Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, one of the most deceptive things that Congress does is regulate one part of an industry for the problems created by another part.

The community banks had nothing to do with the collapse in 2008. It was Wall Street, the people in New York, the big banks. Yet the Dodd- Frank regulation kind of let them scoot by and

gave them permits to continue operating, while many of the Main Street businesses and many of the Main Street banks have closed down.

My friend just mentioned Wells Fargo. CFPB stood on the sidelines silently and mute while they were conducting their affairs. It was a county prosecutor who actually uncovered it.

So this idea that we here in Congress are going to do things that are going to get it in check simply is not true. What is true is that the agency created by Dodd-Frank, the CFPB, or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, was so annoying that it put New Mexico's most sparsely populated county, with about 8 people per square mile, to be regulated the same as New York City. That is how much CFPB understood.

In the process of their regulating, they shut down the loans for manufactured housing. That means nothing to the people in New York, but in New Mexico, that is 50 percent of the homes in my district. The CFPB didn't much care.

They also limited the ability of regular banks to make loans on mortgages, establishing something called qualified mortgages. They simply said all balloon notes are prejudicial. Those things were hurting and penalizing the rural parts of this country. The people who suffered most were the people at the lowest end of the economic spectrum.

Our credit agencies, our credit system in the U.S., has done much in order to make credit available, no matter where you are in the political and income spectrum.

The people at the low end of the spectrum had access to many different ways of borrowing. CFPB simply routinely eliminated almost every single one of them.

As a representative of one of the poorest districts in the country, I have found CFPB's efforts to be meaningless to the big guys and punitive to us who are just trying to make a living out in the rural parts of the world.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support for this rule and support for the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, New Mexico gets 40 percent of its State's revenues from oil and gas, that is, 40 percent of our teachers' pay, 40 percent of our government institutions, law enforcement, hospitals--40 percent. So when the Federal Government begins to adjust the rules, we in New Mexico take an interest because it provides our jobs and it provides the way we educate our children.

Now, we have two points of view being postulated on this argument nationwide. One says that the government is suddenly becoming the model of efficiency. I wonder where that efficiency is with regard to the $200 billion of fraud in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The government hasn't suddenly gotten efficient about that. Or just your local post office, has it suddenly gotten efficient about that? Or you could listen to the argument that the government is suddenly interested in the environment and we are going to make it clean.

The BLM did not say a word when the Gold King Mine spill not only was allowed, but mandated to be turned loose by the EPA. The heavy metals ran down across those public lands and currently sit in the streambeds in New Mexico, and our friends say that the government is suddenly all worried about the environment.

When you look specifically at the venting and flaring rule, we are told that oil and gas production went up dramatically in the last years. The truth is, when you dissect it down, oil and gas production on private lands went up dramatically. Oil and gas on public lands, the government lands owned by the BLM and other agencies, went down dramatically.

So when the BLM decided to go in and control the venting and flaring of gasses, then we in New Mexico looked and said, is the government suddenly being more concerned about us or is it one more wink and nod to the special interests who want to kill the industries? They have already succeeding in killing the timber industry in this country. They have the coal industry on its back, and they want to kill the oil and gas industry that provides the jobs in New Mexico.

Yes, we have an opinion about that. Oil and gas production, again, educates our kids. Oil and gas production provides our jobs. It provides the way of life that we in this country are looking for. We contribute heavily to that, but we don't stand silently when the government suddenly decides our best interests are at stake.

Mr. Speaker, we could go through all of the examples. The truth is many reports say that over three-quarters of the marginal wells--those are the ones in New Mexico; we have the stripper wells, the marginal wells--will be shut in by this action.

You are going to take money away from our State government. You are going to take jobs away from the people. I support the resolution. We should back this regulation off, cut the red tape that is starving America's jobs out of this country.

Mr. Speaker, many times, people ask me: Just what is it about regulations that kills jobs? That is what we are involved in this week is undoing some of those regulations. I will be introducing one today to unwind a regulation that the BLM recently put into place.

