Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, this is a bipartisan amendment, worked on with Mr. Richmond and others, and it deals with dredging. You know, we've seen over the last few months a shift in the Corps of Engineers' policy. In years past, they've always reprogrammed millions of dollars, in many cases tens of millions of dollars, from other areas within their agency because they inadequately had initially funded dredging of our waterways. And of course, this is the lifeblood to moving commerce throughout not only much of our country, but as we export to other countries throughout the world.

For whatever reason, the Corps made an internal decision earlier this year that they would no longer do that reprogramming, which jeopardizes much of the movements that we have along our waterways. This amendment is revenue-neutral. It doesn't add anything to the cost of the bill. But what it does is it takes money out of the general administration account, which actually saw an increase this year, moves it over into the general operations and maintenance section of the bill so that it allows us at least additional revenues to go and properly dredge our waterways.

Why is this important? Number one, it's a critical jobs issue. Because as we just saw a few weeks ago, prior to some of the record levels of flooding, Mr. Chairman, we saw they had to roll back, just in my region of the New Orleans area, they had to roll back some of the depth that they were allowed to transport on the Mississippi River. This cost about $1 million per vessel, added costs to move commerce throughout our country. Not only does that cost jobs, but it also increases the cost of goods for Americans who buy those products. But it also increases the costs of exporting. And it makes our American companies less competitive in the world.

And of course right now this Congress, the President, we're working together to try to reach trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. And I support more trade, free trade, the ability for more American employers to be able to sell their goods throughout the world, to actually create more jobs in America. But if we're going to do that, we've got to have the proper dredging going on to allow for that commerce along our waterways.

So if the Corps is allowed to go through with their policy of no more reprogramming, we know from what they've said, we know from what history's shown us that in years past they didn't have adequate amounts in their operations and maintenance for dredging, and so they have reprogrammed. Every year for years now that's been going on. And they've said this year they're no longer going to do it. So we would be sitting in a situation where we have to wait until some of our waterways are shut down or until you saw vessels grounded, like we just saw a few weeks ago just in the New Orleans area because of their lack of dredging. And then we would lose more jobs, we would lose our ability to export more.

So what we are saying is, there is additional money in this fund, in the general administration fund. We know this is a looming problem if we don't address it. So let's move it somewhere where it will actually help us create jobs and remain competitive. And hopefully as those trade agreements move through Congress, where we now have more opportunities if those trade agreements move through to trade even more and to create more jobs in America, then our ability to move those goods through our waterways would still be there. Because they won't if we are not properly dredging our waterways. So this amendment addresses that problem. And it's a problem we know is coming because the Corps themselves have said this is looming. So let's address it head on. Let's not wait until it's a crisis before we do something about it. That's why I bring the amendment, again an amendment with bipartisan support.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the President made a decision to raid 30 million barrels out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Now, of course one thing the President did yesterday in that decision was he acknowledged that supply has an impact on price, which is a reversal of his previous statement.

The problem is rather than actually opening up known reserves of American oil where we can go and create tens of thousands of American jobs and get rid of some of this dependency on some of these Middle Eastern countries, what the President said instead was he's just going to go and raid America's, in essence, our safety net.

This Strategic Petroleum Reserve is there for national emergencies. It's not there just because maybe the President feels it would be politically popular for a couple of days to do something. This doesn't even get us past 2 days' worth of America's supply.

We have known reserves that this President is shutting off all across this country. And we can actually reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil if we go out and create those jobs, create that American energy, rather than raiding our savings account for oil.

And so the President's decision was a failed policy that doubles down on his previous failed policy on energy that has gotten us to skyrocketing gas prices. And of course we're going to be back here again in just a couple of days when this short-term fix runs out.

Instead, we should put a real energy policy in place that reduces our dependence on foreign oil.

Madam Chair, I rise in strong support of the Jobs and Energy Permitting Act of 2011. If you want to talk about a jobs bill, you want to talk about a bill that will actually allow us to decrease our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, this is it.

