was offered as well as additional language in committee. this bill is riddled with problems that are not addressed. the bypass flow issues is not solved in the manager's amendment, which does address the endangered species act component, but does nothing to address the issues around the forest service, b.l.m., interior, and agriculture agencies that also have relevant authority under a number of statutes, including the federal land policy and management act, forest service and park service organic act, and wild and scenic rivers act to impose bypass flows. simply put, the manager's amendment doesn't make the necessary improvements to make this a bipartisan measure. they are simply window dressing for a job-killing republican water grab. let's talk about issues in the underlying legislation. in the west, water rights are state based. any challenge to the right or the system itself is a very

elicate proposition. to years of precedence and claims, subordinate and senior, with regard to water. as a result this legislation only serves to cast doubt on the complicated laws and authority this is a make up our nation and state water laws and that companies, individuals, and counties have made decisions on and already have economic investments in. in addition, this bill, absent my amendment, muddles the message of disapproval over the 2011 decision. what exactly are we saying with regard to this bill? a bill that was nonet address the needs of ski areas because of the 2011 directive, instead has become an all encompassing job-killing republican water ab which is not even a clear signal of our unhappyness with

the original directive. i think not only would there be a much cleaner path to become the law of the land, if we were to consider a targeted approach encompassed by the amendment i have offered, but it also, even absent becoming law, was sending clear -- would send a clear and unambiguous message to the forest service of congressional disapproval. i think stead, i think they'll shrug their shoulders and say that's that crazy house this bill won't become law this bill will not have any impact and the message is lost. with regard to the 2011 directive. if they think that this is the house reaction, muddled, job-killing, water-grabbing if that's our reaction to this short of ssh sort of thing, what's to stop them doing this again. what's to stop them targeting ranchers?

what's to stop them from targeting recreation areas? when this kind of thing occur well, need a target red action that can become law or a clear and unambiguous message that the house of representatives will not stand for it. in summary, rule contains a $183 billion in obamacare taxes that are spent for another purpose, and this rule allows two bills to come to the floor, one of which -- both of which could be negotiated in good faith with the democrats and both of which have not. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time is reserved. the gentleman from texas. mr. burgess: let me yield myself one minute. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. burgess: to respond to some of this, just as -- to put things in context on a timeline. h.r. 4015 was introduced on

february 6, 2014. the bill has been available to all members and the public for more than a month. the bill is co-sponintoird the bipartisan chairs and ranking members of the committees on energy and commerce, ways and means, and the senate finance committee. we are recommending no changes to the underlying substance of h.r. 4015 which has been negotiated on a bipartisan basis. i do believe that providing fsets to reduce spend sag an appropriate course of action, therefore the camp amendment saves almost $170 billion over the next 10 years and this rule ensures we aren't making future generations foot the bill. i'd like to yield four minutes to the gentleman from colorado, mr. tipton. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for four minutes. mr. tipton: i thank the gentleman for yielding. mr. speaker, it's with some dismay that i have to address some of the comments made by my good friend and colleague from colorado.

unfortunately, through their own words, they are willing to throw farmers and ranchers, hardworking americans, under the bus. for an yolodge call cause. something in the west that we simply cannot accept. in the western united states, water is the life blood of our community. h.r. 3189 codifies that existing right. the water grab that's taking place is not by this legislation but by the very federal government that our opponents seem to want to be able to protect and put in a position of authority over state rights. as a sponsor of this bipartisan legislation, i support the rule on h.r. 3189 and i encourage an open debate because i believe the merits of this bill will truly speak for themselves. federal attempts to be able to manipulate federal land management processes, to

circumvent state water law and hijack water rights have sounded the alarm bell for all nonfederal waterudesers that rely on the water rights for their livelihood. the most recent case involves the u.s. forest service attempt to require the transfer of right y held water rights to the federal government. there's no reason for this despate the fact that stake holders have spent millions and rely on them for their ivelihoods this forest service permit condition has had hearings in several areas, including the aspen ski area, which he cited, support this is legislation. despite having been excellent stewards of the environment an their water right the frorest

-- forest service demands the state grant of water rights from ski areas. the same tactics have been used in utah and other states, where they have required the extension of water rights this water grab has broad implications and extends beyond the farming and ranching community and are threatening municipalities and businesses. sthroiflt efforts began in 2011 , encompassing testimony from several hearings by the natural resources committee, numerous stake holders, and in close collaboration with my friend on the committee, i introduce this water right pross text act. it provides critical protection for water rights holders and ensuring that federal agencies do not extort private property rights through even handed gos. the water right pross text act offers a sensible approach to represerve water rights and the

ability to develop water equisite to the arid west. the protect the -- it protects the environment cherished by all werners. it prohibits pilfering of water rights through the use of leases and other land management uses. the bill prohibits federal land management agencies from forcing water users to apply for or acquire water rights from the united states for water users themses. finally this commonsense legislation provides certainty by upholding long-standing federal deference to state water law on which countless waters use rerely. as the american farm bureau states, it grants no new rights to any party nor does it take any away or infringe on existing rights of vims, states, or the federal government this legislation simply reaffirms what has been

existing law through -- for generations in the west. i'm proud that this important piece of legislation is supported by a broad coalition of stake hold sers now present. water is our most precious resource in the west a long held private property right that must be protected from uncompensated federal taking. with that, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from colorado. mr. polis: to further discuss the rule that allows for the republican water grab and the bill to keep obamacare taxes and remove the benefits, i yield three minutes to the gentlewoman from texas, ms. jackson lee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized for three mins. ms. jackson lee: might i make a march plea in this march madness, can't we all get along and work together on important items like water rights and the s.g.r.? i rise first of all to make it clear, i am a strong supporter of providing adequate compensation to our physicians who serve medicare patients.

it is important for our seniors to know medicare will be there when they need it but it's equally important that there are physicians who are willing to attend to them without going broke. let me be clear, i believe my record has been extremely strong on the idea of making sure the benefits for seniors are not cut. the misrepresentation that the affordable care act cuts medicare benefits is not true and now we have the sustainable growth rate that we had bipartisan support and all of a dden we have poison pills, a self-executing rule, challenged in the rules committee, to take money from the affordable care act to allegedly help the doctor. every doctor i speak to wants a permanent fix for the s.g.r. there were a number of suggestions made in the other body, somewhat unpleasant, but we were being to look at those particular suggestions. as with any business, medical clinic and physicians offices have bills to pay and expenses

to meet. why are we playing with them when we know this is not going anywhere? why are we not taking these physician who spent years, hundred thousands ofs of dollar to gain a degree because they are healers they believe in it. they want to serve the peculiar. now rather than having a bipartisan bill, in the spirit of st. patrick's day, to be able to come together and work together, know we have a bill that poses a serious problem. i oppose the rule because it corrupts what would otherwise be a strongly supported bipartisan bill to sustain physician reimbursement rate and it is another attempt again by our friends on the other side to disregard and mislead the public about the affordable care act. let me clearly say that 11 groups representing the nation's seniors, doctors, advocates, sent a letter to congressional leaders urging the house to reject the toxic doc fix, the 51st vote to repeal.

the -- the undersigned groups appreciate the work done to repeal the s.g.r. and reform medicare reimbursement system. the current effort to link, however, s.g.r. reform with changes to the affordable care act is just part -- injects partisan politics into bipartisan legislation, access to health care for more than 50 million americans is a serious matter. we should not schedule a vote that does not take seriously the idea of making sure our doctors get sufficient compensation. the other wrongheaded approach to this is there are no amendments being allowed. no amendments, mr. speaker. a closed rule. and i just saw some documentation of how many closed rules we have had in this house -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for an additional half minute. ms. jackson lee: the jackson lee amendment that was not allowed would ensured that notwithstanding any provision, no delay in the application of

the affordable care act would have occur. would have called for studies about medicare providers. would have given us real information. jackson lee amendment number two would require the secretary to submit a report on cost savings. the point is, between waters right this is a is again skewing the rights of people dealing with water rights and then the s.g.r., this rule should be opposed, we should get back to the drawing boards, can we all get along, work together on the right kind of legislation for water rights but more importantly, mr. speaker, our doctors deserve better. and i will say to them, you will get better from us. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. mr. burgess: may i inquire as to the amount of time remaining? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas has 15 1/2 minutes remain, the gentleman from colorado has 12 minutes remaining. mr. burgess: let me yield myself two minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. burgess: i wanted to just list some of the exemptions from the individual mandate, those passed in a bipartisan

manner by the house of representatives, and those instituted by executive action by the president. july 17, delay the individual mandate until 2015. 22 democrats voted in favor of that. march 10, 2014, delays the individual penalty for individuals who fail to have health care coverage 27 democrats voted in favor. h.r. 1814 on march 11, exempts individuals with certain real jus beliefs, passed by a voice vote, not a single dissenting vote. on march 11, we exempted volunteer firefighters and emergency responders from the individual mandate. 410-0. 186 democrats voted in favor. on march 11, we exempted individuals who receive health coverage under tricare or v.a. from being counted as the employer man cate under the a.c.a. 183 democrats voted in favor of that exemption. you know, this is not something

that is exclusive to the house of representatives. just last week, the administration quietly excused millions of people from the requirement to purchase health insurance or else pay the tax. now all you need to do is fill out a form, attesting that your plan was canceled and you believe that the plan options available in the marketplace in your area are more expensive than your canceled insurance policy. you believe that to be true you don't have to prove it. you believe it to be true. it's self-attestation. so the president has already delayed the individual mandate for another two years' time. this is a reasonable proposal that is up today, yes, doctors do need relief. we need to pay for that i believe the proposal before the congress today will do just that. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves his time. the gentleman from colorado. mr. polis: thank you, mr. speaker. the republicans are getting worse and worse on these obamacare votes.

you think that you get better with practice after 52 times, ey would be better at re mr. polis: thank you, mr. speaker. the republicans are getting worse and worse on these obamacare votes. you think that you get better with practice after 52 times, they would be better at repealing obamacare. that's because this body in the house of representatives has tried to repeal obamacare 52 times. the votes were to repeal everything that was in the affordable care act that's how those votes start i don't think anybody wants that. if you start talking about repealing the affordable care act, people are split on that. you would have a few people agree with you. the american people have different opinions about that. but if you offered any of them, keep all the taxes and get rid of the benefits, i can't imagine anybody wants that. i would hope that after so much practice, the republicans would be quite good at this. it seems to be the core

competency developing. in fact, every week this body repeals obamacare but now they're repealing it in a way that keeps all the taxes and gets rid of the benefits. so i am quite surprised the old adage that practice makes perfect is far from true with regard to the republican approach to this bill. i'd like to further yield three minutes to the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. kind. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from wisconsin is recognized for three minutes. mr. kind: i want to thank my good friend from colorado for yielding me this time. mr. speaker, we have an opportunity in this session of congress of getting rid of an onerous policy that's affected the delivery of health care in our country since 1997, the so-called sustainable growth rate. that's the reimbursement that our doctors, our physicians receive in medicare. we've been working hard at this for a number of years. i commend my good friend and colleague from texas for the leadership that he's shown on

this issue. the policy behind the s.g.r. repeal that's going to be before this congress tomorrow has been bipartisan in support. it moves the health care system in the direction where it needs to go with an emphasis of quality and value as opposed to the volume of services and moving away from the so-called fee for service reimbursement schedule that we have right now. i believe that if we continue to drive the health care system in that direction, we can get much better quality of care for all americans but at a much better price. there are a lot of tools under the affordable care act that are moving us in that direction now to a more integrated, coordinated, patient-centered health care delivery system, but also a reimbursement system that finally is based on the value of the quality of care that's given and no longer the volume of service that's rendered. in fact, the national academy came out with their analysis of the health care system and found they were spending close to $750 billion every year on things that don't work.

they don't improve patient care. the overutilization that's costing us so much, and most of the time leading to worse outcomes instead of better outcomes. the bill well with the s.g.r. would correct a lot of this with a different payment model, with the emphasis of quality and value, with incentives built into it. the problem that we have before us tomorrow during the debate is how they're going to pay for it. it's this itch that they have to scratch over and over again called the affordable care act, or so-called obamacare. they can't help themselves but to keep going back to that well in order to find offsets and pay-fors under that health care reform for other measures where there is bipartisan support and agreement on. so we'll go through this reuss yet again tomorrow. -- this ruste yet again tomorrow. we'll have this bipartisan debate. knowing that it's not going to advance anywhere in the senate nor would the president embrace this type of pay-for,

eliminating the individual component of the affordable care act, and then we'll be back to where we are today, and that is having to sit down, talk to one another, find some reasonable offsets in order to finally repeal the s.g.r. it's on sale. the congressional budget office has been very kind in their score on what repeal would like like, roughly $138 billion. still a lot of money. in fact, where per capita health care spending is going right now, it keeps getting better month after month. we are at the lowest per capita health care spending in the last 50 years. certainly more than anything we've ever seen under medicare, medicaid. mr. polis: i yield an additional 45 seconds. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for 45 seconds. mr. kind: so there are trends that are leading to reduction in the overcall health care spending. things we need to try to explore and try to sustain. but moving forward with an s.g.r. repeal based on pay-fors that are being offered is just

a dead end road. it's not going to advance, and this is too important a topic, too serious of an issue throughout our health care system to play these partisan political games all over again. so let's scratch this itch once again and then next week let's come back together and see if we can in a bipartisan fashion find some commonsense, reasonable offsets that both parties can agree to, that the senate can work on, that the president will sign so we can finally get rid of this s.g.r. onus that's been hanging over us. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. mr. burgess: mr. speaker, i yield myself two minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. burgess: mr. speaker, i remind the body that this language, this compromise, this bipartisan, bicameral compromise has been available for all to see since february 6. during that time, what response have we gotten from the united states senate as a responsible way to pay for this legislation?

zero, nothing. we are offering this bill today with the pay-for that has been embraced by both sides in a bipartisan fashion, as i demonstrated to you already. this would not be necessary if the senate had provided us feedback on what their approach to a method of paying for this legislation would be, but they did not. we know that the chairman of the senate finance committee, the finance committee in the other body, the chairman has now gone to a different occupation, so there is a now chair of the person in the finance committee, but that shouldn't have been an obstacle. there was a way forward to provide a discussion, a preconference conference, if you will, because we had all agreed on the policy. this was not a mystery. this was not something that one body had done in secret. this had all been done out in the open for the past two

years, so that pathway was available, but for whatever reason the other body said no deal, we don't want to deal with the house. we want to jam the house at the last minute and get them to accept something, or better yet, let's do another patch and get us through election day. that's a very cynical approach. mr. speaker, today before us on the floor, we are taking a responsible approach and say, guess what, because we have taken this approach, the senate is now talking once again about their way forward which ultimately i think is a good thing. i'll reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time is reserved. the gentleman from colorado. mr. polis: i'd like to inquire of the gentleman if he has any emaining speakers. mr. burgess: as the gentleman from colorado knows, i am capable of filling whatever volume of time remains on my own, but, no, i don't see other speakers seeking recognition. i would inquire of the gentleman from colorado his status of additional speakers. mr. polis: i am prepared to close. i have six minutes.

and i wanted to yield to the gentleman if he has more speakers before i close. mr. burgess: i am prepared to close. mr. polis: i yield myself the remainder of the time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for 6 3/4 minutes. mr. polis: thank you, mr. speaker. sadly, with these two bills and the republican job-killing water bill and the obamacare tax bill, are both not going to become law. they both have a genesis and a real issue, one that calls for bipartisan cooperation. one that affects the water rights of ski areas that we offer language in an amendment that would address. the other, my colleague, mr. kind, addressed. and this body has a long tradition of coming together about figuring out how to pay for s.g.r. the gentleman mentioned february 6 the language was available. the language regarding the s.g.r. fix is not what's in dispute. the way of paying for the

s.g.r. fix is what is the topic of debate between democrats and republicans. that language was not seen february 6. that language is not even going to be voted upon under this rule. it is contained in the rule itself. sadly, while we take up our time on these bills that are not going to become law, we continue to avoid action on the pressing issue of reforming our immigration system. this august, a number of us sent a letter to speaker boehner saying he should introduce a comprehensive immigration reform legislation. if he refused to do we'd introduce a bill for comprehensive immigration reform in the house. there cass crickets and so my -- there was crickets and so my colleagues and i introduced h.r. 15, comprehensive immigration reform, a bill that has bipartisan co-sponsors, over 200 co-sponsors from both

sides of the aisle. immigration reform is supported by an unprecedented coalition, including business and tech companies, faith leaders from across the country, police, security specialists, but most importantly the american people who are sick and tired of having over 10 million people in our country illegally. we need to restore the rule of law. we need to allow american families to succeed in our country and to live their dreams. we need to have control of our border. we need to implement mandatory workplace authentication to ensure that people who are here illegally cannot work. every day that passes is a failure of this body to address these issues and the solution to all of those issues, workplace authentication, securing our border, those are uniting -- uniting families,

those are all in h.r. 15. look, we're ready to talk. if you don't want to bring h.r. 15 to a vote, mr. speaker, what are your immigration bills? what is the package of bills that will address these? we know it will take a multifaceted approach. a wall alone on the southern border doesn't solve that issue. there's still 10 million people here illegally. and the fact that half the people here illegally, don't sneak across, they come here legally and outstay their welcome and stay here illegally. this requires a solution that i think this congress is capable of. i think we can work together, and rather than considering divisive job-killing water grab bills, rather than considering divisive obamacare tax bills that the republicans want to use obamacare taxes rather than repeal them, let's come together around immigration reform. house republicans need to

reject offensive and unproductive rhetoric and show real leadership that the business community and our country is calling out for. a few weeks ago a "wall street journal" op-ed criticized republicans' failure and said, quote, republicans have killed immigration reform for now, but the farm bureau study shows in the real economy it's still needed, end quote. we can increase g.d.p. by 3.3%. we can raise american wages by $470 billion with immigration reform. can create 121,000 jobs for americans each year by bringing comprehensive immigration reform to the floor. over 70% of the american people support immigration reform. it's time to act. mr. speaker, if we defeat the previous question i'll offer an amendment to the rule to

permanently fix the s.g.r. and would cap spending on overseas contingency funds. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. polis: mr. speaker, unfortunately but i regret to say unsurprisingly the republicans continue to play politics with medicare, politics with water that is the lifeblood of the american west and the economic lifeblood of the counties that i represent in eagle and summit county. and all we have here to vote on today is once again an attempt to undermine the affordable care act, to keep the taxes and remove the benefits and an attempt to grab the water from those who would use it for fishing and recreation in the mountain west. i hope we can do better. if we can reject this $183 billion rule, i think it will send a message to the speaker that we're ready for

immigration reform, we're ready to reach out our hand on s.g.r., on the doc fix, and figure out the best way to pay for it, taking the best ideas that republicans and democrats have to offer, working with mr. kind and others to bend the cost curve so we can deliver a better quality of services to american seniors and contain costs more effectively. i urge my colleagues to vote no and defeat the previous question and vote no on the underlying bills. i yield back the balance of my time. . the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. he gentleman from texas. mr. burgess: i yield myself the balance of the time. i do want to direct member's attention to yesterday's "wall street journal," the article entitled obama care's secret mandate exemption, which goes into some detail about the self-attestation for the so-called hardship exemption, which the administration included as part on an

unrelated rule last week. as a consequence there is an exemption from the individual mandate for the next two two years for anyone who simply wants to go and say, i'm sorry, this is too tough for me to do. mr. speaker, i also want to introintr into the record a letter from the texas medical association, dear representative burgess, on behalf of the 47,000 physician and medical student members of the texas medical association, i'm writing to reiterate our strong support of the work you have done to repeal the sustainable growth rate formula. in conjunction with your colleague, representative brady, you have gotten closer than ever before and you have done so with the support of very member of the texas like to n, i would

submit that for the record. today's rule provides for the consideration of two important bills. one dealing with critical water rights and the other with a serious problem in the sustainable growth rate. i want to thank mr. tipton on h.r. 3189 as well as thank the chairman and ranking member on the house committees on energy and commerce and ways and means and on the senate finance committee for coming together for our nation's doctors and seniors. as i close i would like to note that each committee's work is represented in h.r. 4015. h.r. 4015 base policy has the backing of house and senate negotiators and all three committees of jurisdiction. the original co-sponsors of the bill include the chairman and the ranking members of the full committees of jurisdiction as well as their health subcommittees. the bill has gained support from the g.o.p. doctors caucus as well as many physicians on the other side of the aisle. we have over 100 bipartisan

co-sponsors. the bill's policy has been embraced by organized medicine with well over 700 state and national groups in support of the bill from primary care specialists, surgeons, to organized nursing and everyone between, we have support for this spoil. we will not be able to accomplish this goal without substance -- substantive and immediate bipartisan dialogue speaking reforms to offset costs of policies in h.r. 4015. while the delight -- delife of the mandate has received bipartisan support, i understand the problem this is a arise and the opposition that arises. these reforms must receive the necessary majority support not only of the house and senate but be agreed to by the white house. no one chamber, no one chamber can negotiate on such an important task in a vacuum. this action by the house is merely -- as a means of clearly

demonstrating that the legislative policies contained within h.r. 4015 and s. 2000 not only have the support of the committees of jurisdiction and organized medicine but can gain the necessary support to pass the house. mr. speaker, this is clearly not the end of the conversation. it's another step, another step of many, that have been taken in demonstrating to both sides of the capitol that the committees of jurisdiction have produced significant policies that can serve as the solution to the sustainable growth rate formula that most of vuss sought throughout our congressional careers. mr. speaker, i do want to take a moment and thank some of the staff members who have done so much work, i really wanted to start with dr. john o'share who no longer is -- john o'shea who is no longer on the staff but works at the brookings institute. he's a physician from new york who was hired by the staff for

developing the policy to repeal the sustainable growth rate. in addition, james decker on my staff assists me with rules committee, j.p. has put in extraordinary hours on this project as have on my personal staff, sara johnson and adriana. on the committee staff, clay, robert have additionally put in hours well beyond -- above and beyond what ordinarily would be required of committee staff in order to see this project come to fruition. certainly want to thank chairman upton for making this a priority during his chairmanship of the committee on energy and commerce. all of the staff, staff on ways and means and staff on senate finance, who have worked on this issue and will continue to work on this issue until it is solved. every success we have had at every point in the process was further than we had ever come before and that involved a lot

of working weekends but ultimately if we use this action to spring board to full bicameral engagement on the package that can go to the white house and can get signed by the president, indeed, i think all would think it would be worth it. i look forward to the passage, i look forward to continuing the process with this chamber and the other chamber to embrace the underlying policy and ultimately identify the offset that can get this badly needed policy into law. i urge my colleagues to support both the rule and both underlying bills. for that reason, i yield back the balance of my time and move the previous question on the resolution. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on ordering the previous quone the resolution. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the ayes have it. the gentleman from colorado. mr. polis: on that, i request a recorded vote. the speaker pro tempore: does the gentleman request the yeas and nays. mr. polis: i request the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. those in support of the request for the yeas and nays will

rise. a sufficient number having risen, the yeas and nays are ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a 15-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 227. the nays are 193. the speaker: the previous question is ordered. the house will be in order. members will please take their seats.