What happened is, over a year ago, for the first time in 40 years, we allowed Americans to export oil. We are diminishing the trade deficits--that is, we are making our economy stronger--by shipping to South American countries and to countries all over the world. It is good for American jobs. Then the BLM comes in and puts in its onshore oil and gas order No. 3 rule, which will make it more difficult for us to produce oil off of public lands. It simply shouldn't be there.

We are introducing legislation today that will reject that as a bureaucratic entanglement of job creation in the country. That is as simple as we could be. We look forward to the support of the Members of the House.

``No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time; and no person holding any office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his continuance in office.''

I thank the gentleman for yielding and for bringing this key issue to us on the floor tonight.

Mr. Speaker, in November, the voters sent a very loud message to Washington, D.C. Now, they elected a lot of Republicans, but I tell my Republican friends that they weren't affirming our principles so much as they were desperate for a check and a balance against a President whose policies were frightening to them but also whose actions lay outside the bounds of laws that he was constrained by and constitutional constraints on his actions also. He, himself, admitted that multiple times, maybe more than 20 times, saying: I don't have the right to do it--as his own party chastised him and tried to force him into these executive actions, which he ultimately took. He said at one point: I am not the emperor.

Are we now to believe that he declares himself to be such? That is the basic question that faces us now.

The people of America want this institution called Congress--the House and the Senate together--to operate properly. I think, as much as anything else, the voters were expressing discontent that 380-plus bills from this

House were stalled on the other side of the Capitol, never making their way in any form to the floor of the Senate.

The people expect to see the issues up here and wrangled about. They want the tension between the two parties' different ideological points of view pulling at the fabric of the ideas in front of us. They are not so much concerned about the next bill. They are concerned about our vision for America and where we would take it, and they are frightened of a President who himself would take on actions which they knew were contrary to the good of the future of the country and that were certainly outside the boundaries of the laws which restrain even the President, because this country believes that not even the President is above the law.

So the questions before us are very critical. There are some who are saying: You all in the House have passed a DHS bill, and it is all your way or no way. I beg to differ. We sent our version of a Keystone pipeline bill to the Senate. The Senate made significant changes. They sent that back, and, just today, we sent the bill with the changes, the changes that were brought by Democrats in the Senate. The Senate Democrats allowed the bill to come up for debate. They amended the bill. There are more amendments in this one bill than have been heard in the previous year, total, so the system is working properly. We just sent that bill to the President. We are going to ask him to sign it or to turn it down. The people will have an opinion now about the outcome of whether the President signs it or doesn't sign it.

In contrast, look at what is happening with the DHS bill. The Senate Democrats, under Harry Reid, are saying: No, we are going to block it again. There is no debate, and there is no discussion, and there are no more ideas that are going to come in front of this Senate. I think that the American people are going to have the same opinion that they had about Reid's blocking all of the bills that came from the House before. I think that to be the case.

At any rate, we in the House have passed our bill. The Senate should either obstruct or move forward. There are many fashions to do both, but the American people are looking and judging because they desperately want an institution that functions. They are not really significantly interested if it functions for Democrat rule or Republican rule. I think what they want is a system that is passing commonsense legislation, guaranteeing that the future of this country will be solid and sound. Then we can build a healthy economy, where everyone has got opportunity and where everyone has a chance to succeed based on the merits of his work.

That is not what this President is putting in line, and that is the question before the House now as the Senate twice has rejected or has, maybe, even three times rejected the opportunity to debate the issue. I just calmly tell the American people that we are here, prepared to do the work you sent us to do. We will continue to do it. All you have to do is express your opinions to this body.

``No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another; nor shall vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another.

``No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time.''

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4329) to reauthorize the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act of 1996, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and submit extraneous materials for the Record on H.R. 4329, as amended, currently under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Native American Housing Assistance and Self- Determination Act was first signed into law in 1996. This 5-year authorization bill was conceptualized not to simply be another Federal subsidy for Native Americans but rather a bridge to assist millions in creating a better living condition, create housing opportunities, and find prosperity for tribal members.

