact I'm an old schoolteacher. And this chart clearly shows that the blue line is what Wyoming pays their schoolteachers. The red line is what Montana pays their schoolteachers. And the only difference between those two States is Wyoming clearly realizes what can happen and how much good you can do when you develop the resources that are there in that particular State.

I yield to the gentlelady from Wyoming.

I thank the gentlewoman from Wyoming who has so clearly pointed out how small decisions that we make here still have enormous impacts. We have seen what this administration has done in an effort, for whatever reason, to harm the creation of jobs when it deals with land policy.

This week the Secretary of the Interior decided to have a time-out on new leases of uranium mining, which will lose at least 1,100 jobs. He earlier decided to put a halt on the development of oil shale projects. That could be up to 1 million jobs. It is estimated at 160,000 jobs that will be lost from the delay on Outer Continental Shelf development. An effort to stop the timber harvest in western Oregon immediately costs another 5,000 jobs.

Mr. Speaker, as we look at what we're doing here, it is very clear that small business and families are struggling today. Republicans have put forth thoughtful, serious alternatives which have been ignored and not even discussed. It's also clear that the President's economic decisions have not produced jobs, not produced prosperity, and simply have not worked. It doesn't mean that we're out of options. We can still have a real recovery.

If we emphasize and create an environment that empowers small business and empowers Americans and we focus on job creation, we stop the attack on the West and other areas of public lands and the people who live there and allow them to develop the resources that we have been given to create real jobs in this country, we can do that. That is still an option that we have. But we have to do it, and we have to do it together.

There are a lot of other examples that I would like to go into, Mr. Speaker, but time does not allow that--maybe at some other time--where decisions by this administration have actually harmed families and their creation of jobs. Once again, we have to change directions. That has to stop.

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