Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I've been listening to this debate, not just at this moment but throughout the whole health care debate. It just kind of shocked me. Why are the Republicans so angry with a bill that, essentially, they wrote?

It was the Republicans who wanted to mandate that every person in the United States carry private health care insurance. The bill does that. It was the Republicans who wanted to make sure that people who were cheating on Medicare got busted--no free ride. The bill does that. It was the Republicans who said people ought to help themselves by being healthier--eating better, taking care of their health, and exercising more. The bill encourages that.

So why are you so angry about a bill that has so much Republican writing in it?

And it struck me: Do you remember at the beginning of this year they said, We want to defeat the President--no matter what--even if he signs into law our ideas. That's it. He signed into law an awful lot of Republican ideas, and they can't stand it.

What I want to tell you is don't listen to the rhetoric down here. Go check for yourself. You can go to www.healthcare.gov. Go to your State. Go to your county. Put in some information about yourself. Find out for yourself. Check the facts. It's there. It will tell you what you get and what you don't get.

Look, there are so many good things that this bad repeal is trying to do that it's going to take away affordability, that it's going to take away access, that it's going to take away what Americans have been asking for for over 100 years. Let's keep it. Let's make it work.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Mr. Yo Azama, a Japanese language teacher at North Salinas High School in Salinas, CA, who was named the 2012 National Language Teacher of the Year by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). The National Language Teacher of the Year award was created to recognize a foreign language teacher who exhibits excellence in language education.

Competition for the Foreign Language Teacher of the Award is quite steep as nominees are first evaluated by their state language organization, after which each state submits its top candidate to one of five regional committees for additional review.

Learning a foreign language opens minds to other worlds and has been scientifically proven to generate more flexibility in thinking. I was impressed by what Mr. Azama included in his application essay. He wrote ``my experience as a language teacher convinces me that today's students are ready and more than willing to learn other languages and cultures, and prepare themselves to join a world that has no borders and offers them unlimited opportunities if they have the linguistic and cultural competency . . . Language connects us and as a result it binds us the global family that we are.''

Mr. Speaker, this national award goes to someone who shows incredible passion for his profession, for his students, and for his community. I congratulate Mr. Azama on his much-deserved recognition as he continues to teach, lead, and inspire California's youth.

I rise today because I think everybody in this country is always worried about health care and whether they're going to be able to have access to it, whether they can afford insurance, whether the complications of that insurance will knock them off health care by putting caps on it or saying you have a preexisting condition. But those worries are over. America has health safety now. Everybody in this country will be able to have access to health care. The Supreme Court made the decision that no one without health care cannot be treated.

So I think it's a really happy day. There's going to be a lot of discussions here about pros and cons on how it's all worked out, but each individual, I think, will be able to decide: I can go to a doctor and I can get the kind of care that I need, and it's going to get paid for so doctors and hospitals will make it. That's the bottom line.

I left my office this morning, and one of my interns is 25 years old, and she says, I've got health care insurance because of the law you passed. Until I'm 26, I can stay on my parents' health care insurance, and I otherwise would have none. Because she's already graduated from college.

So this is a win-win for everyone. It's a great day for America.

Thank you very much for yielding.

I rise in strong opposition to the $19.405 billion allocation that our Subcommittee on Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration- related agencies received, but I rise in support of the rule for moving this process forward with a great floor debate.

The allocation given to our committee is $1.7 billion, or 8 percent, below what the President requested; and it is $365 million, or 1.8 percent, below what we enacted in the House last year, in 2012.

Chairman Kingston, my colleague on the Republican side of the aisle and chair of our committee, does a great job. He has talked about how we have savings that have been found and that, in tough budgetary times, everybody has got to tighten his belt. We all know that, but it's about the cost of tightening those belts and about those who depend on those programs which, in many ways, are their survival. I feel several programs have been cut so deeply that people will either be unable or will have difficulty in performing the duties of those programs.

This bill slashes Food for Peace by 22 percent. Let me be crystal clear about what this cut means. Mr. McGovern just spelled it out very clearly. It's the wrong thing to do. It means 6 million to 8 million people will face starvation--6 million to 8 million people. Cutting food aid only increases the need to bump up other, more costly efforts later on. It means that 44,000 Americans who produce that food could be losing their jobs. Those include farmers, the shippers of food, processors, port workers, and merchant mariners, who ship it across the seas.