My family's story is exactly this one: when I was born, Dad and Mom had to move the chickens out of the shack that we moved into. That building still has a dirt floor in it today and wires in the windows. I have seen housing conditions similar to this still in New Mexico. I understand that my family made its way up the prosperity ladder starting, first, with owning our own home and, second, with then finding other ways to achieve asset acquisitions, and the same thing can happen for Native Americans.

In the last 10 years, NAHASDA, as it is known, has become a driving force

for positive change and improvement on tribal lands. Through increased access to safe and affordable housing and lease-to-own programs aimed at providing rural tribes with a means for self-growth, the program has provided flexibility and independence to tribal members nationwide.

This year we are not only reauthorizing this critical bill that provides much-needed housing; we are also attempting to continue NAHASDA's tradition of transforming housing programs. We are doing so by capturing and enhancing market efficiencies and the effectiveness of streamlined processes to continue building prosperity, something that has been elusive on tribal lands for too long.

I would like to thank all of those who have assisted in the development and promotion of this legislation, Congressman Don Young, Congressman Tom Cole, Congresswoman Gwen Moore, Congressman Denny Heck, and Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who made great suggestions during the markup of this bill. Along with their staffs, they have worked tirelessly to make the reauthorization of this act possible and a truly bipartisan effort that achieves many of the reforms requested by Native American tribes nationwide.

Working together, we were able to reduce the burden on tribes and expand the opportunities in Native American housing. These reforms will result in more efficient use of taxpayer money and provide approval of projects with greater speed, allowing tribes to focus money and resources on development and innovation instead of spending inordinate amounts of time and money on administrative requirements. Ultimately, this will provide more families with homes.

Mr. Speaker, I commend HUD for truly embracing the need for more modernized programs with more accountability, transparency, and increased self-determination among Native Americans. Their willingness to engage with our offices, my counterparts working on this issue, and the committee has allowed us to create a more united product. Some Native Americans, upon reading the bill, have declared these changes and ideas will become transformational if they are adopted into law. Transformational is what we all came here to do.

H.R. 4329 includes a number of reforms, updates, and additions to the originating legislation, which are widely supported across Native American tribes. Since passage out of the Financial Services Committee, our office has received countless letters of support for passage of the bill.

In discussions with tribal housing councils and tribal leaders, there was great frustration with HUD for continued delays, and in extreme cases, failure to respond altogether. This legislation includes a compromise way forward to address this shortcoming. It sets a requirement that HUD shall respond to tribes within a 60-day period, ensuring timely responsiveness, but it does this without jeopardizing HUD's oversight responsibility.

This reauthorization has a special provision that provides tribal businesses with greater opportunities for employment on tribal housing projects. The bill provides tribes with the flexibility to create independent maximum rent requirements dictated by the needs of their communities and with the flexibility to commingle Indian Health Service funds with NAHASDA money to construct sanitation facilities and greater infrastructure around housing developments.

Working with the administration, my legislation includes language to recoup unexpended funds within the program. The agreement that was reached is more accommodating to tribal needs than the original request, allowing more room for tribes to work through their balances while meeting the need for efficiencies in the system.

Finally, we have included a new demonstration project in the bill designed to attract greater private financing and more developers to invest private money in housing projects on tribal lands. This program envisions the same privatization projects that occurred on military land and succeeded in providing great numbers of new houses for military individuals in a very short period of time. The objective here is to put more Native Americans in homes and work through the backlog of housing needs in ways unseen before on Native lands.

NAHASDA was designed to promote development and increase flexibility so that tribes may meet the unique challenges they face and provide the self-determination tribes deserve. The legislation before you today expands upon these principles and represents an opportunity for greater prosperity for a cross-section of our society that in many parts of the Nation is truly in need of assistance.

Finally, I would like to thank Chairman Hensarling and Majority Leader McCarthy and their staff for their willingness to address this issue and working with me to bring it up to date.

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

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), who has devoted not just time this year but decades of helping Native Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. There are many different Native American groups across the country who have sent letters of support, including the National American Indian Housing Council, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Southwest Tribal Housing Alliance, Nevada and California Indian housing authorities, and the Northwest Indian Housing Association.

