Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, Russia's diplomatic intervention in the Syrian crisis is indeed welcome news. But whether it is real or illusory, the President needs to step back from the dangerous precipice that he has brought us to.

Certainly, he's made his case for war with Syria very clearly, that the United States must punish the use of chemical weapons, and if we don't, they're more likely to be used again. He assures us that the strike will be limited and that it will aid moderates fighting the regime. He warns that American credibility is at stake. The case is quite clear: it is simply not convincing.

It's possible that an attack on Syria will convince Assad not to use chemical weapons in the future. But it is just as likely to convince him that, being in for a penny, he might as well be in for a pound and unleash his entire chemical arsenal.

It is just as likely that an American strike on Syria will produce a retaliatory strike, possibly by Hezbollah against Israel, requiring a retaliatory strike by Israel, possibly on Iran, in a catastrophic chain reaction.

We don't know where it will lead, but we can be sure that the morning after the attack we would confront a most uncomfortable irony. In retaliation for Assad killing Syrian civilians with chemical weapons, the United States will have killed Syrian civilians with

conventional weapons, for civilian casualties are an unavoidable tragedy of war.

Well, who would be our new allies in this war?

They'd be the Islamic forces that are responsible for their own litany of atrocities, including the massacre of Syrian Christians, the beheading of political opponents, summary executions of war prisoners and acts of barbarity too depraved to be discussed in this forum. We would be aiding and abetting those forces.

We're told that al Qaeda's not more than a fourth of our new coalition and that the rest are moderates. Well, we were told the same thing about Libya. We were told the same thing about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

The problem with moderates in the Middle East is that there aren't very many of them, and they're quickly overwhelmed in any coalition they attempt.

Nor can such an attack be limited in duration or scope. The fact is, once you have attacked another country, you are at war with that country and its allies, whatever you wish to call it, and whatever you later decide to do.

And wars have a very nasty way of taking turns that no one can predict or control. World War I began with a series of obscure incidents that quickly escalated into world war. And the Middle East today is a veritable powder keg compared to the antebellum Europe of a century ago.

Finally, we're told American credibility is on the line. Well, chemical weapons are barbaric, but this isn't the first time they've been used in modern times. They were used previously in Syria, in the Yemeni civil war, by Iraq against Iran, by the Vietnamese against the Cambodians, by Libya against Chad.

The only unique thing about this incident is that it is the first time an American President has declared their use to be a ``red line.'' Our credibility was harmed by a foolish and reckless statement by the President. Let us not further damage it with a foolish and reckless act by Congress.

Wars are not something to be taken lightly. From the podium right behind me, General MacArthur warned that, ``In war there is no substitute for victory.''

If you're going to start a war, you'd better be prepared to put the entire resources of the country behind it, to endure every setback along the way, to utterly annihilate every vestige of the enemy, and to install, by force, a government of our design and choosing, and to maintain that government until all opposition is ceased. If you are not willing to do that, then you have no business firing the first shot.

More than a decade of irresolute and aimless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should have taught us this lesson: that victory, and not stalemate, must be the objective of any war. Yet, this would be a war whose avowed objective is stalemate. That is self-defeating. It is immoral.

The President has already made his case very clearly, and he is very clearly wrong.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairman Hastings for organizing this discussion and for his work on H.R. 1526, the Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act. This act takes on a poignant and crucial importance to my district in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California where the Yosemite rim fire continues to burn through nearly 400 square miles of forestland.

For years foresters have warned us that the excess timber will come out of the forest one way or another. It will either be carried out or it will be burned out, but it will come out. For generations we carried the excess timber out of our forests through sound forest management practices, leaving room for the remaining trees to grow healthy and strong. We had far less frequent and less intense forest fires, healthy trees that were disease resistant and pest resistant, and a healthier watershed as well as a thriving economy.

But today, extremist environmental regulations have driven that harvest down by more than 80 percent in the Sierras in the past 30 years. We now consign the forests to a policy of benign neglect. And rather than harvesting a small percentage of the trees to keep our forests healthy and fire resistant, we are watching more than 400 square miles of Sierra Nevada incinerated. If we had just harvested a small fraction of those trees, it's quite possible that we could have spared the Sierras from the conflagrations that are now feeding on excessive fuels. It is also likely we could have snuffed out those fires almost immediately after they started.

