Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I compliment the gentlelady from California on stating the opposite of this bill with remarkable precision.

It does not repeal 20 years of California water law; it restores it by restoring the allocation that was agreed to by a broad bipartisan coalition in the Bay-Delta Accord of 1994. In fact, at that time, the Democratic Interior Secretary, Bruce Babbitt, assured all parties that this agreement would be honored by the State and Federal governments.

His promise was broken first by his own Department and most recently when a Federal court deemed the delta smelt to be more important than the livelihoods of thousands of Central Valley farmworkers. Hundreds of billions of gallons of water that these communities had already paid for and depended upon were simply expropriated and blissfully and cavalierly dumped into the Pacific Ocean, turning much of California's fertile Central Valley into a dust bowl.

This bill redeems the promise made to the people of California and restores the allocations that were agreed to.

We hear: Well, that was then and this is now, and the science has changed. What they are referring to is not

science; it is ideology masquerading as science. In 2010, their claims were thrown out of the Federal court, which cited ideological zealots who had attempted to, in the words of the court, ``Mislead and to deceive the court into accepting what is not only not the best science, it's not science.''

The science is this: the Northwest Fisheries Science Center determined the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is a principal factor in salmon migration. Ocean currents.

The California Department of Water Resources determined that pumps which deliver water to the Central Valley had a negligible influence on salmon and delta smelt migration.

The National Academy of Sciences reported that nonnative and invasive predators, like the striped bass, are a far more significant influence on salmon and delta smelt populations.

So the second thing that this bill does is to replace the ideological zealotry that created this human disaster with practical and fact-based solutions to support native delta smelt and salmon populations. For example, as I said earlier, it's common to find striped bass in the delta gorged with salmon smolts and delta smelt. This bill allows open season on these destructive, invasive, and nonnative predators.

Fish hatcheries produce millions of salmon smolts each year, and tens of thousands return as fully grown adults to spawn, but these fish are not allowed to be counted. This bill counts them, ensuring that hatcheries will produce thriving and bountiful populations of salmon and delta smelts and any other species considered endangered.

The San Joaquin River Settlement Act envisions an absurdly impractical year-round cold war salmon fishery on the hot valley floor at an estimated cost of $2 million per individual fish. That act was adopted by the Democrats 2 years ago when they controlled this House. It is so expensive because it attempts to establish something that only existed sporadically in nature. Instead, this bill establishes a year- round warm water fishery that acts in concert with the habitat at a fraction of the cost.

Third, the bill removes disincentives in current law that discourage farmers from purchasing surplus water in wet years to recharge groundwater banks.

It removes prohibitive regulatory restrictions on water transfers between willing buyers and willing sellers, which once had efficiently distributed water throughout that system from areas of surplus to areas of shortage.

It allows environmental flows to be recycled and used by human communities once those flows have achieved their environmental purposes.

Fourth, it brings the full force of Federal law to invoke and protect State water rights and forbid their violation by any bureaucracy: local, State, or Federal. In fact, this provision specifically addressed concerns raised by the very same opponents to the original bill who feared that, because of the unique joint operating agreement between the State and Federal Governments, changes in Federal allocations could lead to raids on senior water rights holders by the State government.

This provision fully addresses those concerns through the Federal Government's legitimate constitutional authority in the 14th Amendment to protect the property rights of its citizens against encroachment by any government bureaucracy. This is the preemption issue that the opponents are raising. They are some of the same opponents who attacked the original bill for not protecting those rights. This bill doesn't preempt those rights; it specifically invokes them and protects them.

It brings to an end the predation on the working people of California. It places senior water rights holders in a safe and secure position, and treats our water as the precious resource it is.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment made in order under the rule.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment addresses two concerns that have been raised by opponents of the bill during the committee markup and here on the floor today.

A great deal of time during that markup and more today was spent addressing concerns that the bill provides for 40-year contracts that can be renewed each year. The minority charged that this amounts to de facto privatization of a public resource.

Well, we have tried over and over to explain to them that 40-year successive renewal contracts are the rule in Western water law, and the 25-year provision for the Central Valley Project was actually the exception. Indeed, the CVP used to operate with a 40-year provision until that was changed in 1992.

This amendment makes it absolutely crystal clear, I certainly hope, that the contract provisions for the Central Valley Project must be in conformity with the act of July 2, 1956, that amended the Reclamation Projects Act of 1939. These provisions govern all reclamation projects throughout the western United States and treats the CVP contracts no differently. I hope that this provision settles this issue.

The second substantive provision, also included in deference to opponents of the measures, arises from an amendment that intends to expedite four CALFED surface water projects. It was charged that the wording would have interfered with authorization of the project.

This amendment makes it crystal clear that these four projects are authorized as long as non-Federal financing is used. This clears the way for local, State, and private funds to be applied immediately to the construction of these facilities.

The rest of the amendments are technical. They remove superfluous language, correct misspellings, and correct inadvertent omission.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Let me read directly from the act of July 2, 1956, governing all reclamation contracts, including those under this legislation:

The Secretary of the Interior shall include in any long-term contracts--

This amendment applies the act that I was just reading to the Central Valley Project. I was specifically answering the gentlelady's question by quoting directly from the text of the act that this proposes.

No. It has to be negotiated. In fact, just read the text. I think this will answer the question.

Mr. Chairman, if I could now answer the question of the gentlewoman that she didn't seem to want to hear, it is this:

This act applies--the act of July 2, 1956--to all contracts in the CVP under this legislation. That legislation states:

The Secretary of the Interior shall include in any long-

term contract hereafter entered into, if the other

contracting party so requests, for renewal thereof under

stated terms and conditions mutually agreeable to the

parties.

And I repeat: under stated terms and conditions mutually agreeable to the parties.

This is not automatic renewal. This is negotiated anew between the government and the contractor. The only exception to that act under this bill is to accommodate the early repayment of Federal loans, which would be a boon to the cash-strapped Federal Treasury.

Mr. Chairman, as we have repeatedly tried to explain to the minority, this measure simply applies the same

standards to the CVP as are applied to all other water contracts throughout the western United States.

