Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, more than 100,000 Arkansans work in retail, restaurant, lodging, and other service sectors. These service industries have helped keep the American economy afloat in recent years.

From restaurants like U.S. Cafe in Dardanelle, where I flipped burgers and fried fish as a teenager, to the convention hotels in Hot Springs, Arkansans rely on service industries every day as both employees and customers.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration's many failed policies are imperiling our service sector. Nowhere is this more true than with ObamaCare. Service-oriented companies often have large and shifting workforces, they operate on extremely thin margins, and they cannot thrive on uncertainty. ObamaCare brings nothing but uncertainty.

The House took an important step last week by voting to delay both the employer and the individual mandates in ObamaCare, but the only real solution is to repeal this awful law. Otherwise, service-sector employees and businesses will suffer continued setbacks, which means our economy will suffer yet another blow.

Madam Chairwoman, I rise to strongly urge opposition to the Amash amendment.

This program has stopped dozens of terrorist attacks. That means it's saved untold American lives.

This amendment is not simple. It does not limit the program. It does not modify it. It does not constrain the program. It ends the program. It blows it up. Some of you've heard the analogy that if you want to search for a needle in a haystack, you have to have the haystack. This takes a leaf blower and blows away the entire haystack. You will not have this program if this amendment passes. And it does so, despite all of the safeguards you have already heard.

This program is constitutional under Supreme Court precedent--not recent precedent. Precedent goes back to 1979, just 2 years after I was born, the year that one of the young sponsors of this amendment was born. This program is approved by large bipartisan majorities of this body on the statute--text that they approved, not their secret intents or wishes.

It is overseen by article III judges who have been confirmed by the Senate and are independent of the executive branch. It is reviewed by the Intelligence Committees, and it is executed primarily by military officers, not generals, but the majors and the colonels who have been fighting and bleeding for this country for 12 years.

What is it, metadata? It sounds kind of scary. It's nothing more than an Excel spreadsheet with five columns: called to, called from, date, time, and the duration. Five columns, billions of rows. It's in a lockbox. It can't be searched unless you have specific suspicion of a number being used by a terrorist. Only then do they go into that database and do they run a search for what that number has been calling.

Why do you need it? Verizon, AT&T, other companies will not keep this data for the years necessary. Secondly, you need it quickly. When I was in Iraq as a platoon leader with the 101st Airborne, if we rolled up a bad guy and we found a cell phone or we found a thumb drive, we would immediately upload that data so intelligence professionals could search it so they could go roll up another bad guy, because you only have a few hours to stop a terrorist once you catch another terrorist.

Folks, we are at war. You may not like that truth. I wish it weren't the truth. But it is the truth. We're at war. Do not take this tool away from our warriors on the frontline.

Today, I honor the memory of my constituent Steve LaFrance who passed away earlier this month. Steve was a pillar of the Pine Bluff community, and really all of Arkansas.

A pharmacist by training, he started his business in 1968 with a single pharmacy in Gibson's Department Store in Pine Bluff. From that modest start, Steve built USA Drug over 44 years into the largest privately owned chain of drugstores in the country.

Steve's motto, like my own dad's, was ``do the right thing.'' It was the foundation of his success. All who knew him and all who worked with Steve, whether employees, customers, vendors, and even competitors, respected not only his business acumen, but especially his sense of fair play, passion, and loyalty.

Even more than a businessman, though, Steve was a devoted family man, proud father of four children, seven grandkids, and the loving husband of Linda, his wife of 44 years. He was also a deeply faithful Christian man who walked in the path of the Lord and now walks with Him.

On behalf of all Arkansans and the United States Congress, I wish to express my deepest condolences to him. Like you, we all miss ``Big Steve,'' and we were all enriched by having our lives touched by him.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentlelady from Indiana for her effort on this very important amendment. For 4-plus years, the Obama administration has declined to transfer these terrorists at Guantanamo to Yemen. I would suggest that nothing has changed, if you look at the facts of the matter.

Yemen remains a partner in our war on terror, but it still has weak capabilities. It still has not yet demonstrated the ability to house such terrorists or to deter terrorist activity in its own quarters as we've seen from things like the underwear bombing plot or the Fort Hood massacre. If we transfer these terrorists to Yemen, we cannot know for sure that it will not mean more attacks on our soldiers in Afghanistan, on our Ambassadors at our Embassies around the world, on our citizens around the world, here in the United States, or in allied countries.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this temporary and

restrained amendment to ensure that terrorists at Guantanamo Bay do not escape back onto the battlefronts of the war on terror.