A generation ago, small harvesting crews operated throughout the mountains and they moved along well-maintained timber roads. When a fire first broke out, it took no time for a crew with a bulldozer to get to that fire and stop it before it got out of control. Today, those crews are gone, the roads are in disrepair, and so fires that a generation ago consumed just a few acres now consume hundreds of thousands of acres.

The result of these misguided policies is now clear and undeniable: economically devastated communities, closed timber mills, unemployed families, overgrown forests, overdrawn watersheds, jeopardized transmission lines, rampant disease and pestilence, and increasingly intense and frequent forest fires. That is the story of the towns throughout the Sierra Nevada--once thriving and prosperous communities that have been devastated by these policies. This is not environmentalism. True environmentalists recognize the damage done by overgrowth and overpopulation and they recognize the role of sound, sustainable forest management practices in maintaining healthy forests.

If there is any doubt of the connection between the reduction of timber harvesting and the increase in acreage incinerated by forest fires, I ask you to look at this chart. It shows the board feet of timber harvested from our public lands since 1983 and the forest acreage destroyed by fire. There is nothing subtle about these numbers. As the timber harvest has declined, the acreage destroyed by fire has increased contemporaneously and proportionally. It is either carried out or burned out, and at the moment it's being burned out.

They say there isn't enough money for forest thinning, And yet we used to have no problem keeping our forests thinned and healthy when we sold commercially viable timber. The problem is that if they take place at all, timber harvests are restricted to small diameter trees with no commercial value. I mean, can you imagine a fishery or a wildlife policy limited to taking only the smallest juveniles of the species? Thus, the U.S. Forest Service, which once produced revenues through timber sales, now consumes revenues, and even that isn't enough to maintain the acreage the government owns and controls. The mountain communities that once thrived economically are now economically prostrate, with unemployment levels that rival those of Detroit.

This act is long overdue. By streamlining regulations and refocusing the Forest Service's mission on sound forest management practices, H.R. 1526 will mean environmentally healthy

forests and economically healthier communities.

Ironically, just 2 weeks before the Yosemite rim fire broke out, Congressman Nunes and I hosted a public meeting on a proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that would add more restrictions on nearly 2 million acres of the Sierras. Our expert witnesses warned urgently of the fire dangers these policies have created, yet these warnings were actually ridiculed by leftist newspapers like the Sacramento Bee. How sad. Two weeks later, the Yosemite rim fire was burning out of control.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the people of my district, I want to thank the gentleman from Washington for this important reform. I only wish it had come in time to prevent the environmental devastation we are now suffering this summer in the Sierras.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, Yosemite Valley is a national treasure that was set aside in 1864 with the promise that it would be preserved for the express purpose of ``public use, resort, and recreation.'' Ever since, Americans have enjoyed a host of recreational opportunities and amenities as they come to experience the splendor of the valley.

Now the National Park Service, at the urging of leftist environmental groups, is proposing eliminating many of these amenities, including bicycle and raft rentals, horseback riding rentals, gift shops, snack facilities, swimming pools, and iconic facilities, including the ice skating rink at Curry Village, the art center, and the historic stone bridges that date back to the 1920s.

For generations, these facilities have enhanced the enjoyment of the park for millions of visitors, adding a rich variety of recreational activities amidst the breathtaking backdrop of Yosemite. But today the very nature and purpose of Yosemite is being changed from its original promise of public resort, use, and recreation to an exclusionary agenda that can best be described as ``look, but don't touch.''

As public outrage has mounted, these leftist groups have found willing mouthpieces in the editorial boards of the left-leaning San Francisco Chronicle and Sacramento Bee. It is obvious their editorial writers have either not read the report or are deliberately misrepresenting it to their readers. They say the plan is designed to relieve overcrowding in the park. In fact, this plan compounds the overcrowding.

In 1997, flooding wiped out almost half the campsites in Yosemite Valley. Congress appropriated $17 million to replace these campsites. The money was spent; the campsites were never replaced. That's what's causing the overcrowding--half the campsites for the same number of visitors.