It was a punitive act by this Congress in 1992 that reduced the amount of time in these contracts from 40 years to 25 years exclusively for the CVP. This legislation sets that right and returns the CVP to equal treatment with any other water project in the western United States.

I reserve the balance of my time, unless the gentlelady has closed.

Mr. Chairman, to answer the gentleman very specifically, the contract negotiations are conducted in precisely the same manner as every other contract in the Western United States.

I would remind the gentleman and the gentlelady who carried the legislation, this Congress approved a 50-year contract for Hoover power users. And I would remind my friend, the gentleman from California, that during the markup, he specifically said that he could probably live with 40 years. I hope that is still the case. I hope that these amendments assuage his concerns, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would allow the Interior Secretary to suspend this bill if he finds that one job is lost north of the delta. Well, this is the same Interior Secretary who appeared before the Natural Resources Committee in 2009. At the time, thousands of farmworkers were thrown into unemployment by the water diversions. Hundreds of thousands of acres of productive farmland were turned into a dust bowl.

And in the midst of the crisis, he admitted that as Interior Secretary, he had the authority to stop the diversions and end the agony of the Central Valley, but he chose not to do so because, in his words, ``It would be like admitting defeat.'' And this is the man that the gentleman from California would give the power--upon finding a single lost job in northern California--to plunge our State into another government-created dust bowl? I don't think so.

The Northern California Water Association represents the farms and communities of northern California and they write of this bill:

The bill, if enacted, would provide an unprecedented

Federal statutory express recognition of and commitment to

California's State water rights priority system and area of

origin protections. This is important for the region to

provide sustainable water supply for productive farmlands,

wildlife refuges and managed wetlands, cities and rural

communities, recreation and meandering rivers that support

important fisheries.

So speaks northern California.

Mr. Chairman, fewer Americans are working today than on the day that this administration took office. We will not put in the hands of that administration the power to destroy still more jobs, which this amendment cynically seeks to do.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim time in opposition to the amendment.

Perhaps my friend from California was not listening when I presented the manager's amendment which addresses this very subject.

As I pointed out to him--apparently he has a short memory--he had objected to the successive renewal provision that he claimed was in the bill but very specifically said he felt he could probably live with 40 years on the amount of time for these contracts. As I've tried to point out to him repeatedly, the measure, and explicitly as amended, does restore the contracting provisions used throughout the Western United States for contracts involving CVP water.

The gentleman says that his amendment puts the contract provisions back to the original law. No, his amendment does not do that. This bill puts the contract provisions back to the original law. That's the reclamation law of 1939 as amended July 2, 1956, the very provisions that are restored in this bill.

What his measure does is to continue to single out the Central Valley Project uniquely among all the reclamation projects across America as the one project that can only get 25-year financing. The problem, of course, with that is that these contracts require a degree of certainty over the long-term costs. That's why the 40-year contracts are in place with every other project of the Bureau of Reclamation in the United States, just as was the fact for the Central Valley Project until it was amended by Congress in 1992.

The gentleman says this overrides State law. The CVPIA overrode State law, and the gentleman was very supportive of that at the time. He obviously has concerns over long-term memory loss as well.

I would simply point out that this measure simply says that the CVP contracts will be treated on the same basis as every other contract in America.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to my colleague, the author of the legislation, Mr. Nunes of California.

I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

First, I want to correct one thing. I said that 40 years is common throughout the western United States. I do need to point out again that the Hoover Dam was actually given a 50-year contract.

The amendment fully addresses the concerns that were expressed by the gentleman over the successive renewal provisions in the contracts. I think we've made it very clear that the conditions of the contracts have to be agreed to by both parties. The gentleman, himself, in markup said he could live with 40 years. He has obviously reconsidered. This measure simply sets right a wrong that was done in 1992, and it treats the CVP as every other reclamation project.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Nunes).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to my good friend from California (Mr. Nunes).

Mr. Chairman, may I ask how much time remains?

Mr. Chairman, this amendment was rejected on a bipartisan vote when the gentlelady introduced it in markup, and it deserves a similar fate on the House floor. I mean, let's be clear about what this does. It singles out Central Valley Project participants to pay a punitive surtax that is imposed on no other Bureau of Reclamation project in the United States. This surtax would be passed on to consumers through higher prices.

The Central Valley Project was already singled out for one punitive tax, about $50 million annually, by Congress in 1992 to fund an array of environmental slush funds. Now, I believe that beneficiaries should pay the cost of the water projects, but they should pay only the cost of those projects and no more. These are not cash cows for the Federal Government to milk until they're dry.

When the left speaks of corporate farms, you know, they often leave out the fact that virtually every family farm is incorporated, and that's who we would be singling out for what amounts to a special tax. That tax can be paid in one of two ways: by employees through lower wages or by consumers through higher prices.

I have a modest suggestion for the gentlelady. Perhaps we should start putting people back to work rather than running them out of business.

I have often criticized her colleagues for policies that have created the conditions that indirectly send water prices through the roof, but this proposal is quite bold. This proposal does so directly and dramatically. That's why several of her colleagues on the Democratic side abandoned her in committee and why they would be well advised to do so again on the floor.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment, more than any other, focuses on the central issues surrounding the bill. What comes first, people or fish?

In 1992, the Central Valley Project Improvement Act carved out 800,000 acre-feet to be dedicated to fish and wildlife purposes temporarily. In fact, during a Senate debate, the floor manager of the conference report, Senator Malcolm Wallop, pointed out that that 800,000 acre-feet of CVP yield is up-front water designed to deal with the requirements of the Endangered Species Act and delta requirements while the various mitigation actions are undertaken. The various mitigation actions were to build more supply so that that 800,000 acres taken from the farmers would then be returned to them.

That 800,000 acre-feet came out of allocations of the Central Valley Project, were agreed to by all sides that were incorporated in the Bay- Delta Accord, which this bill restores. But somewhere along the line, the Federal Government began treating this allotment as a floor rather than as a ceiling.