In another example, 41 percent is being cut from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission--41 percent. That's misguided and shows a lack of understanding of its oversight responsibilities. A failure to fund robust oversight will only hurt American taxpayers. The CFTC is charged with the oversight of unregulated swaps at $300 trillion a year--$300 trillion of these swaps--and it is grossly unregulated.

This regulatory oversight protects the American taxpayer and reckless Wall Street behavior that caused the 2008 financial crisis. We all know that reckless Wall Street behavior led to the collapse of the housing market, which is still dragging down economic growth in all of our communities across America. We in Congress need to restore the people's confidence in our ability to govern and to regulate Wall Street and to benefit Main Street. We in Congress need to restore the CFTC funding.

Remember, too, that the FDA, which is the Food and Drug Administration, oversees 80 percent of our Nation's food supply, including food for more than 3,000 facilities in 200 countries around the world.

I appreciate the effort here to bump up food safety modernization implementation. However, the total Food and Drug Administration is funded at $16 million under what we gave them last year, and $31 million below what was requested for this year.

As you know, in addition to overseeing most of our food supply, it is responsible for the safety of drugs and medical devices, many of which are imported to the United States.

In closing, I do think that Chairman Kingston made a good effort in crafting this bill, given the allocation he had to deal with. I support this rule and continue to work with him as we move forward on this bill. Let's have a good hearty debate and adopt some amendments to correct it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 200th Anniversary of the dedication of the ``Mission of Music,'' the Old Mission Church of San Juan Bautista. On June 23, 2012 the Mission celebrates the anniversary of its dedication and an unbroken succession of pastors since its founding by the Franciscan order in 1812.

The Mission, the fifteenth and largest of California's twenty-one missions, was established by the Franciscan friars and dedicated in 1797 by Father Fermin Francisco de Lasuen to its patron, St. John the Baptist. For the last two centuries, the Mission has served mass daily to parishioners and visitors, including the Amah Mutsun and other native California Indians who first inhabited the surrounding area.

Today the Mission continues to function as an active parish within the Catholic Diocese of Monterey. The Mission has been included in the National Register of Historic Places and the California Historic Register. With three naves it is the largest and one of the tallest missions in California. It also features the only Spanish Plaza in its original configuration remaining in California.

The bi-centennial dedication of the Mission honors the influence of Native American, Spanish, Mexican, and American settler influence on the California Central Coast. The 200th Anniversary will be marked with a spectacular fiesta and procession from the Mission to downtown San Juan Bautista. Funds earned from the celebrations will go toward unearthing a newly discovered chapel site in the area as well as for maintenance and restoration of the Mission basilica and its associated buildings.

Mr. Speaker, I know that I am not alone in recognizing the continuous work of the mission church in supporting the community of San Juan Bautista, including its role as a significant visitor destination in the region. For all the Mission has managed to contribute to the community and for all that it will undoubtedly continue to do I extend my most sincere thanks to it and wish it the best as it moves into a third century of service to the community of San Juan Bautista.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Anthony Costa on the occasion of his recognition by the Grower Shipper Association with its prestigious E.E. ``Gene'' Harden Award for Lifetime Achievement in Central Coast Agriculture. The Ag Leadership Award is presented to the individual, company, group, association, or agency that has made a significant contribution to the agricultural community in the Salinas Valley.

Anthony Costa, or Tony, as he is known by most, was born in Wakefield Massachusetts and is the oldest of seven children. He came to California on a train with his aunt and uncle when he was eleven years old, settling in the San Joaquin Valley town of Los Banos. He graduated high school in 1946, and later served our nation in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. After leaving the service, he found his way to Salinas, California, where he met and married Salinas Valley native Elsie Bassi. Elsie was born and raised in the Soledad Mission District, graduated from San Jose State University, and was a school teacher.

In 1956, the young Costa couple began farming on a ranch outside of Soledad. As their family grew, so did their farming operation. For over fifty-six years, the Costa Family has dedicated itself to being quality growers of more than twenty different vegetable row crops in the Salinas Valley. Their original small operation has grown to encompass strategically owned and leased ground up and down the Salinas Valley. The family also runs year-round harvest operations, field-to-cooler trucking, joint ventures in Huron, Yuma and Imperial Valley crops, and partnership interests in cooling and processing operations. Their farming operation has been a key supplier to several shippers and processors in the area for many years.

