Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this is a simple amendment, and it's on an issue we voted on as recently as 3 weeks ago. Very simply put, my amendment prohibits the use of funds under this act to administer or carry out any of the activities for the Presidential Election Campaign Fund or to transfer public dollars to political conventions under chapter 96 of the Internal Revenue Code.

Just 3 weeks ago, this House passed H.R. 359, which eliminated taxpayer financing for Presidential election campaigns and political party conventions. This bill passed by a vote of 239-160

under a modified open rule. If signed into law, it will save $617 million over 10 years.

Mr. Chairman, today's amendment is a down payment on that goal. CBO scored this amendment as saving $38 million in budgetary authority and $40 million in outlays for fiscal year 2011. We all know on this floor we need to cut spending. Mr. Chairman, we can start today by canceling political welfare for politicians and political party conventions. This is an easy amendment that I urge all Members to support.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Offered By: Mr. Cole

Amendment No. 208: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the following cosponsors be removed from the permanent record as cosponsors of H.R. 536: Jeff Duncan, South Carolina 3; Virginia Foxx, North Carolina 5; Adrian Smith, Nebraska 3.

These Members intended to cosponsor my legislation, H.R. 455, the 10th Amendment Regulatory Reform Act. A clerical error led to their names being added as original cosponsors of this legislation. These Members never agreed to cosponsor H.R. 536, and I ask that the record reflect that they were never cosponsors of this legislation.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

As I listen to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I would just urge them to read the bill. It's only three pages long.

Frankly, most of the things I've heard so far don't have anything to do with this legislation. This legislation doesn't raise the legal contribution limit for anybody. This legislation doesn't allow corporate contributions. This legislation keeps in place all the disclosure requirements for Presidential campaigns that we currently have. So those of you that are concerned about those things don't need to be concerned about this bill.

H.R. 359 is really a very simple piece of legislation. It does two things: It removes taxpayer funding for Presidential campaigns, and it eliminates

taxpayer funding for political party conventions by the two major parties.

Now, I have to say, if you look at whether or not these ideas have been popular, historically they, frankly, haven't. When this was put in in the 1970s, the idea was that it would spread. It hasn't. We don't fund any of our elections with taxpayer dollars, our colleagues in the other body with taxpayer dollars; and, frankly, as my friend Mr. Lungren pointed out, popular participation in this program has declined for almost 30 consecutive years, from a high of 28 percent in 1980 to barely 7 percent today. So there is not much indication that it's popular.

I need to say, for the record, that I philosophically have always been opposed to taxpayer dollars being used for political advocacy of any kind. Some of my friends on the other side have a very different point of view, and I respect that. We just have a philosophical difference. I think this is an inappropriate use of public money.

Having said that, as I think even my friends on the other side at least tactically acknowledge, this is a program that is broken beyond belief. And the current system didn't just begin to break down in 2008. I'd go back to 2000. President Bush didn't use this system during the primary campaign. He only used the public system during the general election. Four years later, neither President Bush nor Senator Kerry chose to use this system in the primary portion of the campaign.

Fast-forward another 4 years to 2008, neither President Obama nor now-Secretary Clinton chose to use this in the primary campaign. And the President, having committed to use it in the general, then chose not to use it in the general--certainly his right--but said at the time he still thought it was a great idea and that some day we ought to go back and fix it.

Now, I will say this for the President. Having said that, we haven't seen any action on that front. He has been in office for 2 years. There has not been a proposal from the White House to fix this system. In fact, as my friends on the other side of the aisle know, currently he is planning to run for reelection; he is setting up a campaign. There has been a lot of thought on how to raise the money and how to put together a campaign, but no proposal from the administration to actually fix the system that they purport to support and that they said years ago they were going to try and fix. That's not true, by the way, of every Member on the other side. There have been some that have, I think, genuinely tried to fix things, but let's recognize this system has been in decline and decay for a long time.