In New Mexico, the Acoma Pueblo, Laguna Pueblo, Mescalero Apache, Jicarilla Apache, Santa Clara Pueblo, the Northern Pueblo, Santo Domingo Pueblo, and the Navajo Nation offers its support. Indian tribes all across the country are lending their support.

I did note that I had overlooked the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) on the other side of the aisle. His office was also greatly involved and instrumental in this bill, and I would like to recognize those efforts.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, again, I appreciate the observations by the gentleman. We had time to discuss after the hearing and after the markup, and at that time, it was pointed out that the pilot project is completely voluntary, easy to opt into and easy to opt out of.

It is not our intent to trap or entrap anyone, but instead open a door if they desire to go through it. I think there will be tribes that can go in and build all of houses that they need in a very short period of time. That is what we are looking for, but again, I take his observations very seriously, and we have looked for flaws in the program that might be hooks or have unintended consequences.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, again, recognizing the gentlelady from Hawaii, we had an opportunity to visit on the floor multiple times, and I recognize her inputs and just again would salute her for her support of the bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), who is a tireless advocate for Native Americans and Native American housing.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of my time.

I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma and, again, appreciate his leadership.

As you have heard, there is no shortage of debate on the bill, but there is also no shortage of people coming together and saying let's pass this bill.

I listened with interest to the ranking member. The points that she made today were made during the markup, and, again, I appreciate and respect that and have not set those concerns off on the side. It was absolutely essential that we move the bill forward in order to get this passed in this session, so I appreciate all of the support from our partners across the aisle.

This support that you are hearing from Native Americans across the country from people in this Chamber is no coincidence. It comes from hard work, and that hard work has come from both sides of the aisle, but especially from Ms. Moore, Mr. Heck, Mr. Kildee, and, again, Ms. Waters. So thank you all for that dedicated effort. On our side, Mr. Young, Mr. Cole, and Mr. Hensarling have been just vital in getting this kind of pulled together in a fashion that we could bring it here today on suspension.

For the past 2 years, my office and I have worked with countless tribal leaders and housing associations nationwide; we have worked with other Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle; we have worked with HUD and the administration--all for one end result, and that is to create greater prosperity for Native Americans. It is that simple.

I am proud to cosponsor H.R. 4329 because it does so much to accomplish this goal. For generations, prosperity and growth has evaded many Native American communities. NAHASDA is not designed as an entitlement but, rather, as a tool of empowerment and growth. To date, each reauthorization has built upon the past to make alternations and updates designed to provide greater autonomy and prosperity on tribal lands. H.R. 4329 is no exception.

I ask that you join me today in reauthorizing this commonsense yet transformative legislation, which will help millions realize the dream of prosperity. Vote ``yes'' and help break a perpetual cycle of poverty through self-determination and independence.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2790) to authorize private nonprofit organizations to administer permanent housing rental assistance provided through the Continuum of Care Program under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous materials for the Record on H.R. 2790, currently under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Housing Assistance Efficiency Act was introduced by Scott Peters in July of 2013 as a technical correction to the 2009 HEARTH Act amendments to the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. Changes include restoring nonprofit organizations' ability to administer rental assistance programs, as well as alter the way in which HUD reallocates funds.

Originally enacted in 1987 as the McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, this legislation created a number of new programs to assist homeless Americans' needs, including food, shelter, health care, and education.

Since 1987, it has twice been reauthorized. In 2000, it came to be known as the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, with updates including the creation of the HUD Homeless Assistance Grants, the Department of Labor Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program, and others. In 2009, the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing, the HEARTH Act, amended McKinney-Vento Homeless to combine the Shelter Plus Care and the Supportive Housing Programs into a single, competitive program.

Supported by HUD and the administration, the bill before us today will correct unintended consequences created by the HEARTH Act by allowing existing nonprofits that operate CoC programs for leased housing to homeless families and individuals to continue to manage their McKinney-Vento grants as rental assistance.