The Costa Family Farms is a family farm in every sense of the word. And while the award singles out Tony for recognition, it is really a recognition of the whole Costa family. The family continues to farm the original ranch which they leased for many years. Their business now involves three generations of family members including their children David, Michael, Diane, and JoAnn, who are joined by their grandchildren Colby Rubbo and Peter Dossche. Several other grandchildren are pursuing agricultural degrees. They have built a remarkable operation that bridges the old produce world of trust and handshakes and the new modern world of food safety and product traceability.

Mr. Speaker, I know that I speak for the whole House in offering Tony and Elsie Costa and their whole family our heartfelt congratulations on their recognition by the well deserved honor of E.E. ``Gene'' Harden Award for Lifetime Achievement in Central Coast Agriculture.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the life of Corporal Bernard P. Corpuz, and to join the U.S. Army in recognizing his service to our nation by dedicating the military's newest language training facility in his honor. Corporal Corpuz was a native to California's Central Coast, and represented his community with pride during his service in the Army. He was killed in action in Ghazni, Afghanistan, on June 11, 2006 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Bernard Corpuz was born on August 16, 1977, and grew up near Watsonville, California. He graduated from Palma High School and attended Hartnell College, both in Salinas, California. In July 2004, Corpuz joined the U.S. Army. After completing basic training, he was sent back to California's Central Coast to study at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLI) in Monterey, California. DLI is the nation's largest and most rigorous language education center. Corpuz completed a rigorous six-month French basic course and graduated on April 28, 2005. His instructors at DLI described him as an extremely dedicated student of French, who studied the language with passion and read French literary and religious books with zeal.

Following DLI, Corpuz trained as an Army interrogator. In December 2005, he deployed with the 303rd Military Intelligence Battalion, part of the 504th Military Intelligence Brigade, to Afghanistan. On June 11, 2006, Corporal Corpuz was fatally wounded when an improvised explosive device detonated while he traveled in a convoy of vehicles conducting a village assessment. He died in the arms of a Catholic chaplain at the age of 28.

Our nation's need for military linguists has grown dramatically in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. DLI has grown in an equally dramatic way to meet this demand. Congress and the Department of Defense have helped by funding the expansion and modernization of DLI's teaching facilities. The newest facility, a 47,000 square foot state of the art building will be formally dedicated and named in honor of Corporal Corpuz on Friday, June 22, 2012. The new Corpuz Hall will house DLI's Multi-Language School, which educates students in the critical languages of Dari, Pashto, Urdu, Uzbek, Punjabi, Turkish, and Hindi. Every time these future military linguists enter the building they will be reminded of the passion and determination Corporal Corpuz brought to the classroom and to his service to our nation.

Mr. Speaker, I know I speak on behalf of the entire House, in expressing our nation's gratitude to Corporal Bernard P. Corpuz. Also, may his mother, Peggy Corpuz, seek comfort in knowing her son's name is a beacon for higher learning and national service.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take the time today to commemorate the 30 years of dedication and service provided by Big Brothers Big Sisters of Santa Cruz County. Through its mentoring services, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Santa Cruz County has been a leader in prevention-based services to over 4,500 children and youth in our community since its founding in 1982.

By working to increase their sense of self-esteem and confidence, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Santa Cruz County has proven effective in keeping children and youth in school, away from drugs and alcohol, out of the juvenile justice system, and, thus able to make healthier, more constructive life choices.

Youth matched to Big Brothers or Big Sisters have been provided with caring, supportive, and positive adult role models who offer opportunities and options not otherwise available. Thousands of volunteer hours have been spent by carefully screened and trained mentors who provide one-on-one guidance, friendship, positive role- modeling, and support to youth in Santa Cruz County.

The commitment of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Santa Cruz County grants not only newfound opportunities and support to at-risk youth, but a sense of purpose and satisfaction to those who guide them, resulting in the enrichment of the family as well as the greater community. As is their goal, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Santa Cruz County has and will continue to create new opportunities to place appropriate mentors with youth from the increasing number of families in need.