Now, some of my colleagues on the other side say, oh, it's going to take 10 years to get that oil. The reason it's going to take 10 years is because for the last 4 years they've been trying to get their permit to go and drill where there's known oil, known reserves and the EPA's been combining with these radical environmentalist groups to block them. And so what they're saying is, those people don't want the energy in America. They want to go to places like Brazil, they want to go to Egypt, they want to go to some of these other Middle Eastern countries, many of whom don't like us, and get the oil there. But when we find known reserves in America, they are using our own Federal regulators to block American energy.

So what we're saying is, let's pass the piece of legislation that's here on the floor now that's going to allow us to utilize our own American energy. This one find alone up in Beaufort and Chukchi Sea in Alaska, this one known reserve right here that we have the ability to put online is going to bring in a million barrels of oil a day. That's American energy. That's not oil that's going to be imported on tankers where 70 percent of your spills occur from Middle Eastern countries, where the billions of dollars we're sending them are going to countries who don't like us. That's American jobs, over 50,000 jobs that can be created by getting these bureaucratic hurdles out of the way.

They've got to follow all the rules. They've got to play by the rules, but you can't keep using these bureaucratic agencies combining up with radical environmentalist groups who don't want any American energy to be used to block production of American energy. That's what this bill does. It creates American jobs. It allows us to say, okay, a million barrels a day we no longer have to import from Middle Eastern countries.

So anybody that pays lip service and says they want to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, if they oppose this bill, then they're supporting foreign oil because this bill says a million less barrels of oil we have to bring in from these other countries because we have got it in America.

We want to bring in our own oil. We want to create American jobs, and we want to lower the price of gasoline at the pump. This is how you do it. This is how you put more oil through that Alaskan pipeline, which is getting ready to dry up because they won't let them explore for energy in America. Let's explore for energy and create jobs.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment prevents any taxpayer funds from being used to implement the Department of Agriculture's new rule and regulation titled Policy Statement on Climate Change Adaptation.

Mr. Chairman, we've had this debate on cap-and-trade in the last Congress. In fact, there was a bipartisan coalition of Members that voted and ultimately defeated the cap-and-trade proposal by President Obama brought in the last Congress. And yet here we now have a new regulation that was just issued by the Department of Agriculture less than 2 weeks ago to implement, in essence, a back-door attempt to put a cap-and-trade program in place in the Department of Agriculture.

And if you'll look at some of the details laid out in this policy statement, this is a regulation that was just implemented by the Department of Agriculture. It gives new powers to the Department to go into areas where right now we, as a Congress, have said we don't want the administration to be going.

In fact, if you'll look at what agencies like the EPA are doing in trying to implement other forms of cap-and-trade, global warming, carbon emission-type programs, we've been rolling those agencies back. We've been having hearings that have showed how this is not only bad policy but this will kill jobs in America.

And so if you look at some of the provisions in this, the policy establishes a USDA-wide directive to integrate climate change adaptation planning into USDA programs, policies, and operations.

Mr. Chairman, it further goes on, it actually gives new powers to the agency. It says every single office shall identify for USDA's Office of the General Counsel areas where legal analysis is needed to carry out actions identified under this Department regulation.

Now, what does that mean? Well, if you just look at what these types of policies and regulations are being used to do at EPA, what it does is give the authority for USDA lawyers to go and issue findings that can then be used against our farmers, findings that will cost our farmers jobs, increase the price of food.

And don't just look at what this policy does. Look at what's happening in some of the other agencies where they're already trying to carry this out, and Congress has been trying to roll them back.

And so at a time when we're broke--42 cents of every dollar we spend is borrowed money--this new regulation creates and references all of these new offices, the Climate Change Program Office. It says they've got to develop a USDA climate change adaptation plan. It references the USDA's global change task force.

In fact, if you look, after they released this new regulation, they issued $7.4 million to implement a bunch of new grants that are being used to do things like study carbon credits.