It restores nonprofit participation and maximum community flexibility by delegating authority to these institutions to administer rental assistance. It allows Innovation of Promising Practices. Providing nonprofits with administration of rental assistance will allow these groups to implement new housing practices, which would better assist the communities they are in. It reduces administrative work by allowing reallocation to occur once a year instead of semiannually.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would again like to thank the gentleman for his hard work in this area and for bringing this bill forward.

We have no other speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2366) to require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint coins in commemoration of the centennial of World War I, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials for the Record on H.R. 2366, as amended, currently under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, a few short weeks ago, the world marked the 96th anniversary of the signing of the peace accords between the Allied Forces and Germany that ended what, at the time, was called the Great War. Sadly, it was only the first of what we now call World Wars because it was followed only two short decades later by the beginning of what became known as World War II.

That anniversary, which America today calls Veterans Day, was, for years, called Armistice Day, and it is still called that across Europe. Four years from now, November 11, 2018, will mark the signing of that armistice. It will be 100 years since the end of that ugly, bloody war that ushered in aerial warfare, chemical weapons, tanks, and a host of other horrors.

Mr. Speaker, in the ensuing century we have not managed to move past war, and it is well that we remember its costs. For that reason, I rise in strong support of this legislation before us, H.R. 2366, introduced by the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn) along with the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Cleaver).

The World War I American Veterans Centennial Commemorative Coin Act calls for the Treasury Secretary to mint and make available for sale no more than 350,000 silver coins in recognition of the centenary of the end of that war.

The veterans of the Great War are long gone, the last having died nearly 4 years ago. It is well that we remember, though, that nearly 4 million Americans, men and women, served in uniform during the First World War. Half of them served overseas, and some even volunteered to fight for other Allied armies even before the U.S. entered the war in April of 1917.

Of those 4 million veterans, even those who are not students of military history know some of the names, such as General John Joseph Pershing, known as ``Black Jack'' Pershing, who led the American Expeditionary Forces in that war and became the only general of the armies promoted to that rank while he was alive.

Sergeant Alvin York was perhaps the best known and most decorated soldier, winning a Medal of Honor for leading an attack on a nest of enemy machine guns at the height of the Meuse-Argonne battles in France, capturing 32

of them and 132 enemies while killing 28.

James Norman Hall, an Iowa youngster, went to France before the U.S. entered the war to fly with the American-staffed Lafayette Escadrille of the French Air Corps, and later drifted to the South Seas where he cowrote the ``Mutiny on the Bounty'' trilogy.

Mr. Speaker, the coins authorized by this legislation would be sold at a price that would recoup all costs to taxpayers. The sale price would include a surcharge that, after requirements for raising private matching funds are met, would support the work of the World War I Centennial Commission established by the 111th Congress to plan and execute activities marking the centennial of the war.

This legislation currently has 302 cosponsors, and a companion bill introduced by Senator Blunt has 72.

Mr. Speaker, while not celebrating this or any other war, I urge Members to soberly reflect on the horrors and tragedy of this first global conflict and to support this legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas, Judge Poe.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time.

First of all, thanks to Mr. Cleaver and Mr. Lamborn for bringing this bill to the floor today. Thanks for your dedicated work on that.

Thanks to Mr. Poe. Around here we just simply know him as ``Judge,'' but thanks for his poignant comments.

As a Vietnam veteran returning to the United States in the 1973 era, I found a Nation that was disrespectful to young men and women who had served, myself included. I took my uniform off and put it in a closet, never to pull it out until I ran for Congress and people began to ask why I didn't tell about the military story.

That is a condition and a mindset that no matter how you are registered, no matter what culture you are in, what race, what religion, we must never let this happen again. We must be willing to sacrifice for those who have sacrificed for us and those who have been willing to make the sacrifice.

My grandfather was in World War I. As I was approaching my time to go to Vietnam, he visited with me about being in the Argonne Forest and about being gassed there. It left him with a lung condition and frailty throughout the rest of his life. But he never was sorry for serving, never was sorry for those things that had happened to him.