The continued success of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Santa Cruz County can be attributed to the dedicated staff and volunteers who have helped generate support and enthusiasm in our community and who have worked admirably for the benefit of others.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of myself and my colleagues in the House, I would like to thank and congratulate the staff and volunteers of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Santa Cruz County on 30 wonderful years of service.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of Specialist Vilmar Galarza Hernandez, U.S. Army. On May 26, 2012, this native of Salinas, California was killed in his second combat tour in Afghanistan. It is with great sadness to note that Specialist Galarza was only twenty-one years old and married just two months ago. In his all too short life, he made a lasting impact on his family, friends, comrades, and community. Specialist Galarza exemplified valor and duty, and will be remembered as an American hero.

On October 7, 1990, Vilmar Galarza Hernandez was born to Pedro and Gregoria Galarza, Mexican immigrant farmworkers. Vilmar grew up in Salinas, California, a thriving agricultural community. The famed author John Steinbeck called this community ``the valley of the world,'' a reference to the workers who came to scratch out a living from the earth. Vilmar's parents instilled in him and his two siblings, Rubi and Marvin, the principles of the American dream: that with hard work and determination any opportunity was for their taking.

After graduating from Everett Alvarez High School, Vilmar choose the noble path of enlisting in the United States Army. In the Army, he was assigned to the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. Vilmar was known by his command ``as a rock that you could lean on.'' His company commander, Captain Brandon Wohldschlegel, said that Vilmar was ``the model soldier.'' The Army awarded Specialist Galarza the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Army Good Conduct medals as well as campaign ribbons for service in Afghanistan.

Vilmar was destined to achieve great success for himself as he sought to make a better life for his family. He grew up in a neighborhood with few advantages, but succeeded in spite of the challenges. Vilmar was a fighter and a visionary who struggled against the odds and persevered to follow his dreams. On March 28, 2012, just two weeks before his second deployment, he realized a dream when he married his sweetheart Margarita Contreras. It is heartbreaking to know that Vilmar's dreams were not all fulfilled, but his spirit will live on in the hearts of all those who loved him.

Mr. Speaker, I know I speak on behalf of the entire House in extending the Nation's deepest sympathies to Specialist Vilmar Galarza Hernandez's parents Pedro and Gregoria Galarza, his siblings Rubi and Marvin Galarza, his wife Margarita Contreras-Galarza, and his extending family, friends, and comrades. He will be missed, but we will never forget him.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Santa Lucia Chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution and the historic Harvey House in Salinas, California. The Harvey House was built in 1868 by the first Mayor of Salinas, Isaac Julian Harvey. It has served, among other functions, as the principal Salinas Valley meeting location for the Santa Lucia Chapter for the last seventy five years. Mayor Harvey's daughter, Mabel Harvey, helped to found the Santa Lucia chapter and opened the Harvey House for the chapter's first meeting on October 31, 1938. Mabel's daughter Helen Currie, in turn served as the Santa Lucia Chapter's organizing Regent. On June 9, 2012, the Santa Lucia Chapter will place a plaque commemorating its longstanding relationship with this historic property, and in so doing commemorate the important place that the Salinas Valley holds in the history of California, and indeed, the nation.

The Daughters of the American Revolution, founded in 1890 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., is a non-profit, non-political volunteer women's service organization dedicated to promoting patriotism, preserving American history, and securing America's future through better education for children. DAR members volunteer more than 250,000 hours annually to veteran patients, award thousands of dollars in scholarships and financial aid each year to students, and support schools for underserved children with annual donations exceeding one million dollars. As one of the most inclusive genealogical societies in the country, DAR boasts 170,000 members in 3,000 chapters across the United States and internationally.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I want to thank the Santa Lucia Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution for its work and for honoring this important landmark of Salinas history.

Mr. Speaker, the oceans on either side of the United States defined this great country, and these oceans are in trouble. They are so big and so vast with so many aspects not understood that it's hard for people to comprehend that they are in trouble.

Without the ocean, we wouldn't have the air we breathe or much of the protein we eat. It is our world's largest public trust, and it is essential to human life as we know it.

It captures one-third of our carbon emissions, hosts millions of species, and offers limitless recreational and educational opportunities worldwide. Yet over 14 billion pounds of trash end up in our ocean and our beaches each year.