This plan would lock in a 30 percent reduction in campsites and a 50 percent reduction in lodging compared to the pre-flood area. Three swimming pools in the valley give visitors a safe place with lifeguards for their children to cool off in the summer. The park service wants to close two of them. That means packed overcrowding at the remaining pool, pushing families seeking water recreation into the perilous Merced River.

They assure us they're not eliminating all the shops at Yosemite, but only reducing the number of them. Understand the practical impact on tourists. It means they're going to have to walk much greater distances to access these services and then endure long lines once they get there.

Another of the falsehoods is that the plan doesn't ban services like bike rentals, but just moves them to better locations. The government's own report puts the lie to this claim. It specifically speaks to ``eliminating'' and ``removing'' these services. It goes on to specifically state: ``Over time, visitors would become accustomed to the absence of these facilities and would no longer expect them as a part of their experience in Yosemite.'' Their intent could not possibly be any clearer.

We are assured that although bicycle rentals will be--and I'm using the government's word--``eliminated'' from the valley in the interest of environmental protection, visitors will still be free to bring their own bikes. That invites the obvious question: What exactly is the environmental difference between a rented bicycle and a privately owned bicycle?

We're assured in the smarmy words of the Sacramento Bee that the plan merely contemplates relocating raft rentals so they meet visitors at the river. In truth, the plan specifically states that it will ``allow only private boating in this river segment,'' and even then will limit total permits to only 100 per day.

Mr. Speaker, every lover of Yosemite needs to read this report. It proposes breaking the compact between the American people and their government that promised public use, resort, and recreation for all time when the park was established.

My district includes the Yosemite National Park. I represent the gateway communities that depend on park tourism to support their economies. The affected counties and communities are unanimous in their vigorous opposition to this plan; and in a recent phone survey, the people of these communities, who are jealous guardians of Yosemite, expressed opposition to it in numbers well exceeding 80 percent.

Many things need to be done to improve gate access and traffic flow through the park, but destroying the amenities that provide enjoyment for millions of Yosemite visitors each year is not among them.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation for 15 years of service to the community. The Foundation began with a generous gift of one million dollars from William Hewlett, co-founder of Hewlett Packard. It was his vision and commitment that challenged other individuals to dedicate time and resources to help promote philanthropy. Today, more than 3,000 donors have distributed millions of dollars to local nonprofits, improving the quality of life in this historic and beautiful region.

The Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation has awarded more than $20 million in grants to the community. The most recent project, the Community House, opens this fall and will serve as a long-term community wellness center. The House will provide a variety of services including professional counseling and enrichment classes to help individuals become more self-reliant.

It is the initiative of private citizens to improve the quality of life for all that has earned the Foundation national recognition by the Council on Foundations as one of the top community organizations in the entire nation. This honor attests to the vibrancy of the group and the importance of the Foundation's deeds.

As John Adams put it, the success of this organization is the ``result of good heads prompted by good hearts.'' May the good hearts of the many donors and volunteers continue to make the name of the Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation a beacon for all those in need and an enduring example for those who work to make our cities, states, and the nation better for all. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to recognize and thank the Foundation for its years of service to our community.

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

Mr. Chairman, my amendment simply continues the

good work started by the amendment of the gentleman from Florida and pulls the plug on this tired old program.

Recently, the much-maligned sequester required a 4 percent cut in the FAA budget, which its leadership then immediately translated into a 40 percent flight delay until the public rebelled.

The total sequester cut to the FAA was roughly $636 million, and they took that out on the traveling public; yet they had $243 million to pay for empty and near-empty flights from selected airports in tiny communities under this program that is laughingly called ``Essential Air Service.'' It is, in fact, the least essential air service imaginable.

Since we last visited this issue, the FAA reauthorization bill made some minor reforms to the program. For example, we are no longer subsidizing air travel from communities that are within a 90-mile radius of a major airport, and the per passenger subsidy has been capped at $1,000 per passenger.

