Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4032) to confirm undocumented Federal rights-of-way or easements on the Gila River Indian Reservation, clarify the northern boundary of the Gila River Indian Community's Reservation, to take certain land located in Maricopa County and Pinal County, Arizona, into trust for the benefit of the Gila River Indian Community, and for other purposes, as amended.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of H.R. 4032, the Gila River Indian Community Federal-Rights-of-Way, Easements and Boundary Clarification Act, introduced by Congressman O'Halleran of Arizona.

The Gila River Indian Reservation was established in 1859 and later expanded by a series of executive orders

in Maricopa and Pinal Counties, Arizona. In 2006, the Tribe sued the Federal Government, alleging a breach of the United States' fiduciary duty for its failure to accurately survey the reservation's northwesterly boundary, resulting in the patenting of land along the Salt River to non-Indians.

The Tribe also asserted a failed duty to document rights-of-way across the reservation, collect rent, and account for the Tribe's and allottees' trust assets. Rather than litigate the case, the Obama administration settled with the Tribe in 2016.

The settlement provided that the United States would survey all the Federal rights-of-way on the reservation. It would also take approximately 3,400 acres of Bureau of Land Management land into trust for the Tribe, after the Tribe purchases the land for fair market value.

Finally, the settlement provided monetary damages of about $12.5 million from the judgment fund, an issue not addressed by this bill.

This legislation is needed to facilitate portions of the settlement by clarifying the northwestern boundary of the reservation, documenting the existing Federal rights-of-way on the reservation, and placing the 3,400 acres into trust after the Tribe buys the land from the Federal Government.

The bill is cosponsored by the entire Arizona delegation, and I commend their work to resolve this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of the measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of the measure, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2075) to adjust the eastern boundary of the Deschutes Canyon-Steelhead Falls Wilderness Study Area in the State of Oregon to facilitate fire prevention and response activities in order to protect adjacent private property, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on the bill under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, Crooked River Ranch is a residential community that is home to approximately 5,500 people. It is located between the Deschutes and Crooked Rivers in Jefferson County, Oregon. Because of this geography, there is only one all-weather road in and out of Crooked River Ranch.

Now, right next to this community, along the Deschutes River, is a roughly 3,200-acre Deschutes Canyon-Steelhead Falls Wilderness Study Area, which is managed--or, more accurately, is mismanaged--by the Bureau of Land Management. This BLM property is thick with vegetation, which poses a very real risk for catastrophic wildfires, in large part because the wilderness study area regulations greatly restrict essential measures for both fire mitigation and firefighting.

For example, in a wilderness or wilderness study area, you can't use mechanized or motorized equipment or transport. This includes chainsaws as well as electrical generators, trucks, and larger equipment essential to fuels management. You can't even use this equipment to cut fire breaks. You can't build fire roads. You can't do mechanical thinning of vegetation. Even the hand thinning that is allowed in such areas is very limited.

Absent a waiver from the Secretary of the Interior, firefighters can't drop fire retardant or use bulldozers to cut fire breaks in the wilderness study area during a fire. Tragically, the benign neglect mandated by these requirements has made all wilderness areas firetraps just waiting for a lighting flash or a careless match.

H.R. 2075, authored by Congressman Greg Walden, with the support of the local community, would slightly modify the eastern boundary of the Deschutes Canyon-Steelhead Falls Wilderness Study Area, making it possible to manage the land properly to reduce fuel loads that threaten the neighborhoods in Crooked River Ranch.

The boundary change will reduce the WSA by about 830 acres, but this small change will promote public safety, allow for more efficient fuels treatments on the lands immediately adjacent to Crooked River Ranch, and give critically important flexibility to local firefighters should fire break out in that area.

This is an issue of public safety, and this bill will clearly help protect the lives and property of the thousands of Crooked River Ranch residents from wildfire.

I commend Congressman Walden for his work to provide a commonsense solution to a very real public safety concern. I urge adoption of the measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), the author of this legislation and the elected representative of this threatened community.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the more than 5,000 residents of the Crooked River Ranch and in the name of common sense, I ask for passage of this vital public safety measure, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, farm subsidies, essentially taking money from taxpayers to inflate the price of their own groceries, was never a good idea. They are the poster children of corporate welfare since the vast proportion of them go to large corporations, not to small family farms. And 60 percent of American farms get no subsidies at all, contradicting the claim that somehow American agriculture couldn't exist without them.