Well, again, that was all brought up in cap-and-trade and rejected by Congress. And yet here they come with a de facto, back-door attempt at another cap-and-trade-type of program.

We've got to stop this attack on our job creators. We've got to stop, in this case, the attack that's being proposed on our farmers. They actually are now spending millions of dollars, the USDA is, to study how farmers can grow crops in 2050, based on what they think the climate will be under these new regulations.

Look, our local weatherman can't tell us what the weather's going to be this Saturday, within a 50 percent margin of error. And yet the Department's spending millions of dollars to tell us what the climate's going to be in 39 years to determine how our farmers should be growing crops. This is ludicrous. We rejected it here in Congress. We shouldn't be allowing these kinds of regulations to be implemented. And hopefully this amendment will get adopted.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, just today we got the bad news again that the jobless numbers have gone up, that our unemployment numbers have gone up and that much smaller job increases were created than were expected.

I think, as we continue to see unemployment going up over 9 percent-- 9.1 percent now according to the latest numbers--it is very clear that the President's spending and borrowing agenda has been a dismal failure. Yet the President continues to go down that path.

It is time for the President to start working with the House Republicans, who have sent jobs bill after jobs bill over to the Senate. For whatever reason, the President and the liberals in the Senate don't want to address the ability that we have presented to create jobs.

One real clear example is in our State of Louisiana where we have lost over 13,000 jobs because of the President's policies, where they won't let our people get back to the work of drilling safely for energy in America.

We don't want to get our energy from Brazil or from the Middle Eastern countries, many of whom don't like us and who use the billions we send to them to do us harm. We could keep that money here. We could keep those jobs here. There is a plan to do it. Plan after plan has been sent to the Senate, and for whatever reason, the Senate and the President continue to ignore them. Let's finally get our economy back on track.

Offered By: Mr. Scalise

Amendment No. 65: Page 25, line 7, insert before the period

``: Provided, That none of the funds made available under

this heading may be used to require an approved

Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC)

applicant to personally appear at a designated enrollment

center for the purpose of TWIC issuance, renewal, or

activation.''.

Offered By: Mr. Scalise

Amendment No. 66: Page 47, line 14, strike ``Provided

further'' and all that follows through ``urban areas:'' on

line 17.

Offered By: Mr. Scalise

Amendment No. 67: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Scalise

Amendment No. 72: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

I move to strike the last word.

I rise in support of the Clarke amendment. In fact, I have a similar amendment filed at the desk that I won't need to bring forward because this amendment accomplishes the same thing.

What the amendment says is that all of those cities, the 54 cities that were arbitrarily removed from eligibility, should have that same opportunity to compete for these Homeland Security grants. It doesn't increase funding at all but says: Why are we limiting our threat assessment cities to 10 cities when, in fact, many other cities have exposure to risks?

And if we just look at what we found so far from the raid of Osama bin Laden's compound, they looked through and found some of the things that these terrorist cells may be going after. And, in fact, some of the very terrorist threats were targeting areas that are included in some of these cities that have arbitrarily been removed from eligibility for these Homeland Security grants.

So all we're saying is, in cities like New Orleans, and if you just look at the corridor between New Orleans and Baton Rouge--and both cities, both New Orleans and Baton Rouge were arbitrarily removed from eligibility. Between the Port of New Orleans and all the shipping transport that's done there, as well as all of the oil and gas infrastructure for our country that's located in that region, all of the chemical plants that are located in that region, they are part of that terrorist assessment that were determined in the data that we've retrieved from Osama bin Laden's compound, including the threat to oil tankers and ships, some of the very commerce that moves through the Port of New Orleans, and yet the Port of New Orleans is removed from eligibility.

So this amendment doesn't guarantee that they will get any of these-- any access to these grants, but what it does say is they've got the ability to compete if the terrorist threat is determined to be high enough to where they should be able to get the funding from those grants, because our terrorist threats change from day to day, from year to year. We get more information, just as we've recently gotten a treasure trove of new information on where those threats are. Why should we arbitrarily remove some of the very cities that may rise to the top of that list?