These minor reforms mean that one airport in Ely, Nevada, has been dropped from the program and two more are about to be. That's a start. But still, it is no excuse for shoveling, as this appropriation does, a total of $216 million at this program between direct taxpayer subsidies and fees into next year.

In other words, in this austere age of sequestration, when the White House is shuttered to the public and soldiers are being told to pay for their own Internet access, the House of Representatives proposes at best a token reduction in this wasteful, unfair, and outdated program while cutting real essential air services like air traffic control. With all due respect, what in the world are we thinking?

Remember, this was supposed to be a temporary program when we deregulated commercial aviation. It was supposed to last for just a few years to give rural communities a chance to adjust. That was 35 years ago.

It is true there are over a few tiny communities in Alaska--like Kake's 700 hearty souls--who have no highway connections to hub airports, but they have plenty of alternatives. In the case of Kake, they enjoy year-round ferry service to Juneau. In addition, Alaska is well served by a thriving general aviation market and the ubiquitous bush pilot. Rural life has great advantages and great disadvantages, and it is not the job of hardworking taxpayers who choose to live elsewhere to level out these differences.

Apologists for this wasteful spending tell us it is an important economic driver for these small towns, and I'm sure that's so. Whenever you give away money, the folks you are giving it to are always going to be better off. But the folks you are taking it from are always going to be worse off to exactly the same extent. Indeed, it is economic drivers like this that have driven Europe's economy right off a cliff.

Last year, one Member rushed to the microphones to suggest this was essential for emergency medical evacuations. We heard an echo of that a moment ago. It has nothing to do with medical evacuations. This program subsidizes regular, scheduled, commercial service that practically nobody uses. If it actually had a passenger base, we wouldn't need, in effect, to hand out $1,000 bills to the few passengers who use it, would we? An airline so reckless with its funds would quickly bankrupt itself. The same principle holds true for governments.

The Washington Post is not known as a bastion of fiscal conservatism, but I cannot improve upon the Post's recent editorial when it said:

Ideally, Essential Air Service would be zeroed out, and the

$200 million we waste on it devoted to a truly national

purpose: perhaps deficit reduction, military readiness, or

the social safety net. Alas, if Congress and the White House

were capable of making such choices, we probably never would

have had sequestration in the first place.

There are many tough calls in setting fiscal priorities, but this isn't one of them. If the House of Representatives--where all appropriations begin, with a Republican majority pledged to stop wasting money--cannot even agree to cut this useless program off from the trough, how does it expect to be taken seriously on the much tougher choices that lie ahead?

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Offered By: Mr. McClintock

Amendment No. 14: Page 8, line 9, after the dollar amount,

insert ``(reduced by $100,000,000)''.

Page 150, line 8, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $100,000,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. McClintock

Amendment No. 4: Page 8, line 9, after the dollar amount,

insert ``(reduced by $100,000,000)''.

Page 150, line 8, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $100,000,000)''.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the 90th birthday of Mr. Marvin ``Buzz'' Oates, a third-generation Californian. Buzz is the founder of The Buzz Oates Group of Companies, a $1.5 billion commercial real estate development company. But before his American dream was realized, Buzz was just a boy with very humble beginnings and an entrepreneurial spirit. Even at a very young age, he earned money mowing lawns and collecting bottles. Buzz graduated from Sacramento High School in 1941. He then served as a bombardier in World War II and attributes much of his business success to time serving his country in the military.

Buzz survived a mid-air collision during training in New Mexico and was eventually stationed in Asia flying missions over Japan in a B-29 Superfortress.

When two bombs engaged to be dropped from his jet at 23,000 feet failed to deploy, Buzz knew he had to act quickly. The two 100-pound bombs hung on the rack of the B-29, and with no oxygen and the bomb-bay doors open, Buzz inched across a cat walk eight inches wide to wrestle both bombs out of the plane. For his bravery, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Buzz returned home a decorated war hero to open a locksmith business--A&A Key Shop--which later turned into a building supply company. Since then, Buzz steadily grew his company into the largest commercial real-estate and management company in Sacramento.