We spend about $20 billion a year subsidizing about 40 percent of our farms. That is $160 a year out of the direct taxes of an average family in America, and that doesn't include the cost to consumers from higher prices. As we just heard, the sugar program alone costs taxpayers $3.7 billion a year in higher sugar prices. That adds about $30 more to their grocery bills.

Subsidies hurt taxpayers, they hurt consumers, and they even hurt farmers in the long run. The decline in farm economy since the last farm bill ought to warn us we are doing something wrong.

Prices are signals sent by consumers over what they want to buy and the amount that they are willing to pay. If left alone, they tell producers what consumers want more of and what they want less of. If consumers want less soybeans and sugar and more wheat and cabbage, prices for soybeans and sugar decline and prices for wheat and cabbage increase. Producers respond by planting less soybeans and sugarcane and more wheat and cabbage, unless--unless--the government distorts those price signals through subsidies. Producers end up planting more of what consumers don't want and less of what they do. Thus, producers are artificially induced to perform below their potential productivity.

Many of the subsidies today are in the form of crop insurance. Farmers get heavily subsidized insurance to guarantee them profits for their products. Who pays those subsidies? Taxpayers. What is insurance? It is the monetization of risk. It is the way markets assign a dollar value to the risk that one undertakes in any human enterprise. The higher the risk, the more expensive the insurance.

By subsidizing crop insurance, we once again corrupt the price signals that farmers need to make rational decisions. If crop insurance for soybeans is expensive, the market is warning farmers not to rely on soybeans. If taxpayers subsidize the cost of that insurance to lower its price, we are encouraging very risky behavior by masking the cost of that risk.

Once again, that produces bad outcomes for taxpayers, for consumers, and ultimately the farmers themselves because they have been led toward higher risk by distorted price signals.

Nor is subsidized insurance necessary for farm loans. Bankers loan to other non-subsidized parts of the farm economy without subsidized insurance. There are no good arguments for continuing these subsidies. Most farmers don't get them right now. Those who do tend to be major corporations and not family farmers.

Now, my amendment preserves subsidies for the next 2 years and then gradually phases them out over the next 10 years, assuring that producers who have grown dependent on these subsidies have plenty of time to adjust their operations. But at the end of this 12-year process, we have a much more efficiently functioning agricultural market that is accurately responding to the needs of consumers rather than to the whims of government bureaucrats.

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

Mr. Chairman, I would remind the ranking member that the reason the 1996 Freedom to Farm bill ended up costing us more is because we ended up adding a whole new series of subsidies to it. Experience is important to heed.

New Zealand has four times more dependency on agriculture than the United States--they are four times more dependent--and it once maintained an extensive subsidy program just like ours. In 1984, New Zealand ended those subsidies. Well, what happened? Farm productivity rose, farm earnings rose, farm output all rose.

What did New Zealand farmers who opposed the ending of subsidies say once those subsidies were removed and the economy responded? The Federated Farmers of New Zealand says that it ``thoroughly debunked the myth that the farming sector cannot prosper without government subsidies.''

Mr. Chairman, it is long past time to debunk that same myth in our own country, restore to consumers the power to command what producers grow, and restore to producers the accurate price signals they need to maximize their productivity in a free and undistorted market.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment does two things: It increases from 20 percent to 70 percent the percentage of able-bodied adults in SNAP that would be required to comply with the work requirements in the bill, and it requires the use of the E-Verify system to assure that work training is available only to legal residents in this country who are legally entitled to work.

H.R. 2 provides for a requirement that work-capable, nonemployed adults look for work or train for work in order to receive SNAP benefits. That is important. When Maine implemented a work requirement for able-bodied welfare recipients, they found that 84 percent of this population left the welfare rolls and, within a year, had doubled their effective pay. Alabama saw the same results.

