Floor Statements

I thank the chairman and the ranking member for their leadership on this.

Madam Speaker, H.R. 589, the Department of Energy Research and Innovation Act, sets congressional priorities for basic science research and nuclear energy R&D.

This legislation also includes text from my bill from the last Congress, H.R. 5638, the Solar Fuels Innovation Act. This language directs the Department of Energy to establish a basic research initiative in solar fuels. The solar fuel process, also known as artificial photosynthesis, harnesses energy from sunlight to create a range of storable chemical fuels, overcoming the biggest obstacle to maximizing the benefits of renewable technologies.

Researchers up and down the coast of California are undertaking this research from universities in southern California to the Berkeley lab in the Bay area. The research authorized in this legislation could solve this key scientific challenge and open the door for American entrepreneurs to develop the next generation of solar technology and train the next generation of researchers in chemistry, physics, and materials science.

H.R. 589 reaffirms the Federal Government's key role in research and development. My home State of California has long been a world leader in advanced science and high tech and is home to millions of entrepreneurs who are eager to engage and take advantage of the latest breakthroughs. Today we hear a lot of enthusiasm for clean energy, but the focus is on today's technology, not on fundamentally new approaches to energy technology that we make possible through early-stage research. In Congress, it is our responsibility to take the long-term view and be patient and make smart investments in basic research that can lead to the next big discovery. H.R. 589 establishes those long- term priorities.

This bill makes other important adjustments to the flexibility and utilization of DOE assets to give the U.S.' private sector a stronger edge, from the national laboratory partnerships with research groups to allowing the nuclear energy businesses to do their early-stage work on DOE sites, giving a huge boost to an industry that is about to take off.

I encourage my colleagues to support this very bipartisan, very supported piece of legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 5, the Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017.

Over the last 8 years, we have seen the administration authorize hundreds of executive orders directing Federal agencies to issue, finalize, and implement an unprecedented number of regulations. Most of these impose one-size-fits-all standards on small businesses with little to no consideration for their impact on small businesses.

As a member of the Small Business Committee, it is kind of my job to go out and find out what small businesses have to offer, what is impeding their ability to create and make more jobs for our industry and for our economy. What we have found is that overregulation is stifling them. This is the problem.

This is not something that we have made up. That is the problem in this economy. That is why I am proud to support H.R. 5, and particularly title III, which addresses one vital area that protects small businesses--the Regulatory Flexibility Act, or RFA.

The RFA requires agencies to assess the economic impacts of new regulations on small businesses. However, Federal agencies regularly exploit loopholes in the RFA requirements that allow them to produce inadequate or inaccurate analysis of impact.

We know this can have devastating outcomes, as witnessed in the Department of Labor's overtime rule issued

last year, which was one of the top concerns for many of the small businesses and nonprofits that operate in my district and across this country.

Title III of H.R. 5 would eliminate loopholes to ensure compliance and would also require agencies to provide more detailed information in each analysis.

I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of the loss of a true American hero. Colonel Fitz Fulton lost his life on February 4 of this year, and we lost the true ``Dean of Flight Test.''

The aerospace community mourns his passing. He had 23 years of service in the Air Force as a colonel and 20 years with NASA. Colonel Fulton was responsible for flying the YF-12 or, as some people would know, the SR-71, the XB-70, the B-52, and many other aircraft in his 16,000 hours in the air.

Where I got my connection to Colonel Fulton was he was the B-52 pilot for dropping my father in the X-15 in the middle 1960s during the record flights.

I will always remember Colonel Fulton as honorable and one of those people that you just looked at those steely eyes and you knew that he had a true sense of commitment to this country and what we believe in, and this country will mourn his passing.

Mr. Speaker, I have gotten to sit during this debate, and for the last hour or more I got to listen to nobody arguing, nobody wondering that this is a bad idea, nobody saying that this is something we shouldn't do.

When you walk around your district--and me being a freshman, I get to hear all my friends. You know, you never ask your friend whether you are a liberal or a conservative or a Democrat or Republican. You just talk to your friends. Friends always ask me: Why don't you get something done?

As a State legislator in California, it was difficult for us to get some things done. I was always frustrated about that. I never liked to hear the term ``ABC''--Anywhere but California. But the reason that term came up was because of certainty, was because businesses didn't know what we were going

to do from year to year. That is exactly what we are talking about today--certainty. ``Certainty'' is just not a word that we throw around. ``Certainty'' is something that has meaning. If we are going to extend this for, now, 7, 8 years in a row, it is obviously a good idea.

Going back and forth and volleying back and forth saying that this is a great idea, we all agree, we just want to do it on a 1-year basis, doesn't give certainty, doesn't give that reliability that this is good policy, we all believe in it, and we can get what we desire out of it.

When we go back to our districts and we go to our food pantries or we go to places that are helping the needy and helping the people that need it, feed people that need to be fed, wouldn't you like to go back there and say: ``You know what? This is not something we are going to kick back and forth next year or the next year. This is something that is going to be on the books. We have sheer certainty about this''?

So listening to this debate and listening to what is happening of these four measures is what I draw out of this. What I draw, what we can get today: bipartisan, moving this forward, getting certainty for these measures that we seem to all agree upon.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 527, to grant long-overdue relief from Federal regulations for small business owners.

This issue is especially important to me as a Representative from California. As of 2012, California had more small businesses and employees than any other State, according to the Small Business Association.

As I understand it, this act does not stop regulation. It just asks for some common sense. When we are looking at small business, all we want is for them to make money, morally and ethically, so that they can expand, so that they can hire, so that they can produce for our country. Well, this is a step in the right direction. Analyzing direct and indirect impacts is something that we should want from our government, federally and statewide.

Many Americans just want to work. The best way Congress can help is cutting some of the burdensome red tape and letting job creators do what they do best--and maybe letting us get out of the way.

Instead of making small businesses spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours trying to understand and comply with regulations that might not help, we should let them focus on getting Americans back to work.