Buzz is also well-known in the community for his generous spirit, charitable giving and commitment to God and his Christian faith. Thousands have worshipped in church buildings donated by Buzz and on the land he sold at a reduced rate. In the past several years, he donated $2.5 million and one acre of land to Mercy Ministries, a group home for women. The group was able to open a home in Lincoln, California where 40 women recovering from drug addiction, sexual abuse and other problems, find sanctuary receiving free room, board and counseling.

Buzz has been honored with many awards throughout the years for his charitable contributions, most recently in 2011 as the Trainor Fairbrook Humanitarian of the Year Award and the Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW) Fame Award in 2007.

Buzz's heroism, hard work, business acumen, and his spirit of public service make him a man to be honored and admired. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today to celebrate the 90th birthday of Mr. Buzz Oates and thank him for his dedication to country and community.

Mr. Speaker, this has been a summer of alarming revelations that suggest that our government is drifting far from the principles of individual liberty and constitutionally limited government that defined the American founding and that produced the most free and prosperous Republic in the history of mankind.

These developments include:

The use of the IRS and other government agencies to single out ordinary Americans because of their political beliefs, with the apparent intent to discourage and intimidate them out of participating in the public policy debate;

The use of the Department of Justice to target reporters who were asking embarrassing questions of the administration, in one case, with the threat of prosecution under the Espionage Act;

The warrantless seizure of the private records of millions of Americans by the National Security Agency;

The increasingly menacing militarization of domestic police agencies;

The shakedown of health care providers to fund advocacy and promotion of ObamaCare;

Frequent assertions by the President of authority to nullify laws that he deems objectionable or inconvenient, despite his clear constitutional mandate to see that the laws are faithfully executed;

The executive's usurpation of the legislative powers of Congress by using the regulatory bureaucracies to impose laws that the elected Congress has specifically refused to enact;

Continued suggestions that the executive may order military operations against other governments without provocation and without congressional authorization.

This week, we are beginning to learn details of the so-called Federal Data Hub, including an excellent article by John Fund of the National Review. According to Fund:

The Department of Health and Human Services is about to

hire an army of ``patient navigators'' to inform Americans

about the subsidized insurance promised by ObamaCare and

assist them in enrolling. These organizers will be guided by

the new Federal Data Hub, which will give them access to

reams of personal information compiled by Federal agencies,

ranging from the IRS to the Department of Defense and the

Veterans Administration.

Mr. Speaker, the American people are slowly beginning to realize the threat to individual freedom, personal privacy, and fundamental constitutional principles that these developments pose. Some very bright constitutional lines have been crossed. And my constituents keep asking: What is Congress going to do?

The House has taken the first steps to restore our constitutional checks and balances by focusing its investigatory attention on the unfolding IRS scandal. It is of critical importance that the facts of the case be fully laid out, those responsible identified and removed from positions of trust or authority, and safeguards enacted to ensure that this sort of abuse never happens again.

The House Rules Committee took an important step yesterday by allowing amendments to the Defense Appropriations Act to stop the warrantless seizure of Americans' phone and Internet records by the NSA and to reassert the essential principle with respect to Syria that Congress alone has the prerogative to declare war.

The House is in a position to resist many of these abuses and usurpations through its power to appropriate, but it has often been reluctant to fully assert that authority. The conventional wisdom is that the appropriations process will shortly stall and a continuing resolution will be agreed to. That would be a tragic mistake if it leads to the continued funding of these increasingly unconstitutional and authoritarian measures.

All appropriations must start in the House, which means that a simple majority of this body by itself could arrest many of these disturbing developments simply by marshalling the courage and determination to just say ``no'' by pulling the purse strings shut. If we fail to do so, I believe that we are allowing our Nation to drift dangerously toward a constitutional crisis with grave implications to the rule of law and to the survival of American liberty.

I rise today to warn of the latest episode of a saga that can best be described as ``greens gone wild.''

It involves the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposal to declare 2 million acres in the Sierra Nevada Mountains as ``critical habitat'' for the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog and the Yosemite toad under the Endangered Species Act. That is essentially the footprint of the Sierra Nevada Mountains from Lassen County, which is north of Tahoe, to Kern County, which is just outside of Los Angeles. This designation would add draconian new restrictions to those that have already severely reduced productive uses such as grazing, timber harvesting, mining, recreation and tourism, and fire suppression.

