Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, today, February 12, 2015, I was not present for call votes number 77 and 78 due to attendance at the White House bill signing ceremony for the Clay Hunt SAV Act. If I had been in attendance, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall vote 77 and ``yea'' on rollcall vote 78.

personal explanation

Mr. Speaker, this week marks National Marriage Week. This is the time for Americans to recognize, to celebrate, to honor this time-honored institution and the critical importance of a man and a woman committing to each other and to the children of their loving union.

The plain and simple truth is this: marriage is vital to our economic success, cultural well-being, and our children. And sadly, it is being trampled upon as we speak. Unelected judges from all across the country are forcing their personal feelings and biases against traditional marriage upon the American people. This judicial activism has thrown the social and legal status of marriage into chaos.

Since the question of marriage is now before the U.S. Supreme Court, Congress must act now to right this wrong. That is why today I am reintroducing the marriage protection amendment to affirm the true meaning of marriage is between one man and one woman and to provide a clear policy for our Nation, especially for our children.

Mr. Chair, here in Washington, D.C., I believe we have too many people working on K Street looking out for Wall Street when we should be, instead, fighting for Main Street. It is our Main Street businesses, our small businesses, that are the heart and soul of our economy and without which there will be no economic recovery.

America has slogged through 6 years of a lackluster economy in part because our hardworking small business men and women are strangled by this administration's overregulation. During my 267 town hall meetings throughout my district in the last 4 years, the number one complaint is this: there is too much regulation on small business from faceless, nameless bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., who don't understand the needs of rural America.

It is time for some red tape relief. It is time for some regulatory certainty. It is time to free up Main Street so they can kick-start our economy and get America back to work. As an active member of the Committee on Small Business, I encourage my colleagues to join me and millions and millions of small business entrepreneurs all across America and pass this bill today.

I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, over these next 2 days, you will hear many of my colleagues rise in support of H.R. 36, as well they should. This bill protects pain-capable, pre-born children from being subjected to violent, dismembering abortions, also known as D&E abortions.

One former abortionist, Dr. Anthony Levatino, testified in May 2013 before the House Judiciary Committee and described the procedure by saying:

A second-trimester D&E abortion is a blind procedure.

Picture yourself reaching in with a Sopher clamp and grasping

anything you can. Once you have grasped something inside,

squeeze on the clamp to set the jaws and pull hard--really

hard.

This is from a former abortionist describing the procedure:

You feel something let go and out pops a fully formed leg

about 6 inches long. Reach in again and again with that clamp

and tear out the spine, intestines, heart, and lungs.

How disgusting. How repugnant. How wrong. Any nation, any party, any person that claims to respect human rights and accepts basic science must reject this pain-filled act of barbarism.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this rule and, most important, in supporting H.R. 36.

Thank you, Congressman. I know we probably sound like a broken record--and for the marchers coming in tomorrow, that is something that they used before there were CDs. Isn't that great--we have all of these marchers coming in who don't even know what a record is because they are so young. In the battle for life, we are winning with this generation. They understand the reality of when life begins. I am so thankful for that, and I am so thankful for Chris Smith's leadership.

Like one of my earlier colleagues, I remember being on the other side of the rally watching the Congressman and saying: Gosh darnit, I wish I could be like him. What can I do?

That is what I would like to talk about tonight: What can we do to make a difference? Of course, as we will see tomorrow, a tremendous level of political involvement with tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of folks showing up here from all over the country. Generally you have people from Kansas to lead the march, and it is great to see some kids from Benedictine College and throughout my district as well getting involved, making a difference, both here in Washington and in their State capital, coming here for the March for Life, which we hashtagged ``Why We March.''

What else can we do? Very quickly, we can help and assist women and families in crisis pregnancies. There are hundreds and hundreds of facilities across the country that offer free help and free care, outreach for those in very difficult situations. We can do that.

The second thing we can do is encourage families, current families, encourage marriage. Marriage is a founding block of our society, of our civilization. The more we can encourage marriage, the more we can encourage families and the more we can help our unborn.

We can also consider adoption. For those who are listening today who are wondering, maybe that should be for me--sometimes it might be one spouse. Sometimes it might be another. I was with a couple of friends this weekend just talking about that, saying, think about it, pray about it, consider it, because there are literally tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of young folks who are looking for homes. So please consider that.

And lastly, I ask, please pray for the unborn, please pray for birth families, and please pray for those who are considering adoption.