the chair will not proceed until embers please take a seat. the chair will not proceed until all members have taken a seat. the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives. sir, i have the honor to transmit here with a facsimile copy of a letter received from mr. gary j. holland, assistant

director of elections, office of the secretary of the state of florida, indicating that according to the preliminary returns of the special election held march 11, 2014, the honorable david w. jolly was elected representative to congress for the 13th congressional district, state of florida. signed, sincerely, karen l. haas, clerk. the speaker: for what purpose does the gentlelady from florida rise. ms. ros-lehtinen: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from florida, the honorable david jolly, be permitted to take the oath of office today. his certificate of election has not arrived, but there is no contest and no question has been raised with regard to his he election. the speaker: without objection. will representative jolly and the entire florida delegation come to the well of the house and face me. all members will rise.

and will representative-elect jolly please raise his right hand. do you solemnly swear you will support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that you will bear true faith and allegiance to the same. that you take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which you are about to enter, so help me god. mr. jolly: i do. he speaker: congratulations.

without objection, the gentlelady from florida, ms. ros-lehtinen, is recognized for one minute. ms. ros-lehtinen: thank you, mr. speaker. as dean of the florida delegation, it is my pleasure to welcome the newest member of this proud body, congressman david jolly. today is a significant progression for david from staffer to elected representative. a progression beginning from his many years working for his community as a staffer for our esteemed late colleague, congressman bill young. i'm confident that david has returned to these halls to ensure that bill's legacy is carried on. one of extraordinary constituent service as well as his unwavering respect and civility for all of us in this chamber. i also know that david will, in his own words, bring his own deep desire and drive to get things done for this country. david is a fifth generation

floridian and is joined in the gallery today by his rightfully proud parents and family to mark this momentous occasion. i'm certain that he'll work hard to maintain that sentiment with each of them as well as with his constituents in he is a welcome edition to our florida delegation, a fresh and strong voice for our sunshine state and great nation. and before i yield to my distinguished colleague, corrine brown, let me also say that just like you, david, i, too, won a special election to fill the seat of a legend of this institution. so believe me when i say that having big shoes to fill should

be seen as both an exceptional honor as well as an exceptional opportunity. congratulations and welcome from all of us. the speaker: the gentlelady from florida may resume. ms. brown: thank you, mr. speaker. i want to welcome our newest member to congress and to the florida delegation. as i'm sure he already knows, congressman jolly has big shoes to fill. bill young was a true statesman who put the needs of his district and our home state playoff politics, and florida is a better place to live because of it. i have always said to whom god is given much, much is expected. when you're born you're going to get a birth certificate, when you die you get a death certificate. and that little dash in between is what you have conto -- done to make this weighter place. i look forward to working with the congressman to make florida

the best it can be and the united states. i also want to say that the st. petersburg mayor is here, would you stand. thank you. welcome. welcome to this united states house of representatives. the speaker: the gentleman from florida may resume the time. mr. jolly: mr. speaker, thank you to my new colleagues. thank you, ms. ros-lehtinen, thank you very much. and to the people of florida's 13th congressional district, i want to say thank you today for giving me a remarkable life opportunity. the opportunity to serve. for my new colleagues, i simply want you to know two things about this new member. first, i believe in this institution. the people's house. i believe in all that is good and right about this institution, the opportunity that this institution has to make our nation better. to direct our nation down the

right path. to solve problems for all of us and secure for every american for all of us the sacred blessings of liberty. the second thing i'd like you to know about this new congressman is i believe in civility. i have the wonderful opportunity to work for a man with whom you each served and left an indelible legacy in this house, one of civility. we are all elected to fight for our communities, to fight our our constituents. we are elected to fight our our convictions forks the causes we believe in, but it is a fight for the future of our country. it is not a fight against each other. and i know that. we have had a nationally watched race. that race is now over. and now it is time for my -- for me as a member of congress of this body to join with each of you to follow in the footsteps that you have made in serving

your community as i begin to serve mine. you have my commitment today to work with each and every one of you. i look forward to it. mr. speaker, i thank you for this moment. i look forward to working with each and every one of you and i want to say thank you one more time to my friends and my neighbors and those in my community in florida's 13th congressional district that have given me this honor today. thank you very much. god bless each and every one of you. mr. speaker, i suppose i yield back my time. the speaker: the gentleman ields back his time. under clause 5-d of rule 20, the chair announces to the house that in light of the administration of the oath of the gentleman from florida, the whole number of the house is now 432.

without objection, five-minute voting will continue. the question is on adoption of the house resolution 515. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. the gentleman from florida. mr. hastings: i ask for a recorded vote. the speaker: a recorded vote is requested. those favoring a recorded vote will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, a recorded vote is ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. this will be a five-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

mr. hastings: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill h.r. 3189. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. pursuant to house resolution 518 and rule 18, the chair declares the house in the committee of the whole house on the state of the union for the consideration of h.r. 3189. the chair now appoints the gentlelady from north carolina, ms. foxx, to preside over the ommittee of the whole. the chair: the house is in the committee of the whole house on the state of the union for the consideration of h.r. 3189 which the clerk will report by title. the clerk: a bill to dd to

prohibit the conditioning of any permit, lease or other use agreement on the transfer, relinquishment or other impairment of any water right to the united states by the secretaries of the interior and .griculture >> the committee is not in order. the chair: the committee will be in order. i ask members and staff to please take their conversations off the floor. pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as read the first time. the gentleman from washington, mr. hastings, and the gentlewoman from california, mrs. napolitano, each will control 30 minutes. i ask the staff and the members

to please take their conversations off the floor. the chair recognizes the gentleman from washington. mr. hastings: madam chairman, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. hastings: madam chairman, president obama has made no secret of the fact that he's willing to act unilaterally to impose new laws and regulations on the american people, declaring that he has a, quote, pen and a phone, unquote. over the past five years there have been numerous examples of what has become an empeerial presidency. the reach of the federal government has -- empurial presidency. the reach of the federal government has had new red tape and regulations. an egregious example of this is the federal government's overreach's -- concerted effort to take water away from individuals and businesses. water is the lifeblood of communities and essential for a strong economy.

cities, ranchers, farmers, businesses, along with the jobs they support, all depend on a stable supply of water to survive. for over a century, there have been established laws upholding a state's right to manage its water and its water laws. but now this administration is threatening to undermine those laws and seek to take away private property rights or private water rights governed under state laws. and madam chairman, that's why we're here today to consider h.r. 3189, the water rights protection act. this bipartisan bill would protect private property rights from federal overreach that threatens to take water supplies away from water users, such as ski areas, ranchers, cities, towns and local conservation efforts. this bill is responding to a very real threat as the obama

administration has sought to extort water from individuals and businesses through the permitting process. now, how is this done, madam chairman? federal agencies are threatening to withhold permits needed to operate on federal lands unless private water rights are turned over to the federal government. put more simply, the federal government is holding necessary permits hostage unless water rights are relink wished and they are demand -- we link wished and they are demanding that they be signed over without permit, which of course is a violation of the constitution's guarantee of just compensation. unfortunately, these businesses need -- that are affected need both the permit and the water in order to operate. so what the federal government is doing is forcing them into an impossible situation where either choice puts them in danger of losing their livelihood or their businesses. during today's debate, we'll hear specific examples of

businesses and families, including ski resorts and ranchers, that has experienced this heavy-handed tactic of the federal government. it is important to be clear about the risk posed by the federal government's action. this is not simply a threat to ski resorts and ski areas located on federal land as i'm sure some will argue on the floor here today. the known problem is much greater and we've heard testimony in our committee to that fact, and the threat is not limited to one part of the country. . if a federal agency can demand that a ski resort in veil or rancher in utah has to hand over water to get a frl permit, then a federal agency can certainly do the same thing in other states. ohio, florida, west virginia, and certainly other states. water may be more plentiful in those regions of the country

than the arid west, but the federal government's appetite has no geographical limits when it comes to expanding its regulatory control and its disrespect for private property and the livelihood of american citizens. this is a threat being felt first in the west, but the risk is real and it exists for the entire country. madam chairman, regardless of where the federal government seeks to take water and from whom they are trying to take it from, it is simply wrong and it must be stopped. that's why h.r. 3189 is necessary and why the bill is endorsed by numerous national and regional groups, including the u.s. chamber of commerce, the national ski areas association, the american farm bureau association, the national cattleman's association, the national water resources association, and others. now, in the course of the debate there will be claims and assertions made today that this

bill is overly broad and will have a whole range of unintended consequences. madam chairman, i certainly don't blame those who support federal takings of private water rights from wanting to change the subject, but this bill is very focused, and it has overwhelm one consequence and that consequence is-and it has only one consequence and that consequence is intended, it stops taking water from american citizens without paying for it. it does nothing else. in fact, this bill carefully states that this prohibition will not affect irrigation water contracts, ferc licensing, endangered species recovery, national parks, or any other legal authorities. important environmental restoration, wildlife protection, and conservation work has been occurring for years in a positive, cooperative manner. and that's whether it's in the

puget sound in my state, the chesapeake bay nearby here, or the florida everglades, all will continue and all are protected. such efforts will not be changed by this legislation. madam chairman, i want to thank and recognize the sponsor of this legislation, our colleague from colorado, mr. tipton, for all his hard work in advancing this important commonsense bipartisan legislation. it's time for the legislative branch to insert itself on he pea half of the american people and rein in the imperial overreach of the executive branch and this administration. no law gives federal agencies the authority to take private property rights as the administration is seeking to do. in fact, the constitution prohibits such takings. it's time to put annd to such tactics. i urge my colleagues to support this legislation and send a strong signal to this administration to leave private property rights alone. i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman from

washington reserves. the gentlewoman from california is recognized. >> thank you. mrs. napolitano: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the chair: without objection. mrs. napolitano: thank you, madam chairman. the legislation we have before us today is flawed on many levels. it is flawed on the process. it is flawed on the policy. and it is flawed in claiming it protects state water rights. 3189 does not solve the problem, it creates more problems because so broadly written and has no chance of being enacted into law. the majority intertuesdayed the water rights protection act as a way to protect private property rights. it is not about protecting private property rights. it is not protecting states water rights. it goes into the opposition direction in creating a new, i must stress a new federal definition of a water right, which we have not had a hearing on to that particular point. water rights have, for more than

four centuries of american law, been defined as a water of state law. -- matter of state law. if the majority is really concerned about federal outreach creating a sweeping new federal definition of water right without even a single hearing on the federal definition of a water right is not the best choice. yet 3189 only had a hearing and was held during government shutdown, during the sequestration. as a result, agencies affected and/or impacted were not able to provide expert analysis, they were not able to be at the hearing to talk to the bush administration's impact -- to the bill's impact. the record was worsened by the committee markup where a clumsily drafted savings clause was added. this only added to the confusion to the purpose of the bill, which i am understanding now it makes it a broader bill addressing some of the issues that as stated by my colleague, madam chair, that it is

overreached by obama administration and in negating the right, the water rights. it does negate the purpose of the legislation. today the manager's amendment has with four additional savings clause continued to show the magnitude of the unintended consequences, and they are very negative, 3189 would have on various activities that require a federal permit. there is some agreement on this bill, we both agree on the starting point of the legislation involving the conflict which was the focus of the hearing. between the four certificate -- forest service and ski resorts. unfortunately the forest service issued a declaration release that mandated certain things that are objectionable to my colleagues, and they are now having set out a new policy directive that is under consideration by o.m.b. we have not waited for the results of o.m.b.

we can't tell until after the comment period is given to the general public, and then it can be published. there are currently 121 ski he resorts located in 13 states, operating on federal forest service land. i repeat, federal forrest land. that's public land that belongs to the general public. it doesn't belong to the ski resorts, it belongs to the people. through long-term special use permits, these resort companies operating on public, which i say, taxpayer land, belonging to the american people for private profit. in many cases these companies purchase water rights in order to operate their resort. the forest service is struggling currently with what happens if a permitting sale of water right, how could the agency find a new operator if there is no water to go with that land and it is not available? there is no water for the land.

the forest service issued a directive in 2011 requiring that as a condition of the special use permit, the applicant must place their water rights in the name of the united states. who is the united states if it isn't the american taxpayer? to be clear it was not, i repeat, this was not because president obama is mad with power and wants to own water rights. as some have alluded to. rather, it was so the forest service could include those water rights as part of the package when seeking a new operator and issuing a new contract for an existing ski area on public, again taxpayer land. the court i val kated that directive on procedural grounds and the forest service is currently working on a new directive, and one they have stated in a letter to this committee, one they have said will not involve permit applicants transferring the water rights to the federal government. it would be appropriate to consider legislation that clarifies, really pinpoints and

clarifies that ski area permits may not be conditioned on the transfer of water rights to the government. new legislation for a real solution to this problem would not overwhelm be welcomed, it would be a necessity. this is why we support the polis amendment which addresses the narrow conflict, i repeat just the ski resort and forest service is a real conflict. this bill would prevent the entire department of agriculture, and entire department of interior from conditioning any use of public property on the impairment of any water right. this bill goes well beyond ski resorts and well beyond the forest service to fundamentally alter public slash taxpayer land management, including management of all units of the national park system. if this bill were to become law, get this, gracing permits could no lopinger require that some water be left in the stream to

water the cattle. any and all uses of publiclands which would touch on water would be affected. without the ability to condition permits or authorizations on reasonable protections for water dependent resources such as habitat, timber, recreation, agencies will not be able to comply with the conservation and multiple use mandates required currently by law. the bill is so broad and so irresponsible that if it were to be enacted it would mean the very end of the public land's activities it is supposed to protect because those activities could no longer be managed responsibly. congress should get out of the way, respect state's rights, and allow the forest service to issue their new directive which is not taking up anyone's property. rather is placing responsible conditions on a permit allowing private companies to profit from their use of public/taxpayer land. finally, mr. chairman, and

members it is unfortunate that we are dedicating this time and energy to this aspect of water management when our constituency and our communities are facing so many more important water challenges. most of the u.s., especially the western u.s., is suffering from drought impact. 53% is facing water to exceptional drought. the entire, my state of california, is in doubt. and we are certainly have more fish to fry than talking about a bill that is limited to ski resorts and the forest service. i do urge my colleagues to worry less about these resorts and more about the drought that is ravaging out west. the wildfires threatening our life and property. climate change which if he we continue to fail to act or accept makes skiing a thing of the past. some would say this goes far beyond ski resort issue and affects nationwide entities. i say let's deal with the ski issue, the forest service separately, and support the polis amendment.

may i add for the record, madam chair, that i have a letter dated february 11 from the national ski area resorts and the very first sentence they are including, i'm writing on behalf of this industry to express the reason why ski areas strongly support the passage of bipartisan protection act, 3189, and to advocate changes to the bill to narrow scope. the chair: that request is covered by general leave. mrs. napolitano: thank you, madam chair. i would like to make sure that goes into the record. i oppose the legislation, urge my colleagues they vote against this bill and support our polis amendment bill. i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentlewoman from california reserves. the gentleman from washington is recognized. mr. hastings: thank you, madam chairman. i'm very pleased to yield three minutes to the sponsor of this legislation, the gentleman from colorado, mr. tipton. the chair: the gentleman from colorado is recognized for three minutes. mr. tipton: i thank the chairman for yielding. madam chair, after listening to

our democratic colleague's statement, probably the best thing we can do to be able to align their fears is for them to read the bill. it actually protects private property rights. let me fill in the balance of the story from the letter that you just cited. ski areas are saying that they strongly support passage of the bipartisan water rights act, h.r. 313 f 89. i would like to submit for the record over 40 different organizations, farmers, ranchers, ski areas, municipalities, that are supporting this legislation to be able to protect private property rights in the united states. the chair: the gentleman's request is covered under general leave. mr. tipton: madam chair, the fear in washington is palpable. yesterday we heard from the white house the threat of a veto , a veto against a piece of legislation which is just codifying what is protected in the constitution. private property rights in this country.

there is going to be a headline in tomorrow's paper with the affirmative passage of this legislation, it will read, the house of representatives stood with the american people, stood with private property rights to stop a job-killing federal water rap. that's what this legislation is about. a very clear choice today. you can choose to stand with farmers, with ranchers, municipalities with our ski areas, to be able to protect the constitution regarding the fifth amendment for just compensation. or you can embrace the heavy hand of government, the heavy hand of government in support of job-killing federal watter. that is the clear choice that we face today. this bill is narrow in scope. in fact, the manager's amendment that i'll be putting forward is actually going to make sure that many of the concerns that we have just heard expressed are

reasserted in that legislation. to be able to protect the endangered species act, to make sure authorities are not currently under law are exceeded. and to make sure that our tribes are actually protected from the heavy hand of government being used as a tool for another federal water grab. this is a commonsense piece of legislation. legislation that's designed to stand the very principle of this country of private property rights. protect the water of the west, protect that private property right. a simple two-piece, two-page legislation. madam chair, this is legislation which serves the interest of this country, serves the interest of the west, and i ask for its adoption. with that i yield back. the chair: the gentleman from colorado yields back. the gentleman from washington reserves. the gentlewoman from california is recognized. mrs. napolitano: thank you,

madam chair. for the record i'd like to also introduce the opposition to this bill from 90 conservation, recreation, sportsmen groups, including grand county board of commissioners, summit county board of commissioners, besides the other agencies. the chair: the gentlewoman's requests is covered under general leave. mrs. napolitano: i yield as much time as i may consume to mr. peter defazio. the chair: the gentleman from oregon is recognized for as much time as he may consume. mr. defazio: well, here we are again. we had a real problem. the forest service did overreach and trigger this issue. later on we will have an amendment offered by mr. polis from colorado whose ski area originally brought this issue to him who now oppose this bill to narrow the scope of this

bill down to assuring that the forest service doesn't repropose the rule with which they have withdrawn which would have caused the problem. ok. the rule was offered. there was litigation. a new rule was begun. the forest service went through -- was for the rule. we will have legislation that affects all water rights in the western united states because of a problem that doesn't currently exist. now, this is fairly extraordinary. we held a hearing on this when the government was shut down, so not very many people knew about it, got to participate in the hearing. i was there. i read the bill. it's a bad habit i have. and i pointed out that the bill was so broadly written that it would impact any and all federal actions that had to do with water in the united states of america. now, that goes way beyond ski areas and water rights. it goes way beyond farmers or individual property rights.

it's untold consequence. as a consequence, the republicans at the time denied it. now this bill has six savings clawses. what does that mean? -- savings clauses. what does that mean? they are carving out six exemptions to say, no, we didn't mean to say it would take away tribes' water rights. we didn't mean to say it wouldn't have control over bureau of reclamation projects and flood control. we didn't mean. we didn't mean. there were six savings clauses in this bill because it's so poorly and broadly drafted and as so many unfathomable, unintended effects, but then there are number six savings clause which says this bill does nothing. how could that be? well, we're here about headlines. we're here about a headline that will be meaningless by me gullable reporter out there who believes this side of the aisle. here is the savings clause with

unintended consequences, nothing this act limits or expands -- limits or expands any existing authority of the secretaries -- that interior and agriculture -- to condition -- this covers all the projects. to condition any permit, approval, license, lease, allotment, easement, right of way or other land use or occupies agreement on federal lands subjected to this jurisdiction. they threatened concessionears, in parks, issues relating to the columbia river in washington and oregon and a whole host of projects that relate to use of water in the west. pretty sensitive issue, use of water in the west. and then they carve out five particular sections which are really hot button issues and then they have this usher exception that says this bill

doesn't do anything. what does this bill do? this is the $1,000 question here today. it may do something unbelievably destructive to private property rights, and that side of the aisle we hear about this all the time. couple weeks ago they passed another show bill pretending to deal with the drought in california by preempting 100 years of water law in the state of california. preempting. federal government preempting it. now they're going to fight for water rights in the west, or at least that's the headline they hope to get out of this. but that's not what they're doing because this bill for the first time has a federal definition in statute of water rights which would seem to preempt or contradict the states. but it's sort of got a savings clause so it says, well, we're creating a new federal water right but it really doesn't mean anything because we're not affecting the states. oh, by the way, we have a clause at the end that says we're not doing anything at all anyway. so why are we here? we're here because there was a narrow issue which we could have on a bipartisan way agreed

to deal with. it could have been what's called a suspension bill. probably wouldn't even have a vote on it the floor of the house. a bill we pass on mondays or tuesdays, travel days. noncontroversial. could have been done that way. no, it wouldn't have got a headline. it could have solved a problem that might exist in the future. it would have solved that problem if it ever existed again if the forest service proposed the rule i go gwen which they won't do. we could have preempted them that way. no, we couldn't just do that because how could you come here and say you're fighting for the cattlemen and you're fighting for the agriculture and you're fighting for the little guy and private property rights and all those wonderful buzz words around here when you're not really doing that but get an undeserved headline out of it if you find a gullable reporter. that's why we're here today. it's kind of waste of time to

tell the truth, but if you want to fix the bill and potentially fix a future problem if they do go after the ski area, water rights again, vote for the polis amendment. go to the narrow scope of the bill. if that's adopted, that would be great and we could vote for it. if that's not adopted, i would recommend that members think long and hard about it because you may be causing unintended effects with this bill by defining a federal water right that preempts and up ends hundreds of years of precedence in the western united states and causes untold damage. it will certainly make a lot of lawyers happy, but it's not probably going to make your farmers, your ranchers and those you think you're pleasing here today. i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman from oregon yields back. the gentlewoman from california reserves. the gentleman from washington is recognized. mr. hastings: thank you, madam chairman. i'm very pleased to yield two

minutes to a member of the natural resources committee, the gentlelady from wyoming, mrs. lummis. the chair: the gentlelady from wyoming is recognized for two minutes. mrs. lummis: thank you, madam chair. this bill works well in our states pass he water law and administers water law. water is crucial in the west. the key permit is supposed to work. the forest service issues a permit for the use of the land, the land. but the water is administered in accordance with state water law. the water does not belong to the federal government. the headline here should be, keep your mitts off our water. if the federal government wants water rights, it has to pay for them or get in line, just like other citizens and businesses, but now instead of waiting its

turn or paying fair value, the forest service is demanding water rights as a condition of ski area permits. the forest service is demanding the full value of water rights that had no role in developing. the forest service isn't just going after ski areas. it's targeting ranchers with grazing permits as well. the federal government claims it needs the water rights because the federal government knows best how to manage water for ski recreation and grazing. the reality is the federal government doesn't know best at all, and that's why states are in control of water law. sound water management and conservation is necessary in the arid and semi arid west and many of it is done at the state and local level by individuals. this law will be harmed if we

let federal agencies trample on water law, substituting judgment of those that live near water and depend on it for their well-being. madam speaker, i have spent housands of hours of my life irgaiting wyoming's beautiful meadows. the chair: the gentlewoman is recognized for one additional minute. mrs. lummis: madam speaker, when you're still and you're out in a meadow, you can hear the water bubble into the ground, and i swear you can hear the grass grow. it is the most amazing, fulfilling thing and some of the happiest hours i have spent in my entire life. this is personal with me. madam speaker, i urge my colleagues to support the tipton bill.