Back in the mid-1990s, a zealous official in the Interior Department, under Bill Clinton, ordered that more than 1 million acre-feet of water appropriated by the Central Valley Project be used for purposes not authorized under water rights permits issued by the State of California.

That preempted State water rights laws, I might add, and I believe the gentleman from California knows him. In fact, I believe the gentleman from California is him.

This bill reestablishes the 800,000 acre foot allotment agreed to by all sides when Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt promised ``a deal is a deal.'' This provision redeems the promise that was broken by Mr. Babbitt's deputy, and this

is the provision that the gentleman would have us delete.

I might also add that under this bill, the 800,000 acre feet of water can be recycled by communities once it has met its environmental purpose rather than being lost to the ocean. That's 800,000 acre feet of additional water for communities like his. Of that, a little more than one-tenth of 1 percent would have gone to the little town of Cattlemen City. That's irrelevant because this provision, too, the gentleman was proposing to strike.

The contract holders that paid for this project gave up 800,000 acre feet of water with the promise it would be a temporary ceiling. One broken promise after another changed this to a permanent floor, claiming more and more water be expropriated from the people who paid for it and dumped into the Pacific Ocean. This measure sets that injustice right.

With that, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings), the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman's memory problems seem to have struck again. I do not recall making such a statement either, or intending to make such a statement. What I have said is that that 800,000 acre feet, which now will become a ceiling rather than a floor, can provide the opportunity for recycling under this bill so that that 800,000 acre feet, once it has served its environmental purposes, may then be used by communities throughout the bay area.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I would ask for a ``no'' vote on the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to my friend from California (Mr. Nunes).

Mr. Chairman, the devastation of the Central Valley of California occurred because of the breaking of a Federal promise--a Federal agreement. The gentleman from California says, oh, it wasn't an agreement at all; it was just a suggestion. Well, that's not what the Interior Secretary said at the time. He said, a deal is a deal, and if it turns out there's a need for additional water, it will come at the expense of the Federal Government. The Senator who carried the conference report on the Senate floor said it was a deal, a temporary measure until additional water was brought online. This bill redeems that promise. The amendment offered by the gentleman from Massachusetts would have us break that promise forever.

As I stated earlier, we keep hearing, well, that was then and this is now. Science has changed and so should our policy. If that's the case, then the Federal Government's promises are worthless, and they mean nothing. That was a promise agreed to by all parties. It was broken by the Federal Government.

What they're referring to is not science. It is ideology masquerading as science, so has said the Federal court. Now we have news from the Klamath that one of the scientists involved in the reports is now charging that the Department subverted science for political ends.

It is time that the ideological zealotry that threw thousands of families into unemployment be replaced with practical and fact-based solutions that keep our promises. It's time that we placed a higher value on human lives than on the bureaucratic dictates of the environmental left. That's what this bill does, and that's what the gentleman's amendment would prevent.

Finally, the gentleman would insert a requirement that the act require the

best available science to move forward. Well, the gentleman knows that what is termed ``best available science'' was literally thrown out of court with the court saying not only was it not the best available science; it wasn't science at all. The only practical effect of the provision is to provide employment for the only growth sector left in California's economy--environmental lawsuits intended not to win, because ultimately they do lose, but rather to delay projects indefinitely and make them cost prohibitive to pursue. But I compliment the gentleman on his creativity.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, it is odd, very odd to hear the argument again in this Hall that a State's right to deny basic freedoms to its citizens trumps the 14th Amendment to our Constitution. The last time we heard this argument in this Hall, it involved citizens' civil rights. Now it is the citizens' water rights. But make no mistake: it is the same old saw.

The reason we have a 14th Amendment to our Constitution is because its Framers recognized that States could become abusive of the rights of their citizens, including their property rights, including their water rights, and the Federal Government had a responsibility and a duty to protect them. A responsibility and a duty specifically vested in this Congress, a responsibility and a duty that we exercise in the bill that the gentleman from California would have us gut.

Well, what does the Constitution actually say on the subject? It says:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.

And it grants Congress the power to enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions of this article.

Let us turn to the provisions of the bill that the gentleman objects to. It is Title IV. It directs the Interior Secretary, in the operation of the Central Valley Project, a Federal project, I might add, to strictly adhere to State water rights laws and priorities. It doesn't trample State water rights; it invokes and enforces them.

Title IV goes on further to direct the Secretary to strictly adhere to and honor water rights and priorities that were obtained or existed pursuant to various sections of California water code.

I repeat, it doesn't trample States' rights. It invokes them and enforces them. This sets no precedent for other States. California is the only State in the country with a coordinated operations agreement that combines a Federal project, the Central Valley Project, with a State project, the State Water Project, and does so, by the way, at California's request and with California's consent.

In fact, Congress has a long history of citing that Coordinated Operations Agreement to invoke preemptive authority over this coordinated Federal and State project. The Central Valley Project Improvement Act in 1992 is replete with such preemptions.

Mr. Speaker, fewer Americans are working today than were working the day that this administration was sworn into office. This administration's actions caused thousands and thousands of hardworking farm working families to lose their jobs. This measure solves that travesty. The same administration that is blocking the thousands of jobs that the Keystone pipeline would produce has also vowed to veto this measure. I think the American people are going to have a great deal to say about that in coming days.

Ironically, the provision that the gentleman would have us remove was specifically placed in the bill because he and his colleagues objected that its original provision might cause the State government to actively undermine the rights of its senior water rights holders. Now that was a legitimate concern. Senior water rights holders in northern California were scared to death that they might have the State undercut their water rights, and this bill specifically addresses that concern. To address that concern, this provision was placed in the bill, and now the gentleman objects to it.

The gentleman first attacked the bill because the bill lacked this protection, and now he attacks the bill because it has that protection. The gentleman knows what I'm talking about. The gentleman knows that I have great affection for him, but I must say he is becoming exceedingly hard to please.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, this bill presents us with a very simple question: Is it just conceivably possible that the Congress has, from time to time, passed a spending bill or two that ought to have had greater scrutiny?