Lastly, I want to briefly thank the four birth families who blessed our family with children. Some of them I know, some of them I do not. Two of them are in foreign countries and two of those families are here in this country. But that is a tough decision. I am so thankful for the men and women of this country that chose life and offered up their children for adoption.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the time from my colleague from Utah, and thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

I was at the Kansas State Fair this past weekend, and the number one issue at the fair was this particular rule coming out of the EPA. I stopped by the booth of the Kansas Farm Bureau, I heard it as I walked through the streets of the state fair: ``Ditch the rule.'' And that is what we are trying to do here, to make certain that EPA regulators can't go in the backyards, the farm ponds, the road ditches, every place there might be a drop of water.

This is a radical redefinition from the EPA, unelected, of course, trying to redefine the current language of the Clean Water Act. It is so radical, Madam Speaker, that a Congress controlled by the other side of the aisle even refused to authorize these changes, so the EPA is trying to do an end run, as they have done on numerous other accounts, trying, again, to rewrite clear law in reference to navigable waters.

In western Kansas, where I farm, and where I have most of my constituents, they are worried. What kind of place have we come to in this country in which average ordinary Americans, whom we work for, whom the EPA claims to work for, are worried about those regulators?

The State of Kansas will continue to regulate these issues. The EPA does not need additional authority. They have stepped well beyond the bounds of the authority we have given them as a Congress.

I would encourage my colleagues to allow us to proceed, to move forward on this rule, and then get to the underlying bill, which is to ditch the rule from the EPA.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his work on this bill.

As a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I want to take a moment to share a little about what this bill means for my Kansas veterans.

Since coming to Congress, I have heard dozens of stories from Kansas veterans about their troubles with the VA. They have shared about how they are required to travel hundreds of miles for simple medical tests or to renew their prescriptions, all the while, driving past dozens of local hospitals and other health care providers with the ability and desire to meet their needs locally. Many Kansas veterans drive halfway across the State or to Colorado, Nebraska, or even Texas to get their simplest health care needs met.

In fact, just yesterday, my office had to step in to help a 94-year- old World War II veteran. The nearest VA hospital was 240 miles away. He just had a recent serious surgery, and they said, you have to come into the hospital to renew your prescriptions.

Thankfully, I was able to contact the VA and ensure this veteran could get his care in his local community, but as I tell folks in Kansas, you shouldn't have to call your Congressman to get the care you deserve.

With this bill, hundreds of rural Kansas veterans will be able to use their new veteran choice card or Project ARCH, call their local doctor, and get their health care needs met. Just like Medicare or TRICARE, veterans should have the choice to schedule their own appointments, pick their own doctors in their own communities.

When our veterans come back from serving and defending our country and return to communities across the United States, most of them don't ask for much, but I want our veterans to know that I believe you deserve the best, not just the mediocre, scandal-plagued culture we have seen at the current VA.

This bill is just plain common sense. It is a big first step towards giving veterans real choice and real accountability. As this law is implemented, I remain committed to continuing to ask the hard questions and working to return the VA to its true mission, to serve our veterans.

Mr. Speaker, due to weather-related flight delays, I was unable to vote in the House on Monday, July 14, therefore I am not recorded as voting. Had I been present, I would have voted as follows: rollcall No. 405, I would have voted ``yea''; and rollcall No. 406, I would have voted ``nay.''

Madam Chair, I rise today to speak in favor of the work the committee did in this bill to protect Americans from additional, unnecessary regulatory burdens. In particular, I want to thank them for protecting landowners in rural Kansas--and elsewhere across this Nation--from attempts by the Army Corps and the EPA to regulate, from Washington, every single drop of water that falls to the ground.

When it passed the Clean Water Act, Congress never contemplated and certainly never authorized a definition of ``navigable waters'' that covered roadside ditches, prairie potholes, water tanks, or farm ponds in Kansas or elsewhere.

This proposed rule by some bureaucrats in far-off Washington is a clear violation of the separation of powers within our Constitution. Ultimately, it is nothing more than a power grab of private property.

In practice, this rule would require Kansas farmers and ranchers to apply for costly permits--to apply for permission to perform routine farming activities like building a fence, fertilizing, or even plowing, and if our food producers have to pay more to comply with Washington's overregulations, Americans will see it in higher prices at the grocery store.

Madam Chairman, only in Washington would one try to define ``standing water'' in a ditch that is surrounded by prairie in Kansas as water that is capable of navigation. It is time for the administration to ditch this rule. Until then, this Congress should not spend a single penny in advancing this massive 370-page rule. I support the provisions in this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Veteran Access to Care Act of 2014.

I want to thank the chairman for his leadership not only on this bill, but investigating the current situation at the VA. This is a long overdue, proactive, multipronged solution I have been advocating for since coming to Congress.