i yield back gratefully to the gentleman from washington. the chair: the gentleman from washington reserves. the gentlewoman from california is recognized. mrs. napolitano: thank you, madam chair. may i inquire how much time there is? the chair: the gentlewoman from california has 15 1/2 minutes, and the gentleman from washington has 18 minutes remaining. mrs. napolitano: thank you, madam chair. i'd also like to include in the record a list of amendments that were proposed in rule and were not made in order, delaware water gap from the effects of the bill, the she is peek bay watershed, the delaware watershed, the long island sound watershed, the puget sound watershed and the national olympic watershed, they want to be excluded from the provisions of the bill in the record. the chair: the gentlewoman's request is covered under

general leave. mrs. napolitano: i yield such to the he may consume gentleman from colorado. the chair: the gentlewoman from california is recognized. -- the gentleman from colorado is recognized. >> it would impede ongoing collaborative efforts across this country. once again, i'm afraid that the majority has ignored an opportunity for a bipartisan solution oriented engagement on an issue and instead chosen the same old attack and accuse and overreach politics. this legislation stems from the very legitimate concern that was raised by the ski industry regarding how the forest service was proposing how to handle water rights. mr. huffman: i think the house could have found a constructive

bipartisan solution. we could have had this resolved by now. but instead, the republican leadership held a hearing on this issue during the government shutdown, meaning that we did not have the opportunity to question the forest service. instead of the benefit of a dialogue and conversation, we had an empty chair. of course the attacks on that empty chair ensued as part of the political theater. had the g.o.p. bothered to actually talk to the forest service, they would have found a receptive partner and a solution to this problem. they would have found in fact that a solution was already in the works. had the republican majority actually worked with the forest service, they could have influenced a proposal that is being revised right now by the forest service but instead we're dealing with a bill here today that goes far beyond the scope of the issue at hand and could affect voluntary agreements and contracts across this country. in fact, this bill before us today could stop the federal government from taking the very

actions that could help ensure recreational opportunities for americans like skiing, rafting, kayaking and fishing. preventing water right holders from entering into agreements with federal agencies could put our recreational economy at risk and could impede our ability to implement important water agreements throughout the west. and we still have an opportunity to get back on a constructive track here. we have a chance to pass an amendment, the polis amendment, that narrows the bill's scope to its original intent and would address the concerns of the ski areas. i urge my colleagues to support the polis amendment, to address the ski area water rights issues, and i encourage my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to work with us, to try to salvage this bill and focus on the real concern at hand. i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the chair incorrectly identified the gentleman as the gentleman from colorado. he's the gentleman from california and he yields back his time. the gentleman from washington is recognized. mr. hastings: thank you, madam

chairman. i'm very pleased to yield two minutes to a member of the natural resources committee, the gentleman from california, mr. mcclintock. the chair: the gentleman from california is recognized for two minutes. mr. mcclintock: i thank the gentleman for yielding. madam chairman, people need to understand exactly what's going on here. the u.s. forest service and other federal agencies have begun demanding that privately owned businesses surrender their long-held water rights simply as a condition of receiving routine renewals in their special use permits so they can continue to operate on ublic land. this is a radical departure from over a hundred years on his issue. it is an affront to state law under which the federal government -- acquire water rights through the proper channels as would any other user. there are 121 ski areas on

federal public lands that are affected by this practice, 14 of them in my district. these businesses rely on their water rights for snow make, they use this water as collateral for financing to build and maintain their facilities an for supplying water to the local communities they support but in 2011, the forest service issued a directive that would effectively take these private property rights without compensation in violation of state law while jeopardizing these enterprises all together and all the direct employment spinoff economic activity and tax revenues they provide. but this involves far more than ski resorts. our subcommittee on water and power has also receive red ports of similar tact ins directed against farm and ranch operation this is a rely on state recognized water rights for irrigation and stock watering. mr. tipton's bill simply directs federal agencies to stop perverting what should be a routine permitting process into an excuse to extract long

held water rights from private owners. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentlewoman from california is recognized. mrs. lowey: thank you, madam chair. i yield such time as she may consume to ms. tsongas. the chair: the gentlewoman is recognized for such time as she may consume. ms. tsongas: i rise in opposition to h.r. 3189 because it could have severe unintended consequences for the third district of massachusetts which i represent. a hearing on the bill was held in a most untimely manner, during the government shutdown, thus preventing the forest service, fish and wildlife service, national park various or any other administration official from answering questions on this legislation. given the harsh statements about these very important agencies coming if the other side of the aisle, it seems only fair to have given them a chance to address these charges.

according to views of the legislation submitted by the department of interior after the fact this bill, quote, could significantly impact the department's ability to manage water related resources within public lands, unquote. they also go on to say, quote, the legislation is overly broad and could have numerous unintended consequence this is a would affect existing law and voluntary agreements. my constituents echo this statement frfment a local organization that works tirelessly to protect our rivers and water sheds in massachusetts, they say, quote, the bill is so very broad, it is fairly impossible to assess its true impact. on these grounds it should not be passed, unquote. i will be supporting the polis amendment to narrow the scope of this legislation to its original purpose and to address the legitimate concerns of the ski industry. if this amendment is not adopted, i urge my colleagues to heed the advice of my constituents to and reject this bill. thank you and i yield back.

the chair: the gentlewoman from massachusetts yields back. the gentlewoman from california reserves. the gentleman from washington is recognized. mr. hastings: thank you, madam chair. i'm pleased to yield two minutes to another member of the house natural resources committee, the gentleman from utah, mr. bishop. the chair: the gentleman is recognize for two minutes. mr. bishop: thank you, madam chair. when the ranking member was speak, he quoted from the bill and said, you know, this does not limit the secretary's rights, nor does it expand the secretary's right, so what does it do? what it does is simple. it stops the federal government from hurting people this came to view in the federal government trying to take away water rights from ski resorts and not just in colorado, it was all ski resorts. as i have said repeat think, the ski resorts in utah are far more significant and far better than the ski resorts in colorado it affects all of us. but it's not just limited to

ski resorts. we found out the same tactics have been used by d.l.m. and other entities to affect farmers and ranchers, same concept, same area. what the tipton bill tries to do is solve the problem for everybody, not just a few people. even people in the east who have water rights will be protected by this bill, whether they recognize that or not. i want to introduce you to a guy named tom lawry he came to our committee to testify about what they were doing. as soon as he got his ranch, the federal government, the b.l.m. in this case, started to attack his private water rights. it took him $800,000 in legal fees to go through the system to try to protect his rights. he eventually got to the idaho supreme court and won, where the supreme court said your right -- you're right, the federal government was wrong, they have to back off, but it cost him $00,000 in legal fees to do it. that's what the tipton bill is trying to solve.

the rights of the ranchers and farmers, the rights of ski resorts to actually conduct business and have their rights protected. and that's why any effort to try to limit this down, to say, let's just deal with the ski resorts because we care about them and forget the tom lawries of this world is a ridiculous approach. the issue is, how can we protect the rights of our people? the forest service hasn't involved their problem yet, they've withdrawn their rule bus haven't chained the rules, they are still yet to propose new ones. it is the right response for congress to step in and say -- can i get 20 seconds? mr. hastings: i yield the gentleman 30 seconds. mr. bishop: i won't even use 30 seconds, i'll just say, it is the responsibility of congress to tell the bureaucracy what they can and cannot do we establish laws, not their rules and regulations, and we should tell them they have to respect the rights of individuals and treat them as real people and not take away their personal

property right and that's what this tipton bill does. i yield back. the chair: the gentleman from washington reserves. the gentlewoman from california is recognized. mrs. lowey: madam chair, may i ask how many speakers my colleagues on the other side have. mr. hastings: i have at least four others besides myself that want to address this very important issue. mrs. lowey: madam speaker, i will reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentlewoman reserves. the gentleman from washington is recognized. mr. hastings: madam chairman, i'm pleased to yield two minutes to the gentleman from missouri, another member of the natural resources committee, mr. smith. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. smith: madam chairwoman, i'm proud to stand here with my colleagues today in support of h.r. 31 9, the water right pross text act. with the drought going on in california and the federal government strong arming private property owners into

giving up their water rights, i'm afraid that some of my colleagues may think that the federal confiscation and mismanagement of water resources only affects the west. but let me tell you, this issue of the federal government intruding on private property and water rights is not just limited to the west. in my district, in southeast missouri, time and time again, ill thought federal policy has threatened and will continue, unfortunately, to threaten private landowners. in my now nine months and eight days in congress, we have already had to fight back federal attempts to restrict citizens in my district from using water. the department of the interior tried to create restrictive buffer zones as a part of the national blueway system that would have taken away private property rights. fortunately, we got this

program stopped. while the legal framework for water rights is different in the west, this administration's disregard for private landowners applies everywhere. i urge my colleagues to support this bill to protect water rights not only because it will protect holders of water rights in western states but also because it sends a strong, direct message that congress is tired of these schemes to administratively take away private property rights. i yield back the rest of my time. the chair: the gentleman from missouri yields back. the gentleman from washington reserves. the gentlewoman from california is recognized. mrs. lowey: thank you, madam chair. there's no taking of anybody's water rights in this case, and the majority knows it. claiming this is a taking is misleading and irresponsible. the only way state or private water rights could, i repeat, could be transferred or diminished in any way is if -- if -- the owner of those rights

volunteers to a transfer or limitation to a portion of those rights as part of a deal to receive the per noigs use federal lands. volunteering to limit your water rights is in exchange for the use of federal lands, taxpayer lands, is opposite of taking. various court cases the majority has thrown around deal with legitimate water rights issues, cases where there are overlapping or conflicting claims of the same water. this is not that type of case. i defy my colleagues to produce any case law holding that decision to give up a water right voluntarily in order to get another benefit is a taking, there are no such taking. i reserve. the chair: the gentlelady reserve the gentleman from washington is recognized. mr. hastings: i'm pleased to yield two minutes to the gentleman from colorado who i think was a member of the committee, but is not anymore, mr. gardner, two minutes. the chair: the gentleman from colorado is recognized for two

minutes. mr. gardner: thank you, madam chairman. i thank the gentleman for his work on this issue and to my colleague, mr. tipton, for his hard work to protect colorado water rights. if you go to the capitol of colorado, you go into the rotunda of that great and beautiful building, there on the wall new york a mural are the words of a poem by thomas hornsby pharrell and that poem says here is a land where life is written in water. the foundational laws of our great state deal with the waters of colorado. the four corners of our state, whose agriculture, commerce, industry, and municipalities deponed that water and yes, our ski industries our farmers, our ranchers. thank goodness for legislation like this that will protect our water rights. thank goodness for legislation like this that will make sure that the state water law remains supreme. how dare this body think that

the federal government has a right to control our water or to condition permits based on the black mail of a per milt issuance. from a ski -- of a permit issuance from a ski resort, from a farmer, from a city. these rights have gone through colorado water law for decades. over a century. hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in colorado to adjudicate these rights. to think that the federal government can come in and take them because they won't issue a permit unless you give it to them that is a taking of water. the federal government has no right to do that. it is our state law in water that remains supreme. it is our state law that must remain supreme when it comes to the waters of our land. here is a land where life is written in water. those words will remain in our great state, our laws will remain, and thank goodness for legislation like this to make

sure that our state can control its water. not washington, d.c. madam chair, i yield back. the chair: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from washington reserves. the gentlewoman from california is recognized. mrs. lowey: thank you, madam chair. today's bill actually creates all kinds of certainty which allows a ski owner to sell their water rights. if you are a local business owner in that area who depends on the ski resort business, let's say you own a restaurant or an equipment store or have a hotel, 3189 means you have no idea from one year to the next whether the resort which brings people to town will still be operating if it has water. if the water rights are not tied to the resource in any way which is what 3189 wants to ensure, there's no guarantee that the owners won't sell the water, leaving the forest service with a ski resort that cannot operate without that water because the water rights have been previously sold.

if the forest service is trying to create that -- it is the forest service trying to create some minimal certainty that the resort could have -- would have minimal water rights to keep running even if the owners were to leave. i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentlewoman reserves, the gentleman from washington is recognized. mr. hastings: thank you, madam chair, i'm pleased to yield two minutes to the gentleman from louisiana, mr. scalise. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. scalise: thank you, madam chair, i want to thank the chairman for yielding and i thank mr. tipton for leading on this issue. i rise in support of this legislation that puts a check and balance on federal agencies that are out there shaking down landowners over property rights. when you look at what the federal government is doing and you wonder why people are losing faith in government, why people don't trust government, when a federal agent shows up and says, the only way you can get a permit is if you give up

your property rights to your water. literally extortion, coming from federal bureaucrats. this is not the way our government is supposed to operate, madam chair. this is what this legislation is here to remedy. when you look at what's going on, it's not just the secretary of interior or se secretary of agriculture, we've seen it from other federal agencies. look at the e.p.a. with their sue and settle process ha, they go behind the cloak of darkness and cut secret deals and force people to do things that aren't even in statute just as a condition of getting basic permits. this is not how government is supposed to operate. so while we've seen some of the egregious abuses limited in the western parts of our country, this is not just a western issue, madam chair. all americans ought to be --ed when the federal government is literally shaking down and extorting americans and forcing them to give away their private property rights just as a condition of getting a permit. it's not right. it's not the right way to treat

people. it's not the right way for this federal government to operate. this bill finally remedies that problem and stops those abuses and i urge strong support of the legislation and i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman yields back the gentleman from washington reserves. the gentlewoman from california is recognized. apolitano -- mrs. napolitano: thank you, madam speaker. it strikes me interesting that i heard farmers and ranchers mention a couple times although this apparently affects grazing lands which i believe farmers and ranchers do use. and unfortunately i'm sure they have not looked at it well enough to understand what really could happen. the status quo is that. federal land managers have to try to balance multiple competing uses of our public/taxpayer lands. recreation, timber, grazing, conservation, energy

production, and the list goes on. under the status quo, one of the tools land managers use is the ability to condition certain uses of public lands, taxpayer lands, on the agreement that transfer or limit water rights. if you want the ability to graze or cut timber or build a dam on public lands, you have to agree to lease some water in the river for other uses like recreation, habitat protection, etc. if that authority is taken away, as the bill would do, then certain kinds of users of our public lands get to take all the water they want, leaving everybody else literally hanging high and very dry. the status quo is balanced. 3189 tips the scale all the way in favor of a certain class of users and turns the status quo into chaos. i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentlewoman from california reserves. the gentleman from washington is recognized. mr. hastings: thank you very much, madam chairman. i'm very pleased to yield two minutes to the gentleman from georgia, a member of the rules committee, mr. woodall.

the chair: the gentleman from georgia is recognized for two minutes. mr. woodall: thank you, madam speaker. i thank the chairman for yielding. it's often characterized as a western issue. it's not a western issue. the water wars that go on in the west are certainly a special type of battle, but this is an american issue. what it does -- two really interesting things going on the house floor today. i hope all of my colleagues and the american people are watching. on the one hand, there's a really neat moment of agreement that is happening here. the federal government issues an order that says in order to continue to exercise your business, you must surrender your private property to the government. well, we can all agree that is outrageous. i thank the gentleman from colorado, mr. tipton, for leading in the effort to repeal it. bipartisan effort on both sides of the aisle. we have an actual -- an actual order, an actual proposal, and we can come together and agree that this is not who we are as a people. very interesting and i'm glad that we're able to do that.

second thing that's happening, madam speaker, is there's a concern that a certain class of citizen is going to get a higher and better use of land. i'd like to point out that that certain class is the owner of a private property right. that is actually the debate that's happening here. if you own something, if something belongs to you, should you be allowed to use it or in the name of creating a better country, in the name of -- in the spirit of maximizing the utility of federal lands, should the federal government be able to take that from you and redistribute it so things are fairer? that's a legitimate discussion to have. i come down on the side of my friend from colorado who says not only is it outrageous that the government try to take private property rights in this circumstance but why not take this step now to recognize that private property means something, not only are we going to protect our ski resorts, but we're going to make sure this never happens to any other american citizen

again? extortion is a strong word. it is a strong word, but i can think of no other word to apply to what was -- the government was trying to do here today. i'm grateful to my friends on both sides of the aisle for moving to stop that. madam speaker, i yield back. the chair: the gentleman from georgia's time has expired. the gentleman from washington reserves. the gentlewoman from california is recognized. mrs. napolitano: thank you, madam chair. may i inquire of the time left and how many speakers my colleague has? the chair: the gentlewoman from california has eight minutes remaining, and the gentleman from the state of washington has 6 1/2 minutes. mrs. napolitano: i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentlewoman reserves. the gentleman from washington's recognized. mr. hastings: madam speaker, i am very pleased to yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from california, a member of the natural resources committee, mr. lamalfa. the chair: the gentleman from california is recognized for 1 1/2 minutes. mr. lamalfa: thank you, madam

chairman, mr. chairman, the committee, my colleague, mr. tipton. i'm glad to be able to speak on 3189. this has great affect on many of the resourceholders in my constituents here in northeast california. yes, we're going through a drought. this is a property right issue that we should be looking at all across this country. it's very dangerous when the u.s. forest service or b.l.m. can come in and arbitrarily decide after long-held water rights -- some of these ranches have been around 150 years or more -- that they can change the game, change the rules. the ranches have been around some of these bureaucrats or brokses, yet, they want -- bureaucracies, yet, they want to come in and change the game and be different. now, when you have this type of right under fire for something that's beneficial -- farming, ranching, grazing is actually beneficial to forest land, towards fire suppression. yet, we have people that think that somehow this is a special right or something that's going

to take additional water away from people. this is already adjudicated water rights, pre-1914 water rights. they are not taking something that doesn't belong to them. it's somehow a misnoemer that we think this will take -- misnomer that we think we are going to take something away. extortion, this is what this is. you get a permit only if you give up something that belongs to you for many, many years. it belongs to them because it's a long-held water right, a long-held property right. i'm glad i was able to help sponsor and support this bill. i yield back. the chair: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentlewoman from california is recognized. mrs. napolitano: thank you, madam chair. and my colleague is right. then, let's hold a hearing on the water rights themselves and bring in the impacted anand affected parties to the table so we can have a hearing that's

open and transparent and fair but we haven't done that. we're talking about 3189 which was essentially set up to deal with the differences between the ski resorts and the forest service. water belongs to the state and the state gives the -- it to the people the right to use it. i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentlewoman from california reserves. the gentleman from washington is recognized. mr. hastings: madam chairman, i'd advise my friend and colleague from california that i'm prepared to close so if -- prepared to close mrs. napolitano: may i ask how much time i have left, ma'am? the chair: the gentlewoman from california has 7 1/2 minutes remaining? mrs. napolitano: i yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from colorado, congressman polis. the chair: the gentleman from colorado is recognized for as much time as he may consume. mr. polis: i want to make it clear that i was an original sponsor of this bill, like my colleague, mr. tipton, i wanted to address the 2011 directive

as it affected ski resorts. however, this bill in markup and through the manager's amendment became worse. we were unable to get the improvements that we needed to narrow the scope, and it became a republican job-killing water-grabbing bill, which was not the original intent. but even the areas that the intent was to help, the ski areas in summit county and eagle county in my district and in mr. tipton's district, the counties came out against this it very bill. it's a republican water-grabbing, job-killing bill, and absent the amendment that i proposed, it's not something that i can support, and i encourage my colleagues on my side of the aisle who value recreational opportunities like fishing and white water rafting to join me in opposing this bill unless the polis amendment is incorporated into the bill. we'll soon begin a debate on

that amendment. this debate would focus the actual bill to fulfill its purpose. and i hope this body will adopt it. i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman from colorado yields back. the gentlewoman from california. mrs. napolitano: and i reserve. the chair: the gentlewoman from california reserves. the gentleman from washington. mr. hastings: madam chairman, i'm prepared to close if she's prepared to close. mrs. napolitano: i am, madam chair. the chair: the gentlewoman from california is recognized. yes, ma'am.ano: the chair: the gentlewoman has six minutes remaining. mrs. napolitano: well, thank you, madam chair. i don't think i'll use six minutes for my close, but i certainly thank you for allowing us to have this dialogue and i think it's very important for the american people to listen and to understand that one bill that was meant to cover a specific issue has been turned into a

gigantic -- i would say -- mess, and we understand the reasoning behind it, to some extent, and we trust that our colleagues understand and are prepared to vote on something that is -- may have unintended consequences in their own back yard. this bill is flawed. it's in the process and policy, and claiming it does protect states' water rights. they want to ensure that states' water rights remain protected. we want a real solution to the targeted problem which the amendment mr. polis has on the floor will address. we're in support of that amendment and hope others will support that amendment because it was made into order. and we unfortunately feel that 3189 does not solve the problem. it creates more problems and law.o choice of becoming

we need to do the right thing for the people because we're talking about protection of the u.s. public, their lands and their water. i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentlewoman from california yields back. the gentleman from washington is recognized. mr. hastings: and madam chairman, how much time do i have remaining? the chair: the gentleman from washington has five minutes remaining. mr. hastings: i yield myself the balance of the time. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. hastings: madam chairman, let me just comment on a few point here that were made by my friends on the other side of the aisle. there was some concern about the time of the hearing and people that were invited. i just want to make this point. when the hearing was held, we have to have advanced notice. we had witnesses coming in from across the country so we're going to have a hearing on the date we said because of the expense of those private citizens that want to protect private water rights can come here and testify. second point is this was a bipartisan bill, as my colleague from colorado, mr.