Now, the answer to that question may elude certain Members of this House, but I can assure them it is self-evident to everybody else. A country whose finances are as far out of control as ours suffers from not too many checks and balances on spending but from too few.

Now the opponents discuss this bill as if it were some new and radical idea. The fact is many States operate with a genuine line-item veto and have for generations. For those States, it's been a vital tool to control their spending, and those provisions are far more stringent than what is proposed here.

In conformance with our Constitution, this bill simply invites the President to call to Congress' attention those spending items that he recommends that we give additional thought to and puts a 6-week hold on those funds while we do so. In fact, from 1801 until 1974, the President had the recognized authority to impound excess spending indefinitely, a legitimate executive function first asserted by President Thomas Jefferson. The Budget Act of 1974 stripped the Executive of this vital check on congressional excess. I'd prefer to see us restore that fiscal safeguard; or, better still, amend the Constitution to provide the President with an actual line-item veto.

But let's at least set up a process so the President can warn us when he believes that we have appropriated more money than he needs to execute the laws that we have passed. This bill is, frankly, a mouse when we need a lion. The fact that it has produced shrieks of horror from some quarters of the House is an exact measure of the extent and nature of our problem.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Chair, a family that excludes from its family budget the mortgage payments it knows it must make is deluding itself and it's sabotaging its finances. That's precisely what the Federal Government is doing right now with respect to billions of dollars of liabilities that arise from its ill-fated sponsorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

This bill takes a small step toward restoring honest and accurate accounting to our government's finances by requiring that the enormous liabilities

incurred by Fannie and Freddie be accounted for in the Federal budget process, using exactly the same accounting standards for loans that we already insist upon with mortgage lenders.

I wish this bill abolished Fannie and Freddie outright. I wish it restored the days when banks and borrowers who made bad decisions took responsibility for them and didn't demand that their neighbors pay for their mistakes. But can't we at least agree that the public has a right to expect that the cost of this folly is honestly accounted for in our Nation's budget?

Mr. Speaker, today I have introduced a bill to name the United States Post Office in Granite Bay, California, in honor of United States Marine Corps Private First Class Victor Dew.

This young man was only 20 years old when he left his family and friends in late September of 2010 for Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Just 3 weeks later, on October 13, Private Dew was killed in action when his convoy was ambushed.

Victor grew up dreaming of becoming a marine. He loved military history. He was fully aware of the mortal dangers he would face. Yet, when he was offered a posting to a ceremonial position stateside, he turned it down. He believed his duty and destiny was to keep the fight away from our shores, away from his family and his country, and so he chose combat even when he had been offered safe and honorable service at home.

What did he sacrifice in order to give our country a little more security and to give another country a fleeting chance at redemption?

He had everything in the world to live for. He was engaged to be married to a devoted young lady named Courtney Gold. Courtney said, ``We had life in the grasp of our hands, and we were ready to take on the world.'' They would have. She had already picked out her wedding dress. There is a picture of her wearing that dress. It's in Victor's casket.

Victor was one of those sunny personalities who lifted the spirits of everyone around him. That's the recurring theme in all of the recollections of everyone who knew him. They'd be feeling down, and Victor would lift them up. I didn't know him, but I think I caught a glimpse of him in his little brother, Kyle. At the funeral reception last year, I found Kyle sitting at a table with his friends. When I went to offer my condolences, one of his friends said, ``You know, we came to cheer him up, and instead, he's been cheering us up.''

Victor lives on in the lives of those he touched, and he touched quite a few. He is remembered in his community as a faithful friend and as an inspiring teacher. Before he'd enlisted, he'd already become a popular martial arts instructor at a local dojo. Some of his students-- and some of them a lot older than he--came to his service that day.

It has now been over a year since he returned to Granite Bay. In that year, he would have celebrated his 21st birthday. He would have returned safely home with his unit. He would have been married. And as Courtney said, he would have taken on the world. Instead, he rests in an honored grave. His family does what every Gold Star family does-- they cope with their grief with a mixture of fond memories and faith but, most of all, of pride for the life of their son.

There are many graves in that cemetery that are etched with lifetimes much longer than the 20 years recorded on Victor's, but none of them comes close to his in this most important respect: what they did with those years. The most iconic work of art on the Titanic was a great carving that depicted Honor and Glory crowning Time. Victor Dew's time may have been short in this world, but he crowned that time with honor and glory that the rest of us can only marvel at.

Every morning since he was 12 years old, Victor Dew awoke under a Marine Corps banner over his bed that was emblazoned with the words ``Semper Fidelis.'' In his life, we can see the full measure of those words. Every day in this majestic Capitol, we walk in the footsteps of the giants of our Nation's history. The oratory of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster still echoes through these Halls. At arm's reach of where I

stand right now once spoke Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, Douglas MacArthur and Winston Churchill. Yet, in their long and illustrious lives, not one could claim to have sacrificed more for his country than these young men like Victor Dew.

Lincoln was right that no meager words of ours can add or detract from their deeds. But Shakespeare was also right that their story should the good man teach his son.

For that reason, I am proud to join a unanimous delegation from California in proposing that the post office in the town where Victor Dew lived and loved and returned as a fallen hero be named in his honor.

I thank the Member for yielding.

The simple question now before us is whether it's better for Congress to have more information or less information when it's deliberating on matters that directly affect the economy of our Nation. You'd think the answer would be self-evident, but apparently some Members of this House prefer blissful ignorance rather than going to all of the fuss and bother of actually assessing the full ramifications of the policies that they are enacting. That explains a lot about some of the decisions they've made around here in recent years.

The economy is a dynamic and fast changing thing, responding rapidly to every tax and regulation imposed by government and every dollar that changes hands in markets. Yet the rules under which the Congressional Budget Office operates severely constrain its ability to take this obvious reality into account in the information that it provides us.

This measure doesn't presume to tell the CBO how to do its job or what formula to use in its analysis. It doesn't even change the outmoded static modeling it uses to score the fiscal impact of measures coming before us. All that it says is: Give us the complete picture. If a proposal is going to affect the economy significantly, for good or ill, tell us, tell us what you think and show us why you think so.