I oppose this amendment. I oppose the closure of Guantanamo and the transfer of detainees to the United States.

Guantanamo is a state-of-the-art detention facility in which we've invested millions of dollars in which our troops handle themselves with utmost professionalism.

The detainees there have access to military tribunals and habeas corpus proceedings here in Washington, D.C.

Who are these detainees? They're not innocent goat herders swept up by a marauding United States military of which I was a part in which I detained numerous potential terrorists. They are people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11; Mohammed al-Qahtani, one of the would-be participants in 9/11; terrorists who are closely associated with Osama bin Laden who have received explosives training, who are recruiters, who are poison experts, who are suicide bombers or who are commanders of al Qaeda training camps. I do not think we should bring them to the United States, give them their Miranda warnings, give them an attorney at taxpayer-provided expense and if acquitted and not accepted by their home countries be released back onto the streets of the United States.

If that is what the advocates of this amendment would like, I suggest they should write their amendment in a fashion that would bring these detainees to their own congressional districts.

Thank you.

When I was a child, I played a game called hide-and-seek, as I suspect many of you might have played. There was a phrase in that game called ``ollie ollie oxen free,'' which meant you could come out, that you were safe, that you no longer had to hide.

This amendment is the ``ollie ollie oxen free'' amendment of the war on terrorism. It invites al Qaeda and associated forces to send terrorists to the United States and to recruit terrorists on U.S. soil.

Think about what happens if you're detained in the U.S. for committing an act of terrorism: you will not be detained while you are interrogated; you cannot be used to stop future attacks. Think about what will happen: you will get your Miranda warnings; you will get an attorney at taxpayer expense; and you will, if acquitted and not accepted by your home country, be released into the streets of the United States. We are encouraging al Qaeda to send terrorists here if we adopt this amendment.

Consider also about an illegal alien crossing our border. If he does so to get a job, Customs and Border Patrol can detain him and summarily deport him. If he is detained by intelligence or military professionals, what happens? He goes into the court system, and he gets all the rights due to a common burglar.

The concerns that we have about due process are misplaced. The law plainly lets every person--a citizen or foreigner--file a petition for the writ of habeas corpus to challenge his detention. I strongly oppose this amendment.

Today, I want to highlight another potential IRS abuse, namely, unfair audits of adoptive parents who filed for the Adoption Tax Credit.

We've all heard about the abuse of conservatives, Christians, and other groups, but fewer people know the alarming story of families who use the Adoption Tax Credit to offset some of the high costs of adoption.

According to the IRS' own Taxpayer Advocate Service, 90 percent of those who filed for the Adoption Tax Credit last year were flagged for additional review. Nearly 70 percent were audited, but only 1\1/2\ percent of adoption credit claims were disallowed in the end. By contrast, only 1 percent of all tax returns are audited.

Adoptive parents are loving, selfless Americans who are simply trying to provide a safe and loving home for kids in need. An adoption is a reflection of the boundless compassion of our country, and it helps save innocent unborn lives that may otherwise be ended by abortion.

We should do all in our power to encourage adoption, not to discourage it through bureaucratic runarounds. I urge the Congress to get to the bottom of this unfair treatment of adoptive parents.

Today, on behalf of a grateful State, I rise to honor Scott County Sheriff Cody Carpenter and Arkansas Game and Fish wildlife officer Joel Campora, who died heroically last week trying to save their fellow Arkansans from flash floods.

Sheriff Carpenter leaves behind a wife and four children. Officer Campora leaves behind a wife and two daughters. Along with my fellow Arkansans, I want to express my deepest condolences to their families, their communities, and their brothers and sisters in law enforcement.

But even as we mourn their deaths and console their loved ones, let us also honor their sacrifice and courage. Sheriff Carpenter and Officer Campora died in the line of duty protecting their fellow citizens. John 15:13 says:

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his

life for his friends.

These men volunteered for duty that can call for that ultimate sacrifice every day. Now that they have laid down their lives, I join my State and my country in mourning and celebrating their cherished memory.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 324) to grant the Congressional Gold Medal, collectively, to the First Special Service Force, in recognition of its superior service during World War II, 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. 324, as amended, currently under consideration.