Therefore, I urge the Nation to celebrate National Oceans Month and honor World Oceans Day, which is tomorrow, by taking advantage of activities of the Capitol Hill Ocean Week.

This summer get wet, go to the beach, clean it up. Clean up the polluted rivers that flow into our oceans, and get in there and volunteer and learn more about the ocean resources upon which we so undeniably rely and how you can work to protect them.

I thank all those who have come to Washington for Capitol Hill Ocean Week. We need political friends. The ocean needs political friends.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and pay tribute to Colonel William T. Bare on the occasion of his retirement from the United States Air Force on August 1, 2012.

Colonel Bare has given 27 stellar years to service to the United States Air Force. He has had a wide array of experience in intelligence, foreign language training, program management, policy development, and has linguistic capabilities in several foreign languages. Of particular note, he recently served as the Assistant Commandant of the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) and the Commander, 517th Training Group, Presidio of Monterey, California, located in my congressional district. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center is regarded as one of the finest schools for foreign language instruction in the nation.

It is important that we as a nation recognize our service men and women for their dedication to the United States of America, particularly those as accomplished as Colonel William T. Bare.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of a grateful nation, I join my colleagues today in saying thank you to Colonel Bare for his extraordinary dedication to duty and service to his country throughout his distinguished career in the United States Air Force. I wish him, his wife Joselyn, his three daughters Lindsay, Jade, and J'adore (aka Jazzy), and his parents Bill and Elinor, much continued happiness as they start a new chapter in their lives.

I have an amendment at the desk made in order by the rule.

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

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

I want to thank our colleagues on this committee. Those of us who are not on the committee have the opportunity to share in participating in the debate on this bill and voting for it. I have to say over the years I've been here, I don't think this bill has been brought to the floor in such bipartisan unity as it has this session. I want to congratulate both of them for their leadership.

Mr. Chairman, I also want to point out with this amendment that cyberanalysis is a relatively new field to the intelligence community. Training and tool development have focused on computer networks, but it's also important to understand the plans and intentions of foreign actors who are involved in cyberattacks and intrusions.

How do we best understand foreign plans and intentions? Is it by providing some aspects of foreign language and cultural training to intelligent professionals that includes cyberanalysts? This training is essential because it helps the intelligence community to understand the behavior of our potential adversaries. It helps them anticipate the actions that they may be taking, and it helps them develop potential allies.

The traditional missions of the intelligence community have undergone many changes, and the community must invest in new tools and develop creative ways to train its men and women. My amendment is necessary because the intelligence community department heads are not as focused as they should be on the gaps in foreign language skills and cultural knowledge in the workforce.

The intelligence community provides specialized training for its men and women in foreign languages and culture, in analysis, in cybersecurity. However, aspects of all these areas should be brought together as a part of the toolkit for cyberanalysts to best meet our Nation's challenges.

My amendment will not cause undue burden to the intelligence community. It will serve as an essential reminder to those whose decisions impact training and tool development to remember the value and importance of including foreign languages and cultural knowledge in all aspects of our intelligence mission.

I know of no opposition to my amendment, and I would hope that it would be supported by both sides of the aisle.

I reserve the balance of my time.

When we talk about critical STEM knowledge and skills for our Intel workforce, we should also be talking about STEM L, which combines STEM with foreign language.

STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Including foreign language and culture training with STEM would create a power-house workforce for the Intelligence Community.

For example, just as cyber analysts should understand some aspects of foreign language and culture, language and intelligence analysts should also have some understanding of computer network concepts and technology.

The Intelligence Community trains its workforce in STEM and foreign language, but not together. The training is stove-piped by career field.

This does not suggest that all types of intelligence analysts need to be experts in STEM or even in a foreign language. However, the Intelligence Community should consider exploring cross-pollination of knowledge.

Thank you for your support, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, this past weekend, we remembered the patriotic sacrifice of those that have lost their lives in service to our country, and, today we renew our commitment to keep our promise to the nation's more than 2 million troops and reservists, their families, 22.2 million veterans, and 35.5 million family members of living veterans or survivors of deceased veterans.

This committee has a strong history of working in a bipartisan way to produce a bill that supports our active duty servicemembers, our veterans and their families, and this bill is no exception.