And for what?

Even the Fish and Wildlife Service admits that the two biggest factors in the decline of these amphibian populations is not human activity at all but, rather, non-native trout predators and the Bd fungus that has stricken amphibian populations across the Western United States, neither of which will be alleviated by this drastic expansion of Federal regulations. The species that will be most affected by this action is the human population, and that impact will be tragic, severe and entirely preventable.

For example, timber harvesting that once removed the overgrowth from our forests and put it to productive use, assuring us both healthier forests and a thriving economy, is down more than 80 percent since the 1980s in the Sierras--all because of government restrictions. The result is more frequent and intense forest fires, closed mills, unemployed families, and a devastated economy throughout the region.

Existing regulations already effectively put hundreds of thousands of acres of forests off-limits to human activity through such laws as the Wilderness Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, not to mention a crushing array of California State regulations. This proposal by the Fish and Wildlife Service would vastly expand those restrictions.

This policy seems to be part of a much bigger picture. In Yosemite National Park, for example, the Department of the Interior is proposing to expel longstanding tourist amenities from the valley and lock in a plan that would result in 27 percent fewer campsites than it had in 1997 and 31 percent less lodging. Throughout the Sierra Nevada, the U.S. Forest Service is closing access to roads, imposing cost- prohibitive fees and conditions on cabin rentals, grazing rights, mining and, of course, timber harvesting while obstructing longstanding community events on which many of these towns rely for their tourism.

The one common denominator in these actions is an obvious desire to discourage the public's use of the public's land. Gifford Pinchot, the legendary founder of the U.S. Forest Service, always said the purpose of the public lands was the ``greatest good for the greatest number in the long run.'' John Muir, the legendary conservationist responsible for preserving Yosemite Valley, did so, in the words of the legislation he inspired, for the express purpose of ``public use, resort and recreation.''

These visions for the sound management of our public lands that were held by the pioneers of our national parks and forest systems are quickly being replaced by elitist and exclusionary policies that can best be described as ``look, but don't touch; visit, but don't enjoy.''

No one values the natural resources of the Sierra Nevada more than the people who live there and who have entrusted me to speak for them in Congress. These communities have jealously safeguarded the beauty of the region and the sustainable use of the lands for generations. Their prosperity--and their posterity--depends on the responsible use and stewardship of these lands.

Now Federal authorities are replacing these balanced and responsible policies with vastly different ones that amount to a policy of exclusion and benign neglect. We have a sacred obligation to future generations to preserve and protect our public lands, but protecting our public lands for future generations doesn't mean we must close them to the current generation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Alex Ferreira who will be retiring from the Placer County Water Agency after serving 17 years on the Board of Directors.

Mr. Ferreira began his long career of service as an infantryman of the U.S. Army during World War II. Ferreira celebrated his 19th birthday in May 1945 during the Battle of Okinawa. Rising to the rank of Sergeant, Ferreira was among the American forces that served in Japan to secure peace following the end of the war.

A life-long resident of Placer County, Ferreira returned home to Lincoln after the war to farm, raise a family, and continue his public service through local government.

Ferreira entered public office in June 1966 when he was appointed to the Nevada Irrigation District Board as the Placer County representative. He later was elected to the Placer County Board of Supervisors, a position he held for over 20 years. In 1997, Ferreira began serving on the Board of Directors of the Placer County Water Agency. He has been recognized by his peers at the water agency as having been instrumental in the formation of the ``Western Placer Agriculture Water Service Zone 5'' and the Middle Fork Project Authority.

Ferreira's dedication to his community is further exemplified by his service on the Placer County Grand Jury, the Gold Country Fair Board, membership in the Placer Farm Bureau, Tahoe Cattlemen's Association and other agricultural and community organizations.

After a career of public service that has spanned more than 6 decades, Ferreira is embarking on a well-earned retirement, at the age of 87, planning to spend time with his wife Bonnie on their Lincoln ranch.

It is my honor to rise today in appreciation and acknowledgement of his service to our country and community.