It is young men and women who are willing to do anything for others' freedom that we are honoring here today. And again, I would urge all to support this legislation. It is a noble concept and a noble tradition of remembering those who have served this country in the military.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, every country must deal with and answer the

question: What does it take to be prosperous and to have prosperity for future generations?

There are many answers to that question, but one of the keys is science, technology, engineering, and math--the STEM fields--in our educational system.

The United States needs to be able to compete in these fields on a global scale, and children of all schools should have the opportunity to develop these skills no matter where they live.

Recently, teachers in the Second District of New Mexico brought up the question: What about us? Can we use funds that are set over here in the Education Department to develop better skills in the STEM areas?

Those questions were not answered in a completely positive way--that maybe it was not possible. Therefore, the teachers put forward an idea that maybe we should just get the flexibility in, a practical suggestion for an important concept.

Teachers and educators in the Second District provided firsthand experience and developed the idea into a concept. Several teachers formed an ad hoc working group. Brian Claar from White Sands Schools, Lindsey Guerrero and Marci Hearn from Gadsden Independent School District, Marci Behrens from Las Cruces Public School District, as well as Susan Brown, Nicole Delgado, and Christina Abeyta from the New Mexico State University STEM Outreach Center, all came together and developed that concept into a proposed legislation.

Working with my staff, they actually got the bill written, and on June 25 of this year, I introduced H.R. 4973, titled: Spurring Teacher Education Movement for STEM Act, also known as the STEM for STEM Act.

H.R. 4973 increases flexibility for teacher development funds under the Rural and Low Income title of the Elementary and Secondary School Act of 1965. It allows the funds to be used for teacher development in teaching STEM.

The STEM for STEM Act also expresses the need for the U.S. to compete on a global scale. A teacher should have the high-quality professional development opportunities in STEM to increase their content knowledge and improve student learning.

Professional development is essential for providing teachers and educators with growth opportunities that then are presented to our children.

Teacher professional development enriches the learning environment for students and educators alike. It is important for us to say thank you to those teachers who make it possible for America to compete into the next generation.

Hopefully, this bill, H.R. 4973, will provide a small element of help for the rural areas that stretch across the Western part of this country.

I thank the gentleman for yielding and appreciate his leadership on this issue.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 4315. New Mexico used to have 123 mills that processed timber. Today, that number is zero because of an endangered species called the spotted owl.

Now, 20 years after declaring the spotted owl to be endangered because of logging, last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service came out and said: oops, we made a mistake, it is not the logging at all.

We killed 123 mills in New Mexico. Eighty-five percent of the Nation's timber industry is gone because of a mistake. That sounds like the junk science that our opponents are arguing that we should be avoiding.

Mr. Chairman, last year, a lizard was going to be named as threatened or endangered in my district, and an ad hoc committee of scientists came together. They looked at the science that the Fish and Wildlife Service was going to use to list, they proved all of it to be false, and the listing did not occur--but only because of peer review.

That is what this bill is trying to do, to establish a process where others can

get to see what is going on inside those hidden dark doors of the Fish and Wildlife Service.

This year in New Mexico, the lesser prairie chicken was listed as threatened which, again, put people out of jobs. Ben Tuggle, the Fish and Wildlife Service director in New Mexico said they felt pressured by the lawsuits--not by the science, but by the lawsuits. This is what it looks like dealing with the Endangered Species Act in the West today.

It kills jobs, takes away the future, and takes away tax base--all for junk science that is currently being used by the department. This bill simply says let's get some transparency and let's get peer review. I urge the Members to vote for this bill.

Mr. Speaker, April is National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. April 25 was National DNA Day. It commemorates the discovery of DNA's double helix and subsequent scientific advancements.

DNA has revolutionized public safety in the criminal justice system. Since its inception in 1994, the national DNA database system has solved more than 200,000 previously unsolved crimes. It provides closure to victims of violent crimes. It assists prosecutors in taking violent offenders off the streets and has helped clear more than 300 wrongfully convicted.