I think Patrick Henry summed up this bill perfectly when he said, ``For my part, no matter what anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.''

Madam Speaker, long ago, Jefferson warned: ``The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.'' The exceptions to that rule have been few and far between recently; and they ought to be celebrated when they occur, as one did just this past week with the announcement that the supporters of the so-called Stop Online Privacy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act have indefinitely postponed their measures after an unprecedented protest across the Internet.

SOPA and PIPA pose a crippling danger to the Internet because they use legitimate concern over copyright infringement as an excuse for government to intrude upon and regulate the very essence of the Internet--the unrestricted and absolutely free association that links site to site, providing infinite pathways for commerce, discourse, and learning. It is not the Internet, per se, that sets the stage for a quantum leap in human knowledge advancement but, rather, the free association that's at the core of the Internet; and this is precisely what SOPA and PIPA directly threaten.

But as dangerous as this concept is to the Internet, it pales in comparison to the danger it poses to our fundamental freedoms as Americans. It is true that rogue Web sites operating from offshore havens are stealing intellectual property and then selling it. We already have very good laws against that, as evidenced by the arrest yesterday of Mr. Kim Schmitz and his associates in New Zealand who stand accused of operating one of the biggest of these rogue sites.

Theft of intellectual property is fundamentally no different than the theft of any other kind of property. It should be taken no less seriously than the thefts perpetrated by the likes of Bernie Madoff or John Dillinger or Willie Sutton. It is no different, and it should be treated no differently. In every such case, it is the individual who commits the theft; and it is the individual who is culpable and the individual who is accountable to the law; and it's the individual who is also accorded the right of due process, including the presumption of innocence while he stands accused. That's what SOPA and PIPA destroy.

Upon mere accusation, these measures would allow the government to shut down Web sites, ruin honest businesses, impound property, disrupt legitimate speech, and dragoon innocent third parties into enforcing laws that may or may not have been broken.

When property is stolen, we hold accountable the individuals who knowingly commit the act and place the burden of proof on the accuser. The accuser must demonstrate to the satisfaction of the jury that the defendant stole property or that he received property that he knew was stolen.

Yes, it is a ponderous system. Yes, it means you actually have to provide evidence. Yes, it means you have to convince a jury. Yes, it means that we can't catch and successfully prosecute every criminal. But the experience of mankind over centuries has proven that this is the best possible way to protect the innocent and protect our freedom while also punishing the guilty. In part, we punish the guilty to discourage others that we might not be able to punish.

As the arrests yesterday in New Zealand prove, it works. Let Mr. Schmitz and his confederates be extradited, and let them have their day in court. Let evidence be presented. Let a jury be convinced of that evidence. And if convicted of one of the greatest thefts in human history, let us mete out the full measure of punishment provided by the law to stand as a fearsome example to others.

This doesn't and won't stop all theft, and it isn't perfect. But to replace it with one where mere accusation can bring punishment or inflict ruinous costs upon innocent third parties would introduce a despotic and destructive concept that is antithetical to the ancient rights that our government was formed to protect.

The developments of the last few weeks have saved the Internet and saved these fundamental principles, at least for now. But Jefferson was right that the natural order is for government to grow at the expense of liberty. That's why we have our Constitution.

As to the protection of that Constitution, the Internet has now empowered its rightful owners--``we, the people''--to defend it more effectively than ever before, which leads me, Madam Speaker, to conclude that because of the events of the past week, we will see many more victories for freedom in the days and years to come.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, in all of this debate, I think that both parties have overlooked a critical problem. Both versions of this bill impose a permanent new tax on every mortgage backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. To pay for an additional 2 months of tax relief under the Senate version or 12 months under the House version, more than $3,000 in new taxes will be imposed on every $150,000 mortgage backed by Fannie or Freddie. A family taking out a $250,000 mortgage will pay $5,000 more in taxes directly and solely because of this bill hidden in their future mortgage payments.

This is atrocious public policy. It shifts the burden for this bill to future home buyers, kicks the housing market when it's already down, makes it that much more expensive for home buyers to re-enter the market, and adds to the pressures that have chronically depressed everyone's home values. That's the reason that both the Senate and the House versions need to go back for major revision.

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow, Boy Scout Troop 121 of Granite Bay, California, will conduct its 200th Eagle Scout Court of Honor and induct its 212th and 213th Eagle Scouts.

During its 43 years of existence, Troop 121 has produced an entire generation of young men who have gone on to become upstanding family men, respected businessmen, and leaders of our community. And that's what I particularly want to salute today: the work of the Boy Scouts of America, as exemplified by Troop 121.

The hiking and camping and outdoor activities might make Boy Scouting appealing and enjoyable, but what makes it admirable and elevated is not that it produces good campers, but that it produces good citizens. It inculcates timeless values and virtues that forge solid citizens who contribute far beyond their numbers to the strength and stability of our society.

Troop 121 has done this for 43 years, and it is my pleasure and honor to commend them on their good work.

Madam Speaker, one of the items of unfinished business remaining to this Congress is extending the payroll tax cut of last year that funds Social Security. It is an inframarginal tax cut, meaning that it doesn't change economic incentives and therefore it doesn't produce lasting economic growth. But it does provide

great relief to working families, allowing them to keep more of their earnings at a time of declining incomes, shriveling assets, and rising prices, and it should be extended. But it must be extended responsibly to avoid doing further damage either to the economy or to the Social Security system that this tax supports.

That means we have to make up the lost revenue. Now the Democrats have said, well, no problem, just tax the rich. In fact, they say that a lot. The problem is that the tax increases they propose are marginal tax increases, precisely the kind of tax increase that does enormous damage to the overall economy. Remember, more than half of net small business income would be subject to their tax increase--at precisely the moment when we're depending upon those small businesses to create two-thirds of the new jobs that our people desperately need.