Unfortunately, H.R. 2 would only engage about 20 percent of this population--20 percent. This amendment would boost the work participation rate to 70 percent of able-bodied adults in the program. It does so by implementing changes recommended by The Heritage Foundation.

H.R. 2's work requirement affects parents of children under age 6. This amendment reduces the exemption to those with children under age 3 but with an important difference: H.R. 2's requirements extend the work requirements to both spouses of children under the age of 6. This, in effect, is a marriage penalty that treats married couples as if they were single.

The amendment I offer applies to only one spouse in the family, allowing the parents to share domestic and work responsibilities between themselves in any manner they feel is appropriate. This recognizes, encourages, and rewards marriage as the stable and nurturing environment that it is.

H.R. 2 allows States to waive the work requirement in geographic areas defined by them with higher-than-normal unemployment rates above 6 percent. This amendment deletes the waiver for an important reason: Where there is high unemployment, there is also more reason to encourage job training and job searching in order to equip recipients to compete in tighter job markets. Sidelining these individuals is self-defeating both for them and for the local economies.

Also, the amendment removes the ability of States to define these geographic areas in a manner that would defeat the work requirement in the first place.

H.R. 2 also allows States to exempt 15 percent of the able-bodied population from this work requirement. This amendment takes it to 5 percent.

Finally, this amendment requires that SNAP recipients be screened by the E-Verify system to assure that training is going only to those who are obeying our laws and are legally in this country. This requirement is essential to the enforcement of our immigration laws. Otherwise, we are spending taxpayer money to train illegal immigrants whom Federal law prohibits from being employed.

This amendment transforms the work requirement in H.R. 2 from an empty and symbolic gesture covering just one-fifth of the able-bodied population receiving food stamps to more than 70 percent.

It rewards, rather than penalizes, married couples and recognizes that the shared responsibilities of marriage are one of the single greatest factors in reducing poverty. Children born into homes with single parents are five times more likely to live in poverty. It is time our policies reflected the importance of marriage in protecting our children.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Grothman), my colleague on the House Budget Committee.

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

Mr Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have offered this amendment whenever the opportunity presents itself because it tests whether there is any program in the Federal budget that Congress can bear to cut.

Essential Air Service is perhaps the least essential program in the entire government. It is a direct subsidy paid to airline companies to fly empty and near empty planes from small airports to regional hubs nearby. There was supposed to be a temporary program to allow local communities and airports to readjust to airline deregulation in 1978. Instead, it has grown to include 173 communities and a program that has doubled in cost in the last decade.

I want to emphasize, this program has nothing to do with emergency medical evacuations. It solely subsidizes regular scheduled commercial service that is so seldom used that it cannot support itself.

And why can't it support itself? In many cases, the small airports in the program are less than an hour's drive from regional airports. Essential Air Service flights are flown out of Merced Airport near my district in the Sierra Nevada of California; yet, Merced is less than an hour's drive from Fresno Regional Airport, offering regular scheduled commercial air service.

Subsidized service is available from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, just 31 miles from Harrisburg International Airport. Subsidized flights from Pueblo, Colorado, are just a 45-minute drive from Colorado Springs Regional Airport, and I could go on and on.

There are supposed to be subsidy caps of $200 per passenger and a minimum of 10 passengers per day, and yet, every request to waive these requirements has been granted--every one--for passenger subsidies that can go as high as nearly $1,000 per passenger. Now, by comparison, you can charter a small plane for around $150 to $200 an hour.

Over the next 5 years, this program will cost taxpayers nearly $1 billion in direct appropriations, which this amendment would cease. The program also gets another $100 million a year from overflight fees that would otherwise be available to fund high priorities in the aviation system, like 21st century air traffic control technology.

The argument for abolishing this program is simple: if a route cannot generate enough passengers to support its costs, that means that passengers themselves are telling us that it is not worth the money to them.

Perhaps we should listen.

Our country is drowning in debt. It now costs us $475 billion a year just to pay interest costs on the $21 trillion that we have already borrowed. Debt and taxes are driven by one thing: spending.

In the last 10 years, inflation and population combined have grown 26 percent. Revenues have more than kept pace, growing 29 percent in the same period; but spending has grown 46 percent, and it has doubled under this program. If we don't get control of spending soon, our Nation could enter a debt spiral that threatens our very future; and the Orwellian-named Essential Air Service is a prime example of nonessential programs that we just can't afford.