Katie Sepich was a 22-year-old New Mexico State University graduate student. In August of 2003, she was brutally raped, strangled to death, burned, and abandoned at a dumpsite. Katie was a fighter with full DNA profiles under her nails. Through DNA, we were able to find her attacker.

Katie's Law was signed into law last year, helping States with DNA collection. The discoveries and advancements of DNA have done wonders for our society. Closure has transformed our justice system.

I thank the gentleman from Lubbock for yielding.

Many would ask: What does a former Representative from Texas have to do with New Mexico? Well, New Mexico's Second District is bordered on two sides by Texas. In those days growing up 3 miles from Texas, often we New Mexico guys slid across the State line in the middle of the night. We found things to entertain us there, and we would be back home by daylight. So west Texas and eastern New Mexico have a lot in common.

I had an opportunity to meet Mr. Hance when he was in Congress. I was flying as the corporate pilot for the Congressman from the Second District of New Mexico, at that time a gentleman named Mud Runnels, and during that association, I had the opportunity to meet the Congressman from Lubbock. I started watching him from a distance there. Many people are going to recount the good things, the titles and positions that he has had, but I would like to recount as someone watching Kent Hance from a distance as he made his way through Congress and later became chancellor of Texas Tech, a university that is host to many students from New Mexico. Watching from a distance, I can say that Mr. Hance did the things that all leaders are called to do. He served with honor and distinction, but he made tough choices when they were called for.

A couple of years ago, a high-profile employee of Texas Tech needed the firm hand of discipline on his shoulder, and Kent Hance made the tough calls. Texas Tech has been better off because he was there as a strong person in times when they needed strong leadership.

So again, from the New Mexico side of the border, we would like to say thank you for guiding an institution that has been home to so many New Mexicans. Thank you for your distinguished service, your commitment to principle and honor and duty. We all from New Mexico say God bless you, Godspeed to you, and thanks for your years of service.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the work of the gentleman from Washington and for his yielding time.

You have just heard one view of what the bill does from our friends on the other side of the aisle. I would bring a different view.

Just a couple of months ago, Secretary Jewell visited a city in my district, Las Cruces, with the full intent--my belief--to create a Presidential executive order creating a monument.

Keep in mind, that monument bill could not be passed through this House under Democrat rule. It could not be passed through the Republican-controlled Senate with a Republican sponsor. It could not be passed through the Democrat-controlled Senate when they had a filibuster-proof majority.

Now, then the President is going to come and unilaterally declare almost one-third of a county to be restricted. The West is starving education because of the public ownership of land. Any time you create a monument, you restrict the ability of local economies to survive.

So the first monument--the first wilderness area that was created by Congress is in my district, the Gila National Wilderness, and they are starving for jobs in that entire region. They are asking: When can we have our jobs back?

So the gentleman describes that it is somehow we, as Republicans, objecting. No. All we are saying is that the President needs to live by the same rules as everyone else. The President is not above the law; neither is his Secretary.

This bill is very simple. It is transparent.

It says that the NEPA process is about public involvement. That public involvement is what has scared away both Democrats and Republicans trying to make this 600,000-acre wilderness happen in the 2nd District of New Mexico.

This bill needs to be passed because Washington needs to understand the people own the land.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, natural gas is revitalizing American industries. It is revitalizing the middle class. That natural gas is being produced because we do a process called hydraulic fracturing.

My background is in oil and gas. I have seen the process my whole life. I have seen new technological innovations that keep us more safe, keep the process safe, protect the well bores, and protect the water.

So who would be against a process that is rebuilding American industries, that is rebuilding the job base of this country?

Sand sales you would not seem to identify with this particular process, and yet that is exactly why sand sales are soaring in the country and the production of chemicals is soaring--because of the use of this process called hydraulic fracturing.

It has been around for decades. New Mexico has safe drinking water, but we have also got plentiful jobs, and American consumers have lower costs of living, all because of a process.

New Mexico knows how to regulate its own industry. Do not force us to live by some cookie-cutter mold that has produced an Affordable Care Act that is killing jobs across the country. Give us our freedom and we will protect the environment.