polis, admitted. he was an original co-sponsor of the bill. so maybe that was the reason why my friends on the other side of the aisle did not call a witness, you know, for or against the original legislation. i just wanted to make that point. the hearing was scheduled, and it had to go through because of the expense of private citizens coming in to testify. i want to make another point, too, that some of my colleagues have made. several of them have said this legislation redefines federal water rights. madam chairman, that is simply not true. if they read the bill, they would say that the definition for the purpose of this act only, meaning that the definition is only for this act. so that doesn't hold up also. and my colleagues, just about everybody on the other side that talked about the federal lands and so forth, i

acknowledge this is about federal activity on federal lands, but nowhere, nowhere did my colleagues suggest or say that the federal government had the right -- had the water rights. why? because that is states' rights. as my colleague from wyoming said, yes, it's federal land but it's state water and you have to mesh those together. and finally, i think probably this is probably more important than anything else and frankly a debate like this has been going on for sometime. we agree, we agree, both sides, that ski resorts have been potentially compromised by the threat of the federal government saying, no permit unless you give up water. both sides agree on that. the question is what is the remedy, and the big difference i think between the two sides is this. their remedy is well well, the

rulemaking isn't over. let's find out what the rulemaking is and then we'll respond to it. our side takes a different approach. our side says, wait a minute, we're the house of representatives, we're part of the congress. we make the law. and that's what this legislation does, makes the law saying the federal government cannot extort through the permitting process state water rights. it's very -- it's as simple as that. and so if we're going to have -- continue to have a debate in this house on divisions between the two parties and what their philosophy is, frankly i welcome in because it appears every time we have a debate similar to this their side says, we're a bureaucracy, write the laws. we're saying, wait a minute. we're the congress. we write the laws. that's what this debate is about here today. i look forward to the amendment process. in the meantime, i urge my colleagues to support this

legislation. it has been characterized as a western legislation. as mr. woodall says, it is indeed not. it affects all water rights which are the province of the states. it's good legislation and i yield back the balance of my ime. the chair: the gentleman yields back. all time for general debate has expired. pursuant to the rule, the amendment in the nature of the substitute printed in the bill shall be considered as an original bill for purposes of amendment under the five minute as and shall be considered read no amendment to the committee amendment shall be in order except those printed in house report 113-179. each such amendment may be offered only in the order printed in the report, may be offered by the member in the report and shall be debate for

10 minutes equally controled and guyed by a proponent and an opponent. tts now in order to consider amendment number one printed in part a of house report 113-379. for what purpose does the gentleman from colorado seek recognition? mr. tipson: i have aban amendment at the desk. the chair: the clerk will designate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number one printed in house report 113-379, offered by mr. tipton of colorado. the chair: pursuant to house resolution 515, the gentleman from colorado, mr. tipton, and a member opposed each will control five minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from colorado. mr. tipton: i offer this amendment to further strengthen and improve this bipartisan bill. as we heard during general debate, the bill has one goal, to eliminate federal extortion of private property. the federal government cannot and should not take and seize what it does not own without compensation.

but that has been happening and the threat continues to exist for a host of individuals and businesses who responsibly use our public lands for multiple purposes. this bill ends this federal property rights grab. however we just heard a litany of charges that the bill impacts other federal actions. nothing could be further from the truth. the bill already has a savings clause ensuring that any existing federal authorities are not impacted. importantly the federal government does not have the authority to take private property rights without just compensation. but to further clarify my amendment reiterates the specific actions in the bill, the existing federal water contract the family farm alliance and other organizations are all members who have contracts with the buero row of reclamation support the bill and that should have been enough yet we heard rhetoric if the other side today, the water contracts are in danger despite the ar dent support of water rights organizations.

this amendment reiterate this is protection. ensuring the engaged species act. the protection of reserved water for national parks and other lands. continuing the hydropower reliancing parapro sess for nonfederal dams. these are simple reiterations of protections already built into the bipartisan bill. yet in a good faith effort to dispel any myths, i offer these provisions to ensure once and for all that the only thing the bill does is protect private rights owners from being extorted by the government through underhanded means. >> will the gentleman yield? mr. tipton: i yield to the chairman. mr. hastings: i thank the gentleman for his work on this amendment and yield back to the gentleman. mr. tipton: i reserve. the chair: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from california seek recognition? mrs. napolitano: i claim time in opposition to the amendment. the chair: the gentlewoman is

recognized for five minutes. mrs. napolitano: the amendment doesn't fix the bill because the bill cannot be fixed. the savings clause in the base bill and the savings claus likely to be added by the manager's amendment are further problems with the bill. if you have a four-page bill and need to insert five different savings causes, a problem, my friends. the need to insert layer upon lay over texting to explain you don't mean for the bill to do this or that proves that the all is a dangerous and massive problem. even with the fire saving clauses you haven't caught all the problems. the only responsible policy is the oned off by mr. polis in his substitute amendment which focuses again strictly on the main issue that brought this to the forefront, the forest service and ski resorts. everything else is just a failed attempt to fix the bill. and i reserve the balance of my time.

the chair: the gentlelady from california reserves, the gentleman from colorado is recognized. mr. tipton: i suppose i can bring some good news. it's not a five-page bill but a three-pame bill we've put forward. but i think we're really frustrated about is that we often hear from our colleague this is a they want to have bipartisanship. they're concerned about endangered species. while it's already protected in the bill, we add a further clause to further protect it. they're concerned about the federal government being able to continue operations under legal authorities. already in the bill, we put in an additional clause to address that we're concerned more than they are about standing up for native american tribes to protect them from using native tribes as a tool to extort water for the federal government. this is a commonsense, sensible piece of legislation. our colleagues want to say that

it is expanded. actually, i have the original bill in my hand. they say it's simply about ski resorts. we have common ground. i, too, want to protect ski resorts but i'm not willing to sacrifice on the alter of -- altar of the federal government our farm and ranch communities in addition to municipalities. looking at the original bill, it doesn't mention ski areas once. yet an author of an amendment today said it's become more broad. show me how. this is a good piece of legislation. the manager's amendment addresses their very concerns. with that, i reserve the plns of my time. the chair: the gentleman from colorado reserves. the gentlewoman from california is recognized. mrs. napolitano: thank you, madam chair. i yield two minutes to my colleague, mr. polis. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. ms. po -- mr. polis: thank you, madam chair. i want to be clear that the --s

are in no ways limited to the endangered species act. the republicans may care about endangered species but not about jobs. the interior, the b.l.m. and others have relevant authority with regard to bypass flows, none of those are mentioned under this particular manager's amendment. with this -- what this manager's amendment shows is this republicans care more about endeaged species than about jobs in our mountain resort areas. they added the term impairment of title. impairment of title actually expands the scope of the bill from the original bill. in addition, the so-called savings clause actually appear to negate the very bill it appears in. this takes a bill that we had offered language to the committee and to representative tipton to make this a bipartisan bill, i think it could have very close to unanimously passed the house, enough to pass the suspension and instead they made a bill that even the very ski areas that they're claiming to help actually all of the countries

tissue counties i have that have ski resorts oppose this job-killing republican water grab bill. i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentlewoman from california reserves. -- entleman from colorado mr. tipton: how much time do we have left? the chair: the gentleman from colorado has 1 1/2 minutes, the gentlewoman from california has 2 1/2 minutes. go ahead.woman -- mr. tipton: for poib of clarity, to ease conference my colleague fromical, national ski association endorse this is bill today that has not changed. also to aleve -- relieve the concerns you just demonstrated new york existing authorities will be impacted under this legislation. no existing authorities will be impacted. no bypass flows will be impacted. effectively what this bill is doing, madam chair is we are

codifying existing practice which i think we all agree saddi sireable thing to have continue. this is about political theater. the job killing part of what is happening right now is being conducted by the federal government. they're killing jobs with a federal government water grab. that's what this bill continues to support. i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentlewoman from california is recognized. mrs. napolitano: thank you, madam chair. i know i've said it before, the ski resort association wans to focus on this bill so i'm suggesting that we do the polis -- defer the polis amendment and hold an open and transparent hearing for those agencies that are impact sod they'll have the ability to have a word and be able to move

this forward. i might add that the savings clause does not include the national parks so all the units, grand canyon and orse, are impacted. i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentlewoman reserves. the gentleman from colorado has 30 seconds remaining. the gentlewoman from california has two minutes remaining. the gentleman from colorado is eligible to close. from california is recognized. mrs. napolitano: i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman from colorado is recognized for 30 seconds. mr. tipton: thank you, madam chair. again, i will refer my colleagues to the text of the

bill. no federal water rights that they currently have are going to be impaired. that includes national parks. we continue to hear about the upcoming polis amendment. the original bill that mr. polis and i introduced never specifically mentioned just ski areas. it talks about any permit. so if you care about farmers if you care about ranchers if you care about municipalities and if you care about ski areas, which we all share, let's protect those private property rights from federal extortion. with that i yield back. the chair: the gentlewoman from california is recognized. mrs. napolitano: when we considered the bill in committee, the majority claimed it had nothing to do with , ass or ferc or reclamation now they have a savings clause for each of those. when a bill has this many holes in it, you can't fix them all. this bill cannot be fixed by

this amendment, i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from colorado. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. he amendment is agreed to. it is now in order to consider amendment number two printed in 113-379. house report for what purpose does the gentleman from oklahoma seek recognition? mr. mullin: i have an amendment at the table. the chair: the clerk will designate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number two printed in part a of house report 113-379, offered by mr. mullin of oklahoma. the chair: pursuant to house resolution 515, the gentleman from oklahoma, mr. mullin, and a member opposed each will control five minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from oklahoma. mr. mullin: thank you.

protecting the rights of sovereign tribes is a priority of mine. i'm proud to work with congressman tipton in supporting the water protection act many tribes rely on water reserved rights and water rights guaranteed by treaties to provide critical water supplies for their people. this makes clear that these water rights are fully protected this amendment also ensures that the department of interior teand department of ag can't use one sided permits, license, approvals and other land management tools to take watter from indian tribes without just compensation. american indian tribes have a distinguished record of being outstanding tureds of their water supplies and should never have to fear forfeiture of heir water rights to the federal government. by permitting -- prohibiting use of heavy handed tactics to take away water rights, we can

prevent these grabs. taken together, this bill and amendment provide water certainty for everyone. i'd like to thank the chairman and urge a yes vote on this amendment. i reserve my time. the chair: the gentleman reserves. for what purpose does gentlewoman from california seek recognition? mrs. napolitano: i claim time in opposition to the amendment. the chair: the gentlewoman is recognized for five minutes. mrs. napolitano: this amendment does not fix the bill because the bill cannot be fixed this particular savings clause in the base bill and the savings clause mr. mullin's amendment includes are symptoms of what we pointed out before that are not the solution. the amendment would be the sixth saving clause added to this four-page bill. i do support representative mullin and representative cole's efforts in protecting the native american water

rights. native american water rights are the oldest water rights in the citizen and yet we choose to ignore them, i remember congressman kildee repeatedly saying they hold the first water rights in the united states and yet we do not recognize them, yet the republicans took the majority four years ago, there has been no legislation or oversight hearings on any indian water rights settlements, we want to support native american water rights, consider the tribal water rights legislation, enact tribal water rights legislation and fund tribal water rights legislation. i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: for what purpose does the gentleman from -- the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. mr. mullin: i'd like to yield one minute to chairman hastings. the chair: the gentleman from washington is recognized for one minute. mr. hastings: thank you very much. i thank the gentleman for yielding. i want to commend to the gentleman from oklahoma for his hard work on behalf of native americans.

american indian tribes rely on their water rights to provide critical supplies to their people and to promote and expand their local economy. these rights must be protected from federal regulations that are designed to take water without paying for that water. and this amendment does just that. this forward-looking amendment simply allows tribes to have the same protection that are afforded to others in the bill by prohibiting the federal government from using routine permits to extort private water rights. it also preserves the water rights guaranteed to tribes by treaty and by federal reservation. although this bill already does the latter, we believe it's important to clarify this important protection, so i urge my colleagues to support this commonsense amendment and i commend the gentleman for offering it. i yield back. the chair: the gentlewoman from california is recognized. mrs. napolitano: thank you, madam chair. i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentlewoman from california has four minutes

remaining. mrs. napolitano: i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentlewoman reserves. the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. mr. mullin: you know, in indian country, we've learned we can never take just something that the federal government says and take it as truth. what we have to do is always verify, and this is simply trying to clarify that the federal government has no right to come onto the indian land and tell us how we can and can't use our water. this is just simply saying, look, we have the right, the treaty says we have the right and we want to make sure that the federal government doesn't come in and grab our water rights. there should be zero opposition to this. this should be a bipartisan support, and i yield the remaineding of my time. -- and remainder of my time. i reserve the balance of my time. sorry. the chair: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentlewoman from california is recognized. mrs. napolitano: i reserve the balance of my time.

mr. mullin: i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman from oklahoma yields back. the gentlewoman from california is recognized. mrs. napolitano: thank you, madam speaker. this bill is so badly written we really have no idea -- i repeat -- no idea what impact this may have on tribes. and yes, mr. mullin, i totally support water rights for native americans. we have been working on that for at least eight in the subcommittee. as well as other water rights' owners, we don't oppose your amendment and we honestly really truly hope that this will offer adequate protections to tribes. they deserve it. long time coming. but as we have said, the bill is beyond repair. even if we were to adopt the amendment, 3189 is dangerous legislation that must be defeated. i urge my colleagues to vote against this bill -- this amendment. i don't oppose the amendment -- i'm sorry, but i do oppose the bill, 3189. and i yield back the balance of

my time. the chair: the gentlewoman yields back. the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from oklahoma. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. he amendment is agreed to. it is now in order to consider amendment number 3 printed in part a of house report 113-379. for what purpose does the gentleman from colorado seek recognition? mr. polis: i have an amendment at the desk. the chair: the clerk will designate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number 3 printed in part a of house report 113-379 offered by mr. polis of colorado. the chair: pursuant to house resolution 515, the gentleman from colorado, mr. polis, and a member opposed, each will control 10 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from colorado. mr. polis: thank you, madam chair. my colleague from colorado, mr.

tipton, mentioned the national ski areas association. i'd like unanimous consent to insert their february 11 letter into the record. the chair: the gentleman' request is covered under general leave. mr. polis: and it states in part here -- aim' quoting from it -- to make it abundantly clear, the ski areas have a narrow and pointed agenda with respect to this legislation, and we're now advocating changes to the bill to narrow its scope further. these changes include narrowing the scope of the bill to have just the u.s. forest service and forest transfer of water rights to the united states by inserting the term title into the bill. i believe my amendment is consistent with the position of the national ski areas association. i am a strong believer in the original purpose of this bill. yes, the u.s. forest service overstepped its authority by issuing a policy that requires ski permitees to transfer

ownership of their rights to the federal government. ski areas are the lifeblood of our mountain communities in colorado and many communities across the nation. their economic viability and strength is extraordinarily important for working families. ski areas have invested hundreds of millions of dollars of capital and they can't simply be required to hand over their water rights to the federal government. this harmful policy hinders ski resort growth and expansion and harms the economy. my amendment fixes it. there's a legitimate issue here and congress could be solving it in a bipartisan manner. we agree that the 2011 u.s. forest service directive is a problem. this could have been a suspension bill, but h.r. 3189, despite our best efforts from my side of the aisle, does not reflect a bipartisan agreement on the water rights issue. there is not one comparable federal water rights directive like the u.s. forest service directive. but the republicans couldn't help themselves here and they have instead of fixing an issue

creating a job-killing, water-grabbing republican bill that will destroy jobs in colorado and in mountain resorts across the country. this process has become convoluted and the bill overly broad. this legislation only serves to cast doubt on the complicated laws and precedence and authorities that make up our nation's and states' water laws and it's critical to remain stable and predictable over time. this expansive legislation undermines jobs and recreational jobs from white water rafting to fishing. sportsmen groups oppose this legislation. ski areas oppose this legislation. it was brought up in committee yesterday, could the opposition be quote-unquote political. i want to be clear, one of the counties in my district, they are all republicans. grand county, they oppose this unanimously. as do eagle county. rafting and paddle groups

oppose this because it hurts our white water runs. i hope that we can fix this bill. we have tried hard throughout this process to offer language to the committee that would make this a bipartisan bill, to offer language to the chief sponsor, representative tipton. up till this point we have been rebuffed. this is our last hope to fix this bill and create something that actually responds to the flawed forest service directive of 2011. without this change, this bill has nothing to do with the 2011 directive. it's just -- it's just talk. it doesn't even respond to these issues which is designed to resolve which is the same ski communities that wanted to respond to the 2011 directive don't support this bill at this point. since ski area water rights are a valuable asset that need to be protected, i am proud to have offered this amendment with representative kuster, representative degette, representative prl mutter,

representative delbene, representative cartwright and representative huffman, return the bill to its original purpose, lead to a strong house vote and ensure that any u.s. forest service directive will not condition ski area permits on the transfer of title of any water right or require any ski area permitee to acquire a water right in the name of the united states. i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman from colorado reserves. for what purpose does the gentleman from washington seek time? mr. hastings: madam chairman, i raise to claim time in opposition to the amendment. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for 10 minutes. mr. hastings: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. hastings: thank you very much, madam chairman. i want to thank the gentleman from colorado for recognizing that the federal government's taking of water rights and economic collateral of ski areas is wrong. his amendment also acknowledges that congress must act to provide long-term certainty rather than rely on vague assurances from bureaucrats

that are subject to change at any time. i also appreciate the gentleman's initial support for the bill as introduced. his attention to this matter and willingness to fight for his ski areas in his district is commendable and has certainly been noted by colleagues on both sides of the aisle. however, the amendment he offers today completely undermines the bill he originally added his name to in support. the bill, as introduced and in its current improved form, protects private property rights of all, madam chairman, all water users across the country, not just ski areas. by eliminating the bill's scope to ski area permits by the forest service, the polis amendment transforms the bill so it favors one special group at the expense of all others. ski areas, under his amendment, would be protected, but any other water user anywhere in

the country would be subject to federal extortion. it frees the federal government of continue to target water rights of family farms and ranches and municipalities. madam chairman, it's not just wrong for the federal government to take water away from ski areas. it's wrong to do it to anyone. there should be no discrimination in this matter. the polis amendment would eliminate protections from farms and ranches on our nation' food suppliers. that's why the -- nation's food suppliers. that's why the farm bureau opposes this amendment. they have already been victimized by this federal overreach and this amendment would allow that to continue. because the polis amendment is a complete substitute text for the underlying bill, it would strike out all of the protections currently in the bill. the polis amendment would even eliminate the protections of the indian treaty rights and

indian water rights that the house just adopted a moment ago with the mullin amendment. it's true that the ski areas have suffered greatly at the hands of the federal overreach. for this reason, the underlying bill does fully protect ski areas along with every other water user. how many times do we have to say that, madam chairman? it protects ski areas and all water users. and that is why, as has been mentioned now several times, the national ski association wrote in february after the committee markup that it strongly supports the bill. when it comes to protecting the water and private property of american citizens, madam chairman, an important point, the congress shouldn't be picking winners and losers, and congress should be making the law for that protection, not the bureaucrats. the legislative branch should act to protect all citizens from the overreach of the federal government -- of the executive branch. for these reasons i urge my colleagues to vote no on the

polis amendment, and i reserve my time. the chair: the gentleman from washington reserves. the gentleman from colorado is recognized. mr. polis: thank you, madam chair. it's my honor to yield to the ranking member of the committee, mrs. napolitano. the chair: the gentlewoman from california is recognized for two minutes. mrs. napolitano: thank you, mr. polis, for yielding, and thank you, madam chair. and i must say that again i must direct the attention to the fact that the february 11 letter from the ski resorts focuses on narrowing the bill, not the bill in total, but narrow focus. mr. polis agreed -- and joined mr. tipton on this bill in an attempt to face the problem of the ski resorts in the west. when we on the committee tried to work with the majority to make reasonable response -- and responsible changes to the bill, we were told no. we were told the majority wanted a big, broad bill that goes way beyond the resorts and

way beyond the forest service. we pointed out that when you start drafting big, broad bills that go beyond the original issue, you will have unintended consequences, but they would not listen. mr. polis' amendment is the last chance to make this a narrow bipartisan bill that can actually pass and we should adopt it. again, we don't want a job killing, we don't want water grabbing, we don't want specific people to favor. i think the people need to understand that. the farmers and ranchers who benefit, the six saving clauses the bill has is not needed. the poles is' amendment -- this narrows it to ski resorts and i thank you and i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman from colorado reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from washington is recognized. mr. hastings: i'm pleased to yield two minute toths gentleman from california, mr.

mcclintock. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. mcclintock: thank you, madam chairman. this amendment creates two different classes of citizens, ski resorts and everybody else. it leaves the portion of the bill that protects see skee resorts from being forced to relinquish water rights as a condition of being able to operate in the federal forest, and that's good. but then it creates a tier of second class citizens. unless you own a ski resort you are fair game for the same demands by these federal agencies to give up your water rights or be forced out of business. for example, our subcommittee heard testimony from randy parker, the c.e.o. of the utah farm bureau. he told us that the forest service and the bureau of land management threatened to force farmers that have grazing alotments to give up their water rights as a condition of continuing to use the public

lands. in some cases, theserer p -- these are permit this is a family businesses have held for yen rations. the water rights were accorded to them under state law. the federal government has no right to usurp that law or to orce anybody into the hobson's choice of closing their buzz or surrendering their water rights. this amendment is an affront to the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment as well as to the takings clause of the fifth amendment. these rights are fundamental, constitutional rights that are unalienable for every american, not just those who happen to operate ski resorts. let's not take the orwellian position that all americans are equal but some are more equal than others. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california yields back. the gentleman from washington reserves. the -- the chair: the gentleman from california california yields

back. the gentleman from washington reserves. the gentleman from colorado is recognized. mr. polis: i yield to ms. tufter, two and a half minutes. the chair: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. kuster: i want to thank my colleague, mr. polis, for his work on this issue. i rise in support of the bstitute amendment that i am offering with mr. polis and overall sleegs in an attempt to fix this legislation. but i wish i wasn't here to talk about this amendment. that's because this bill was originally introduced a a bipartisan bill to address a specific problem. but as we have seen all too often around here, the bill that's on the floor today doesn't look anything like it did when it was introduced. the bill that we are considering today wouldn't just address a water rights issue between ski areas and the forest service, it would go much further than that, impacting our national park system, wildlife refuges,

hydropower reliances and so much more. where i come from, that doesn't make much sense. i came here to work with both parties, to find common ground and get things done. instead of pushing partisan legislation that has no chance at becoming law, we should be working together on real solutions and that's why i join mr. polis to offer this substitute amendment. what it will do is simple. it will narrow this bill so that it only addresses the issue between ski areas and the forest service. there's no need for this legislation to do anything more than that. so let's pass the polis amendment and start working together on commonsense policies to create jobs and opportunities for the middle class. again, i thank mr. polis for his work on this issue and i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman from colorado reserves. the gentleman from washington is recognized. mr. hastings: how much time do i have?