Now the estimates are that we could save $612 million over a 10-year period. We all know in this Chamber we have a $1.4 trillion deficit problem. Governing is choosing and prioritizing. This is $612 million that doesn't feed a single American, doesn't educate a single American, doesn't build a single mile of interstate highway or infrastructure, doesn't pay to defend the country; it simply goes to support a handful of politicians that want to run for President, many of whom are marginal.

So in an era where we have to make genuinely hard decisions, to me, this is a no-brainer. This is a lot less important than a lot of the things that we need to consider and a lot of the decisions that we will have to make.

There is leadership by lip service and there is leadership by example. If my friends on the other side think this is the appropriate thing--and certainly if the President thinks it, he ought to lead by example and participate in the system. If not, we ought to recognize it's broken, end it, save the money; and if somebody wants to rewrite a bill, then they ought to do that and let's introduce it and have that debate. But right now, this is money we can't afford to waste and this is a system that's broken.

I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 359. Let's get rid of this outdated system.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support H.R. 2, the repeal of last year's so-called health bill. The American people, quite frankly, have never liked this bill, as they demonstrated last November. You can't find a poll where it cracked 50 percent in approval. And those wanting to repeal it have generally always been above that mark.

The bill itself may be unconstitutional. Over 20 States are now challenging it in Federal court. It is certainly likely to be unworkable. The creation of dozens of boards, agencies, and commissions with rulemaking authority, the fact that hundreds of companies have already asked for waivers under the legislation, suggest it is going to be a bureaucratic nightmare.

Finally and most importantly, the bill itself is fiscally irresponsible and unsustainable. The idea that we would take hundreds of billions of dollars out of Medicaid and Social Security and Medicare at a time when the baby boomer generation is beginning to retire is simply irresponsible. I am all for saving money in Medicare, but when we do, those savings are going to be needed to sustain Medicare.

So I urge this House to take the fiscally responsible course--repeal this bill and start over, and give the American people the health care bill they deserve and the health care bill they can afford.

I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding.

Madam Speaker, long before New York City's first responders rushed to save their fellow Americans in the fire and the horror of 9/11, they came to help the people of Oklahoma City deal with the death and destruction stemming from the terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995. The people of Oklahoma have never forgotten the help that they received in their most difficult days from the first responders of New York City and their fellow first responders from all across North America.

When 9/11 occurred, Oklahoma's first responders were proud to join their fellow Americans and rush to the aid of a stricken New York City. Now it's our turn in this body to help all of those

who answered the call of duty on 9/11. They risked themselves to save others and to help one of America's great cities deal with and recover from the devastation of the greatest terrorist attack in our history. It's time, as our greatest President said in an earlier era and in another context, ``to bind up the Nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and for his orphan.''

Madam Speaker, I urge the passage of H.R. 847, as amended.

I thank the gentleman for allowing me to have time.

Madam Speaker, I must admit I was in my office, signing letters, with the television off--muted--when I noticed a succession of Democratic speakers, which, as a former NRCC chairman, was a horror to just watch one after the other. I thought we must be getting beaten to death down there. What's going on?

So I flipped on the sound, actually, just in time to see Mr. Rogers from Kentucky come on, and I thought this is actually some sort of bipartisan lovefest going on. We don't have a lot of that around here, and I wanted to get down and participate.

You know, this is not, frankly, a very good time to be a Member of Congress. None of us are held in high esteem by the American public. I think it is an even more difficult time, quite frankly, to be a member of the Appropriations Committee because there are times when I think we're not held in much esteem by our own colleagues. I have heard so many things from some of our good friends on the authorizing committees that I think they forget the very simple fact that they always authorize more money than we spend on the Appropriations Committee and that we are usually left with the tough job of reconciling differences that have been unresolved on the authorizing committees. It is something that needs to be experienced by every Member of Congress before they appreciate the magnitude and the quality of the work that goes on on this particular committee.

I had the opportunity to know my good friend Chairman Lewis many, many years ago. In 1991, I arrived in Washington, D.C., to be the executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee. I had been here a few weeks when, all of a sudden, I got a message that I needed to go over and see my friend, who was the conference chairman. I thought I've only been in town a month, and I've already managed to offend one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress. I actually brought a staff member with me so that, if I were in real trouble, the staff guy and the additional staff guy could handle the problems.