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

I rise today to seek swift approval of H.R. 324, a bill to grant the Congressional Gold Medal, collectively, to the First Special Service Force in recognition of its superior service during World War II. The bill, introduced by my colleague from Florida (Mr. Miller), has 324 cosponsors, befitting the storied history of this unit.

Mr. Speaker, the bravery and valor of the Army Special Forces, more commonly known as the Green Berets, are well known to most Americans. But many don't realize that this unit was born out of the First Special Service Force and the courageous soldiers that fought with it during World War II. The award of the Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of their heroic service will help ensure that this unit attains the historical recognition it deserves.

Formed in 1942 to take on the hardest jobs in the most adverse conditions, the First Special Service Force was composed of American and Canadian soldiers. The unit fought bravely in the Italian Apennine Mountains against elite German units--the 104th Panzer Grenadiers and the Hermann Goering Paratroops--who were defending Hitler's Gustav Line south of Rome. They defeated German forces at Monte La Difensa after fighting south of the center of the line at Monte Cassino and participated in the successful assault of Monte La Remetanea and several nearby mountains. Sadly, of the 1,800 of the First Special Service Forces fighting soldiers and their 800 support troops, there were 2,300 casualties suffered in the 250 combat days before the unit was disbanded in December of 1944.

Mr. Speaker, the men of the Special Forces fought with their faces blackened by their own boot polish. They were so feared that the Nazi defenders called them the Black Devils and the unit took that name as its own, calling itself the Devil's Brigade. Proud of their strength and bravery, Special Forces soldiers left cards with their patch insignia and the phrase ``The Worst is Yet to Come'' on corpses in enemy territory.

Following World War II, a permanent elite unit was formed based on the experiences of the Special Forces and OSS operatives during the war. Today, that unit has evolved into the Army's Green Berets and a similar unit in Canada, the Special Operations Regiment.

Today, we hear stories of brave men and women in uniform defending freedom around the world. I've seen some of this awe-inspiring bravery firsthand in both Iraq and Afghanistan as a soldier myself. But as we hail our soldiers of today, let us remember the heroism and bravery of the Greatest Generation during World War II. This legislation authorizes the striking and award of a single gold medal that will go to the First Special Service Force Association in Helena, Montana, the original training site of the First Special Force, and the sale of bronze duplicates of that medal.

I ask for immediate passage of this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Committee on

House Administration,

Washington, DC, May 20, 2013.

Hon. Jeb Hensarling,

Chairman, Committee on Financial Services, Rayburn House

Office Building, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Hensarling: I write to you concerning the

jurisdictional interest of the Committee on House

Administration in H.R. 324, to grant the Congressional Gold

Medal, collectively, to the First Special Service Force in

recognition of its superior service during World War II. The

bill, as introduced in the House on January 18, 2013,

contains provisions that fall within the jurisdiction of the

Committee on House Administration.

I recognize and appreciate your desire to bring this

legislation before the House in an expeditious manner, and

accordingly, I will waive Committee consideration of

provisions that fall within the Committee's jurisdiction.

However, agreeing to waive jurisdiction over these amendments

should not be construed as waiving, reducing, or affecting

the jurisdiction of the Committee on House Administration.

Additionally, the Committee on House Administration

expressly reserves its authority to seek conferees on any

provision within its jurisdiction during any House-Senate

conference that may be convened on this, or any similar

legislation. I ask for your commitment to support any request

by the Committee for conferees on H.R. 324 for provisions

within the Committee's jurisdiction.

I ask that a copy of this letter and your response be

placed in the Congressional Record during any floor

consideration of H.R. 324.

I look forward to working with you on matters of mutual

concern.

Sincerely,

Candice S. Miller,

Chairman.

I appreciate that reference to John 15:13, ``Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend.'' Certainly, many members of the Devil's Brigade did that, as they do today in our Special Forces.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller), the sponsor of this legislation.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

I join my colleagues, the gentleman from Georgia and the gentleman from Florida, in urging unanimous passage of this very important legislation the week before Memorial Day to honor the Devil's Brigade.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, every time Cato the Elder spoke in the Roman Senate, he said, whatever the topic, ``Carthage must be destroyed.'' As long as Carthage survived, the freedom and prosperity of the Roman people would never be secured.