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

Mr. Chairman, three points:

First, these amendments don't cut the fee support, only the $1 billion in direct taxpayer subsidies that would be paid into this program over the next 5 years. Under the so-called reforms referenced by the chairman, this program has doubled in cost over the past decade, and all Americans do not benefit from this program.

Let's take the remote communities, like those in Alaska. This program subsidizes 61 small communities in a State with 259 airports. That means there are roughly 200 airports and 350 local communities in Alaska, alone, that seem to do just fine without Essential Air Service.

If Alaska or any State believes that air service should be subsidized within their State, they certainly have the ability to do it themselves. So do individual towns. The States choose not to pay for the service; the local communities choose not to pay for the service; and, most importantly, the passengers, themselves, choose not to pay the actual cost of the service. Perhaps as we approach $1 trillion annual deficit, we should consider choosing not to pay for it either.

We hear that it helps prop up small airports and small airlines that service them. Well, sure, if you hand somebody wads of cash, that person does very well. The problem is that the people you took that cash from do very poorly to exactly the same extent.

A $275 million program out of a $4 trillion Federal budget seems like a drop in the bucket, and I agree we are not going to balance a $1 trillion annual deficit just by cutting programs like this. But if we can't cut a 40-year-old temporary program that has doubled in cost over the last 10 years--this is the kindest and easiest cut of all--then I fear that we will never summon the courage to get our budget back to balance before we bankrupt our country.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, in December we adopted one of the most important tax reform laws in our Nation's history. It is producing higher wages, better job opportunities, and greater economic expansion than we have seen in a decade. But having cut taxes, we assumed an urgent responsibility to restrain spending.

Taxes and debt are two sides of the same coin. A debt is simply a future tax. Once we have spent a dollar, we have already decided to tax it, either now or in the future. It is the spending that is the problem. Three numbers--26, 29, and 46--tell the whole story. Over the last 10 years, population and inflation have increased a combined 26 percent. Our revenues have more than kept pace, increasing 29 percent. The problem is that third number. Our spending has grown 46 percent.

We are now approaching a trillion-dollar annual deficit with $21 trillion of total debt. This not only crowds out capital that would otherwise be used for economic expansion; it also produces staggering interest costs on that debt, which today amount to $475 billion a year.

Our total defense spending this year is roughly $675 billion. Every 1 percent increase in interest rates adds roughly $200 billion to our annual interest costs. If capital markets believe we have no plan and no inclination to control our spending, they could soon begin demanding higher rates to compensate their added risk.

That is a debt spiral. It leads to a debt crisis. Pension systems implode, basic services falter, the economy collapses, and the population flees. Puerto Rico's debt crisis has left its Government completely helpless to respond to last year's hurricanes.

The instrument required to prevent this from happening is the Federal budget. It is supposed to set limits on discretionary and mandatory spending and to provide a streamlined process to adjust statutes to meet those levels. The deadline for Congress to pass such a budget was April 15. To date, the House Budget Committee has done precisely nothing to fulfill this statutory requirement and this fiscal imperative. Nothing.

The Constitution gives to the House the power of the purse. A dollar is not spent by this government unless the House says it gets spent. Two months ago, having cut taxes, the House has approved a 20 percent increase in discretionary spending, placing us on a path that will inexorably lead to a sovereign debt crisis. And the House Budget Committee, over the objections of myself and others, has done nothing to produce a plan to get us off that path.

Fortunately, the Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus in the Congress, has stepped forward to offer a comprehensive budget for fiscal year 2019. I chair the Budget and Spending Task Force of the RSC, and I want to thank the many Members and staff who provided countless hours to produce it.

The RSC budget is, at present, the only credible and comprehensive plan in Congress to turn us back toward fiscal solvency before it is too late, getting us back to balance by 2026. It combines the fiscal reforms proposed by the members of the RSC over the last several sessions, along with innovations and service delivery proposed by the CBO, the GAO, the administration, and by think tanks like Heritage Foundation and Mercatus.