the chair: the gentleman from washington has four and a half minutes remaining. the gentleman from colorado has two and a half minutes remaining. mr. hastings: i'm pleased to yield two minutes to the sponsor of the underlying legislation, the gentleman from colorado, mr. tipton. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. tipton: i thank the gentleman for yielding. madam chair, we continue to hear letters of support. ironically, out of my colleague from colorado's home district, eagle river water sanitation district support this is legislation. as we put it forward. colorado conservation district, colorado water congress, national cattlemen's beast association, family farm alliance support this is bill. when we look at the original incorporating legislation my colleague and i introduced, it doesn't fit the narrow scope they want to talk about. so we to have to ask that question, why are they so willing to be going to disregard farmers, ranchers, municipalities?

aren't they worthy of concern? i believe that they actually are. i just received in an email that came from the national ski association, dated march 12, supporting the bill with the tipton's management amendment. we're addressing their specific concern but we aren't stopping there. we think that that right to private property is involuble, something that must be -- inviableable, something that must be protected. -- involuble, something that must be protected. we have worked with the minority, we have got a bipartisan piece of legislation, standing up for those private property rights and to be able to assure that that constitutional right to receive just compensation is actually preserved. madam chair, i urge rejection of this amendment. with that, i reserve the balance of our time. the chair: the gentleman from

washington reserves. the gentleman from colorado is recognized. mr. polis: i reserve the balance of my time. mr. hastings: i'm prepared to close, i have the right to close, so i'll reserve my time. the chair: the gentleman from colorado is recognized. mr. polis: i yield myself the remainder of the time. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. polis: ski area water rights are valuable assets that must be protected. rather than disguise that in a catch-all republican job-killing water grabbing bill, we have the opportunity, hrough the polis-degette-perlmutter-kuster -cartwright amendment for this house to come together around something that helps the economy grow and our ski resort areas across the country. as so many times on issues of even greater importance there is a fork in the road for this house. a decision to make between the

partisan charged route of job destroying republican water grabbing legislation or the opportunity to fix this bill and come together to make sure that our ski resort communities are secure in their water rights and can continue to justify their capital investments and grow. that's the choice we have with the polis amendment. this amendment improves the bill. it helps turn the bill from a controversial bill into something that i think the vast majority of this body can and will agree on. the amendment ensures that any u.s. forest service directive will not condition ski area permits on the transfer of title of any water right or require any ski area permitee to acquire a water right in the name of the united states. that's the issue from the directive of 2011 that gives us a reason to even have the bill. but instead of addressing that this in a focused way,

bill has tried to essentially rewrite centuries of water law in a superficial two-page bill that has the impact of destroying jobs in colorado and other mountain resort communities across the country. we can and we must do better. better for my district, in colorado, many of the ski , eagle, unties sumptuous grand county that i represent, that benefit from the ski resort economy have come out opposed to this bill because it hurt theirs economy rather than helps it. so if the very folk this is a this bill was spezzedly written to help oppose this bill, what on earth are we doing here? thankfully we have an amendment right now that can fix this bill, we tried in committee, we tried through the manager's amendment, and now we're trying on the floor. let's do it. let's fix the bill. i urge my colleagues to support

my amendment and unless it's incorporated, oppose the underlying bill. i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman's time has expire. the gentleman from washington is recognized for three minutes. mr. hastings: thank you, madam chair. i yield myself the balance of the time. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. many dam chair: i have to say the debate on the underlying bill and this amendment i find rather interesting. maybe bizarre is better than that the issue is -- the issue here is whether we should protect the states' responsibility to write water law or allow the federal government to export from private individual this is a water. that's what the issue is all about here. and so we had bipartisan support when the bill was heard in committee and -- but then it changed for some reason. now what we have in front of us, the polis amendment which

would very narrowly put this protection only to ski areas and not to everybody else that has private property rights. the consequences if this were to become law which it's not going to, i'm convinced with this amendment, but the effect of this would be this -- ok, ski areas are protected this year. next year, it will be a rancher that will be abuse and we'll come back and write a law to protect the rancher. next it will be a water conservation district someplace that will be affected because of the directive so we'll come back and fix that. then it will be a municipality someplace that will be affected, so we'll have a fix for that madam chairman, there's a better way to do that. let's respect states' rights to regulate water law and to codify that with this language. finally, just let me make this observation.

the effect of adopting this, as i mentioned in my opening statement, as it relates to tribal rights, what this amendment really does more than anything else is it puts ski resorts -- see resorts' water rights above tribal rights. that's what the adoption of this amendment does. so i would say that the underlying bill is a bill that is the responsibility of us as the legislative branch in this congress, it deserve ours support. this amendment does nothing to advance that at all and should be defeated. i urge my colleagues to vote no and i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman yields back. the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from colorado. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair the noes have it. mr. polis: madam chair. the chair: the gentleman from colorado is recognized. mr. polis: on that i request a

recorded vote. the chair: pursuant to clause 6 of rule 18, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from colorado will be postponed. for what purpose does the gentleman from washington seek recognition? mr. hastings: i move that the committee do now rise. the chair: the question is on the motion that the committee rise. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is adopted. accordingly, the committee rises. the speaker pro tempore: madam chair. the chair: mr. speaker, the committee of the whole house on the state of the union having had under consideration h.r. 3189, directs me to report that it has come to no resolution thereon. the speaker pro tempore: the chair of the committee of the whole house on the state of the union reports that the committee has had under consideration h.r. 3189 and has

come to no resolution thereon. for what purpose does the gentleman from new york seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i send to the desk a concurrent resolution and ask unanimous consent for its immediate consideration in the house. the chair: the -- the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the concurrent resolution. the clerk: house concurrent resolution 93, concurrent resolution directing the clerk of the united states house of representatives to make technical corrections in the enrollment of h.r. 3370. the speaker pro tempore: is there objection to the consideration of the concurrent resolution? without objection the concurrent resolution is agreed to and the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. pursuant to clause 1c of rule 19, further consideration of h.r. 3973 will now resume. the clerk will report the title. the clerk: union calendar number 280rk h.r. 3973, a bill to amend section 530-d of

united states code. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the amendment by the gentleman from minnesota. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. the amendment is agreed to. mr. polis: mr. speaker. i request a recorded vote. the speaker pro tempore: does the gentleman request the yeas and nays? the yeas and nays are requested. those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. a sufficient number having risen, the yeas and nays are ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. this will be a 15-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote, the yeas are 191, the nays are 227. the amendment is not adopted. the question is on engrossment and third reading of the bill. those in favor will say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. third reading. the clerk: a bill to amend section 530-c of section 23 of the united states code. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady from new mexico seek recognition? >> i have a motion to recommit at the desk. the speaker pro tempore: is the gentlelady opposed to the bill? >> i am opposed to the bill. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady qualify the clerk will report the motion. clip ms. michelle lujan grisham of new mexico moves to recommit the bill to the committee on judiciary with instructions to

report the same back to the house forthwith -- the speaker pro tempore: the house will come to order, the lerk will suspend. the clerk may continue. the clerk: with the following amendment. add at the end of the bill the following. section 3, protecting national security information from foreign enemies -- the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will suspend. the gentleman from maryland would like to hear the motion. the clerk will suspend until the house is silent. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk may continue. the clerk: the amendments made in this act do not apply to information that may expose critical national security and foreign policy, legal,

strategic and tactical positions to terrorists, drug cartels, money launderers or foreign enemies of the united tates. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentlelady from new mexico is recognized for five minutes in support of her motion. he house will come to order. ms. lujan grisham: mr. speaker, this is the final amendment to the bill that will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. if the adopted the bill will immediately procede to final passage as amended. mr. speaker, we have heard passionate arguments in support and in opposition to this bill. we have heard members argue that this bill is needed to prevent the obama administration's overreach on issues such as immigration and health care. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady will suspend. he house will come to order.

ms. lujan grisham: conversely, we have heard members note that the republican leadership has refused to pass comprehensive immigration reform, refused to raise the minimum wage, and refused to compromise on a budget until they had shut down the federal government. these members argue that this has forced the president to act within his constitutional authority to faithfully execute the law. that sharp rhetoric and disagreement is a result of the political realities that we find ourselves in today. and it reflects congress' failure to work together and solve problems on behalf of the american people. i oppose the underlying bill but i more strongly oppose the gridlock that has consumed this congress and is leading it to become the most unproductive congress and uncompromising congress in the history of the united states. i believe that we can move past that today by coming together

and supporting my amendment which would address significant national security concerns raised by this legislation. my amendment would ensure that the bill's requirements, that the executive branch explains why it prioritizes the resources, would not impact or expose critical national security and foreign policy interests, positions or strategies to terrorists, drug cartels and foreign enemies of the united states. mr. speaker, the national laboratories are located in my home state of new mexico. these laboratories ensure the safety, reliability and effectiveness of the nation's nuclear deterrent. the experiments and tests that they conduct are at the cutting edge of science and human understanding. they work every day to study, analyze, solve and prepare for emerging and potential national security threats, contingencies and risks. they help inform our nation's

defense and foreign policy decision makers on how to cronlt the increasingly complex dangers that our nation faces. i am sure there is not one member of this body that would want the sensitive national security work conducted at the national laboratories and other government agencies to be revealed to terrorists, to drug cartels and foreign enemies. but that is the risk that all of us will bear if we pass this bill today with its current broad language. this bill requires the attorney general to monitor every executive branch agency and every federal officer who issues a formal or informal policy that refrains from enforcing any federal statute, rule, regulation, program or policy. so let me say that again. it would require the attorney general to monitor every federal officer's alleged nonenforcement of any federal statute, rule, regulation, program or policy. the language would include

federal officials who are making decisions on national security concerns and interests based on information and assistance supplied in many cases from the national labs in my home state. this could put the attorney general in the dangerous position of choosing between keeping strategic foreign policy positions and information from foreign enemies and complying with the requirements of this legislation. this would undoubtedly lead to litigation, court cases and appeals, costing the american government embarrassing legal battles and leaving taxpayers to foot the bill. that time and money is better spent on the activity that these national security agencies are intended to conduct. providing for the safety of the american people. it just doesn't make sense to impose costly reporting requirements on activities that could potentially hurt national security interests. you wouldn't require a general to reveal his strategy and tactics before he goes into

battle. mr. speaker, we came together just last week to pass an aid package for ukraine, to address national security concerns due to recent russian aggression. we passed this bill on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis. leaders of both parties came together on solidarity. we can do that again today with the adoption of this amendment which ensures that nothing in this bill adversely impacts or naugs as i -- our nation's security and i want to be clear. the adoption of this amendment will not prevent the pass and of the underlying bill, if adopted it will be incorporated into the bill and will be immediately voted upon. although we may all guys are on the need for the underlying bill, we have an opportunity to stand united and support our nation's vital policy and foreign policy goals. i urge my colleagues to vote yes on this final amendment. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back the balance of her time -- the gentlelady's time has expired.

for what purpose does the gentleman from florida seek recognition? >> i rise in opposition to the motion to recommit. the speaker pro tempore: the house will come to order. the gentleman from florida is recognized for five minutes. >> mr. speaker, we have in this country a government of laws, not of men. the congress passes laws, the president executes laws and the courts adjudicate disputes under those laws. one law on the books already requires the attorney general to report to congress when the executive branch suspends enforcement of a law due to constitutional concerns. mr. desantis: and a.g.'s ranging from holder to con zal he is have done this -- gonzalez have done this. when the executive branch suspends execution of the law for other reasons this same reporting requirement should apply and may be even more important on separation of powers grounds. this transparency will help congress safeguard its constitutional authority and will allow the american people to evaluate the actions of the executive branch. now, why is this necessary?

yesterday's paper, the "wall street journal," quote, last week the administration quietly excused millions of people from the requirement to purchase health insurance or else pay a tax penalty. this latest political reconstruction has received zero media notice -- the speaker pro tempore: the house will come to order. members, please take your conversations off the floor. he house will come to order. the gentleman from florida is recognized. mr. desantis: and the editorial went on, the health and human services department didn't think the details of this delay were worth discussing in a conference call, press materials or fax sheet. instead, the mandate suspension was buried in an unrelated rule that was meant to preserve some health plans that don't comply with obamacare benefit and redistribution mandates, end quote. this is no way to run a government. surely this is not consistent with being the most transparent

administration in history. now, some have said that the transparency requirements would be burdensome. but this raises the question. exactly how many laws is this administration suspending? this bill can only be burdensome if the administration is consistently suspending duly enacted laws. my question is what is wrong with a little sunlight? i have not heart the president's defenders articulate a limiting principle regarding his actions. if congress does not do what i want, i will do it pace in is not a limiting principle and is not consistent with constitutional government. here's a limiting principle. u.s. supreme court, kenledle vs. united states -- kenledle vs. united states, to intend that the obligation imposed on the president to see the laws faithfully executed implies a power to forbid their execution is a novel construction of the constitution and is entirely inadmissible, end quote. now, news reports have detailed

how the latest obamacare suspensions are tailored to help the president's party in the midterm elections. now, this is not sufficient justification, of course, there's always going to be another election around the corner. once you do suspensions to get you to 2014, well, you're going to have 2016. do you need to get hillary across the finish line? and then when a republican president takes over, guess what? that president's supporters are going to say, hey, they suspended these provisions, why don't you suspend the provisions that we don't like. and pretty soon you end up presidents of both parties picking and choosing what they want to enforce. here's the deal. short-term political advantages and fleeting policy victories do not trump our duty to support and defend the constitution. this is true whether the president is a democrat or a republican. i would much rather lose out on my preferred policy outcomes and see my party lose an election while safeguarding our

constitutional order because it is ultimately that constitution which does the most to protect our freedoms. we go down the road where presidents of both parties simply enforce what's good for their party and disregard what is not, then we'll no longer be a government of laws but a government of men. and this institution will be forever diminished. the constitution delegates the congress the power to make law, not to make suggestions. the faithful execution of the law will help shine a light on executive branch failures to faithfully execute the laws of our land, a vote for this bill is a vote for transparency for the rule of law and for constitutional government. i urge my colleagues to vote no on this motion and vote yes to pass this bill. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the previous question is ordered on the motion to recommit. the question is on the motion. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the noes have it. the motion is not agreed to. ms. lujan grisham: mr. speaker, i ask for a recorded vote. the speaker pro tempore: a

recorded vote is requested. all those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise and remain standing until counted. a sufficient number having arisen, a recorded vote is ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. pursuant to clause 9 of rule 20, the chair will reduce to five minutes d any vote on the passage of the bill. this is a five-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 192, the nays are 225. the motion is not adopted. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. he house will come to order.

for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania eek recognition? >> mr. speaker, seek permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. the house will come to order. >> mr. speaker, i thank you for the opportunity to address our colleagues for one minute on behalf of the -- the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. >> on behalf of the congressional hockey caucus and our colleagues from both sides of the aisle who now, for the sixth year, have participated in what we call the congressional hockey challenge. mr. meehan: this is the game for charity in which we allow members of congress who play hockey and three of our friends from the parliament in canada representing the lawmakers, playing a team of lobbyists who

support the cause, both specifically of supporting underaged -- hockey for children in communities, underprivileged communities who would not otherwise have access to the game. in addition, it has raised dollars for scholarships for children from underprivileged communities who will go on to play hockey in college. this was the sixth annual game, and we have raised to date over half a million dollars for that charity. but let me just close with this observation. in addition to being able to play with our colleagues and the lobbyists, we were joined on each side by very, very special guests. they were members of the wounded warriors ice hockey team. and a lobbyist team was privileged to have retired army reservist joseph bowser who lost a leg in iraq, playing on

their team. our side was able to be joined by retired army captain, mark little, who lost both legs in iraq. and i might tell you, there is no more inspirational thing than to see the courage of two young men who have found hockey as way to continue to find aspiration and accomplishment. i will close my observations by saying that the winning goal -- and this was no giveaway -- this was a remarkably kept tiff -- except tiff game. the winning goal was scored by captain mark little. so on behalf of my colleagues, i'm proud to say that the institution is intact, the congress won. thank you, mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, five-minute voting will continue. the question is on passage of the bill. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no.

the ayes have it. mr. conyers: mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: i ask for a recorded vote. the speaker pro tempore: a recorded vote is requested. those favoring a recorded vote will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, a recorded vote is ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. this will be a five-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: the yeas are 244, the nays are 171. the bill is passed. without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. pursuant to house resolution 515 and rule 18 the chair declares the committee in the state of the union for further consideration of h.r. 3189,

would the gentleman from florida, mr. webster, kindly ake the chair. the chair: the house is in the committee of the whole for further consideration of h.r. 3189. will the clerk report the title. the clerk: a bill to prohibit the conditioning of any permit, lease or other use agreement on the transfer, relinkment or other impairment as any water rights of the united states by the secretaries of the interior and agriculture. the chair: when the committee of the whole rose earlier today, a request for a recorded vote on amendment number 3 printed in 379 a of house report 113- by the gentleman from colorado, . pole is -- polis, had been

postponed. pursuant to clause 6 of rule 18, the unfinished business is quest for a recorded vote on part a of house report 113-379, on which further consideration as postponed on which the -- the clerk will designate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number 3, printed in part a of house report 113-379, offered by mr. polis of colorado. the chair: a recorded vote has been requested, those in support of the request for a recorded vote will rise and be counted. a sufficient number having arisen, a recorded vote is ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a two-minute vote.

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the chair: on this vote, the yeas are 175, the nays are 236. the amendment is not adopted. the question is on the committee amendment in the nature of a substitute as amended. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it, the amendment is adopted. accordingly under the rule, the committee rises. the speaker pro tempore: mr. chairman. the chair: the chair of the committee on the whole of the state of the union requests that it had under consideration h.r. 3189 and pursuant to house resolution 589 reports the bill back to the house with an amendment. the speaker pro tempore: the

chair of the committee of the whole house reports that the committee has had under consideration h.r. 3189 and pursuant to house resolution 515 reports back to the house. under the rule. the previous question is ordered. is a separate vote demanded on any amendment reported from the committee of the whole? if not, the question is on adoption of the committee amendment in the nature of a substitute as ealeded. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it the amendment is agreed to. the question is on engrossment and third reading of the bill. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. third reading. the clerk: a bill to prohibit the condition of any use agreement on the transfer, relinquishment or impairment of water lights of the united states by the secretaries of interior and agriculture. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from from arizona seek recognition? is the gentlewoman opposed to the bill. >> i'm opposed to in its current

form. the clerk: mrs. kirkpatrick of arizona moves to recommit the bill h.r. 3189 to the committee on natural resources with instructions to report the same back to the house forth with the following amendment. page 3, line 7, strike the secretary and insert the following, unless necessary, to, one, protect tribal treaty rights, preserve recreational fishing, mitigate drought onditions, or four, facilitate fire suppression. the secretary. the speaker pro tempore: the ouse will be in order. the gentlewoman from arizona is recognized for five minutes. mrs. kirkpatrick: mr. speaker this is the final amendment to the bill. it will not kill the bill nor

send it back to committee. if it's adopted, this bill will immediately proceed to final pass eaming. water is a critical issue in arizona and especially in my district. water can also be a divisive issue. in congress, we need to provide leadership and work together on long-term solutions that protect our water sources, communities, tribes and local economies. in particular, i believe this bill needs language added to strengthen the rights of our tribal government. arizona's district 1 is over 90% public land. it contains several important waterways, national forests and recreation areas and has 12 native-american tribes. in my previous term, i introduced the white mountain apache water act which was signed into law. it was a historic agreement that

created jobs, protected tribal water rights and established reliable water resources for many of arizona's communities. as this legislation moves forward, i want to ensure that we protect the following priorities. our tribal communities, our fishing and sportsmen, our drought mitigation efforts and our ability to fight wildfires and we need to manage water rights and land use permits in a balanced way. we can do this in a way that respects tribes, preserves recreation and protects our communities from drought and wildfires that have already caused so much devastation in western states. in my view, these issues should be our priority. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from washington seek recognition? mr. hastings: i rise in opposition to the motion to

recommit. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. hastings: mr. speaker, the house is not in order. the speaker pro tempore: the ouse will be in order. members in the rear of the chamber, please cease conversations and take seats. the gentleman from washington. mr. hastings: mr. speaker, the underlying bill does one thing and one thing only. it stops the federal government from extorting water rights from private citizens and businesses without just compensation. that's what the underlying bill does. mr. speaker, i have to tell you, there seems to be a common thread here in the last several weeks, maybe even a year on the differences of governance between the two parties, between this side of the aisle and that side of the aisle. and the reason why this is important as it relates to water law is simply because water law has always been the province of

the states. there have been federal courts that have said that over and over and over. yet, when we come to the floor here, we hear constantly from the other side that there should be conditions on certain rights. this falls into that cat engineer. the debate we had on the floor earlier there was acknowledgement that the federal government was taking water rights as a condition for permits. their answer on that side of the aisle is well let's set the process. our goal is let's respect the law. big difference. we have this motion to recommit. in you look at the motion to recommit, it conditions again state water law. i think the best way that we should approach these debates is to say that we trust the people and we trust the federal system and the federal system as it relates to water law is state water law is premiered, this

motion to recommit is another attempt, another attempt to qualify that to give the states, federal government more authority. i urge my colleagues to say no on the motion to recommit and pass the underlying bill to protect states' water rights. the speaker pro tempore: the present question is ordered. the question is on the motion to recommit. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the noes have it. mrs. kirkpatrick: i request a recorded vote. the speaker pro tempore: a recorded vote is requested. those favoring a recorded vote will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a five-minute vote. the chair will reduce to five minutes the minimum time for any electronic vote on the question of passage of the bill. this is a five-minute vote on the motion to recommit.