Mr. Speaker, America is a Nation of immigrants. We're all either immigrants ourselves or were the sons and daughters of immigrants. America's motto is ``E pluribus unum''--``From many, one.'' From many nations we've created one great Nation, the American Nation.

There's only one way to accomplish this remarkable feat, and that's through the process of assimilation. Unlike other nations, our immigration laws were not written to keep people out. They were written to assure that those who come here demonstrate a sincere desire to become Americans, to acquire a common language, a common culture, and a common appreciation of American constitutional principles and American legal traditions.

Illegal immigration undermines that process of legal immigration that makes our Nation of immigrants possible. If we allow illegal immigration, then legal immigration becomes pointless, the process of assimilation that our immigration laws assure breaks down, and the bonds of allegiance that hold a country like ours together begin to dissolve.

As a recent article by John Fonte of the National Review points out, earlier immigration bills included a provision calling for ``patriotic integration of prospective citizens into the American way of life by providing civics, history, and English . . . with a special emphasis on attachment to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, the heroes of American history, and the meaning of the Oath of Allegiance.''

But the director of immigration policy for La Raza objected to this language, writing that ``while it doesn't overtly mention assimilation, it's very strong on the patriotism and traditional American values language in a way which is potentially dangerous to our communities.''

Well, that language is pointedly missing from the Senate measure, suggesting a purpose fundamentally different from past immigration laws. It raises the question of why groups supporting this bill find the mention of assimilation objectionable and consider patriotism and traditional American values not only disagreeable but, in their word, ``dangerous.''

Now, to those who say that we need a path to citizenship, I must point out we already have such a path that is followed by millions of legal immigrants who have obeyed all of our laws, who have respected our Nation's sovereignty, who've done everything our country's asked of them to do, including waiting patiently in line, and are now watching millions of illegal immigrants try and cut in line in front of them.

The 1986 Immigration Reform Act promised a balanced approach that combined legalization of the 3 million illegal immigrants then in the country with promises of employer sanctions and tougher border security. As we all know, legalization occurred instantly, but the promises of enforcement were first ignored and, later, actively resisted by the Presidents who followed.

The current administration, for all its rhetoric, has unlawfully suspended enforcement of our existing immigration laws and actively obstructed States from assisting in their enforcement. If this administration will not enforce our existing law, why should anyone believe its promises to enforce even stricter laws in the future?

Now, a common tactic of those on the left is to blur the distinction between legal and illegal immigration and to paint those in opposition to amnesty as ``anti-immigrant.'' This is simply dishonest.

Legal immigration is the very essence of our country. It sets us apart from every other nation in the world, the fact that citizenship is open to all who evince a sincere desire to understand, adopt, and revere those uniquely American principles enshrined in our Declaration of Independence and animated by our American Constitution.

They do so by the thousands, every day, by obeying our immigration laws, renouncing foreign loyalties, and embracing American principles. By doing so, as Lincoln said, they become the ``blood of the blood and the flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration.''

Illegal immigration destroys all of that, and any measure that encourages more of it, by granting special privileges to those who defy our immigration laws, is a direct affront to every legal immigrant who has become an American, and it is a direct challenge to the process of immigration that built our Nation.

To those illegal immigrants who seek citizenship out of a sincere desire to become Americans, I ask only that they respect our laws, and I invite them to begin the process of legal immigration that's already available to them and that's been followed by the millions who've come before them.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I applaud the committee's decision to cut the failed Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy program by half. My amendment simply completes the very good work of the committee and cuts it by the other half, along with similar subsidies that we provide to nuclear and fossil fuel industries, saving an additional $1.5 billion.

If we're serious about an all-of-the-above energy policy, we have got to stop using taxpayer money to pick winners and losers based on their political connections and, instead, require every energy company to compete on its own merits as decided by the customers it attracts by offering better products at lower cost and by the investors it attracts, as well.

For too long we've suffered from the conceit that politicians can make better energy investments with taxpayer money than investors can make with their own money. It is this conceit that has produced the continuing spectacle of collapsing energy scandals epitomized by the Solyndra fiasco. At least Solyndra was funded from a loan program in which the public has a chance to get some of its money back when these dubious schemes go bankrupt.