On the committee in the last 3 years, we have been investigating lavish conference spending at the VA, millions of dollars of outrageous bonuses, billions of dollars of cost overruns. These are all significant scandals in and of themselves.

But what we are discussing here today is much bigger. It is about life and death. It is about dozens of veterans who lost their lives because of what happened at the VA; a systemic, nationwide problem, along with coverups, corruption, and, yes, criminality. It is shameful.

Instead of fighting to preserve the status quo, it is time to ensure that veterans receive quality health care closer to home. H.R. 4810 is a proactive solution. It involves veterans choice, independent review of VA performance, eliminating those outrageous bonuses, and holding the administration and holding the VA accountable.

Whether it is the veteran I met in Syracuse, Kansas, who was told he had to drive 10 hours round-trip three times in 10 days for care he could have gotten down the street at his local hospital, and he was told to drive to a facility that had a secret waiting list in Wichita, or the veteran Jack in Liberal, Kansas, who has waited 2 years for a doctor that was promised by the VA, or Larry in Oberlin, who I just learned a few weeks ago was told again to drive 10 hours to get a shingles vaccination that was just down the road, these are veterans who have been denied access to quality care.

H.R. 4810 deserves to be passed. These veterans deserve quality care close to home. The answer is pretty simple, Mr. Speaker. I do not believe there will be a rush to the exits of VA, but it will meet the needs of Larry, it will need the needs of Jack, it will meet the needs of Joe, and hopefully millions of other veterans that deserve quality access to care.

Offered By: Mr. Huelskamp

Amendment No. 1: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Mr. Speaker, due to a family obligation, I was unable to vote in the House on Wednesday, May 21st, therefore I am not recorded as voting. Had I been present, I would have voted as follows: rollcall No. 223, I would have voted ``nay''; rollcall No. 224, I would have voted ``nay'', rollcall No. 225, I would have voted ``no''; rollcall No. 226, I would have voted ``no''; rollcall No. 227, I would have voted ``aye''; rollcall No. 228, I would have voted ``yea''; rollcall No. 229, I would have voted ``yea'' on H.R. 4031, the Department of Veterans Affairs Management Accountability Act of 2014, of which I was an original co-sponsor.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I am glad to join my colleague from Pennsylvania in cosponsoring this important amendment. But I must admit, it is regrettable--actually, no. It is actually shameful we actually have to be here today discussing this topic.

As a member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, I have heard over

and over and over again stories of abuse, neglect, and mismanagement within the VA, but the one thing I never hear about is accountability. In fact, under the leadership of the current Secretary, a Senior Executive Service employee who has presided over mismanagement at the VA is more likely to receive a sizable bonus than to be disciplined or fired.

This culture of anything goes has got to stop, and the best way to stop this is to send a strong signal across the Department of VA that Congress means business. It is obvious from the headlines about the sizable bonuses received by VA administrators at facilities in Georgia, South Carolina, Pittsburgh, and Phoenix that the performance award system at the VA is a failure.

I have asked the VA in congressional hearing after hearing after hearing for a specific list of disciplinary actions that the Department has imposed on employees and executives who have presided over these delays and preventable veteran deaths. Instead of giving answers, they have only pointed to retirements, transfers, or bureaucratic slaps on the wrist, but not a single undeserved performance bonus has been returned to the taxpayers. These smokescreen attempts to create the appearance of accountability are unacceptable.

Unfortunately, the story last week from Phoenix is not an isolated event. Just 3 weeks ago, in our committee, the VA admitted to another 23 preventable deaths occurring within their facilities. The senior VA bureaucrats responsible for the management of the facilities consistently received sizable bonuses from hardworking taxpayers. These administrators have been given a sacred trust to care for and serve our Nation's veterans. And, quite frankly, Mr. Chairman, they have broken that trust; and its time for accountability.

For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, to defund these VA bonuses, and to return some accountability to the VA.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, over the past 3 years, I have conducted over 220 townhall meetings in my district. When we discuss Federal spending, my constituents do not want to hear about debt-to-GDP ratios or CBO scoring rules when it comes to the budget. What they want to know is why Congress has not balanced the budget yet and when we plan to do so. They want to know when Washington will stop spending money we don't have. They want to know when we will stop piling trillions of dollars of debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren.

This RSC budget would balance the budget the soonest of any of the alternatives before us, Mr. Chairman, and it would begin to pay down our debt the fastest. It is the type of results the American people demand out of Washington.