I commend the Chairman and Ranking Member for their hard work in ensuring that this bill is another significant step in fulfilling the promise our country made to leave no veteran behind.

For example, the Office of the Inspector General recently filed a report that identified weaknesses in the VA's mental health care system. With the mental health needs of our returning servicemembers increasing, it is vital that the VA get this right.

The bill before us today provides resources to implement the recommendations of the OIG to provide timely access to mental health care services. We have an obligation to take care of our veterans' physical AND mental health, and I am glad this bill recognizes that critical fact.

Additionally, I am pleased to see that this bill again emphasizes the needs of our veterans in rural areas. The National Cemetery Administration has stated that 10% of all veterans will not have access to a burial option in a national, State or tribal cemetery within 75 miles of their home.

While the strategy to extend services to some rural veterans outlined in the 2013 budget request is a good first step, it fails to address a long term strategy to fix this problem. This bill instructs the VA to correct this oversight and, on behalf of Central Coast veterans, I look forward to the Secretary's report on the VA's long term strategy to address the burial needs to rural veterans.

I would note that while this bill is $13.2 billion above last year's enact level, it is also $259 million less than the President's request. While I am glad to see this bill has been protected from Ryan budget cuts, I strongly believe this Congress needs to get back to the balanced approach we agreed to in the bipartisan Budget Control Act.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 100th Anniversary of the Hollister Municipal Airport. The history of this aviation gem is almost as old as aviation itself. It saw its first powered flight departure on April 14, 1912 from what was then a small livestock pasture. And while I rise to recognize this historical milestone for this place, I also rise to recognize the efforts of all the people who have made this place so special over the years. It is their work that makes the Hollister Airport so special.

I have had the great honor of representing Hollister in Congress for many years. It is a remarkable little city that is nestled between scenic coastal mountain ranges and surrounded by some of the world's most productive agriculture. There is little to hint that this beautiful rural community lies just fifty miles south of San Jose and the greater San Francisco Bay Area metropolis. However, along with its neighbor, the City San Juan Bautista, founded in the late eighteenth century, Hollister and its region's history are a microcosm of the California story, and the airport is an important part of that narrative.

After WWI, pilots like Frank Bryant began shipping their planes by rail into Hollister for assembly and flight preparation. The little field just north of town was a popular site for various flying activities. By the mid 1920s, a pioneer in the then new business of crop dusting, a man named Everett Turner, purchased the land and converted the old pasture into Turner Field. For the next twenty years, crop dusters, mail-carrying aircraft, and all manner of recreational airplanes flew in and out Hollister's Turner Field airfield.

With war looming in the early 1940s, the U.S. Navy took control of Turner Field and commissioned it the Naval Auxiliary Air Station, Hollister. After the attack on Pearl Harbor and America's entry into WWII, the U.S. military faced a critical shortage of trained carrier pilots. The Navy began a massive pilot training program, which included the acquisition of the Del Monte Hotel in nearby Monterey to house pilot trainees at the nearby Monterey Naval Air Station and the expansion of the former Turner Field to primarily help train those and other pilots in ground attack techniques. VC 39 was the first squadron to report followed by VC 42 and VC 68 in 1943. The new base soon grew to accommodate two light carrier air groups of four squadrons with the addition of two hangars and a ground training building. By 1945, at the height of the Navy's presence, the base included 210 acres, two 200 foot wide tarmac runways of 4,300 and 4,000 foot lengths, and billeting for 167 officers and 928 enlisted men.

After the War, the Navy no longer needed its Hollister base and it sold the airfield to the City of Hollister. Since that time, the little airport has built upon the excellent facilities left by the Navy to grow into a thriving general aviation airport. It has become a national center for historic aircraft restoration as well as home to a critical base of aerial operations for Cal Fire, the State of California's wildland fire service. It is also an important business hub. With its close proximity to the San Francisco Bay Area, good flying weather, and high quality transportation links, the Hollister Airport is poised to become a leading regional economic engine. In addition, the Hollister Airport now hosts one of the West's premier air shows.

Mr. Speaker, I know I speak for the whole House in offering our gratitude to the Hollister Airport family--past, present, and future-- for making this little gem such an important piece of our nation's aviation economy and culture.