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the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 183. the nays are 227. the motion is not adopted. the question is on passage of the bill. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. the gentlelady from california. mrs. napolitano: i ask for a recorded vote. the speaker pro tempore: those in support of a request for a recorded vote will rise and remain standing until counted.

a sufficient number having arisen, a recorded vote is ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. this will be a five-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 238. .he nays are 174

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 238. the nays are 174. the bill is passed. without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. without objection, the title is amended. for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan seek recognition? >> pursuant to rule 9, i rise regarding the question of the rivilege of the house. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. members, take seats. members in the rear of the chamber, please cease conversations. members, please cease conversations.

the gentleman from michigan. mr. kildee: mr. speaker, pursuant to rule 1, i rise in regard to a question of the privileges of the house. the form of the resolution is as follows. whereas on march 5, 2014, during a hearing before the house committee on oversight and government reform, committee chairman darrell e. issa gave a statement and then posed 10 questions to former internal revenue service official lois lerner who stated that she was invoking her fifth amendment right not to testify. whereas the committee's ranking member, representative elijah e. cummings clearly sought recognition to take his turn for question under committee and house rules. whereas chairman issa then unilaterally adjourned the hearing and refused to allow him to make any statement or

ask any questions. whereas ranking member cummings protested immediately stating, quote, mr. chairman, you cannot run a committee like this. you just cannot -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman will suspend. the chair is going to ask for the decorum of the house that members not display their ipads. the speaker pro tempore: it's a iolation of the house rules. it's a violation of the house rules. regular order would be putting he ipads down.

mr. kildee: mr. speaker, may i continue? the speaker pro tempore: will not proceed until there is decorum in the house. the gentleman may not proceed. the house will not proceed until there is decorum in the house. the gentleman may inkire. >> what specifically is it stated in the rules that members annot display their ipads? the speaker pro tempore: precedence of the house. members are not allowed to stage an exhibition. the chair has ruled. under the precedence of the house. the chair will not proceed until decorum has been restored.

the speaker pro tempore: when decorum has been restored, the gentleman may proceed, but not until. only a member under recognition can hold up the display. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman may proceed. mr. kildee: whereas ranking member cummings protested immediately stating, mr. chairman you cannot run a committee like this. you just cannot do this. this is, we are a better country. we are better than that as a

committee, end quote. whereas chairman issa returned and allowed ranking member cummings to begin his statement, but then when it became clear that chairman issa did not want to hear what ranking member cummings was saying, turned off ranking member cummings' microphone. ordered republican staff to, quote, close it down, end quote and repeatedly signaled to end the hearing with his hand across his neck. whereas ranking member cummings objected again stating, quote, you cannot have a one-sided investigation. there is absolutely something wrong with that, end quote. whereas chairman issa made a statement of his own and posed questions during the hearing, but refused to allow other members of the committee and in particular, the ranking member who had sought recognition, to

make statements under the five-minute rule in violation of house rule 11. whereas chairman issa instructed the microphones be turned off and adjourned the hearing without a vote or unanimous consent agreement in violation of rule 16, because he did not want to permit ranking member cummings to speak. whereas chairman issa's abusive behavior on march 5 is part of a continuing pattern in which he has routinely excluded members of the committee from investigative meetings, has turned off members' microphones when they were questioning a witness, attempted to prevent witnesses from answering questions and has provided information to the press before sharing it with committee members. whereas on july 18, 2003, former chairman of the ways and means committee, bill thomas, asked

the united states capitol police to remove minority members of the committee from the library where they were having a discussion about a pending committee markup and subsequently came to the well of the u.s. house of representatives to publicly apologize for his behavior. whereas chairman issa has violated clause 1 of rule 23 of the code of official conduct, ich states, quote, a member, delegate, resident commissioner, officer or employee of the house shall behave at all times in a manner that shall reflect credibly on the house, end quote. and now therefore be it resolve that the house of representatives strongly condemns the offensive and disrespectful manner in which chairman darrel e. issa conducted the hearing on the

house committee of oversight and government reform on march 5, 2014, and requires that he come to the well of the house to ssue a public apology to the members of the house. that concludes the reading of the resolution. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized to offer the resolution. does the gentleman offer the resolution? mr. kildee: yes. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the resolution. the clerk: whereas on march 5, 2014, during a hearing before the house committee on oversight and government reform, chairman issa gave a statement and then posed 10 questions to former internal revenue service official lois lerner. whereas the committee's ranking member, representative cummings clearly sought recognition to take his return for questions under committee and house rules. whereas chairman issa then unilaterally adjourned the hearing and refused to allow him

to make any statement or ask any questions. where representative cummings protested stating quote, mr. chairman you cannot run a hearing like this, this is -- we are better than that as a country and committee, end quote. whereas chairman issa returned and allowed ranking member cummings to make his statement but when chairman issa did not want to hear what representative cummings was hearing and ordered the republican staff to close it down and repeatedly signaled to end the hearing with his hand across his neck. whereas ranking member cummings objected stating quote, you can't have a one-sided investigations. there is something wrong with that. refused to allow other members of the committee and in particular the ranking member who had sought recognition to make statements under the five-minute rule in violation of

house rule 11. whereas chairman issa instructed the microphones be turned off and adjourned the hearing without a vote in violation of rule 16 because he did not want to permit ranking member cummings to speak. whereas chairman issa's abusive behavior is part of a continuing pattern where he has routinely excluded members of the investigative meetings and turned off microphones and prevented witnesses from answering questions and provided information to the press before sharing it with committee members. whereas on july 18, 2003, former chairman of the ways and means committee bill thomas asked the united states capitol police to remove minority members from the library where they were having discussion about a pending committee markup and came to the well of the u.s. house of representatives to publicly apologize for his belligerent behavior. whereas chairman issa violated

clause 1 of rule 23 of the code of official conduct which states that, quote, a member, delegate, resident ig, commissioner or employee of the house shall behave in a manner that shall reflect creditbly on the house of representatives. the house of representatives strongly condemns the disrespectful manner in which chairman issa conducted the hearing on the government and sight reform and requires that he come to the well of the house to issue a public apology to the members of the house. the speaker pro tempore: the resolution equal fusion. mr. cantor: are are are are are >> i move to lay the resolution on the table. the speaker pro tempore: those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. the gentleman from michigan. mr. kildee: mr. speaker, i demand a recorded vote. the speaker pro tempore: a recorded vote is requested. those in favor of a recorded vote will rise and remain

standing. a sufficient number having arisen, members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a 15-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. house of presentatives -- [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 217 and the nays are 173. with 10 voting present. the motion is adopted. without objection, a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the chair announces the speaker's appointment pursuant to 10, u.s.c., 6968-a, and the

order of the house of january 3, 2013, of the following member on the part of the house to the board of visitors to the united states naval academy. the clerk: mr. thomas j. rooney f florida. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will now entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentleman from illinois seek recognition? without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, i rise today to honor the life of the respected community leader and great friend to so many in central illinois. on february 26, long-time broadcaster, weatherman and

radio host bob murray lost his battle to brain cancer at the age of 66. throughout his career, bob took his work incredibly seriously. he used to be my weatherman that i would watch on tv growing up. but in his later life, he was a radio broadcaster. mr. davis: he arrived at the radio station at 1:30 in the morning to prepare for the day ecause he felt an informed community was important from community fundraisers to what was happening with the government and the weather and the local breaking news. i had the privilege of being interviewed by bob dozens of times over the last 18 months and i can tell you without a doubt that he was one of the most honest, respectful and professional members of the media that i have ever met. bob's family is honoring his life but having mem als made to the illinois -- memorials made to the illinois news broadcasters association foundcationer -- foundation for a scholarshipper to awarded in his name. i can't think of a better way to ensure that he's remembered for years to come. so thank you, bob murray, for

the years of service you provided to the families in central illinois, and thank you to bob's family for sharing him with us for more than 40 years. and allowing him to become a part of our family. mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? mr. poe: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. poe: mr. speaker, last night i held a telephone town hall and called almost 60,000 homes back in texas. i heard from southeast texans about a lot of things that were on their mind. but the number one concern i heard about was cuts to the military. mr. speaker, one citizen said to me, quote, we the united states were not prepared militarily for world war ii. now why are we doing the same thing now? we need to be increasing, not decreasing, our military capabilities. mr. speaker, i even took a poll

and asked those that were listening in on the call, do you think we should reduce our military? an overwhelming 85% of the people on the call said no. mr. speaker, our men and women in the military should be the last thing we cut from the federal budget. the world is getting more and more dangerous as time goes on. we should not lose sight of the enemies we face. both countries and terrorists who wish to do us harm still exist. our military is the best in the world and we must make sure it stays that way, mr. speaker. and that's just the way it is. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from texas seek recognition snr ms. jackson lee: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. ms. jackson lee: thank you very much. this happens to be women's history month and i will continue to salute the dynamic women of this nation.

but i rise today as a founder and co-chair of the congressional children's caucus and indicate to my colleagues that i believe we are overdue for naming children as our number one priority. i intend to introduce a children's budget working with first focus, on the issues of the needs of our children. because we have left them behind. and many times, the issues around children are discussed in a partisan way, who wants early childhood education, who wants universal pre--k or around-the-clock child care. there is head start, they are our children, giving them the security and protection, resources to prevent child abuse and more resources for bringing families together and providing substitute intervention for

families that are troubled that not only results in child abuse but violence against these children but what about the best education they could have or the best health care. mr. speaker, children are our number one priority and i trouble believe that a children's budget in congress is long overdue. join me. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman's time has expired. the chair will receive a message. >> mr. speaker, i have been directed by the senate to inform the house that the senate has 76, child 10 development block grant act of 2014 in which the concurrence of the house is requested. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 3, 2013, the

gentleman from wisconsin, mr. olk and is re-- pocan is recognized for 60 minutes. mr. pocan: i'm here for the progressive caucus special order hour and talk about the need to extend unemployment benefits in this country. since the end of december, millions of americans have lost their extended unemployment benefits are struggling to get by in this economy. we have had two really positive developments this week. one, the house democrats have led an initiative led by representative brad schneider to do a procedural motion to force this body, the leadership of this body that refuses to let us vote on extending unemployment benefits, to extend unemployment benefits. we have to get 218 signatures, a majority of the house to sign the discharge petition and if that happens we could force a

vote and make sure people who have lost their benefits can get their benefits. that's the first important thing. the second important thing is today, just this afternoon, it was announced a bipartisan agreement in the senate by several senators to make sure we can extend benefits through the month of may of this year. we need to do everything possible not only to make sure that the senate passes that, but to make sure this house takes up that action, because if we don't, millions of people and many more every single week will not get access to unemployment benefits. so the progressive caucus is here today to highlight this issue and raise awareness and explain why it's so important that we pass these benefits and pass them now on behalf of the millions of people in this country that need those. i'm joined by several of my colleagues here today and i would like to make sure they have a chance to talk about the unique situations in their area

and why this is so important. i would like to recognize my my colleague from the state of oregon. ms. bonamici: this is important about extending the unemployment compensation program. last week, the country marked a troubling milestone, the number of americans who lost their unemployment insurance hit two million and thousands more will lose this lifeline every week if we do not extend this critical benefit. the impact of losing unemployment benefits is immediate and devastating. i spoke to a constituent in oregon who was laid off from a large employer in my district. his unemployment benefits ended earlier this year when the program was cut off. and since then, unfortunately, things have gone from bad to worse. he has been in his home for

about 10 years and now he is in default because he cannot pay his mortgage. i want to thank congressman cartwright for leading the effort to provide my constituents and yours the opportunity to get a bit of relief. he is sponsoring the stob foreclosures due to congressional disfunction act. that would put a six-month moratorium on those who have exhausted their unemployment benefits. this is the least we can do for our constituents who are still suffering because this house refuses to allow an up-or-down vote. my constituent is actively looking for work and continues to look for work but keeps getting passed over for jobs. employers are looking for younger, less expensive workers. he is one of many constituents across the country.

he and other constituents like him tell me that it is particularly difficult for the more mature job seekers to find work, even though they have decades of experience. his efforts to find work haven't stopped. and i have to say, i want to emphasize this, the unemployment benefits that he was getting, they weren't making him lazy, but allowing him to survive. instead of giving him the resources to lift him up and out of this situation, we are abandonning him and constituents across the country when they need that lifeline. we extend to extend this lifeline. while we are tackling the problems of long-term unemployment in this country. better access to job training, need the resources, need the programs, they need to gauge employers and help connect the long-term unemployed with suitable employment.

and all americans must realize that being among the long-term unemployed does not diminish value or contribution to the work force and the economy. and i want to emphasize that point. because when i had a round table discussion in my district there were several constituents who were unemployed. they get down and concerned that they aren't worthy and we want to emphasize, you can find work. my home state of oregon has been a bright spot in the midst of the recovery and in january, oregon recorded its lowest unemployment rate since 2008. there is a recent report that shows oregon added more than 43 ,000 jobs last year. that's great news. the -- adding to the unemployment base by 2.6%. it provides little relief for of 0 long-term citizens

oregon and still struggling to re-enter the work force. they need to have a car and get to job interviews and have a cell phone. we must stimulate our economy. the emergency unemployment compensation program doesn't just help the millions of americans who are struggling to get by every day but provide an economic benefits. they put the benefits right back into the economy. while they look for work, they use the unemployment benefits to pay their mortgages, to buy groceries, keep the lights on. we shouldn't be arguing over extending this lifeline to millions of hard-working americans and the senate has a bipartisan proposal. i hope they pass it and get it over to us right away. i joined many of our colleagues in signing the discharge petition calling for a vote to

extend emergency unemployment. no better cause than helping the hard-working members of our country who want to go back to work. thank you for organizing this hour. i hope we can draw attention to the nation, but especially to our colleagues about the effects of ending the benefit. i urge our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to reconsider this and put this up for a vote so we can help our constituents who are looking for work and trying to get back to work and need that lifeline. thank you, representative pocan and i yield back. mr. pocan: i'm sorry to hear about your constituent losing housing. i brought a constituent of mine who lost their benefits and rather than be foreclosed on, they put up their home for sale. and it's a situation -- there is an article in today's huffington

post of those being evicted because they can't pay their rent or mortgage. thank you for sharing that story and for your work on behalf of oregon. my uld like to yield to colleague from california, jared huffman. mr. huffman: i thank the gentleman from wisconsin for your leadership in organizing this hour and debate on such an important subject and i want to lend my voice to the voices of my colleagues on this important matter. what we are asking for is very simple, we want an immediate up-or-down to extend unemployment benefits. and we are asking that because in all of our districts we see too many of our constituents are unnecessarily suffering from congress' failure to act. we owe to our neighbors and their families, people who lost their jobs through no fault of

their own, people who want to work, who continually are searching for work, we owe it to them to provide the support they need to get back on their feet. in my home state of california, we have over 339,000 californians who have lost unemployment benefits and the number continues to grow the longer congress waits, the longer we fail to act. california has an unemployment rate of 8.3%. but in many parts of my district, i include rural areas, that rate is much higher. in trintti county, we have a rate of over 11%. this is not an abstract issue. this is an immediate and deeply personal issue about real people and real struggles. since the federal benefits expired in december of last year, i received thousands of emails and phone calls asking for congress to wake up and take action. and one of them very recently is

a great example is from lisa a she wrote to me. i have been on unemployment for just over six months now and i'm not able to make my mortgage payment. i'm a worker and not a lazy bum. i want to work. but in the meantime i can't live without a little help from unemployment. that's typical of the feedback and pleas that i'm hearing and i know that you are hearing from hard-working folks in our district every single day. this is important to emphasize, this is not a handout but offering a hand up to real people to during a typical -- difficult time. without the extension of this, 181,000 children in california will be hurt. no one should be forced to make the unbearable choice between paying their rent and feeding

their family simply because they lost their job due to no fault of their own. extending these benefits should not be a casualty. today, we got some great news and encouraged that democrats and republicans in the senate are working together on a tentative agreement to extend unemployment benefits for five months that would provide retroactive payments to people like lisa in my district. so, mr. speaker, let's help the economy, let's help our constituents who are looking for work. this house should follow the senate's lead and work together to find a solution. i thank the gentleman from wisconsin. mr. pocan: thank you for all the work on behalf of your constituents in california. again, 72,000 people every single week will lose benefits until this congress acts. real people in california, oregon and real people in the state of illinois.

and next it's my privilege to yield some time to the person who led the initiative on behalf of the house democrats, led the initiative to discharge the bill so we could force a vote in this house to ensure that everyone across the country and state of illinois can get the benefits they need so they can continue to get by and find work. i yield to representative schneider from northern illinois. mr. schneider: thank you for organizing and bringing us together to have this conversation. for us in illinois and wisconsin, it has been a harsh winter, everyone has talked about the winter and storms. some of us it has been a harsh winter. in january, i hosted a round table on unemployment, long-term unemployment. and at that round table i met a young mother, 29 years old and two young children and they crawl into bed under the covers

to eat dinner and watch tv because she had to make the choice between paying her rent and paying her heat. . another woman. she has two kids, high school age, looking forward to going to college. she's in the position of having to deplete the kids' college accounts so that they can simply make ends meet as she looks for work. this is the reality for two million people around the country. and the numbers, as you have pointed out, grow by 72,000 people every single week. in illinois alone there are more than 116,000 people who have lost their unemployment insurance and are struggling just to survive. and yet in this chamber, in this house of representatives, we have not had a single vote to extend or address the unemployment insurance challenge. partisan gridlock, partisanship and gridlock have already cost

millions their emergency unemployment insurance. and the next year it is estimated that it will cost the u.s. economy 240,000 jobs. failing to extend unemployment insurance is hurting families, it's hurting businesses, it's hurting our communities and it's hurting our national economy. that's why yesterday i filed this discharge petition, to end the gridlock and to bring to the floor a vote on extending unemployment insurance. now, look, i understand some of my colleagues may disagree, and you i respect their perspective -- and i respect their perspective and i respect their right to vote no. but not allowing a vote on the floor, not allowing us to voice our vote in this house of representatives on unemployment insurance is simply unacceptable. i believe extending unemployment insurance is not just smart policy, it's the right thing to do. it's why i celebrate the passage or agreement in the

senate, bipartisan agreement, to ex tend unploument -- extend unemployment insurance by nine months. i hope we will have a chance to vote on it. i know the path ahead's not going to be easy. but our constituents deserve better than partisan gridlock. thank you for sharing your time and thank you for organizing this evening. thanks so much. mr. pocan: thank you, representative schneider. your efforts, leading this body, leading the house democrats on this discharge petition, we didn't know the senate was going to come up with something that may pass and may be able to get through this house. but your leadership made sure that that over 110,000 people in illinois, and more people added to that every week, can get those benefits. thank you for your efforts and we hope that we can force this house to have us vote to extend unemployment benefits. shideshide i hope it happens soon -- mr. schneider: i hope it happens soon. thank you. mr. pocan: i now want to yield to representative catherine clark.

mr. clarke: thank you, mr. poe -- ms. clarke: thank you, mr. pocan, for your leadership on this issue -- ms. clark: thank you, mr. pocan, for your leadership on this issue. the majority here in the house continue to show that they are out of step with american families by refusing to extend unemployment insurance for the two million americans who need it. and the families of my home district in massachusetts are left to suffer because of it. this out of touch d majority has invested billions of dollars in tax breaks for the ultrarich and for wealthy corporations that have often shipped our jobs oversales. yet they are refusing to help those who are looking for work, our job seekers who are struggling to care for their families and put food on the table. i cringe when i hear some of the members of the majority

blame poverty on the poor. and then vote to give tax breaks for the wealthy. it's the same majority that looks to slash the budget and put that burden on the backs of our children and seniors. some have said that democrats want to give children a full stomach and an empty soul. but i'd say people who would deny a hungry child lunch, they are the ones who need to worry about the condition of their soul. in massachusetts more than 100 million -- $100 million has been taken out of our economy as congress has failed to act on this issue. i signed the discharge petition to force a vote on unemployment insurance, on behalf of the nearly 80,000 workers in massachusetts who have lost their unemployment benefits. they cannot afford to wait for the majority to catch up with the rest of the country who knows this is the right thing

to do. again, i thank the gentleman from wisconsin for this opportunity and i thank you for your work. mr. pocan: thank you so much, and you deserve a lot of credit for hitting the ground running. in congress. and thank you so much for representing the people of massachusetts so very ably. and defending the unemployment benefits that we need to extend. this is something that the rest of the caucus earlier this week released our budget and our budget is the better off budget, to make sure that people are better off. their families, they have access to opportunity for their families, and that budget offered extending the benefits to the full 99 weeks. so progressive caucus was there from the very beginning to make sure that we can get these benefits extended for every single american, the two million americans, including 40,000 people in the state of wisconsin, that they can get these benefits. and we are very proud that the progressive caucus looked at this as a priority and that's why so many members tonight were here to discuss it. you know, it's interesting, i'm

going to read a couple of quotes from people that you wouldn't expect to hear coming out of the progressive caucus. one is a quote from someone back in 1983, someone that often gets quoted in this chamber, but usually you have people on the other side of the aisle, former president ronald reagan. his quote was, unemployment insurance is a lifeline that extends to millions of americans. a life line. that's ronald reagan saying that unemployment insurance is a lifeline to the americans who need it. he got it in 1983. let me read another quote. in the year 2002, another person that people on this side of the aisle don't quote too often, former president george w. bush. and this is what he said. quote, these americans rely on their unemployment benefits. they need our assistance in these difficult times and we cannot let them down. we cannot let them down. that's from president george w.