It shows, program by program, how we can reform them in a manner that produces more effective service delivery at a much lower cost, save Medicare and Social Security from impending collapse, and fully fund our Nation's defense.

Yes, it gores every sacred cow in the Federal bureaucracy, and we will hear howls of protest from the partisans of the status quo; but we are running out of time, and we are running out of options. Those same voices have placed us on a collision course with bankruptcy, and countries that bankrupt themselves aren't around very long.

A sovereign debt crisis is coming to America, and at our current rate of spending and borrowing, it could be coming very soon. I implore the House

leadership to allow this budget to be brought at once to the floor and at least give the House the fleeting and perhaps final chance to avert the fiscal crisis that looms before us.

Given the fact that there is no credible plan even being considered to avert this crisis, the RSC budget may represent the last best hope of restoring our government to solvency and assuring that we can continue to provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare for ourselves and our posterity.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3607) to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to establish fees for medical services provided in units of the National Park System, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, the National Park Service currently manages 11 units that provide medical services to park visitors, employees, and nearby residents, including Yosemite in my district, Yellowstone, Zion, the Grand Canyon, and Death Valley. These include a wide range of services, including emergency medical services, ambulance transport, and clinical services. They treat colds; they set broken bones; they stabilize heart attacks and strokes; they evacuate the severely injured and treat thousands of patients annually.

These national park units are typically located in remote areas, which means that they are often the only option patients have to receive timely medical care, especially in emergency situations.

In the case of Yosemite, the medical clinic has operated in the valley since 1929. Like other medical clinics in our national parks, it serves the park and concessionaire employees, their families, and tens of thousands of daily park visitors.

The Yosemite medical clinic is a million-dollar-a-year operation, maintaining a full-time staff and sophisticated medical treatment to treat and stabilize any number of serious injuries and sudden illnesses that confront a population of a moderately sized town.

But here is the problem: Any other medical clinic would be able to use the fees it collects to finance its operations, to plan for amortizing equipment purchases and expansions, and to match its expenses to the revenues it generates, but not so our national park medical clinics.

Under current law, the fees collected by our national park clinics must go directly to the national Treasury, and the parks must then rely on annual appropriations to replace those funds, with no certainty they will return and no ability to plan long-term improvements.

This bill changes all of that. It would establish a separate trust fund in the Treasury, still under the control of Congress but dedicated to be returned to the clinics that generate these funds in the first place. H.R. 3607 will allow the National Park Service to retain revenues to help offset the costs of providing medical services.

It establishes a national park medical services fund at the Treasury. The fund will consist of fees collected for medical services provided to persons in units of the National Park System and through other donations.

My bill will help the National Park Service to provide higher quality patient care with industry standard equipment and technology; assist with training relating to providing the necessary medical services; develop management plans for medical facilities; and obtain or improve medical facilities, equipment, vehicles, and other needs and costs of providing medical services to visitors and staff of our national parks.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of this measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Hawaii for her kind words and support, and I urge adoption of the measure.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4609) to provide for the conveyance of a Forest Service site in Dolores County, Colorado, to be used for a fire station.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4609 would authorize the U.S. Forest Service to convey 3.61 acres of land to Dolores County, Colorado, for the purpose of building a fire station for the community of West Fork. Currently, area residents must rely on a fire protection district located 26 miles away to provide critical firefighting and emergency services to the community.

Frequent and devastating wildfires have ravaged the Western States, making it more vital than ever that every community is prepared to protect itself

against fire and other catastrophic events. H.R. 4609 will improve local fire and emergency services to the community of West Fork and will ensure that residents of the West Fork area will be prepared for catastrophic events without expending any new Federal dollars.

Mr. Speaker, I want to note the hard work that Representative Tipton has put into this bill, and I salute his efforts and leadership.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tipton), the author of this measure and one of the leaders in the House on important issues facing the Western States.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3961) to amend the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act to designate segments of the Kissimmee River and its tributaries in the State of Florida for study for potential addition to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3961 would designate the Kissimmee River for study for potential addition to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.