So this gives the flexibility back to the Department of Homeland Security to allow those other cities to compete where there are real terrorist threats. So that's what this amendment does.

I support the amendment, and hopefully we will be able to get this language added back in.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, the amendment I bring forward right now in this bill is really directed at addressing a bureaucratic red tape inefficiency that is causing over 1 million American workers to make multiple trips to get a document that they are required to have, the Federal Government requires them to have. It's a transportation worker identification credential, and it's an important document to have. But it was created back in 2007, and it has a 5-year limitation and it has to be renewed. And a worker has to go into a registered TWIC office, and they have to go and get their fingerprint taken. They've got to get their picture taken and present credentials to get the card.

The problem with the implementation is that the Department has been requiring these workers to go back multiple times to get the card when, in fact, if you look at how a passport, for example, is issued, you can go in and you can fill out the paperwork and then they send you the passport. It works that way for most forms of identification, but for whatever reason, in this TWIC program, the Department has been requiring multiple trips.

The reason that this is a big issue for all of these workers is there are 1.8 million Americans who are required to have a TWIC card in order to do their jobs. And so under these current rules, they have to go and make multiple trips. And in some cases, this isn't an office right down the street; this is an office over 100 miles away.

I have a letter from the Passenger Vessel Association in support of this amendment, and they point out frequently that the TWIC enrollment center is hundreds of miles away from a mariner's home, necessitating two round trips of many hours in duration. It is not uncommon for the mariner to be forced to stay overnight during each round trip. And, of course, the employee has to pay for these round trips, has to pay for the overnight, has to be away from their job, and for no valid reason. In fact, the Department hasn't even implemented rules to properly utilize these TWIC cards; yet they're still making the employees go and have these multiple trips.

If you imagine a State like Alaska where you might have to spend days to go get the card, and you have to first go spend days to go file for the card, then you have to go spend days to go get the card, this is unnecessary. It's an incredible burden on our workforce, and it's something that we can address by preventing the funds from being used for implementing this policy. It still gives them broad discretion to implement a successful TWIC program, but again, just like passports or other forms of identification, our over 1.8 million American workers shouldn't be forced to jump through all of these bureaucratic red tape hoops that are actually costing them money that they should be able to spend on their families.

I ask for support of the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Yes. They would still have to go to the center and have to apply. In fact, in the language of the amendment, it refers to an approved transportation worker identification credential. So they would have to actually go and be approved. Because even if they went and let's say they were rejected, then they wouldn't be able to get the card. But if they went to the center and got approved, then they shouldn't have to go back again to get the card.

So it does require that they would have to still go in person, take the photo ID, and implement the biometric data, but it just makes sure that they don't have to go through these continuous bureaucratic hurdles to go and get the card.

I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I bring the amendment because what we are trying to do is prevent the Department from implementing or using taxpayer money to implement Executive Order No. 13502. And the effect of that executive order has been to mandate project labor agreements on projects that are worth $25 million or more.

What we are talking about here is a requirement that is increasing the cost dramatically of projects similar to the debate we had a little earlier. If you look at--there have been a number of studies done. There was a 2009 Beacon Hill study that looked at the impact that if this type of policy was in effect in 2008, which fortunately it wasn't, but if this executive order was being implemented in 2008, all of the projects that were done that had a value of $25 million or more, it would have increased the cost to the Federal taxpayer by between $1.6 billion and $2.6 billion. That's billions more that would be spent to carry out a project rather than having a just pure and open competition. We should be allowing free and open competition on projects and not artificially increasing the cost to taxpayers to carry out public projects.

If you look at The Wall Street Journal, they specifically address the executive order that we are trying to prevent funds from being spent to carry out. The Wall Street Journal actually criticized the executive order and called these handouts ``a raw display of political favoritism at the expense of an industry experiencing 27 percent unemployment,'' and they also called this a rotten deal for taxpayers.