We chatted for a minute, and the gentleman immediately said, Well, actually, I just wanted to get to know you because I'd heard a couple of nice things about you.

Since that time, he has been nothing but kind and generous to me. Frankly, I've watched him define what a Member and an appropriator ought to be year in and year out in the minority and in the majority. He has just absolutely served this body with incredible class and incredible character and incredible professionalism every single day he has been here.

I would be remiss not to talk about my friend Chairman Obey as well. Frankly, I'd heard about Chairman Obey--again, before I'd ever arrived--from my old boss, Mickey Edwards. Mickey Edwards told me he was often wrong but always honest, and you could deal with him. Indeed, I found that to be the case on the last two points, not necessarily on the first. He has been a wonderful chairman, a wonderful colleague, somebody who is a credit to this institution and a credit to his district. I think he defines, as my friend Mr. Lewis does, who and what a chairman ought to be and how a Member of this body ought to act.

If everybody in America knew these two gentlemen, the opinion of this institution would be enormously higher.

I thank the chairman for yielding.

I had not intended to speak on this particular issue, but I had the opportunity to hear my good friend from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) in debate recently, and I wanted to come down to the floor and correct a misimpression he has about the so-called Carcieri fix. And let me begin by thanking my good friend, the chairman, for allowing us to put that particular legislation in the bill.

I actually proposed the amendment on the floor. It was passed unanimously on a bipartisan vote by our subcommittee of Interior. And the bill, frankly, the measure has absolutely nothing to do with gaming. As a matter of fact, the Supreme Court fix that it addresses didn't involve gaming at all. It involved a housing case, land put into trust and used for housing by an Indian tribe.

What the Supreme Court has done--by a very narrow interpretation of the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act--is to create two classes of Indian tribes, some of whom can receive land in the trust, as they have for 80 years by Secretaries of the Interior of both parties, and some of whom now cannot. Almost all the cases involved here, almost every single one, involved cases that have absolutely nothing to do with gaming.

This is ultimately a sovereignty issue and a process issue. Frankly, if this fix is not made, it would not have been made without the support, frankly, of the members of the committees of jurisdiction and of the United States Senate, who said this was the best vehicle and the best way to go. But if the fix isn't made, we are going to have billions of dollars worth of litigation and have enormous disruption of economic development in Indian Country.

I think my friend is simply under a misimpression, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to make that point for the record.

I again wanted to thank my friend, Mr. Obey, for working with us and his staff and my good friend, the chairman of the subcommittee, Chairman Moran, for working with us for a bipartisan solution to a real problem.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, America is a great and a good country, but sometimes in its past it's made great and lamentable mistakes. H.R. 4783 offers this Congress the opportunity to correct some of the worst mistakes that we made in the course of our long and distinguished history.

There are three parts to this legislation: a component to deal with African American farmers, and that ought to be passed; a component to deal with Indian water rights, and that certainly needs to be passed. Finally, the largest portion of this bill deals with the so-called Cobell lawsuit.

For those of my colleagues who are not familiar with that suit, it's a 14-year lawsuit. It involves almost half a million claimants. It deals with accumulated mistakes and misdeeds of the American Government from 1887 to the present. We have twice in the course of this lawsuit had Federal officials held in contempt of court in two different administrations, one Republican and one Democrat. And, frankly, the previous administration thought we should settle this bill at between 8 and $11 billion.

So, frankly, this settlement is a bargain for the American taxpayers, and we are going to hear a lot of arguments against this particular piece of legislation. Some people will say it costs too much. The reality is, number one, it's fully paid for. It passed the United States Senate by unanimous consent, which means some of our colleagues over there who are famous for being frugal signed off on it.

Second, we ought to think about the cost of not settling it. The United States Government has spent almost a billion dollars on this lawsuit in the course of 14 years. If we do not pass this legislation, we will be in court again. And if the plaintiffs prevail, the costs could be well beyond what's been negotiated by the administration.