I must admit, I have become highly skeptical of wild and scenic designations on our rivers after I watched the Merced River's designation used as an excuse to severely restrict traditional recreational amenities at Yosemite National Park in my district, including bicycling, horseback riding, river rafting, lodging, and many other amenities that long predated the wild and scenic designation. The iconic Curry Village Skating Rink was lost to these restrictions.

Not only are the designations used to severely restrict public access and to restrict the enjoyment of the public's lands, even the existence of a study has often been used as an excuse to forbid longstanding and traditional enjoyment of these rivers.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the bill's author, Mr. Soto, for agreeing to amendments that will assure that the conduct of the study authorized by this measure cannot be used as justification for any restrictions on the public's use of the Kissimmee.

It should be very clearly understood that, with this bill, Congress is authorizing a study and nothing else. In no way is it authorizing any restriction on the public's use of this land while it is being studied or because it is being studied.

Any further actions forthcoming from the result of this study is for the Congress and the Congress alone to decide.

With that very clear understanding, I support adoption of the measure.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 146) to take certain Federal lands in Tennessee into trust for the benefit of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Band Eastern of Cherokee Indians is a relatively small Tribe located in the Great Smoky Mountains of western North Carolina and is headquartered in Cherokee, North Carolina. The Tribe's reservation covers over 51,000 acres in a region known as the Qualla Boundary.

After the completion of the Tellico Dam in Loudon County, Tennessee, in 1979, the Tribe continued in active communication with the Tennessee Valley Authority on any areas impacted that the Tribe believed was of historical significance to them.

H.R. 146 would place approximately 96 acres of Tennessee Valley Authority land in Monroe County, Tennessee, along the shores of the Little Tennessee River and Tellico Reservoir into trust for the benefit of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

Gaming pursuant to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act would be prohibited. Most of the parcels to be placed in trust under this bill will be used for memorializing and interpreting the history of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and the remaining parcels will be used for recreational trails.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of the measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Fleischmann), the author of this measure, a tireless advocate for the State of Tennessee.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, I ask for adoption of the measure, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 443) to direct the Secretary of the Interior to study the suitability and feasibility of designating the James K. Polk Home in Columbia, Tennessee, as a unit of the National Park System, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, President James K. Polk lived in Columbia, Tennessee, from 1819 until 1824. Other than the White House itself, the Columbia, Tennessee, site is the only surviving residence of our 11th President. It is the repository of many original artifacts from his life.

Although he served a single term, Polk left our Nation with a remarkable legacy of public accomplishments, including expansion of our Western territories and the establishment of the U.S. Naval Academy. My home State of California owes him a particular debt of gratitude.

Indeed, he made four campaign promises and, in 4 years, he fulfilled all four.

President Polk left office in 1849, and returned to Nashville, Tennessee, where he lived for 3 months before his death.

The James K. Polk home in Columbia, Tennessee, was designated as a national historic landmark in 1961. In April of 2015, the National Park Service completed a reconnaissance survey of the home and determined that the site warrants a special resource study.

H.R. 443 would authorize the special resource study of the James K. Polk home to evaluate its national significance and the suitability and feasibility for a potential designation of the area as a unit of the National Park Service.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of the measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. DesJarlais), the author of this measure and another tireless advocate for Tennessee.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close. I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Again, I want to thank the gentlewoman from Hawaii (Ms. Hanabusa)

for her support, and I ask for adoption of the measure.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 167) to designate a National Memorial to Fallen Educators at the National Teachers Hall of Fame in Emporia, Kansas.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, S. 167 designates the existing memorial to fallen educators at the National Teachers Hall of Fame in Emporia, Kansas, as the National Memorial to Fallen Educators.

We all know the life-inspiring and life-changing role that teachers play in each of our lives. I dare say that we, all of us, have had teachers whose influence looms large through our lives because of something they once did to inspire, motivate, or equip us for the lives we lead through the decades that follow.

Often, their influence on us only becomes obvious as we look back on their role in our lives through the perspective of the years, by which time we have often lost them or lost touch with them. It is through official acts like this before us today that we can express our gratitude, if not individually, then collectively as a Nation.

I would also like to say, on a personal note, that our daughter, Shannah, began her career as a first grade teacher, and her mother and I couldn't be more proud of her.