We should be trying to save every dollar we can. We should be trying to promote fair and open competition. That's why the Associated Builders and Contractors support this amendment. To go further on, there was an investigation done by the Washington Examiner regarding a project labor agreement on a Federal building here in Washington, DC. that one project, one project, because of the PLA requirement, the taxpayers ended up having to foot an additional $3.3 million for that one project, the building here in Washington, DC. And I just want to go on a little bit further regarding the number of studies that have been done regarding PLAs. But they showed that it increases construction costs by 12 to 18 percent.

So ultimately what we are saying is, look, if a PLA wins the day, wins the bid, that's their prerogative; but you shouldn't be mandating these increased costs. You shouldn't be shutting out those open shop companies. And, by the way, the open shop companies represent about 87 percent of the U.S. construction workforce.

So why would we be shutting out 87 percent of the people out there who want to compete for these jobs, for these construction projects, and why should we be adding over a billion dollars to $2 billion in increased costs to the American taxpayer? We can stop it, we can save that taxpayer money and do a much better job of stewarding for the American people and allow more people to go back to work in a fair and open way.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

The reason I used the term ``mandate'' is because the practical implementation of this, when you look at how the Department has implemented----

I appreciate the gentleman yielding because, as I said earlier, the language and, as you know, you are correct in reading the language of the executive order, the problem we have had is that the White House political appointees are requiring PLAs.

Offered By: Mr. Scalise

Amendment No. 65: Page 25, line 7, insert before the period

``: Provided, That none of the funds made available under

this heading may be used to require an approved

Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC)

applicant to personally appear at a designated enrollment

center for the purpose of TWIC issuance, renewal, or

activation.''.

Offered By: Mr. Scalise

Amendment No. 66: Page 47, line 14, strike ``Provided

further'' and all that follows through ``urban areas:'' on

line 17.

Offered By: Mr. Scalise

Amendment No. 67: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Scalise

Amendment No. 72: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

I thank the gentleman from Michigan for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, we are here today, not talking about something as the other side would contend is a joke. This is a very serious issue, and I rise in opposition to an increase in the debt ceiling that would just give the President another couple of trillion dollars to keep spending the way he has been spending for the last 2 years.

I think Americans across the country recognize that this wild spending spree the President has been on the last 2 years has to come to an end, and it's going to start here on this House floor where we are going to finally invoke fiscal discipline. And, of course, over 100 Members of the other side have asked for a clean vote. They want another trillion to keep going along, maybe 2 trillion, to keep spending money that we don't have.

In fact, if you look at their plan, their plan not only will double the national debt in 5 years, which I guess they are okay with, but it also allows Medicare to go bankrupt. We are not going to sit by and let Medicare go bankrupt. We are not going to sit by and let them keep spending money that we don't have.

We are finally going to say enough is enough.

We are going to put spending controls in place. Frankly, it would be irresponsible to increase the debt ceiling without reforms that actually start cutting spending and putting our country back on a path to a balanced budget.

Now maybe some on the other side don't want to see us get to a balanced budget, which is why they've dramatically increased spending over the last 4 years up until when Speaker Pelosi was fired. But, frankly, the American people have said, enough is enough, stop the spending binge, enough of giving the President this uncontrolled use of the American credit card. Let's start reining in spending. Let's put those controls in place. Let's get our country back on a path of fiscal sanity so we don't have these groups like S&P saying that they will downgrade the bond rating of the United States of America. That's not something we can tolerate.

Maybe the gentleman on the other side might want to, and I'm sure during your time you'll have the opportunity to address that, but, frankly, what we've got to do is start installing fiscal discipline back in this House, and we're going to start doing it now. It means no more blank checks and no more unbridled spending. The President is going to have an opportunity to join us in that debate. But, frankly, it starts tonight, and we say we're not going to keep giving that credit card limit to the President without real reforms.