I am pleased this budget includes some innovative and responsible reforms like Medicaid block grants, food stamp block grants, and a real timetable to save and secure Medicare.

I am also pleased it would repeal ObamaCare. It would call for the passage of a real health care reform act like the American Health Care Reform Act, the JOBS Act, the REINS Act, throwing out our entire Tax Code and starting over, and it would restore work requirements for those on welfare and prohibit funding abortion providers.

In short, this RSC budget is full of the right ideas to get our Nation back on track, and I encourage my colleagues to join me in voting for the RSC budget.

Mr. Speaker, the following speech has been delivered to audiences at various veteran service organizations and veteran events in Kansas by a brave young lady named Kristin Stowers who lives in the Big 1st District of Kansas that I represent. After hearing twelve year old Kristin Stowers deliver her remarks on her family's experience with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, I wanted to share it with my colleagues in Congress. We could all learn a tremendous amount about sacrifice, commitment, and perseverance from this young lady's remarks.

Invisible Family

(By Kristin Stowers of Hutchinson, Kansas)

It is hard to realize that these amazing people that gave

up their lives to save and protect our nation and its people

are gone. . . . It makes you see that life is not just a

fairy tale ending that we were taught as children, we were

taught that it was going to be okay in the end. We now

realize you can't win every battle you enter. Some don't make

it home to their families, but you have to say to yourself.

We were put to the test to complete life a way that we see

fit and once you have completed your mission, you wait

patiently in your favorite place that you have always found

comfortable. Where you wait to see your family that has not

yet completed their missions. I know it is hard to coop with

what you are going through I had to deal with it, but in a

different way.

My mother had a brain tumor and had to have surgery on my

first day of kindergarten and had a stroke later on. Our

house caught on fire in my fourth grade year and we had to

live in a hotel for three months. My father was diagnosed

with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and we as a family have

to deal with the others sufferings each day. In the last few

months we have discovered many other things have gone wrong

in our relationship with each other causing more pain than

intended. We have not gotten the chance to talk to each other

about our problems at home and since the VA does not

implement family counseling in their facilities, but they do

have spouse counseling. Having said that, I would like to say

that the injuries affect the whole family not just the

spouse.

PTSD is like a black hole, you get sucked in without even

knowing what is happening around you. Your hoping that

tomorrow will be better than today, but still hoping that

when you come from school or work that the stress has not

overcome them and they are laying in their chair. . . .

Silent. . . . Dead. With the help of the VA it is still

progressing, but still worse than before. It makes me think

that he is floating away in a bubble, but God will not leave

him without a fight. To this day he is in a battle with PTSD

and the prize of the battle is him and us. . . . His family

and friends. We are hoping that he wins, but you never know

what the outcome will be. That is why we are all here. Every

person in the world with PTSD is in a battle. Some lost and

some still lead victorious and I trust him to be victorious.

All I ever wanted is for the pain to end and many of you

may be thinking the same thing, and I know this is over used

but it will heal with time. I will promise you that it will

get better even if it doesn't look like it. Just think they

want you to carry on with your life even if it is looking

grim at the moment. It takes guts to take that chance that

you will never see your smiling family that on the inside is

torn from your choices, but know that they are the right

ones.

It makes me realize that I will not have a perfect life

and no one ever will with our missions, and the people that

finish theirs when you're not ready to let go of the memories

that you had together. The memories that will and have

impacted your world and will leave a crater that you have to

live with and have to move on even if you can't. The thoughts

and the people will ever be imprinted in our minds and will

never leave because the pain will always be demanding. People

always think that war is just a thing that can be stopped on

the spot, but they don't know the aftershock of the explosion

that is a death or an injury that is fatal.

The people that saved us from ourselves and different

countries that are or was threating us. They saved us and our

nation from danger and the problems of life. Heroes and

Inspirations are these people that risked their own life to

save the people that are going to change a million lives or

just a few. Humans like this are my inspiration and I hope to

be just like them; they changed a thousand people; a thousand

points of views on life; and a twelve year old girl that is

striving to be an inspiration just like them later on in

life.

Many young people have their favorite bands and/or actors

as their people to look up too, and sure I have my own but I

have many leaders in my life some I can't name but they

changed my life no matter what they did to protect me, my

family, and my neighbors. They will be remembered as the ones

that grew up as the kids that were big hearted and the ones

that were strong and brave. The reason we are here is these

people wanted to save us and that is what they did and they

bought us time.

Time to spend thinking of ways to buy us more time. These

warriors spent their lives saving their family and friends

and their generations and so on. These are the people that

are my heroes and my saviors at the time of need and always

will be.