We will hear arguments about process, and to my colleagues, I have got to ask you, how much process do you

want when you have been waiting since 1887 to deal with a bill? This suit has been around 14 years. It's been in this Congress years and years.

I have been to many hearings about this lawsuit and, frankly, we have seen it and we have passed it twice in this Congress already. So the idea that it hasn't been thoroughly vetted, I think, is not true.

Finally, we are going to hear about legal fees. I have got to tell you if you can get lawyers for 3 cents on the dollar, take the deal. That is the best legal deal I have ever seen in front of the Congress of the United States, far below what you would normally expect contingency fees to be.

The administration, frankly, has done a good job in negotiating this settlement, bringing it to us. We need to do a good job as well and pass it enthusiastically and recognize that we are getting a good deal for the American taxpayer. But much more importantly, we are correcting historic wrongs that should never have occurred in the first place.

Madam Speaker, on Monday, July 26, 2010, I missed a series of 3 votes. I missed rollcall votes Nos. 467, 468, and 469. Had I been present and voting, I would have voted as follows: rollcall vote No. 467: ``no'' (On agreeing to H.R. 1320), rollcall vote No. 468: ``aye'' (On agreeing to H. Res. 1504), rollcall vote No. 469: ``aye'' (On agreeing to H.R. 3101).

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 725, the Senate amendments to the Indian Arts and Crafts Amendment Act. This bill was originally passed in this body by a voice vote. In the Senate, however, the bill was amended to include the tribal law and order bill, and that's what I want to focus my remarks on today.

This bill passed the United States Senate by unanimous consent after Senator Coburn and the Senate Republican Senate Study Committee negotiated certain spending reductions and addressed spending concerns.

There's no question, I think both sides of the aisle agree, that the Federal Government has a new unique obligation to ensure that these Americans, the first Americans, are granted the same public safety rights and protections that other American citizens enjoy. Law enforcement in Indian Country, however, has been woefully underfunded and mismanaged over decades, resulting in a drastic situation for many of our fellow Americans.

I want to particularly thank my colleague Representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin and her staff for the remarkably bipartisan way in which she worked with my staff and myself to address some of the concerns that we had. Obviously, I want to thank my fellow chairman of the Native American Caucus, Dale Kildee, and some of my Republican coauthors and supporters of this legislation like Representatives Simpson, Calvert and Kline.

However, I agree very much with my colleague Mr. Hastings' concern that this legislation should have been brought to this body under a rule, because it is indeed a major spending piece of legislation and there are many important and dramatic changes in Federal law, and we should have treated it under normal process. That's a legitimate Republican concern. I think it ought to be a concern of everybody in this body, and quite frankly, we will lose votes today on this legislation because of the manner in which it was brought to the floor, and that is unfortunate. Frankly, if we don't make it today, it will be because the Democratic leadership chose to bring it to the floor this way. Had it been brought under normal order, it would pass easily.

However, having said that, I think this is a case in which substance must trump process for the good of our fellow Americans in Indian Country. The problems as I mentioned earlier are severe. On Indian reservations crime is 2\1/2\ times the national average. One in three Native women will be raped over the course of a lifetime. We have only

3,000 tribal officers to cover 56 million acres of Indian Country, and even if criminals are apprehended, many tribal law enforcement officials have not had the opportunity to receive the training and resources they need to adequately carry out their duties and secure convictions. Further, if the perpetrator is a non-Indian, it becomes a maze of Federal, State, and tribal law to determine whose responsibility it is to prosecute crimes.

We have had a very difficult legislative process to work through some of these problems. This bill isn't a cure-all but it's an important start in moving in the right direction.

I thank the gentleman.

This bill not only reauthorizes existing programs at existing or last appropriated levels--in other words, there's no new spending in this bill--it provides enhanced sentencing authority so the tribes may impose longer sentences on Native Americans, not on nontribal citizens or non-Native Americans. It enhances evidence sharing and Federal accountability, and increases officers on the ground in Indian Country. It streamlines the process for the BIA and IHS employees to testify in sexual assault cases, and reauthorizes funding to support tribal courts.