As then with Carthage, so now with ObamaCare: as long as it remains on the books, the health, prosperity, and freedom of the American people will never be secure.

ObamaCare raids $700 billion from Medicare, meaning seniors across Arkansas will have their health care rationed as doctors refuse to see new Medicare patients.

ObamaCare creates an unelected and unaccountable panel of bureaucrats to ration and deny needed medical care for Arizona seniors.

ObamaCare will cause insurance premiums to skyrocket by as much as 60 to 100 percent for Arkansas families.

ObamaCare raises 21 taxes by more than $1 trillion and will cost at least $1.7 trillion in the first decade alone.

ObamaCare violates our freedom of conscience by using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion.

ObamaCare is corrupt to its rotten core. The government has exempted hundreds of the President's cronies from the law. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is right now shaking down private companies for millions of dollars to promote ObamaCare.

And, of course, the IRS, expanded by 2,000 agents, will be the main enforcement agency for ObamaCare, the very IRS who we now know targets the President's political opponents for harassment and intimidation.

Madam Speaker, ObamaCare must be repealed. I urge the Congress to repeal this abominable law, and I urge the American people to vote out of office every politician who voted for it 3 years ago.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to encourage my colleagues to pass this measure to stop President Obama's needless furlough of air traffic controllers. Further, this legislation empowers the FAA to restore funding to 150 towers operated by private contractors around the country.

The FAA furloughs have received most of the media attention this week, but we shouldn't overlook the role these contractor-operated towers play in our Nation's aviation infrastructure in communities like Texarkana, Arkansas. These airports handle almost 30 percent of all aviation traffic, providing vital relief to some of our most congested airports.

The importance of these towers can't be overstated, which is why earlier this year I introduced legislation with 59 bipartisan cosponsors to restore the funding for these towers. I am confident the FAA will use the authority of this bill not only to end the needless furloughs, but also to restore funding for these essential contractor- operated air traffic control towers.

Again, I want to thank my colleagues for their support for this measure.

I rise today to express grave doubts about the Obama administration's counterterrorism policies and programs. Counterterrorism is often shrouded in secrecy--as it should be. So let us judge by the results.

In barely 4 years in office, five jihadists have reached their targets in the United States under Barack Obama: the Boston Marathon Bomber, the Underwear Bomber, the Times Square Bomber, the Fort Hood shooter, and, in my own State, the Little Rock recruiting office shooter.

In over 7 years after 9/11, under George W. Bush, how many terrorists reached their targets in the United States? Zero.

We need to ask: Why is the Obama administration failing in its mission to stop terrorism before it reaches its targets in the United States?

I've listened to this debate. It's primarily about the amount of money we spend on our committees here in the House. Taxes have just been inserted into it, and I have to respond to the comment about corporate taxes or tax breaks for corporate jets. It's an easy target. It's something the Democrats have repeatedly targeted in their budget resolution, something the President proposed to offset sequestration. And of course, the wealthy, with their big fancy corporate jets or corporate executives with their jets are easy targets.

But there is a lot of collateral damage any time this issue comes up. We forget about the people who fly those planes, the people who clean the planes, the people who fuel the planes, the people who run the facilities where those planes are hangared, the people who manage the flight operations, the people who manufacture those planes, which is, I would point out, the number one export industry in the State of Arkansas.

Much like in 1990 when the budget deal targeted the yacht industry in New England for a special luxury tax, it didn't raise the revenue that was projected. It did devastate that industry, leading to catastrophic layoffs, and resulted in the repeal of that measure within just a matter of months after it passed.

So while I appreciate the Democrats' desire to raise taxes every few months, I think that our spending crisis, or our debt crisis, is driven by spending, and we should be careful about singling out specific industries that provide good, high-paying jobs to hardworking Americans.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this budget resolution.

I just want to take a moment, too, to applaud the chairman and the members of his committee, and especially the hardworking staff of his committee for producing this document--a mere little band of less than 30 staffers.

By contrast, the President, with all the vast resources at his disposal in the executive branch, is now, I think, into the sixth week beyond his deadline in which he cannot pass his own budget. I assume that he will one day submit something. I hope that we will have a chance to vote on it. I will be curious to see if our colleagues on the other side of the aisle can produce more than the zero budgets that his budget produced last year.