The bill before us today is a small token of recognition to a small group of teachers, who not only dedicated their lives to teaching, but who gave their lives during the performance of their duties.

On June 12, 2014, the National Teachers Hall of Fame in Emporia, Kansas, dedicated the memorial to the 119 educators who have lost their lives while teaching since 1764.

This bill gives Federal recognition to this memorial, while retaining it under the jurisdiction of the National Teachers Hall of Fame. No taxpayer money will be used for it, and management will not be transferred to the National Park Service. But the bill will give official Federal recognition to it as a small token of respect and appreciation from the American people.

I urge adoption of the measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

This concludes six bills, all bipartisan, that have been reported out by the Natural Resources Committee today, and I think that is worthy of note. I want to again thank my Democratic colleague, Ms. Hanabusa, for her support and bipartisan cooperation on these measures. I urge adoption of the bill.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, James Madison, the father of the American Constitution, said that its most important provision was given to the Congress, and not the President, the authority to declare war.

This is central to the separation of powers. Congress can declare war, but cannot wage it; the President can wage war, but cannot declare it.

This bright line has been badly blurred over the years, but that doesn't change its clarity and importance. The Constitutional Convention was clear that the President's inherent authority as Commander in Chief was solely to repulse an attack against this country until the Congress could convene.

The Syrian crisis presents no such exception.

If it can be proven that the recent use of gas against the civilian population was initiated by the Assad regime, well, then supplying arms and material to the Syrian opposition, economic sanctions, and other nonmilitary responses are appropriate, but any military action against Syria first requires a congressional declaration, period.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to ask ourselves how legislation is actually doing once it has passed; and 4 months after tax reform, I think it is time to reflect on that.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from California for organizing this time tonight.

In my California district, the average family is paying $1,900 less Federal income tax this coming year. That means 1,900 more dollars that they can spend to meet their own needs.

I want to urge everyone to visit a website called taxplancalculator.com. There, you can put your own tax numbers in and calculate how your family will fare under the new tax law this year. Everyone I have directed to taxplancalculator.com has come back happily surprised.

But the real importance of tax reform is expanding our overall economy. That is the rising tide that lifts all boats.

One provision of the measure allowed companies to write off the full cost of equipment purchases when they make the purchase. But what does that mean in real life?

Well, Ken Steers is president of Freight Solution Providers, a local shipping company in my district that provides worldwide transportation logistics for businesses large and small. He tells me that since the tax reform took effect, his shipping orders for manufacturing equipment have gone through the roof and haven't let up.

Before the tax reform, our corporate tax rate was 35 percent, the highest in the industrialized world. We reduced it to 21 percent.

Aslam Malik is CEO of AMPAC Fine Chemicals in Sacramento and El Dorado Counties. They produce the active ingredient in several cancer and epilepsy drugs. He said they could outcompete their European competitors in terms of quality and technology and service, but many customers told him that even if their product was free, the American tax made AMPAC noncompetitive. Well, I checked back with Aslam this week. They have already added $2 million to their budget for expansion because, literally, a whole new world of business opportunities has opened up for them.

Now, the left says this is just tax relief for the rich. Obviously, they don't understand that this is precisely what produces higher pay, better jobs, greater opportunities, and stronger financial security for every American.

I attended the Oakhurst Rotary Club last week. They have a tradition of donating dollars to the club as they report good news in their own lives.

One Rotarian had been out of work for nearly 2 years. He was on the verge of despair. With tears in his eyes, he announced to the group that he had just landed his dream job with Pfizer pharmaceuticals and that he would now be able to keep his home and stay in the town that he loved. Relief was written all over his face.

To be sure, our economy still faces many threats--trade wars, bad monetary policy, runaway Federal spending--but, clearly, the tax reform is working. From what people are telling me, if it isn't yet morning again in America, it is at least a new dawn.

Mr. Speaker, on March 27th, the United States will celebrate ``Education and Sharing Day U.S.A.'' to recognize the importance of excellence in education.