Now the measure passed out of the House this week also does far more harm than good. Unfortunately, the House added $167 billion to this year's already crushing deficit, mostly to pay for the payroll tax cut, purporting to repay 1 year's tax relief over the next 10 years. How does it do that? Well, in part, it tacks on additional fees to mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This shifts the burden to home buyers, who will end up paying far more in new taxes that are now hidden in their mortgage payments than they will ever get back from the tax cut. True, under the House version, the average family will save over $1,000 in payroll taxes, but if that family takes out a $150,000 mortgage backed by Fannie or Freddie, they'll end up paying an extra $3,000 as a result of this bill--$1,000 of tax cuts for $3,000 of extra mortgage payments.

Put more bluntly, the House version kicks the housing market when it's already down, making it that much more expensive for home buyers to re-enter that market and adding to the pressures that have chronically depressed our home values. Worse, the House version would turn Fannie and Freddie into tax collectors for the general fund. If the House bill is enacted, we will have constructed a cash machine for government with an adjustable knob. And given the insatiable appetite of this government, the odds are far greater that that knob will be turned up and not down in coming years.

Ironically, one of the reasons to continue the payroll tax cut is because of shrinking family assets--mainly the value of their homes. The House version adds to the downward pressure on their home values while telling them we're doing them a favor. Some favor.

Fortunately, there is a way to extend the payroll tax cut, protect the Social Security system, and avoid doing further harm to the economy, and that's the measure offered by Mr. Landry of Louisiana, H.R. 3551. That bill was given short shrift in the House last week, and that's a shame.

Mr. Landry's bill would give every American the choice to receive the year of tax relief in exchange for delaying their retirement by a month. According to the Social Security chief actuary, this would pay for itself. It would give every family in America the choice of deciding for itself whether the benefits of the tax cut are worth the cost of working a month longer. It would provide tax relief for those families that need it without doing harm to the Social Security system that the tax supports and without shifting the burden to pay for it to home buyers, as the House version does, or to job creators, as the Senate version would have done.

It's not too late to fix this problem the right way. And I would strongly urge the House to take Mr. Landry's bill more seriously in the closing days of this session.

I thank the gentleman for generously yielding to me to offer a dissenting view of section 1021 of the underlying conference report.

This is the section referenced by the gentleman from Florida that specifically affirms that the President has the authority to deny due process to any American the government charges with ``substantially supporting al Qaeda, the Taliban or any associated forces,'' whatever that means.

Would ``substantial support'' of an ``associated force'' mean linking a Web site to a Web site that links to an al Qaeda site? We don't know. The question before us is: Do we really want to find out?

We're told not to worry, the bill explicitly states that nothing in it shall alter existing law. But wait--there is no existing law that gives the President the power to ignore the Bill of Rights and detain Americans without due process. There is only an assertion by the last two Presidents that this power is inherent in an open-ended and ill- defined war on terrorism. But it is a power not granted by any act of Congress until now.

What this bill says is, what Presidents have only asserted, Congress now affirms in statute.

We're told this merely pushes the question to the Supreme Court to decide if indefinite detainment is compatible with any remaining vestige of our Bill of Rights. Well, that's a good point if the court were the sole guardian of the Constitution. But it is not. If it were, there would be no reason to require every Member of Congress to swear to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. We are also its guardians.

And today we, who have sworn fealty to that Constitution, sit to consider a bill that affirms a power contained in no law and that has the full potential to crack the very foundation of American liberty.

Madam Speaker, topping the list of unfinished business this year is the impending collision of two closely related crises: the expiration of the payroll tax and the acceleration of Social Security's bankruptcy.

Last year, Congress voted for a payroll tax cut that averages roughly $1,000 for every working family in America. As warned, it failed to stimulate economic growth and it accelerated the collapse of the Social Security system; but, as promised, it threw every working family a vital lifeline in very tough economic times.

We need to meet three conflicting objectives: We need to continue the payroll tax cut; we need to stimulate real economic growth; and we need to avoid doing further damage to the Social Security system.

First, we need to understand that not all tax cuts stimulate lasting economic growth. Cutting marginal tax rates does so because it changes the incentives that individuals respond to; cutting inframarginal tax rates, such as the payroll tax, does not. But that payroll tax cut did make a huge difference in the ability of working families to make ends meet in a time of declining family incomes and steadily rising prices. To restore that payroll tax rate today, given the economic pressures on working families, is simply unthinkable.

Yet at the same time, the payroll tax is what supports the Social Security system. Last year, that system entered a state of permanent deficit, and this condition will worsen until the Social Security system bankrupts in 2036. At that moment, every retiree will suffer a sudden and permanent drop in benefits of roughly 25 percent.

Further reducing the revenues into that system will hasten this day of reckoning. Just as bad, in the intervening time the expanding Social Security deficit will heap growing burdens on the Nation's already staggering public debt. Now, some have proposed paying for the inframarginal payroll tax cut that doesn't help the economy with a marginal tax hike that actually harms the economy. Surely we can do better than that. Actually, Congressman Landry of Louisiana has done better, and I commend his proposal to the attention of the House. It avoids damaging the Social Security fund while at the same time offering families continued relief from crushing payroll taxes.

His measure, H.R. 3551, the Social Security Preservation Through Individual Choice Enhancement (or SSPICE) Act, constitutes the most realistic and innovative approach to these twin and related crises that has yet been placed before Congress by linking the cost of Social Security to the benefits that it provides. H.R. 3551 would give every American the choice of paying a lower payroll tax each year in exchange for working a month longer. That's all it would take to pay for itself--a month's delay in retirement for a year's worth of tax relief.

For the first time, individuals can make this choice to pay a lower payroll tax based on their own circumstances without further undermining the fiscal integrity of the Social Security system or the financial security of those relying on that system. For the first time, costs and benefits would be linked in a manner that all consumers can understand and judge for themselves based on their own circumstances.

In a difficult year like this, I think most families would rather save the extra tax and work the extra month. In better times ahead, they may choose to pay the extra tax to maintain their retirement schedule. But it will be their choice based on their needs, their plans, and their best judgment, and not the government's. And by linking costs with benefits, it will protect the long-term actuarial soundness of the Social Security system, a fact that the Social Security system's chief actuary has confirmed.