The Senate, however, is even worse. They haven't produced a budget in 4 years. After seeing the budget that they will vote on, I now know, perhaps, why they did not produce such a document. It has over $1.5 trillion in new taxes, almost $1 trillion that are recognized, almost $500 billion to replace sequestration in unspecified closures of so- called loopholes, and another $100 billion in unspecified closures for new and ultimately failed stimulus spending.

And it never reaches balance--ever. The only thing we hear from balance on the Senate or the President is as a euphemism for new tax increases.

Finally, I want to point out that the last time the Senate passed a budget 4 years ago, I was a captain in the United States Army sitting at forward operating base Mehtar Lam in northeast Afghanistan. And I want to specifically single out the defense measures in this budget and to applaud, again, the leadership of the chairman and the Budget Committee for protecting our military, for giving it funding that it otherwise would not have and the flexibility it needs to help protect and keep this country safe. The Defense Department is the one area in government where the strategy should drive the budget, not the budget drive the strategy.

And the second way that it protects our military is from a debt crisis. This budget, as we have heard, is designed to postpone and ultimately prevent a debt crisis caused by out-of-control reckless spending in anemic economic growth of the kind you have seen in countries in Europe already.

If that were to happen, not only would it impact families all across the country when their interest rates for mortgages and farms and small businesses and education increase, but it also would crowd out all other kinds of priorities in our Federal budget. So it would immediately impact, as well, our troops, their families, and our veterans.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of Chairman Poe's resolution condemning the February 9 rocket and mortar attacks at Camp Liberty in Iraq and urging the President to work with the Iraqi Government and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to relocate the members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq back to Camp Ashraf.

These MEK refugees can only be safe and secure at Ashraf where they have lived for over 25 years. The Iraqi Government and the High Commissioner placed these MEK members at Camp Liberty despite the great danger to them there. Now the United Nations should take the necessary steps to return them to Ashraf or settle them abroad.

I look forward to the day when these refugees can return home to Iran once the tyrannical regime there has fallen, a day that might have been hastened if President Obama had stood with brave Iranian protesters in 2009 instead of coddling the theocratic mullahs there. Let us not make that mistake again.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today with good news from south Arkansas.

According to recent news reports, Anthony Timberlands, a cornerstone of the Arkansas timber and forestry products industry, is currently in the process of adding a second shift to its sawmill in Bearden, Arkansas. This second shift will result in the hiring of 65 new employees in addition to creating numerous other support positions within the company and in the surrounding area of south Arkansas.

I want to recognize Anthony Timberlands for this exciting announcement and their longstanding commitment to the people and the economy of south Arkansas. But as I reflect on Anthony Timberlands' announcement, I can't help but think of how many more jobs could have been added throughout Arkansas and the United States if it weren't for the excessive regulation of the Obama administration.

For example, States have worked in conjunction with the Federal Government for 40 years to manage forest roads and prevent pollution with State-managed best practices. This partnership has proven effective and provided regulatory certainty for many decades. Unfortunately, President Obama's EPA wants to impose a nationwide standard, giving them the complete regulatory authority over an industry that supports nearly 3 million workers and contributes $115 billion to our economy each year.

Under this standard, the EPA will be able to shut down businesses that don't comply with their arbitrary and misguided rules. States have a 40-year track record of effectively regulating these roads, and we should let them continue for at least another 40.

To take another example, the EPA's new boiler rule demonstrates this administration's preference for ideology over sound economics and business sense. With compliance costs in excess of $3 billion and 105,000 jobs threatened, this rule inflicts unnecessary costs on our economy at a time when we can least afford it.

In addition, our timber producers have no guarantee that EPA won't move the goalpost once again and reopen the regulations as they have in the past. What timber and forestry product companies want--what all businesses want, for that matter--is certainty, not more regulation. They need to know that investment in a new factory or new equipment today means they can keep using it once it's built instead of living in fear of the government closing their doors tomorrow.

These companies aren't asking for special preferences or another $800 billion in failed stimulus funds; they're simply asking for predictable and fair rule of law, not arbitrary regulation.

Mr. Speaker, companies like Anthony Timberlands provide quality jobs and lasting economic growth for places like south Arkansas and the rest of America, despite the obstacles the Obama administration has put in their place. I look forward to working with my colleagues to eliminate burdensome regulations and red tape that slow growth, hurt communities and diminish opportunity. We should celebrate companies that empower hardworking Americans to do what they do best: create high quality products that lead the world.