bush. these are two republican leaders who understand that unemployment compensation is not a political toy. it's not something about brinks planship, it's the demand that we -- bringsmanship, it's a demand that we need to make sure that people have who have played into the system, worked hard and played by the rules all their lives have the lifeline when they need it. theamb worked hard. now, through no fault of their own and they're out of work and looking for work, we should be able to extends those benefits. so, that's exactly what we're here to talk about tonight. 40,000 people in my home state of wisconsin, and more every week, are losing their benefits because this congress has refused to act up to now. they still can either act through the discharge petition the democrats have put forth, they can sign the disparage -- discharge petition, or we can hope the senate does pass this bipartisan deal just from there afternoon, come to this house

and see that we do the right thing here and extend the benefits so that 72,000 people each and every week don't continue to lose their benefits. this costs the economy, it was mentioned earlier, but it's been estimated, just in january and february alone, we have cost the economy $3 billion by not extending these benefits. and that's more than $51 million in my home state of wisconsin, just duffering the month of zwran -- just during the month of january and february. folks, we need to make sure these benefits are passed not just for the families struggling but for our economy. that's also struggling. we're coming back. but we can't keep putting road blocks in front of our economy, things like this, that stop unemployment benefits for all too many americans. there also is estimated that in the economy, it will cost the economy 240,000 jobs this year alone by not extending the benefits. 240,000 jobs.

so here we are trying to bring the economy back and by not doing the right thing, by not extending the unemployment benefits, we're going to cost 240,000 jobs in this country on top of the people now who don't have benefits. now, you heard some stories tonight from people who talked about constituents, telling their very real stories about what this means for them. let me tell you about a constituent i had who came in this very body. i quickly referenced it before. brian colleaguer of mount horeb, wisconsin. a hardworking person, a sfeem fitter who, as we know the construction industry, when the economy gets a cold, the construction industry gets in a moan yafment it's just the way it -- gets pneumonia. it's just the 2008 happens. people aren't back to work in this industry. this is a hardworking person who is working as a steam fitter, trying to find work. his benefits were cut off at the end of december. and he is struggling to get by, looking for work each and every single day. he even put his home up for

sale so it wouldn't be foreclosured on. just as he's trying to get by, someone who has played by the rules and works hard and each and every single day. today there's an article in "the huffington post," mr. speaker, and i'm going to read from. that the headline, was some jobless facing eviction after loss of benefits. these are real stories. let me tell some more of these stories. i'm going to read directly from the article. craig bruce, 45, he and his wife were evicted tuesday from their apartment in california. he said they're fighting the eviction in court but they spent tuesday night in a motel room and bunked with family wednesday. quote, i can't get a job. either i'm overqualified or somebody else is closer and they don't have to pay them any moving fees to take the job. he told the newspaper. bruce, a gulf war veteran, lost his quality assurance analyst job at an engineering company

in the fall of 2002. he said his unemployment has been hard on him and his wife who is still working for work in quality assurance. quote, there's been a lot of depression on my end, he said. she's scared. she's terrified right now. that's a real story of a real person who has worked hard and had a job for many years, who because of the economy is out of work and can't get the benefits and the response of this body not acting, receipt response has been he's been evicted from his home as of tuesday. that's wrong. that's not america. that's not the way we should be acting. now, i want to yield some time to another colleague of mine, someone who has been a fighter for working families throughout new york and across the country, i'd like to yield time to my colleague, representative jeffries from the great state of new york. mr. jeffries: let me thank my good friend, the distinguished gentleman from the badger state, for yielding some time, as well as for the leadership

that you have continued to provide week after week in the context of this congressional progressive caucus special order. and on behalf of the people that you represent. and indeed people all across america. in bringing issues to the forefront that we in this house of representatives should be dealing with in order to improve the quality of life of everyone who we represent. unfortunately i stand today on the house floor again finding myself in a situation where the only obstacles to progress is the house g.o.p. majority. once again we are placed in a situation where the american people could stand to benefit from congressional action but because of objects nance and obstruction on the other side, you've got close to two million

long-term unemployment -- long-term unemployed americans who find themselves in a distressed financial situation. now, earlier today we were informed that a bipartisan agreement was reached in the senate and hopefully that means we will see progress in that chamber at some point this month. which means that we have a real opportunity here in the house of representatives to act in a manner that would benefit long-term unemployed americans. and why should we do that? well, because there are many individuals all across this country, and in the district i represent in brooklyn and in queens, but all across america, who find themselves unemployed, not because of their lack of interest, not because of lack of effort, not because of an unwillingness to work, but because of structural changes

that have occurred in our economy, particularly in the aftermath of the great recession of 2008. and we know that when the economy collapsed in 2008, that didn't have anything to do with folks on main street america. that didn't have anything to do with folks in urban america, in the district that i represent. that didn't have anything to do with folks in rural america who are struggling. temperatures because of the behaviors -- it was because of the behaviors of some reckless institutions on wall street and connected to the financial services industry whose actions collapsed the world's economy. so those consequences are being felt. we are no longer technically in a recession. this is one of the arguments our good friends on the other side of the aisle point out. what's the emergency? the emergency is you still have a high unemployment rate and a

disproportionately high number of those individuals happen to belong term unemployed. now the argument that's often advanced by our good friends on the other side of the aisle, as they attempt to justify the obstruction that is taking place in blocking unemployment insurance from being extended is that we are enabling these individuals, enabling these individuals. what kind of myth is that? there is no evidence to support that argument. first of all, it is important to note that in order to qualify for uninsurance as the distinguished the gentleman from wisconsin knows, you have to demonstrate conclusively that you are actively engaged in an employment search. otherwise, you are ineligible. this has been

created as if there are individuals sitting at home like couch potatoes, channel surfing, whose only exercise is when they run outside of the house to pick up the unemployment insurance check from the mailbox and run ack in and continue to channel surf. can we have an evidence-based research rather than to say refusal to provide assistance to these unemployed americans? we know it's a fix that you created, because the facts suggest otherwise. 258 w that for every americans who are searching for

jobs exist.only 100 it suggests to me that given the ture of the economy, it is impossible for every one of those individuals who would be otherwise eligible for unemployment insurance to secure employment because of structural realities in the economy. and that doesn't even account for the fact that often there will be a skills mismatch as our economy continues to change, shift away from manufacturing jobs, shift into technology and innovation. that's a good thing, but there is a skills mismatch that has to be dealt with. and so the choice that we've been given is to deem these individuals and brand them as lazy americans when the facts

are to the contrary. why? why would we leave these unemployed americans on the recession battlefield? there have been a sizzfrenic recovery. corporate profits are way up. unemployment is still up, but the stock market is up and c.e.o. compensation is up, yet middle-class families and those who aspire to be part of the middle class are increasingly struggling in america. whenever i'm back home in brooklyn, i'm often approached by individuals who are in fear that they could lose their home, given the reality that they have been harshly and callously cut off by the obstruction of the house g.o.p. majority. and i'm just hopeful that for

the good of america, because there's unemployed in blue states and unemployed in red states. there are unemployed individuals in urban and suburban and rural america all across this great country. captain we find the will to address this issue? as i prepare to take my seat and yield back, i would also point out that what has occurred, there is another example of us here in this congress doing things affirmatively to prevent jobs from being created. we allow sequestration to take effect on april 1, last year, notwithstanding the fact that economists said we would lose 750,000 jobs in america if we

allowed it to occur, if the majority steadfastly stood behind sequestration. and then in october of 2013, we had a reckless, unreasonable, unnecessary government shutdown and cost the economy $24 billion according to standard & poors in lost economic productivity. you complain that americans are supposedly sitting at home channel surfing, staying on the couch, not looking for work, while you affirmatively damaged the economy. and now as a result of your failure to deal with the unemployment insurance issue, if this were to continue throughout this year, you'll cost us another 200,000 jobs. and so i would just say for a wide variety of reasons, because it is in the best interest of the american economy, the best interest of the people that we

represent and that it represents the best values of america that we allow a vote to take place on the floor of the house of representatives because i'm confident, mr. speaker, that if you do, the votes exist to pass this into law and we can put this sad chapter in the 113th congress behind us. i thank the distinguished gentleman again for his continued leadership and i yield back. mr. pocan: thank you so much, representative jeffries for your fight on behalf of the working people across the state of new york and the needs for the benefits. and i'm glad you debunked some of the myths that are out there. i remember during the debate we had on food stamps, there was a surfer dude from california who talked about gaming the system and we were talking about $39 billion from the system because there was a surfer who abused the system.

rather than governing by analysis, they governed by anecdote and it's something we need to get done. let me share one final story if i can from someone from the state of california, again from the huffington post article. this is ricky ward from california. and i'll read from the article. ward told the huffington post tuesday that she expects to be evicted next month and worked all of her life and raised two kids as a single mother. for the past five years, ward worked in offices, retail stores and fast food before being laid off from a customer service job from a cable provider in march of 2013. ward says she suspects she is finding work because of her age. quote, i took the year that i graduated from high school off of my resume and i started getting calls, ward says. yet, once they saw me, it wasn't

what they wanted. i'm 59 years old but i'm very young. i keep myself in good shape and no where near ready to stop working. she said her landlord has been fair and received help from family and friends but keeps falling further behind. it is so humiliating to have everybody else take care of you. it's not what i want to do. i worked all of my life. these are the stories that we talked about the past hour who have played by the rules, worked hard and because of a turn in the economy a few years ago, have lost work. and the commitment that we have to those people is if they are working hard, we need to do everything we can to have the help they paid into. at a time like this, we need to pass those emergency benefits. i would like to yield my final time to representative from ohio

who has done an absolute amazing job representing her constituents and great university of wisconsin alumni, but a great colleague, representative kaptur. ms. kaptur: i want to thank congressman polk and for a phenomenal -- poc and n for this special hour and trying to hold families together. they try to get a job, 1,000 people show up for one job. what are they supposed to do? they haven't been able to make mortgage payments. can't send their kids to college. many of them get sick. lose their health benefits. not so easy getting a job. and you have been a leader, not just on unemployment benefit extensions but job creation. since we are commemorating the second anniversary of the passage of the u.s.-korean free

trade agreement, i thought i would bring a startling chart to the floor to show why we have unemployment in this country. and one of the aspects of the u.s.-korean so-called free trade agreement passed two years ago without my support is that we were supposed to increase exports and decrease imports, supposed to be good for america and create more jobs here at home, when, in fact, we have actually lost 40,000 jobs when they told us we were going to gain 70,000 jobs as a result of that agreement. those people who were supposed to have those jobs fell on the unemployment insurance. this gives you a sense of how big the difference is. all right, the idea is we are supposed to export cars here to korea. guess what, folks? this is how much we export and

this is how much they export to us. so we have fallen so deeply in the red. and what happens is with every billion dollars of trade deficit, you get another 4,000 people out of work. factories shut down. suppliers shut down. the mathis very simple. you just need to understand it. now, you know, if you look at the individuals who stand in those unemployment lines, they were told that we were supposed to sell thousands and thousands of vehicles to korea. well, i tell you what. we've sold 3,400 more vehicles in that country. 3,000 400. ess how much -- 3,400, guess how many more they have sold to us? 125,000. 125,000.

now, according to my math, they cars ld us 121,600 more than we sold them. and that means unemployment in wisconsin, that means unemployment in ohio, that means unemployment across this country. it means unemployment in the steel industry, unemployment in the machine tool industry, you can tick it off. they tell us agriculture was supposed to save us and we have positive trade accounts in agriculture. and we were supposed to increase our exports to korea. guess what's happened? they are off by 41%. not just 4%. 41%. our exports of poultry has fallen by 39%. pork exports down 34%. beef exports down to korea, 6%. u.s. meat producers have lost a combined total of $442 million in poultry, beef and pork

exports to korea in the first 22 months of the agreement. that means more than 20 -- $20 million lost every month. congressman, i'm sure you have seen the impacts of this in wisconsin. we certainly see it in ohio. and we see these big train loads coming through on rail of all these cars they bring in here from the west coast that come from point, over in the pacific or the atlantic coming to our country. if you look around the street, they don't buy u.s. cars but only buy cars from themselves. so part of what we are doing with unemployment benefits is we are trying to make up for failures in our trade policy hat have turned people away,

away from the world of work trying to struggle to make ends meet. i would like to put into the record tonight a special report done by public citizens regarding the impacts of the u.s.-korean, so-called free trade agreement. and if this is the same template that the administration intends to use for being trade promotion authority and the transpacific partnership agreement up here, don't even start. don't even start, because we have to reduce this and increase this. and until an agreement does that, we aren't going to create more jobs in this country and i'll show you something. this is the big hole we are digging out of. we hear about the budget deficit. why? we have a trade deficit. we have had it for a quarter century ander every time we get into a trade deal that is

lopsided, what happens? we go deeper and deeper and deeper into deficit. more and more people lose their work and then we have to subsidize the differential between imports and exports through unemployment benefit fits. we are not -- benefits. they said it will be so great. we will sell all this stuff to china. we fell deeper into deficits. latin america, that will make it better and this is after korea went down again. what are we doing? what are we doing to america? we are losing industry after industry. and they said electronics is going to save us. those big bad auto states, you know, we will do better. we have fallen into deficit. we aren't succeeding in exporting those. the people of this country have

to pay attention because the heart and soul is being chipped away. . . . what we have is state economies , like china, competing against merchant economies like our own. and the auto industry got in such shape that it took the government of the united states to prop it up and save it. we were faced with, will the united states have an automobile industry or not? that's going to happen in other sectors. that's going to happen in steel. that's going to happen with shoes. they didn't even fight. but if you look at every sector, unemployment, unemployment, unemployment. appliances, unemployment. and you can see it by census statistics. no matter what community you go to where we've had these lost jobs, and you look over 10 years, 2000 to 2010, poverty

qude rupeles. don't -- quadruples. don't tell he me those people don't want to work. they had jobs. the jobs disappeared. and you can go to these sweat shop countries and you can if go find the production. guess what, you can find trico now in mexico. they used to make wind shield wipers in buffalo, new york. it was a major employer. the man who founded the company had a decent soul. he had a huge foundation that helped that community, still does to this day. but all those jobs are moved down south of the border. no decent wage. no benefits. nothing. no corporate conscience at all. and that is happening from one end of this country to the other. america has a rude awakening ahead of her. and it goes through democratic and republican administrations. and the american people know it. they know that it doesn't change here. unemployment benefits are the least we can do for the

american people. the people who went to work, they believed in making a good product and now they have fallen onto hard times. don't tell me it's all their fault. i've done jobs fairs in my district. thousands of people show up. there aren't enough jobs for everyone that wants to work. and i would invite any president, any former president, i'd like to invite george bush ii to travel with me, because he came to my district. i'd like to take him and show him where in mexico these jobs are gone. come with me to china, i'll show where you our jobs have gone. i'll take you to honduras and then i'm going to make everybody who comes with me work like those women work. and then you tell me why we face an unemployment benefit crisis in this country. and what kind of a society we have here. those are earned benefits. those belong to the people who have devoted their lives, going

to work, earning a living, trying to get ahead in an honorable way, in an honest way. and they deserve them. so i want to thank you for giving me time this evening. i will ask unanimous consent to place this article from public citizen in the record that summarizes everything that has gone haywire with the u.s.-korean so-called free trade agreement. and i would yield the gentleman my remaining time. his remaining time. mr. pocan: thank you so much, representative kaptur, again, for your history of support. not only for working families across ohio, but i know we're going to talk more about trade in this body. and thank you for sharing that information. with that i'm going to close the special order hour for the progressive caucus. it is imperative that this body pass the extension of emergency unemployment benefits. we have timed a discharge petition, the house democrats -- we have filed a discharge petition, the house democrats. we'll do everything we can to force a vote on that. but we're hoping that the senate, now that they have a bipartisan agreement, can get that passed as well. mr. speaker, with that i yield

back the balance of my time on behalf of the progressive caucus. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. under the speaker's announced policy of january 3, 2013, the gentleman from nebraska, mr. terry, is recognized for 60 minutes as the dess canningny of the my -- as the designee of the majority leader. mr. terry: thank you, mr. speaker. we just went through an hour of talking about uninsured. i want to talk about creating jobs. and that it's time to build the keystone x.l. pipeline. the keystone x.l. pipeline has 2,001 day of ts the birth of its permit. 2,001 day that this country has waited for our president to sign the permit, allowing the nstruction of the keystone pipeline. why is the keystone pipeline important to us?

first of all, the keystone pipeline brings oil from canada into the united states to six of our refineries. this provides us a level of energy security that is absolutely necessary in today's world. in fact, when i talk about today's world, let's talk about current events for just one second here and this is a newspaper article that was just released a few hours ago. retired general james jones told the senate foreign relations committee on thursday that approving the pipeline would send a message to russian president vladimir putin and other, quote, international bullies, end quote, that they cannot use international security as a weapon. jones said, rejection of the canada to texas pipeline would make mr. putin's day and strengthen his hand. the senate panel was holding its first hearing on the

pipeline five years after it was proposed, as democrats wrestle with its impact and outcome of next year's elections. the reality is, in a geopolitical sense, russia is using energy as a new economic weapon to control the countries that it once dominated as the soviet union. , well, a new energy it's a renaissance. we're finding, because of new technologies, and new abilities , we're fining oil and natural gas -- finding oil and natural gas within our own borders. but if we can team up with canada's oil in a north american oil pact, the reality is we will no longer be relying on venezuela.

in fact, the amount that comes through the pipeline, the proposed keystone pipeline, would completely offset venezuelan oil. and i don't think -- depending -- it doesn't matter what your party registration is. i think all of us would agree that if we didn't have to rely on venezuelan oil, that makes us a more secure country. now, i want to talk about some of the other advantages besides just geopolitical. first is, 42,000 jobs. now, i know a lot of the opponents to this pipeline say that it is a myth that it creates 42,000 jobs. but the reality is that when you add the direct jobs, for example, the hundreds if not 1,000 people from nebraska that would go to work on the pipeline as it comes through montana, south dakota and it aska and kansas, but

also employs what we would call downstream. the downstream that would work on the refineries to upgrade them to be able to handle the additional oil and the oil that would come to them and those refineries are in texas, louisiana, oklahoma and kansas. but then we can look about, ok, what are all the other indirect jobs? mr. griffin's going to talk about, he'll mention a company in his district, in arkansas, that actually fabricates, takes this steel that's hopefully made in america, and fabricates it into the pipeline. so there's thousands of rely t jobs that, well, on the construction. now, when i'm out and about, i hear all these myths that have een perpetuated on the

keystone pipeline. and i just want to bat a few of them down tonight. first of all, the keystone pipeline, some of the environmental extremists that are opposing this, tell people co-2 or ill increase carbon in our air. the reality is the environmental studies and the final study concluded that not only does it not increase carbon, but because it will transfer transportation of the to a m train and trucks zero-emission pipeline, that it will actually reduce carbon output because the reality is the carbon output to extract he oil from the oil sands is

diminishing and the reality is that oil, as it's pumped out, used. ted there, will be so if you stop the keystone pipeline, the reality is there will be more carbon emitted and in a recent meeting with the canadian officials they stressed to me that they're going ahead with their pipeline s, reversing the flow so that they can pump oil from the oil sands to the east coast can of canada and then will export it. and then they are also -- already have accumulated a right-of-way necessary to the pipeline for the west and will build a second one to the west. what that means is that, ok, they used the pipeline, but now it goes on a ship and sent to china. so we lose the opportunities, except for what can be brought

by train and truck into the united states and makes us less secure. now, those are environmental studies. that have done this. this is science. this is from reputable engineering firms and one of our national laboratories. so, what is one of the other myths? is that this pipeline won't be safe, that there's been leaks in the first keystone pipeline that's already carrying some of the oil over. and the reality is there were leaks in the first keystone pipeline. they were defective seals that have been replaced and the leaks have stopped. now, this pipeline has been studied safety-wise more than any others. the liquid pipeline industry

safety performance initiative reflects these conclusions. first of all, the pipeline safety statistics deliver 99.999% of crude oil and petroleum products each year safely. 14 billion barrels of crude oil and petroleum products delivered in the pipeline in 2012, 62% decline in the number of pipeline releases since 2001, 47 declining number of barrels released since 2001. and the reality is not only are pipelines becoming safer, but the pipeline, this keystone pipeline has 59 special conditions placed upon it above all other pipelines. most of these are to mitigate any risk of spilling. or of a leak. and if there is a leak, one of

the other conditions is that they have to have people within a two-hour drive to be able to stop that leak, thereby minimizing. now, there's another myth about it hurting the acquifer. they said that hasn't been studied. but the reality is that 22,000 pages of environmental studies shah been submitted to the -- studies that have been submitted to the state department, made final now, clearly states that it has a minimal impact on the acquifer and when you read into the facts of the science, it shows that the acquifer, i learned something growing up in nebraska, we assumed that it was this big underground lake. what it is is a series of rock formations that capture water. so if you have heavy crude if it would leak, it is easier to pick up than a lighter crude or

a gas and because it's a rocky formation, it would trap it and not allow toyota leak where they could get down there to where the leak was and be table pump it out without further injuring the ogallala aquifer. so the fact that it can pollute this huge underground lake that doesn't exist all the way down to kansas just is a myth. if you talk to real geologists and the environmental folks who -- experts in this area. now, does the keystone pipeline have an economic impact? yes, it will have $2 billion worth of earnings throughout the u.s. property tax revenue through the property taxes paid along the pipeline to the community -- community this is a will help schools and counties with their budgets. now, one other thing i hear once in a while is that

canadian oil sands is more dangerous or dirtier than other oils. the fact is that the u.s. currently imports 1.4 million barrels of the daily. nearly owl after -- nearly all of it transported by already existing pipelines or trucks or trains and there's not been a single reported pipeline rupture caused by the oil sands, that's one of the other things pause of the chemical they use to help it slide down the pipeline and be pumped that somehow that weakens the oil, or the pipeline, but that's just not true. then i hear, this is another one that's famous, keystone x.l. pipeline is going to increase gas prices. first of all if you know economics, if you know oil economics, you go huh? how can that be? it just defies logic, defies common sense. the retail is that in a memo by the department of energy regarding keystone x.l.