In closing, all Americans have the right to public safety and security, but it's preeminently a Federal responsibility to protect those rights in Indian Country. A vote against this bill, in my opinion, is a vote to continue the status quo of rampant violence and drug abuse in Indian Country, which we have an opportunity to make significant progress on. This legislation will only pass as it did in the Senate if it has significant bipartisan support, and I hope that support is available here today. I urge my colleagues on both sides to pass this important piece of legislation.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this incredibly restrictive rule and to the underlying legislation.

The lack of democracy and openness that exists in this House is evident when the House Rules Committee self-executes a 45-page manager's amendment to a 92-page bill and then makes in order only 5 of the other 36 submitted amendments. By the way, only one of those amendments made in order was offered by a Republican.

This, of course, has all been done in the name of a bill cynically titled Democracy is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections Act. I've got a suggestion to my friends: How about strengthening democracy by actually allowing robust debate and unlimited amendments? That would actually help restore comity and bipartisanship to this polarized House.

With that said, Madam Speaker, I would like to also address the underlying legislation.

In this bill, the majority is engaged in a self-serving, hypocritical political exercise. The underlying legislation is a response to a 5-4 Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission case. Good people can disagree about that case and about its ramifications. However, when the majority party decides to reshape the political playing field with a bill written by its political tacticians and introduced by the chairman of its own campaign committee, we have reached a new low.

The clear aim of this legislation is to tilt the political playing field in favor of the Democratic Party. Simply put, this bill facilitates the involvement and political activities of groups supportive of the Democratic Party while limiting the political activities of those who may not support the Democratic agenda. A clear example of this is where the bill applies onerous restrictions on corporations which may wish to involve themselves in political activity while the bill carves out large exceptions for unions, which traditionally support the Democratic agenda.

Madam Speaker, this bill is a prescription for chicanery in our elections, and it will fundamentally restrict our First Amendment rights. Therefore, I urge Members to oppose this rule and the underlying legislation. Limiting the freedom of speech in pursuit of partisan political advantage is fundamentally wrong.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor an outstanding Oklahoman devoted to being the best public servant ever for the people of the United States, working tirelessly to help save lives and protect property, Dr. James ``Jeff' Kimpel, director NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma. He is a close friend who will be retiring in Norman, Oklahoma this week. After 13 years of federal service Dr. Kimpel served the Nation and the people of our State and city and is recognized internationally as one of the worlds leading experts on weather and meteorology, having served as the past president of the American Meteorological Society in 2000. Jeff Kimpel will be sorely missed in NOAA and I know that I will miss his active participation day by day in all matters relating to meteorology.

Madam Speaker, Jeff Kimpel's impact in Norman, Oklahoma which is in the fourth Congressional District has been ongoing and direct on all matters relating to severe weather and weather related research and development. We have been considerably blessed with the location of the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman as well as the University of Oklahoma, and The Weather Center including many major weather private sector companies who advance the future of weather research in the United States. Dr. Kimpel has made a mark on weather forecasting that will be felt for decades to come.

Dr. Kimpel has been one of the main proponents of improving the connection of Doppler-radar systems, or NEXRAD, which would advance and improve radar resolution and increase the accuracy of rain, snow and other weather predictions. This program, which was created under Dr. Kimpel, has also generated forecast models and has largely improved the ability to predict tornados, windstorms, lighting, and other types of severe precipitation. These programs are extremely vital and important to Oklahoma in particular, but Dr. Kimpel has brought them into other regions that also deal with inclement weather and specific weather storms.

Madam Speaker, currently the upgrade of the current NEXRAD system for advanced notice of severe weather and tornados embodied in the Multi- purpose Phased Array Radar will ultimately improve the effectiveness and will also cut costs. Dr. Kimpel's tireless and diligent efforts to develop the Multi-purpose Phased-Array Radar technology have paid off and are being rewarded with amplified financial support for the upcoming 2011 Fiscal Year. Dr. Kimpel's successor will surely continue to work hard on this project and continue to work to create even more developments for this form of radar technology.