Established in 1978 by a joint Congressional resolution, Education Day U.S.A. focuses on the very foundation of meaningful education: instructing our youth in the ways of morality and ethics, and teaching them an appreciation for divine inviolable values. These educational principles are vital to the success of our nation as they prepare our students for the responsibilities and opportunities of the future.

Education and Sharing Day U.S.A. is celebrated on the birthday of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who dedicated his life to the betterment of mankind. The Rebbe was a tireless advocate for youth around the world, emphasizing the importance of education and good character, and instilling hope for a brighter future into countless people in America and across the globe.

The Rebbe taught that education should not be limited to the acquisition of knowledge and preparation for a career; but should incorporate the building of character, with emphasis on moral and ethical values that have been the bedrock of society from the dawn of civilization, when they were known as the Seven Noahide Laws.

Education and Sharing Day U.S.A. is a recognition of the importance of well-rounded education, and the contributions of the Rebbe. I am proud to observe Education and Sharing Day U.S.A. 2018.

Mr. Speaker, California's Legislature has forbidden local governments from cooperating with Federal immigration authorities, and has even gone so far as to forbid private citizens from volunteering information to Federal law enforcement under threat of criminal prosecution. Government officials have alerted criminal illegal aliens of impending ICE raids and placed an illegal immigrant on a governing body.

Mr. Speaker, these actions invoke the doctrine of nullification, the discredited principle that any State or local government that doesn't like a Federal law is free to violate it. It formed the central legal argument that the Southern Confederacy used in its attempt to tear our Federal Union apart. It ignores the supremacy clause of the Constitution, the enumerated powers of Congress, and the exclusive jurisdiction given the courts to adjudicate disputes involving the States.

When South Carolina used this doctrine in 1832 to ignore a Federal tariff, President Andrew Jackson sent warships to Charleston harbor, threatened to hang the instigators, and declared that nullification was ``incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.''

Jackson and, later, Lincoln understood how toxic this doctrine is to the rule of law and to the fundamental principles of federalism. If allowed to stand, the Constitution becomes impotent, our laws become mere suggestions, and the Federal Union itself disintegrates.

Like their Confederate predecessors, the California secessionists assert the 10th Amendment with no apparent understanding of it. The 10th Amendment reserves to the States powers not delegated to the Congress. Jurisdiction over immigration law is explicitly reserved to Congress and is thus denied the States. The supremacy clause is equally clear that the laws made within the constitutional authority of the Federal Government are the supreme laws of the land.

There is good reason for immigration law to be in Federal hands. As Attorney General Sessions explained in Sacramento a few weeks ago, if our immigration laws are not to be enforced, then our national borders mean precisely nothing. Nations that either cannot or will not defend their borders simply aren't around very long. The open borders advocated by California officials are suicidal for any nation.

Our Nation of immigrants depends on the enforcement of our immigration laws. A nation that is founded of immigration must be able to regulate the flow and set the conditions of immigration. That is what promotes and protects the process of assimilation, the glue that holds together a nation drawn from every continent.

Assimilation assures that uniquely American traditions and values--a common language, a common culture, and a common devotion to American constitutional principles--are preserved. Our immigration laws welcome those from around the world, but they also unite us as a people. Illegal immigration undermines the process of assimilation and makes a mockery of the millions of legal immigrants who have obeyed our laws and done everything our country has asked.

California officials claim that they are not defying Federal law, but only refusing to use State resources to enforce it. Well, Federal law is crystal clear: ``A Federal, State, or local government entity or official may not prohibit or in any way restrict any government entity or official from sending to or receiving from the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual.''

Yet that is precisely what California's nullification acts do.

They also claim they are trying to preserve the trust of the illegal immigrant community to report crimes.

Well, does this mean that anyone who reports a crime or talks to a police

officer should be immune from arrest for the crimes that they may have committed?

And what about protecting the rest of our community from criminal illegal aliens in our midst?

The Constitution commands the executive to ``take care that the laws be faithfully executed.'' That means all laws, including our immigration laws.

For all its sanctimony, the sanctuary movement's principal legal argument springs from the same poisoned fountainhead that almost destroyed our Nation in the Civil War. Jackson and Lincoln understood that it must be confronted and defeated. President Trump and Attorney General Sessions have made it clear that this administration does, too.