asserted that the gasoline prices in all markets, this is department of energy saying this, the obama administration department of energy saying this, that keystone x.l. is -- has asserted that the gasoline prices in all markets served by refineries in the east coast and gulf would increase, the discount from w.t.i. crude does not and has not translated into lower gas lean prices in the midwest because the midwest must import gasoline from outside of the region, forcing buyers to pay global market prices. bringing new pipeline capacity online would allow w.t.i. to reconnect with other benchmark prices while simultaneously helping to drive down the price of oil and gasoline. this dove tails into my last myth and that's all of this oil is just going to be exported anyway so why risk any

environmental issues in the united states if all it's going to be is put on ships and exported? that is just pure bull. that's an emotional argument that has no basis in truth. there are six refineries that are contracting for this oil to refine into gasoline and other products. the united states uses gasoline, gasoline that is refined from this product and those six refineries is going to stay in the united states. can you say that 100% of every barrel is not going to be exported? no because there are a variety of products made from a barrel of oil, including lubricant this is a aren't even used in the united states but in other places. and those will be exports. some of the diesel may be exported. but the reality is that gasoline we care about stays in the united states. it is just a fact that it will

stay here. it just baffles me that people say that it's just all going to be exported and that's -- and that it's going to raise gas prices, none of it is true. at this time i'd like to yield to my friend, mr. latta, for such time as he may consume. mr. latta: i appreciate the gentleman for yielding, mr. speaker, i rise today to discuss our country's energy future, specifically the role the -- of the keystone x.l. pipeline. i'm going to reiterate a little bit of what the leader of the special order already stated, but i think it's worth reiterating. due to technology lo -- technological innovations the united states is the number one producer of natural gas in the world today. think about 20 years ago, the where we'd be. we're set this pass saudi

arabia by 2020. this is a long way from the gas lines in the 1970's with a restriction of how many gallons of gas you could buy or what day you could buy gas. i remember going to gas stations if you had a number on the end, they said this is the letter or number we're taking today. if you didn't have it, you weren't buying gas. but today, that's changed. it's changed. today we are on the cusp of a bright and promising energy future where millions of jobs will be created because of this. we must ensure that the right policies are in place in order to fully realize our great energy potential. gain, that potential is there. the energy and commerce committee has heard testimony about numerous pieces of legislation aimed at ensure america as the right path to prosperity.

one of the quickest solutions is to build the keystone x.l. pipeline. thanks to mr. terry's leadership on the x.l. pipeline, we passed a bill to approve it. the expansion of the pipeline will bring additional jobs, income, and investment into the united states. the project will produce up to, as mr. terry said, 42,000 manufacturing, construction and indirect jobs. in my home state of ohio, the project is projected to bring 2,419 jobs by 2015. these jobs will offer high wages, strong benefits and a resurgence of america's hardworking taxpayers. it will produce $20 billion in economic activity from food, lodging, construction equipment, supplies and other investments. in my home district, the fifth district, i have visited companies that are going to be making equipment for drilling and parts for large machinery that will bring oil from the

pipeline. not too long ago, i found one company that was very proud to tell me they were going to be adding on to their company today because they'll be making equipment that will be used in the pipeline. and in construction. there's also a company out there that makes parts for the large machinery that's going to be operating up in canada. those are jobs in northwest ohio and those are the jobs we want to keep. these are permanent jobs for people looking for good employment. in our committee hearings, we had one panel that was very interesting, on one end of the table we had representatives from transcanada. on the other end of the table, we had an individual representing the trade, whose men and women will be actually building the pipeline. and it was very hard for them to understand why we weren't going forward with this project today to put these people to work. because these people that are out there, going to be working, are going to make sure they

have roofs over their family's head, food on the table, many money for the kids' education and putting money away for their own retirement. this pipeline is going to bring about 830,000 barrels of oil into the united states every day. we have a great friend and neighbor to the north in canada. for every dollar we send to canada, we'll get about 90 cents back. we send billions of dollars every year overseas for oil to some countries who aren't our greatest friends. as we speak, due to the president's foot dragging, canada is considering an eastern route across the southern boarder to bypass the united states and ship the oil someplace else. what's wrong with this picture? they want to send it south, not east. talk to them. another point about the keystone pipeline is that it is a $7 billion privately funded project that once that oil

would reach its destination in the united states as mr. terry already said, it will be refined into many products, putting americans, again, to work. the pipeline is expected to generate more than 585 million -- more than $5 5 million in state and local taxes in the states the pipeline's route passes. i was county commissioner for six year, i know what those local dollars mean to put back into local government. approval of this project shouldn't be controversial but president obama and his administration have made this commonsense, shovel-ready project a cornerstone of partisanship and needless delay. 2,000 days have passed since the keystone x.l. application was filed. it's undergone more state and federal asessdzments than any previous pipeline and every assessment has come back to the same conclusion that the pipeline will have minimal environmental impacts.

further, the keystone x.l. pipeline will be the most advanced pipeline in operation, using the most reliable materials and innovative technologies. in fact, the pipeline will include 57 extra safety procedures which led the u.s. state department to declare that the project would have a degree of safety over any other. another benefit to keystone x.l. will provide additional capacity for our current pipeline infrastructure. finally again to point out what mr. terry has already said, that this is about our security, not just energy security, but our national security, because as americans pick up their paper or look on the news in the evening and they see what's happening over the ukraine, people in europe are fearful of what's going on because energy is being used as a weapon against them. we want to make sure that we're independent in this country, we want to make sure that americans can go to bed every night and say, you know what we can take care of ourselves and

we can take care of ourselves with oil from a country to the north of us who is one of our greatest friends and neighbors. this project has the support of the american people. the united states house and senate. and it's time for the president to put jobs, community investment, and energy security before politics and approve this pipeline. i thank mr. terry for leading this very important energy special order tonight and i yield back. mr. terry: i thank the gentleman from ohio. i think if there's someone watching c-span and they twheached first hour, the democratic hour and they're watching us, they're seeing how they advocated for unemployment insurance and we're advocating for jobs. it's quite a stark difference in our philosophies showing out on the house floor tonight. at this time, i want to recognize the gentleman from arkansas for such time as he may consume. >> thank you. mr. speaker, i rise to express

my support once again for the immediate approval of the keystone x.l. pipeline. i feel like i've been doing calling after year for the president to move forward with the key stope pipeline and i realize, i have been doing this year after year, pretty much since i got here. mr. griffin: in 2011. every day, as you mentioned, as the gentleman from nebraska mentioned, every day there's just another name added to the list of folks who say, you know what? this does make sense. and when i look closely at the articles, i see that it's former obama administration official, the next day, another former obama administration official, and again, and again, and again. and there was another one today

as the gentleman mentioned. you know, just a few weeks ago, more than two years after president obama first rejected the keystone pipeline, and more than five years after the application to build it was first submitted to the state department, the government's latest environmental analysis of keystone pipeline project was released. this analysis shows very clearly that this project will have little environmental impact, provide much-needed jobs, and contribute 3.4 delsh and contribute $3.4 billion to our economy. what you have in this situation w is a president waiting for a report, report comes out from the state department, waiting for another report, one comes out from the academy of sciences.

and you know if you keep waiting, there are not going to be any reports left and the only decision will be -- that will be left will be his decision. and that's where we are. hardworking americans are ready for a real, all of the above energy strategy, this is the -- the need for this is made more and more clear by what's been going on with russia and the ukraine. . the obama administration continues to block this critical infrastructure probably and all the good-paying jobs it would create. i believe they're doing it for one reason and one reason only. politics. because they have some extreme supporters that they want to keep relatively happy in an election year and that's what this is all about. where i live in little rock, arkansas, workers at a company called well spun have

manufactured hundreds of miles of pipe. but it's just sitting in a storage yard because the president refuses to let the keystone x.l. pipeline be built. in fact, i was wondering some r there were still out there, and there are still 350 miles of pipe sitting out there in the yard. last september, the head of well spun testified to congress that the keystone x.l. pipeline project is so far -- has so far employed more than 600 arkansans for over 1 1/2 years at well spun alone. imagine how many other people could get paychecks, could have a job, for all the other work related to the pipeline, including construction work and operation of the pipeline. americans are looking for work right now. they've waited long enough. it's time to build this pipeline.

i understand that folks, some folks are worried about protecting the environment. and making sure our families and children have clean water to drink. i am too. so let's not argue over settled science. research released last year from the national academy of sciences concludes that the oil sands crude keystone will transport is no more corrosive than other crude oils and does not increase the risk of leaks. we all saw what happened when a train carrying oil in canada derailed last july. most of an entire town was obliterated and nearly 50 people were killed. that was tragic and devastating. we know that pipelines are safer. we know this. the solution is clear. we need to improve and modernize our the president: line infrastructure and the -- our pipeline infrastructure and the keystone x.l. pipeline will include over 50 additional

safety measures. president obama and secretary kerry should do the right thing for our environment and the right thing for american workers. let's create jobs, let's build keystone now. mr. terry: thank you to the gentleman from arkansas. at this time i want to recognize our friend from new jersey, mr. lance. mr. lance: thank you, mr. terry, and thank you for your leadership on this issue. and i'm honored to serve on the subcommittee that you chair. the discussion this evening has been on unemployment insurance and that is a worthy discussion. almost all americans want to work. and the best way for americans to work is for jobs to be created. the unemployment rate in this country is far too high and the labor participation rate in this country is at a 0-year

low. -- 30-year low. for those of us concerned particularly about the labor participation rate, the best way to get that rate up and to have jobs created is to create jobs. and that is what the keystone pipeline will do. like many americans, and certainly like many americans whom i represent in north central new jersey, i have been incredibly frustrated by the repeated and unnecessary delays in moving forward with the construction of the keystone x.l. pipeline. and as chairman terry has pointed out, it has been more than 2,000 days since transcanada filed its first application to build the keystone. and this is a disappointing milestone for this important economic and energy project. 2,000 days is a long time. and not making a decision is

making a decision. it's making a negative decision. and the people of the united states deserve a decision to be made and in my judgment deserve an affirmative decision. we of course have passed legislation in this regard and i'm very proud of the energy and commerce committee on which mr. terry and i serve and american-made energy production is one of the few bright spots in today's struggling u.s. economy. and this is due to a series of factors and of course our abundance of natural gases -- gas is at the heart of that. as innovation leads to greater production, the energy and commerce committee, under the leadership of chairman fred upton and of the united effort of those of us on the republican side, we have been working together to pass measures that will bring increased american-made energy

to consumers and businesses. the keystone x.l. pipeline is an important piece of our all-of-the-above energy policy strategy and we believe, and i think this is demonstrated con cluesively, that this will help lower -- conclusively, that this will help lower energy costs and reduce our dependence on foreign sources of oil and foreign sources of oil of course come from dangerous parts of the world, not only the middle east, but venezuela as well. and we need to be less dependent on foreign sources of oil and that is why we have promoted the all-of-the-above strategy. those who have opposed the keystone probably cite environmental concerns. and i certainly respect environmental concerns. and i try to be a strong environment video --

environmentalist and know my colleagues on both sides of the aisle try to be strong virmists. the u.s. state department -- environmentalists. the u.s. state department report regarding environmental concerns related to keystone found that the project would have a minimal negative impact on the environment. and i believe that we should look at the science and what has been demonstrated that this would not negatively affect the environment in any meaningful way. the state department report also outlined some of the other benefits that would come with the project. and as chairman terry has pointed out, 42,000 direct and indirect jobs. and this at a time when our economy needs to have more in the work force. so that we can rely less heavily on unemployment insurance, rely more heavily on getting americans back to work and make sure that our labor

participation rate increases. and the report also indicates that there would be 3,900 construction jobs. these are high-paying jobs and this is what america should really be about. construction. making things. and that has been the history of america, certainly in most parts of this country, and this would be of enormous benefit not only to the center of the country but in my judgment to the entire country. and of course the report also says that there is an estimated $3.4 billion in a boost to our economy. i was interested to read the testimony today of general james jones, distinguished former national security advisor to president obama. and he came out in favor of the keystone pipeline today, as has been referenced by chairman terry and by my distinguished

colleague from arkansas, and i'm sure by others who will speak this evening. and general jones has had a distinguished career in service to the united states of america. a career regarding our national security. and there are national security concerns, chairman terry, regarding the keystone pipeline . canada is one of our best friends. canada has stood with us and we can recall all of the times in the past where canadians have come to help the united states. recently in mexico there was the summit, among the prime minister of canada, the president of mexico, and the president of united states. and certainly the prime minister of canada favors the construction of keystone. that is one of the many reasons

that we should move forward with keystone. most important of all is our own national security, our own creation of jobs, but also we should be a friend to canada as canada has been a friend to us. and if we do not build it, then of course the canadians might look elsewhere. they might turn east to china. yet another reason to build keystone. and of course the situation that now exists regarding russia and its terrible actions involving the crimea and perhaps even other parts of the ukraine. yet another reason in my judgment to build keystone. after enduring more than five years of review, of red tape and of delay, i do not believe there is any reason left for president obama not to approve keystone x.l. and to approve it immediately. i would urge the president in all sincerity to examine what

is best in the interest of the united states, to examine what is best in the interest of makering -- of making sure that we move forward together. t's time to create u.s. jobs from this aspect of energy. it is time to reduce u.s. dependence on foreign oil. from unstable sources. it is time to build the keystone pipeline, long past time, and, mr. terry, i commend your leadership this evening. mr. terry: thank you. and it was about a year ago this time that h.r. 3, one of our leadership bills, that came through our energy and commerce committee, that would have permitted the keystone the president: line, passed overwhelmingly -- pipeline passed overwhelmingly. 42,000 jobs that could be created collecting dust.

i recognize our friend from virginia, mr. griffin. if you'd give us your thoughts on the key stone pipeline. mr. griffith: first of all, i appreciate your leadership -- mr. griffin: first of all, i appreciate your leadership on this. this has been an important item -- mr. griffith: first of all, i appreciate your leadership on this. this has been an important item for you. i commend you for that hard work that you've been doing and will continue to do until this project is actually approved and i hope that will be sooner than later. it would be nice if our bill that we passed with bipartisan support would have action taken on it by the senate. but i don't know how the good senator sits down with all those bills in his back pocket. he's got a lot of our good bills back there. mr. terry: we in the house have passed about 430 bills. 89 of them actually have gotten out of the senate. well over -- about 100, i

guess, maybe even more than 100, actually are like the key stone pipeline that would create, immediately create jobs . but yet they're sitting on a desk. mr. griffith: and that's what we need in this country. we need opportunities, we need abilities, we need the bottom line, we need policies that will create jobs. and i've got to tell you one of the favorite things that i do as a united states congressman is i go and i go to the high schools in my district and i talk with the students, sometimes it's middle school students, most of the time it's senior high students. but i talk to them and i talk about how the decisions that we're making in washington and the policies that we set here in the nation's capital will affect them far more than they affect me. because long-term, when you look at the debt and the deficit and you look at the effects on our health care system that have been cut p coming down with various policies, these will all have a greater impact on them than they will on us. particularly talking about debt and depeff sit. i will often say to them, who do you think's going to pay more of that?

me at 55 or you at 17 or 18? and they get it real quick. one of the things i always make sure i try to put in the question and answer process as i'm talking with the students is this. the united states of america's a great country. we're number one in the economic nation. there are a lot of other countries out there that would like to be number one economically. and while things do not look good in the short run, if those of us in washington, including the president of the united states and the senate and the house, make the right policies and have a true all-of-the-above energy policy for this country, we can be the number one economic nation not just for the next decade, not just for the next 20 years, but i submit to you for the next 100 years. that's a big deal. that means jobs and prosperity for what purpose does people of the united states for a long, long time. and then i say, but if we make mistakes in washington, if we don't have a true all-of-the-above policy, where

we use north american oil, natural gas, coal, wind, solar, nuclear, across the board of, we can slip out of that number one spot and we won't have the advantages that the number one economic nation has had throughout history and i always mention keystone x.l. pipeline. and the reason i mention the keystone x.l. pipeline is it sends message to the world that the united states is open for business, that we want jobs in this country. those jobs if we want to china, like we've done in so many other areas. but we want those jobs, we want the jobs in laying the pipeline, we want the jobs in doing the refining, we want the jobs that come from having that extra supply right here in our country, whether it be the oil or the gas that is produced from this oil or whether it be the chemicals that we can make cheaper because we have an abundant supply in north american oil. and it's true, as my colleagues have said, we also want to make sure that we send a message to the world that we're going to

stand with our friends in canada. as they said, let's send a ssage to vladimir putin, these are all in the keystone x.l. pipeline. some may argue there may be positive environmental effects from the pipeline because you don't have to worry about the train system. then a situation, why? why will the president not, with all the reports and study, why has the president not already signed it? i'm surprised he's not having a press conference as we speak to sign the keystone x.l. pipeline. let's get on with it. i know i had one person tell me today that they believe that this is better than the oil we're importing from venezuela because it's a less negative impact on the environment, using this oil from canada,

canadians are working to make their process even better and less of an impact on the environment. so i say to you, mr. terry, thank you for your hard work and i say to you, if you can explain it to me, i'd love to hear it but i can't explain to the high school students in the ninth district of virginia why we're not pursuing the keystone x.l. pipeline with haste instead of delay when we know that it will create jobs for american citizens and for people like these high school students will be in a few years when they finish their education. mr. terry: i'm baffled too, i appreciate your comments. ust want to sum up here. 2,001 days since the permit for this pipeline was filed. over 22,000 pages of scientific review. it took this permit -- this permit has been sitting around longer than it took the united

tates to win world war ii. this permit has been here longer than it took lewis and clark to explore the louisiana purchase and come back. 11 federal agencies have participated in reviewing the keystone pipeline. 11 federal agencies. on top of the scientific studies. every state in which the proposed keystone pipeline route goes through has approved the pipeline and independently reviewed it. six weeks ago, the president, right behind my right shoulder here, said that he would take and is phone and his pen would act. well, mr. president, tonight, we ask you to pick up your phone, call prime minister

harper and tell him yeah, i'm ready to sign the permit. and take out your permit, sign it, and let's get 42,000 people back to work. i yield back. i yield to the gentleman. >> i would just ask you, but -- i believe i know the answer, but if the president needs a pen to sign it, would you take one down to 1600 pennsylvania avenue? mr. terry: i would even let him keep it. i yield back, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. under the speak ear's announced policy of january 3, 2013, the chair recognizes the gentlelady from new york, mrs. maloney, or 30 minutes.

mrs. maloney: good evening and thank all of you for joining us this evening, i'm delighted to be here to speak about the importance of the national women's history museum. i'm so pleased to be joined by some of my colleagues who will speak about outstanding women from their state and the history of our country that deserve to be recognized in this museum. first, i'd like to thank my colleague in this effort to create a national museum for women on or near the mall, marsha blackburn from the great state of tennessee, who is

passionate -- whose passionate and unyielding commitment to making the national women's museum a reality is unrivaled. she's a god send, an inspiration, and a great friend to women. i thank her so much for her extraordinary leadership and for the announcement i hope she'll make tonight about march 25, moving our legislation forward. women stand on historical quick sand. with each step we take forward, the steps behind us disappear. women have to recreate the wheel with every generation. think about what is taught in our american history classes. it's mostly written by men and focuses on their experiences. as my daughter sid, it's usually about a bunch of wars between men. and where are the stories about the women? in large part, women are invisible.

history is empowering, it's shaped who we are, and provides role models to guide us. we need a museum for half the generation, half the population, women. there are women's museum this is a focus on aspects of women, first ladies, women artists, but not one in the united states or around the world that i'm aware of that focuses on the sole accomplishments and contributions of half our population, women. i now yield to my colleague, marsha blackburn. mrs. blackburn: thank you so much, i thank the gentlelady for yielding. i am pleased to stand on the floor of the house and join my female colleagues from both ides of the aisle as we work together to make the dream a reality. which is the dream of a women's history museum to celebrate the cause of wonderful women who

the articipated in preservation of freedom here in the united states. it will indeed be a wonderful day when we see this as a reality and as mrs. maloney mentioned, we're moving forward legislation that would allow for the establishment of a commission to study where to place a museum and by the way, i think everyone will find it so interesting, the women of this great nation have said, we don't want any federal money at all involved in this project. we're going to privately raise every single penny that is necessary for the location, for the physical facility, for the exhibits network maintenance and upkeep and endowment. this is a project by the women of this nation for the women of future generations to celebrate

the accomplishments that women have made to the nation. indeed, when we think about what has transpired in each and every state, and i hope over the next few weeks we have this the option as we celebrate women's history month to talk about what women have accomplished in our country and what our states have contributed. in tennessee, we talk a good bit about what transpired when women got the right to vote. because we had had -- all the process through the fight with suffrage and it came down to the point of ratification of the amendment to give women the right to vote and to make certain that we had the 36 states to ratify the 19th amendment. well it had been through 35 states and on august 18 of

1920, it went to the tennessee legislature. well, guess what, it was voted to a tie. and there was a state rep, harry burns, he was the one that broke the tie. and as we often hear, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. is ed, this is a story that a great example of that. because harry burn changed his vote and gave women the right to vote. harry burn did it because harry got a letter from his mother. here's the letter. ar son, hurra and vote for suffrage. don't keep them in doubt. i noticed some of the speeches against. they were bitter. i have been watching to see how you stood. but have not noticed anything

yet. don't forget to be a good boy in help ms. cat put the rat ratification. sincerely, your mother. well, harry burn changed his vote and tennessee became the perfect 36th, the state that gave women the right to vote. so because of that, we are able to stand today in women's history month and push for a museum to celebrate the accomplishments of people like suzanne b. anthony and elizabeth cady stanton and the suffragettes and so many other women we'll have the opportunity to learn about and talk about and with that, i ield back to my colleague. mrs. maloney: my colleague pointed out the importance of tennessee in giving women the

right to vote. it's interesting that both of our states played such a crucial effort in the women's leadership in achieving this right. tennessee, the final vote, giving women the right to vote and new york, the birth place of the women's movement and the first resolutions and efforts to gain that right to vote. in seneca falls, new york, ms. izabeth cady stanton, lucr tembings a mott and susan b. anthony. mrs. blackburn: if the gentlelady would yield. i think it is so significant that those two states join in pushing forward h.r. 863. and we would want to commend chairman miller, candice miller, and the admin committee for the hearing they've already held on the legislation and to take the opportunity to announce that chairman hastings and the resource committee will hold their hearing on march 25.

so it's another step as our states and women from our states move forward on moving this to becoming a reality, something women have wanted in this country since they got the right to vote. mrs. maloney: the gentlelady is so correct. we're making history tonight and we're making history with these hearings. it was note worthy that candice miller from the great state of michigan, the day she held the hearing was the day that marry barr came up the rank from -- that mary barr came up the rank from an intern to the head and c.e.o. of one of america's greatest companies, general motors. i look forward to hearing from my colleagues here, in order of appearance, marcy kaptur from the great state of ohio a great leader for women and really all people. thank you for joining me. you're making history too with all your hard work.