Madam Speaker, throughout his career, Dr. Kimpel has held important positions in several different organizations in the field of weather including a member of the National Research Council's Board on Natural Disasters of the National Academy of Sciences, an active official of the National Science Foundation including past chair of the Advisory Committee for Atmospheric Sciences, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, the American Meteorological Society, and NOAA's U.S. Weather Research Program development team.

Dr. Kimpel's dedication goes above and beyond the field of meteorology and weather. He has epitomized and displayed leadership qualities that are very often hard to come by. He has been awarded the Bronze Star Medal while serving under the United States Air Force in Vietnam, has received the University of Oklahoma Student Association Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching and Service to Students, and among many other awards and honors has been given the Oklahoma University Regents' Award for Superior University and Professional Service.

Madam Speaker, I applaud and congratulate Dr. Kimpel on the many accomplishments that he has achieved throughout his lifetime and I thank him for his life's commitment to weather, science, and severe- storm prediction. Additionally, I would like to thank Dr. Kimpel for the example he has set for future meteorologists and researchers to follow, and for the fine career in which he has dedicated his life's work to. Madam Speaker, I am genuinely pleased to be able to say that I represent Dr. Kimpel and his family, and the laboratory that he created and worked so diligently for. I wish him luck in his future endeavors.

Mr. Speaker, in 2006 our distinguished majority leader said enacting a budget was ``the most basic responsibility of governing.''

Representative Spratt, from South Carolina, our distinguished Budget chairman, said in the same year, If you can't budget, you can't govern.

Yet this Democratic majority's produced no budget. I don't believe that's the fault of Mr. Hoyer or Mr. Spratt. They're both good men, and they're both working hard to create a budget. But that responsibility does rest with each and every member of the Democratic Caucus.

My friends, you have 257 Members. Can't 218 of you agree on a budget? And if not, why are you here?

I would suggest to my Democratic colleagues, they should lead, follow or, in November, get out of the way.

Madam Speaker, during the week of May 10, 2010, I was not in Washington, DC because I was surveying extensive damage that occurred in my Congressional District due to several tornadoes on May 10, 2010.

My vote explanations for the week are as follows:

On Tuesday, May 11, 2010, I missed rollcall votes Nos. 256, 257, and 258. Had I been present and voting, I would have voted as follows: rollcall vote No. 256: ``aye'' (On agreeing to H. Res. 1294); rollcall vote No. 257: ``aye'' (On agreeing to H. Res. 1328); rollcall vote No. 258: ``aye'' (On agreeing to H. Res. 1299).

On Wednesday, May 12, 2010, I missed rollcall votes Nos. 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265, and 266. Had I been present and voting, I would have voted as follows: rollcall vote No. 259: ``no'' (On agreeing to H. Res. 1344--the Rule for H.R. 5116); rollcall vote No. 260: ``aye'' (On agreeing to H.R. 5014); rollcall vote No. 261: ``aye'' (On agreeing to H. Con. Res. 268); rollcall vote No. 262: ``aye'' (On agreeing to Gordon (TN): Manager's Amendment No. 1); rollcall vote No. 263: ``aye'' (On agreeing to Hall (TX): Amendment No. 6); rollcall vote No. 264: ``no'' (On agreeing to Markey (MA): Amendment No. 10); rollcall vote No. 265: ``no'' (On agreeing to Miller (CA): Amendment No. 12); rollcall vote No. 266: ``aye'' (On agreeing to Reyes (TX): Amendment No. 13).

On Thursday, May 13, 2010, I missed rollcall votes Nos. 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, and 273. Had I been present and voting, I would have voted as follows: rollcall vote No. 267: ``no'' (On agreeing to Boccieri (OH): Amendment No. 34); rollcall vote No. 268: ``aye'' (On agreeing to Halvorson Amendment No. 38); rollcall vote No. 269: ``aye'' (On agreeing to Quigley (IL): Amendment No. 50); rollcall vote No. 270: ``aye'' (On agreeing to the Motion to Recommit to H.R. 5116); rollcall vote No. 271: ``aye'' (On agreeing to H. Res. 1338); rollcall vote No. 272: ``aye'' (On agreeing to H. Res. 1337).