I'm excited to cosponsor Mr. Landry's bill and strongly and enthusiastically recommend it to the membership of the House and to the leadership. Mr. Landry has done an enormous service to every retiree who depends upon the Social Security system, as well as to every working family struggling in America, by preserving the fiscal integrity of the system while at the same time giving every American a choice that links the tax they pay to the benefits they receive. And it's an option they can exercise every year without fear that a future congressional act or failure to act might sock them with a tax increase they can't afford or hasten the collapse of a retirement system that many depend upon for their economic survival.

In the Sierra foothills in northeastern California lies the little town of Colfax, a population of 1,800, with a median household income of about $35,000. Over the last several years, this little town has been utterly plundered by regulatory and litigatory excesses that have pushed this little town to the edge of bankruptcy and ravaged families already struggling to make ends meet.

You see, Colfax operates a small wastewater treatment plant for its residents that discharges into the Smuthers Ravine. Because it does so, it operates within the provisions of the Clean Water Act, a measure adopted in 1972 and rooted in legitimate concerns to protect our vital water resources. The problem is that predatory environmental law firms have now discovered how to take unconscionable advantage of that law to reap windfall profits at the expense of working-class families like the townspeople of Colfax.

In the case of Colfax, an environmental law firm demanded every document pertaining to the water treatment plant from the date of its inception. It then pored over those documents looking for any possible violations, including mere paperwork errors. By law, those documents include self-monitoring reports by the water agency itself, and any violation, no matter how minor, establishes a cause of action for which the law provides no affirmative defense, even if the violation is due to factors completely beyond the local community's control, including acts of God and acts by unrelated and uncontrollable third parties. Prove one such violation--and remember, the law allows for no affirmative defense--and you've just guaranteed the attorneys all of their fees, which in this case were billed at $550 per hour.

As a result of this predatory activity, the town of Colfax is facing legal fees alone that exceed the town's entire annual budget. Families that are struggling to keep afloat just above the poverty level are fleeced by attorneys charging $550 an hour. But that's just part of the problem.

The law requires constant upgrading of facilities to meet ever- changing state-of-the-art regulations that have nothing to do with health and safety and with absolutely no concern for the prohibitive costs involved. In fact, Colfax is now required to discharge water certifiably cleaner than the natural stream water into which it is discharged. In Colfax's case, this required a $15 million expenditure, divided among 800 working-class residents, who are now paying $2,500 per year just for their water connections. And once the town has met the standard, there's no guarantee that in 5 years it won't be told, Sorry, the rules have changed and you'll need to start over.

Mr. Speaker, it's time to restore some form of rationality back to this law and to stop the plunder of small towns like Colfax. And Colfax isn't alone. Any community that operates a wastewater treatment plant is in the same jeopardy.

No one disputes that we need to maintain and enforce sensible and cost-effective protections of our precious water resources; but legitimate environmental protections must no longer be used as an excuse for regulatory extremism and litigatory plundering of our local communities.

Today, I'm introducing legislation to offer six reforms to protect other communities from going through the same nightmare as the people of Colfax:

First, to limit private-party lawsuits to issues of significant noncompliance rather than harmless paperwork errors;

Second, to shield local agencies from liability for acts that are beyond their control;

Third, to give local agencies 60 days to cure a violation before legal action can be initiated;

Fourth, to allow communities to amortize the cost of new facilities over a period of 15 years before new requirements can be heaped on them;

Fifth, to require a cost-benefit analysis before new regulations can be imposed;

Sixth, to limit attorney fees to the prevailing fees of the community.

Like many movements, the impetus for stronger environmental protection of our air and water was firmly rooted in legitimate concerns to protect these vital resources; but like so many movements, as it succeeded in its legitimate ends, it also attracted a self- interested constituency that has driven far past the borders of common sense and into the realms of political extremism and outright plunder. I'm hopeful that we're now entering an era when common sense can be restored to environmental law in this session of the Congress.

Mr. Speaker, today the House will consider H.R. 822, a long overdue measure to ensure that States recognize the concealed weapons permits issued by other States.

This very simple measure has unleashed a firestorm of protests from the political left. I noted one polemicist, who obviously has not read the Constitution, wax eloquently of the constitutional violation of States' rights enshrined in the 10th Amendment. What nonsense. Article IV of the Constitution could not possibly be more clear: ``Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.''

It is precisely this article that requires one State to recognize driver's licenses or birth certificates or arrest warrants issued by another State. Without it, we are not a Union but merely a loose confederation.

Well, then we're told this is dangerous and risky to allow honest and law-abiding citizens to exercise their lawfully issued permits in other States. Upon what basis do they make this claim? Certainly not upon any empirical data.

The impact of right-to-carry laws, that is, laws that require the issuance of a concealed weapon permit to any law-abiding citizen, has been studied extensively, and the vast preponderance find that crime rates have fallen in those States after they've adopted such laws. No credible study has ever found that the enactment of such laws has produced an increase in crimes or suicides or accidental deaths.

Overall, States with right-to-carry laws have 22 percent lower violent crime rates, 30 percent lower murder rates, 46 percent lower robbery rates, and 12 percent lower aggravated assault rates as compared to the rest of the country. Indeed, right-to-carry laws have been so successful that no State has ever rescinded one.

So, if the left can't make a rational case on constitutional grounds or on empirical grounds, what is the problem? I suspect it comes down to what Ronald Reagan once called this irreconcilable conflict between those who believe in the sanctity of individual freedom and those who believe in the supremacy of the State.

Years ago, I had the honor to work for the legendary chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, Ed Davis. During his 8\1/2\ years as chief of the LAPD, crime dropped in Los Angeles even while, during the same period across the rest of the Nation, it was ballooning by more than 50 percent. Chief Davis founded Neighborhood Watch. He was an ardent opponent of laws that restrict ownership of firearms by honest citizens. His successful philosophy was predicated on the principle that, as he put it: ``It's not the responsibility of the police department to enforce the law. That is the job of every citizen. The police department is there to help.''