My amendment eliminates direct spending that funds research and development and commercialization projects for politically favored firms, money that taxpayers have no chance of recovering after it's spent.

Let me emphasize that any breakthroughs financed with the research and development money paid by the taxpayers under these programs does not go into the public domain, where everyone can benefit. These innovations, if there are any, are financed by taxpayers and yet are owned, lock, stock, and barrel, by the private companies. This is a gift of public funds, pure and simple.

My amendment protects taxpayers from being forced into paying the research and development budgets of these companies. It gets government out of the energy business and requires all energy companies and all energy technologies to compete equally on their own merits and with their own funds.

This amendment cuts all such subsidies.

About half go to fossil fuel and nuclear industries, which are capable of doing very well on their own, and about half goes to the so- called alternative energy technologies. We've been told for years, of course, that's necessary to nurture these new and promising programs, but they are not new and they are not promising. Photovoltaic cells, for example, were invented in 1839; and in nearly 175 years of technological research and innovation and billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies, we have not yet invented a more expensive way to generate electricity, so we hide its true cost to consumers through subsidies taken from their taxes.

Nor is there any earthly reason why taxpayers should be forced to serve as the R&D program for General Motors or any other company or technology. The actual research and development should be paid for by the companies that will profit from these long-promised breakthroughs. And if they're not willing to finance them with their own money, we have no business forcing our constituents to finance them with theirs.

All we have accomplished with these programs is to take dollars that would have naturally flowed into the most effective and promising technologies and diverted them into those that are politically favored. This misallocation of resources not only destroys jobs in productive ventures, it ends up minimizing our energy potential instead of maximizing it and destroying our wealth instead of creating it.

Let every energy technology rise or fall on its own merits. If the technology is promising, it doesn't need our help; and if it isn't promising, it doesn't deserve our help.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Offered By: Mr. McClintock

Amendment No. 22: Page 22, line 5, after the dollar amount,

insert ``(reduced by $731,600,000)''.

Page 22, line 20, after the dollar amount, insert

``(reduced by $362,329,000)''.

Page 23, line 24, after the dollar amount, insert

``(reduced by $450,000,000)''.

Page 23, line 25, after the dollar amount, insert

``(reduced by $115,753,000)''.

Page 60, line 12, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $1,543,929,000)''.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, when Juan Cabrillo first sailed up the Santa Barbara Channel in 1542, he noted a massive natural oil slick. That's how vast California's petroleum resources are.

Today, we hear much about the Bakken shale oil formation that has

produced unparalleled prosperity for North Dakota. Yet California's Monterey oil deposit is nearly five times the size of the Bakken field in North Dakota. California also has 1.6 billion barrels of untapped offshore oil in unleased acreage right now that can be reached with slant drilling from onshore. But California's resources are placed off limits by the ideological extremism that is now on full display courtesy of the amendment offered by my colleagues from California. They have had their way in California for a full generation, and I've watched their folly take what once could boast of being America's Golden State and turn it into an economic basket case and a national laughingstock.

California's unemployment rate is the second highest in the Nation at 8.6 percent. North Dakota's is the lowest at 3.2 percent. Yesterday, the average price per gallon of gas in California was $4.03. In North Dakota, it was $3.69. Since 2000, California's reliance on foreign oil imports has literally doubled as a percentage and tripled as a volume. They're not helping the environment.

When I grew up in Ventura County 50 years ago, everyone on the coast kept pans of turpentine in their garages to wash off the globs of natural tar that you couldn't avoid as you walked on the beach. The offshore oil development of that era relieved the natural pressure that had polluted the waters of Santa Barbara Channel for centuries, and over several decades the tar disappeared and the beaches have never been cleaner.

Those were also the days when California literally led our Nation's economy. People had high-paying jobs, low energy bills, and families from across America seeking a better future for their children flocked to California. Now those same families flee from California.

Mr. Chairman, if I sound a little bitter, it's because I am. I have watched their policies destroy the promise and prosperity of my Golden State for my children. For God's sake, don't let them destroy our country.