As citizens, we're an integral part of the laws that we enact. That doesn't mean we act as vigilantes, but it does mean that each of us has an inalienable right to defend ourselves and our families from violent predators with whatever force is necessary. And if we see a child being molested or a woman being robbed or an old man being beaten, we have a moral responsibility to intervene to the extent that we can.

A concealed weapon in the hands of honest and law-abiding citizens makes us all safer. Simply knowing that there are responsible citizens among us capable of responding with force is itself a powerful deterrent to crime. That's the well-documented experience of every State with a right-to-carry law. But a society in which honest and law- abiding citizens are disarmed by their government is a society in which the gunman is king.

This is a truth that ought to be self-evident, but it is lost at the altar of the authoritarian left, which seems to concentrate all power in government at the expense of the people. Perhaps the best test of the self-evident nature of that truth is illustrated in a full-page newspaper ad I once saw that offered a cut-out sign, which in 150-point type said: ``There are no guns in this house.'' The caption under it asked, ``Would you post this sign in your front window?''

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Richard Landis of Lake Wildwood, California. Mr. Landis grew up in

Marysville and Yuba City. He and his wife, Beth, met while attending the University of La Verne. They have three grown children.

Dick Landis began his long legacy of contributing to his community by serving our country as an aviator in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He had a distinguished military service record, having flown the P-38 and the P- 51 in two and a half combat tours in the European theater.

After graduating from La Verne and leaving military service, Dick went on to have a very successful business career, eventually rising to be Chairman and CEO of the Del Monte Corporation, as well as serving on the boards of several other corporations. During his tenure in the private sector Dick was known for his active involvement in the communities in which his firms did business. He was named California Manufacturer of the Year in 1981 and given the Good Scout Award as well as the Silver Beaver Award in 1975 by the San Francisco Bay Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America, of which he was Executive Board Chairman.

In the 1980s, Landis retired to Lake Wildwood. In Nevada County, Mr. Landis has been a very enthusiastic supporter, member of the Board and major donor to Music in the Mountains, Penn Valley Rotary becoming a Paul Harris Fellow many times over and having received Rotary Foundation's Major Donor Recognition, supporting and advising Nevada County Habitat for Humanity, along with several other non-profit organizations. He has authored two books on business and personal ethics, one of which is aimed at encouraging youth to be active members of their communities throughout their lifetimes.

This weekend, the Rotary Club of Penn Valley, California will host a dinner in Dick's honor to thank him for his many years of support for his community and to raise funds to endow the Dick Landis Music in the Mountains Rotary Scholarship through the new Penn Valley Rotary Foundation. The group is right to honor Mr. Landis, and I am proud to rise today in recognition of his fine example of how a citizen can contribute to his community and country.

Mr. Speaker, the International Monetary Fund estimated that as of Halloween night, the debt of this Nation surpassed its entire economy for the first time since World War II.

We all know that if you live beyond your means today you're going to have to live below your means tomorrow. That's the tomorrow that our generation has created for the children who were dressed up as princesses and cowboys when they came calling on Monday night. This is our generation's eternal shame. And it's something that our generation must act to set right.

The House is expected soon to vote on a balanced budget amendment that's critical to stop this plunder of our children. There are a number of excellent proposals out there, and I'd have no trouble supporting any of them. I do rise, however, to express the hope that the final product of these deliberations proves worthy of the wisdom that guided the drafting of the Constitution.

The beauty of the American Constitution is in its simplicity and its humility. The American Founders recognized Cicero's wisdom that the best laws are the simplest ones. And they realized that they couldn't possibly foresee the circumstances and conditions that might confront future generations, and therefore they resisted the temptation to micromanage every decision that might be made centuries in the future.

Instead, they set forth general principles of governance and erected a structure in which human nature, itself, would provide guidance in future decisions to conform with these principles.

In crafting a balanced budget amendment, we need to maintain these qualities. We shouldn't attempt to tell future generations specifically how they should manage their revenues and expenditures in times that we cannot comprehend. The experience of many States that operate under their own balanced budget amendments tells us that the more complicated and convoluted such strictures become, the more they are circumvented and manipulated.

Many have quoted Jefferson's 1798 letter to John Taylor as support for a balanced budget amendment. Here is what he actually wrote:

``I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution. I mean an additional article: taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing.''

What is a balanced budget? It's simply a budget that doesn't require us to borrow. So, as Jefferson did, why don't we just say so? Instead of trying to define fiscal years, outlays, expenditures, revenues, emergencies, triggers, sequestrations, and so on, I hope that we would consider 27 simple words:

``The United States Government may not increase its debt except for a specific purpose by law, adopted by three-fourths of the membership of both Houses of Congress.'' That's it.

Such an amendment, taking effect 10 years from ratification, would give the government time to put its affairs in order and to thereafter naturally require future Congresses to maintain both a balanced budget as well as a prudent reserve to accommodate fluctuations of revenues and routine contingencies. It trusts that three-fourths of future Congresses will be able to recognize a genuine emergency when they see one and that one-fourth of Congress will be strong enough to resist borrowing for light or transient reasons. The experience of the States warns us that a two-thirds vote is insufficient to protect against profligacy.

Some advocate going much further by establishing limitations on spending and taxation as well; but if borrowing is prohibited, there exists a natural limit to the ability and willingness of the people to tolerate taxation and therefore spending. The real danger is when runaway spending is accommodated and made possible by borrowing, which is simply a hidden future tax. The best and most effective way to invoke that natural limit is with a simple prohibition.

At the end of the week, I will introduce this 27-word amendment and will ask my colleagues to consider it with the many others that are currently before the Congress.

As I said, I like virtually all of them, as they all accomplish the purpose of restraining the reckless deficits that our generation has produced; but in drafting an amendment to guide not only this generation but all of those to follow, I would hope that we would do as the Constitutional Convention would have done had it had the benefit of Jefferson's wise counsel: to set down the general principle only and allow future generations, with their own insights into their own challenges, to put it to practical effect.